"No man can replace our Adolf Hitler," he repeated. "I can march at the head of our ranks, but he will always lead us, he will always be our beloved Führer. I can only accept the position of Deputy Führer, and on that glorious day when our struggle is completed, when the National Socialist Revolution triumphs, it will be in the name of Adolf Hitler, by the spirit of Adolf Hitler, with the plans of Adolf Hitler, for the goals of Adolf Hitler. In the path of Adolf Hitler, let us proceed to the Final Victory of National Socialism. Sieg Heil! Heil Hitler!"
"Heil Göring! Heil Hitler! Sieg Heil!"
In spite of everything he had said about modesty and unworthiness, he had lifted his hand in the salute Hitler used to give. In response, as they cried out, they jumped to their feet and gave the Party salute. Hermann was a happy man; with such followers one could indeed conquer the world!
The party conference went on to confer on Heydrich the title of Reichsführer-SS. Another unit was ready to go out to Spain. Hardened cadres of war veterans were on hand here in the Reich, ready to take part in a seizure of power. If only the prospects for the next national election didn't look so bad. . . .
Josef fretted. He was an important man! There was much to do! Why did he have to wait in this office? Always go straight to the top, he said. This would give the fat swine an opportunity to make amends for everything he had done since Harzburg. Hugenberg, he understood, was losing authority in the Nationalists, let alone the government. Couldn't he see that there was nothing in the bourgeois parties for him and his?
The secretary lifted her telephone and talked; then she looked at him and said, "Herr Doktor Goebbels, the Chairman will see you."
Josef got up and walked slowly across the room, across the fine rug, into the Chairman's office. Hugenberg was as big and slow as ever, but he was on his feet. "Herr Doktor Goebbels! Would you like a drink? Something to smoke? I have good news for you. I usually don't say this to our authors, or even call them in like this, but in this case I think it's special . . ."
Josef took the proffered cigarette, accepted a light, sat down opposite the Chairman, and smiled.
CHAPTER 23
Reichstag, Berlin, Brandenburg, Germany, Monday, February 8, 1937
That morning had been beautiful. Manfred had stood up in the Reichstag and announced, proudly, "Our work is done. With great pleasure I request a dissolution of this body for the purpose of a new election, so that the people may choose in a general, equal, and secret election their own representatives to govern themselves under the laws of the Reich."
There was polite applause from the center of the vast well, where the government parties sat. There had been a winnowing in the party numbers. To take one noteworthy case of unification, the Deutschenationalliberalpartei had arisen on the ashes of the Volkspartei and the Staatspartei (and a handful of other petty parties); the DSP's masses of talent had allied themselves to the DVP's slender but adequate ranks of voters, and so Stresseman's legacy had merged with Weimar's liberals. They all hoped it worked better than last time when the DVP had tried to work with these Young Germans and youth had proven unruly and disobedient. Similarly now, Graf von Westarp and Herr Treviranus sat alongside Hugenberg, if uneasily, their Conservative Party having made common cause again with the Nationalists. The Economy Party, the Hanoverian Party, the Farmers' Party . . . the ballot should be easier to pick from.
Or perhaps not. If the center was coalescing, the sullen fringes were not. On his left, the right of the chamber, a corporal's guard of the late Bavarian corporal's men sat, their backs to the podium. Only Göring scowled up at him, having stepped down from presiding to let the Herr Reichskanzler dissolve the Reichstag and address it; beside him, the Herr Doktor Goebbels sat on his desk, back to the podium, and wrote. Another editorial for Der Angriff? He had been preoccupied of late, or so it seemed, and the editorials were getting more infrequent and less vehement. Once Herr Hitler had died (he had remonstrated with the Bavarian police personally, shocking everyone except Papen, but their investigation still hadn't pinned the Beer Hall Bomb on anyone, and Goebbels had made sure to hint the government had been happy to see it done.
At the back of the chamber sat Strasser, his broad face split by a smile. Did he imagine himself being given power under the Social Democrats? His "National Synthesis" certainly echoed the Erfurt Program, and indeed in Oldenberg the Social Democrats did well beneth the Strasserite government's auspices. Or was his nationalism inclined towards the Nationalists? Perhaps he fancied himself a bridge between them.
Divided by a gulf as wide as the Government, the thinning ranks of the Bolsheviks seemed uncertain. Thälmann, Torgler, and a half-dozen other high personalities had vanished back at the beginning of the year. That odd man Willi Fischer would no doubt have a high place on their list, but for now another Willi, Münzenberg, seemed to be directing the Party in the bourgeois lie-palace. Directing them to raise clenched fists at the bloated sack of plutocratic phlegm before them.
No matter. The election would be in a month, March 7. Should it have been last year? The Constitution said four years, but last November . . . anyhow, the courts had ruled that the clock had started, so to speak, again when the constitutional total-revision amendment had passed. Putting it off.
"I thank you all for your service," Manfred said, and stepped down. He would go back to the Chancellery and deal with the mundane business of government now, meeting with subordinates and dealing with foreign and domestic policy. Only one more month of that to endure . . .
"They said what!"
Ambassador von der Schulenberg was calmer than anyone considering his circumstances would think. The Reich's ambassador to the Soviet Union had come from Moscow in some haste to deliver this news to the alleged chief co-conspirator, and now he sat in the center of the conspiracy, in the personal office of the Reichskanzler. "I was summoned to the Kremlin on Saturday and given the entire transcript of the trial by Herr Liwitnow, their foreign minister," he said. "They were very explicit about it all. Thälmann confessed that he had met with Herr Trotsky and with you on October 8, 1934 in Istanbul."
Manfred was amused at the utter imbecility of the charge. "Sunday the sixth was the coronation of King Rupprecht in Munich. I took part in the receptions on Monday and Tuesday, and Tuesday evening I had a reception of my own, for the writer Frau von Blixen in Berlin. It would have taken an aircraft flying faster than sound for me to leave Munich that morning, have this meeting, and fly back to Berlin to be there when I was there.
"Nevertheless, it looks as if the entire leadership of our Bolsheviks has been unmasked as agents of Richthofen, confessed their errors, and been shot. Torgler, too? And the others who have vanished from the scene? I wonder, who is this Willi Fischer who it appears is now the new leader? Lord God, I think the man speaks with an English accent!"
He would have to have Diels inquire into that -- no, that he could leave to his successor. He could tell the man, anyhow. His departure should be less acrimonious than Brüning's, or Papen's, or Schleicher's.
Meanwhile, Schulenberg went on, "There are rumors that a number of prominent members of the Politburo are under suspicion of conspiring with the Reich. After the last trial they almost said as much, openly. And worse lower down. Herr Reichskanzler, the people there are living in mortal terror. I would rather live between a Nazi beer-hall and a Bolshevik party headquarters here in Germany than be an ordinary Soviet citizen. This massacre of our own Bolshevik party faithful may be the beginning of something monstrous. Even if it is just Bolsheviks."
"But you didn't protest it -- protest this absurdity, this legal farce."
Schulenberg shrugged. "They had statements from the defendants saying they were renouncing any protection they might have been due from the Fatherland. As conspirators on its behalf they said they deserved any punishment the target of their plots chose to deal out."
"They said what!"
Truppenamtchef General Beck was almost jolly. "The International Brigade 'Karl Leibknec
ht' and the SA-Freikorps 'Albert Leo Schlageter' fought a battle of mutual annihilation near Teruel. You would think they were taking it personally."
The Chief of the General Staff in all but name had come to report on his own work in building up the Army, but mentioned another consideration. While the government was officially "neutral in word and deed", its people were definitely not. Communists, undeterred by the Trotskyism and revisionism of their leadership cadres, flocked to the International Brigades. In competition, Hitler and Röhm had mobilized units of their own to fight on the Nationalist side, sending homebody SS straight off the farm and overweight SA pried from the beer hall to combat units by "National Socialist Conscription". Spanish officers learned to pronounce the absurd rank titles of the Nazi militias, and watched as the SS-Freiwilligenverband "Götz von Berlichingen" scoured Toledo for Judeobolshevik race enemies.
While about a regiment's worth of Nazi infantry fought in the Spanish front lines (the SS in one place, of course, and the SA in another), a more serious support was behind them. The NSFK-Freiwillingengeschwader "Kondor" -- an entire air unit of Nazis, under the command of Herr Himmler's right-hand man SS-Obergruppenführer Heydrich -- dueled the Republican Air Force over the sere and brown fields of Castile; Heydrich in his black-painted CR.32 dared the Red Polikarpovs and every victory, it seemed, was front-page news on Der Angriff. Göring visited the unit and grumbled to them about being betrayed by his old comrades; the old aces who led in honorary or very real command the units of the new Reichluftstreitkräfte.
All and sundry knew what Udet, Bodenschatz, and the other leaders of the JG 1 Veterans thought of the unit's third leader, never mind what the unit's first and last leader and namesake thought. Other Nazi air fighters came in for their own excreation. Oberstleutnant Ritter von Schleich, for example, if and when Heydrich was mentioned in his presence tended to begin comments with "Fat-assed fish-headed pig-dog thief" and go on from there, for all that his black-painted Arado could never be confused with this Italian plane. This state of mind was conveyed to the men; ground crew from JG 3 "Königliche Bayernische" tended to give the odd SS man they met in beer-halls a hard time.
The Italians, of course, had sent a lot more troops to Spain, and Oster had firm evidence that Mussolini was covertly paying some of the costs of the German units there. Manfred led his cabinet in being of the opinion that the more trouble Mussolini got himself into, the better for the Reich, if not for the unfortunate Italians who had to believe, obey, and fight that Fascism might prosper.
The Bolsheviks had sent fewer; the International Brigade units "Karl Liebknecht" and "Rosa Luxemburg" also drained a lot of the more obnoxious types from the streets and back alleys of the Reich, it was to be hoped into graves in Catalonia or Aragon.
"Meanwhile our own plans for army rebuilding are progressing very well. According to the latest map exercise we actually might be able to defend the Reich against the Italians!" Then Beck caught something in his superior's mien. He seemed to assume an even more cheerful mood. "But plans -- one can make the most absurd plans. Do you know what they turned up out of the archives the other day? The war plan for invading America! Landing troops on Long Island and taking New York. It must have been a very dull day, or Herr von Schlieffen must have been monstrously bored. It was certainly worth a good laugh for us at the Bendlerstrasse."
But the Reichskanzler cared little for the dreams of those who had been before him, rather he preferred his own dream, which was to become merely a figure of the past.
"They said what!"
"That they would all be willing to serve in a continued government of national unity after the election," Papen said. "The polls which we have adapted after the American method indicate that none of the government parties will have a majority or a sufficient plurality, and you know how divided they -- we are, your Excellency.
"I have had to make such approaches discretely -- there is so much absurd prejudice among our political leaders, but at least I have planted the seeds of accommodation to the idea of a new government of national concentration, to achieve a functioning super-majority and make whatever adjustments to the new constitution experience shows are needed.
"There is still only one leader in the Reich who can rise above the petty divisions of party politics, Herr von Richthofen, and that is you."
The walls of the office seemed to close in. Manfred trembled, the thought of a further four years of servitude oppressed his soul. Saving the Reich had assuaged his need for doing righteousness, but O Lord, could not the Reich's servant now depart in peace?
He spent an entire month watching the campaigns. The Nazis were hysterical against everyone, their heretical defector Herr Strasser most of all. The Bolsheviks were a close second.
Fortunately the respectable parties all ran on platforms of impeccable serenity -- Papen was an autocrat, the Social Democrats were scheming to outdo the Bolsheviks, Hugenberg wanted to cast the country back to the eleventh century, a vast Rightist Conspiracy existed to restore the old Prussian three-tiered voting system and keep the working class out of power -- so there was no real conflict.
On Sunday the seventh of March, Manfred flew home to Schweidnitz, went out and voted (and, mobbed by pressmen as he went out the door, steadfastly refused to say how or for who), went home, had dinner with Mother, looked over the boys' and Carmen's school reports and flight logs, and went to bed celebrating his forthcoming freedom.
By Friday the results were in from Sunday's voting. Nearly forty million people had voted, the largest number ever in the Reich, and thanks to the new electoral law, for fewer parties:
Social Democratic Party of Germany
(SPD)
230
German National People's Party
(DNVP)
103
Center Party
(Z)
95
German National Liberal Party
(DNLP)
87
Communist Party of Germany
(KPD)
35
Combat League of National Socialists [Black Front]
(KGNS)
34
Bavarian People's Party
(BVP)
24
National Socialist German Workers' Party
(NSDAP)
22
Communist Workers Party of Germany
(KAPD)
20
In theory, Papen (Z) could have formed a center-right coalition: Center, Bavarian People's, National Liberal, Nationalist, and Black Front, for 343 out of 650. Hugenberg (DNVP) would have doubts and Schleicher (KGNS) was absolutely out of the question. So much for that.
He could have passed over Strasser (KGNS) for Hitler (NSDAP), for 331 out of 650. One could imagine a great many impossible things, but Herr Hitler taking office under the pig-dog traitor who sold him out? Or indeed, even under anyone at all? So much for that.
In theory, Braun (SPD) could have formed a center-left coalition: Social Democratic, National Liberal, Communist, for 355 out of 650. But besides the ousting of Reichswehr Minister Noske (SPD), Fischer (KPD) demanded the Ministry of Home Affairs and three other portfolios to be named later, not to mention that after Colonel Oster of the Abwehr met with the National Liberal leaders to discuss certain matters related to the disappearance of Comrade Thälmann (KPD) and his associates they abruptly became less than enthusiastic about the idea. So much for that.
He could have brought in the Trotskyites instead of the Stalinists, for 340 out of 650, but the Communist Workers wanted an immediate, direct declaration of war on Nationalist Spain and the right to name the Reichswehr Minister. They didn't provide a name, either, which made everyone, particularly Noske, suspect that they had grandiose hopes of appointing Herr Trotsky himself. (Surely they could find someone to appoint him to some petty post that would entail naturalization; it had worked for Herr Hitler.) Besides, the KAPD was only nominally united. So much for that.
In theory, a grand coalition coul
d have been stitched up to get around Papen, consisting of the Social Democrats, Nationalists, and National Liberals, for 420 out of 650. Herr von Papen did not lose any sleep over the prospect of this conjunction of opposites with so little in common save him. So much for that.
The foreign newspapers were full of speculation on the future of the German government.
Herr Wels (SPD), the new Reichstagspräsident, called the assembly to order at one in the afternoon on Friday. They had thirty days from the election to meet, but under the circumstances it was desirable to assemble a government as soon as possible, and the negotiations to do so had taken forever. As his last act in that office, Göring (NSDAP) had with little grace called them to order at ten that morning and then been voted out, with the Social Democrats, as the largest party, putting one of their own in.
That done, the Reichstagspräsident had the pleasure of calling up the new Reichskanzler to addess them. He stepped up to the podium, put the manuscript of his speech on it, and regarded the members. "Herren und Damen Members," the Reichskanzler said, "under the circumstances I will be brief. In view of the results of the election, the party leaders have agreed to form a Grand Coalition Government of National Concentration, and have persuaded me to accept the position of Reichskanzler. I was sworn in by His Imperial Majesty this morning, and wish to present to you my government."
Manfred (No Party) stopped reading his speech at that point and looked out at the assembled Reichstag members. How would they deal with actually having a functioning legislative body? The prospect appalled them -- it appalled him. They weren't used to such responsibility.
A Man and a Plane: An Alternate Germany Page 38