A Man and a Plane: An Alternate Germany

by Joseph T Major

  But that picture . . . the groom out at Fancy Farm had been quite pleased to see them. "Big Red, he sure remembers you. It's your birthday, I heard, yes it is? He'll be downright honored to give you a ride. And the Admiral, he's right near by," he had said. There were plenty of big important visitors, but how many of them could appreciate a good horse?

  Then young Manfred had put his foot in it. "Father, I presume you will ride Man o'War. It is only proper that I ride his son."

  So they had gone out to the paddock, amid the so-green grass. Soil like in the Ukraine, terrain like Franconia -- but ach the people. Oh well, there were the horses, particularly the big red horse standing there behind the fence. "You're right, he does remember me," he said, holding out an apple to the still handsome old stallion. "Son, are you sure you wouldn't want to ride him? He's a little calmer."

  War Admiral was there by his sire. "No, I think I need the practice. Also a little help getting up," Manfred Eduard Graf von Richthofen said to his own sire.

  It took both of them to lift him, once he got his boot in the stirrup. But the boy made quite the impressive sight, sitting in the saddle, his head up . . . he looked a lot better. "I've only seen one man who looked more imposing." Manfred said as he walked around the horse's head, gave him a pat on the nose, then with one smooth motion swung up into the other saddle. One champion knows another; Man o'War was ready, and seemed to be longing to go.

  "Who was that?"

  "Stauffenberg! You remember, my army aide. They called him the 'Bamberger Reiter', like the statue in the cathedral there. He was just as majestic, and about as big."

  His son laughed. "I sure do! He went riding with us one day. Brought his son, Berchtold. You were tied up in Berlin then, back early last year it was. You know, he is from Ulm? Just like General Rommel. That's another Württemberger with prospects!"

  Manfred looked out over the rolling fields, felt the big horse stir under him. "Well, you can boast to Stauffenberg about your own ride. Come on, let's go," he said, half to the horse, half to himself.

  The two horses set off at an easy canter, like father like son.

  There had been a surprising guest on the Governor's train from Frankfurt, no Frankfort, to Louisville. "I find myself mired in trade negotiations these days," said the honored guest, the distinguished (if suspect) Foreign Minister of Germany.

  At Manfred's incomprehension, Papen went on, "The government is trying to boost exports. Who isn't these days? Japan is sitting on the Chinese market, so we have to look elsewhere; the Balkans, South America, and of course here."

  He sighed and looked out a window. "Which means no end of haggling over fractions of a percentage of tariffs, details of reciprocity -- like the Fordwerke at home, as if we couldn't take it over in a flash -- and the like. Maybe we ought to get some Jews into the Foreign Office, at least they'd haggle well enough." And a strange expression, half-grimace, half-snicker, spread across his foxy visage.

  Manfred sought to change the subject. "We had dinner with the Wrights night before last, at their Calumet Farm. They were very proud of their horse, Whirlaway. We met the trainer, he seemed very well informed. I will have to nag Herr Riddle about our stock."

  Papen leaned back and sighed again, a different tone this time. "Stock, stock, stock . . . these races are for all their worth hardly the only equestrian matter. Stock, things will be fine as long as we keep up the Trakener stock! For equestrian competitions, I mean. I had to endure a long plaint by Herr Churchill the elder about the importance of horses. . ." and he went on to recount the travails of a foreign minister.

  The landscape gradually transformed from rural to urban. "These American towns spread out so," Manfred said. "Here, it's like Berlin -- the airport is already in the city limits, the city grew out around it."

  "They have a great deal of energy," young Manfred said. Heretofore he had been listening to the discussion, now he made a comment. "Very energetic indeed . . ."

  The train began backing into the station in Louisville. Darkness reigned in Byelorussia and Ukraine, in Tonkin and Yunnan, but here the sun shone bright on the old Kentucky home . . .

  Randolph held the newspaper up. "'Churchill's Up At Churchill Downs,'" he said, reading the headline over the picture of himself and Carmen, attending yesterday's races. Then he laughed. "That was Father's line. He always wanted to come here so they could say that. He should like it!"

  The Governor's box was a center of attention -- at least when the horses were not on the track. The Distingushed Guests were quite the cynosure. Carmen had flown Randolph into the city last week, and then he had gone on out to the horse country, where he had impressed the locals with his ability to consume mint juleps. While Randolph had been touring the horse farms, his pilot had gone up to this Purdue University, north of Indianapolis, to appear with Earhart, who was giving her usual lectures on aeronautics to the often uninterested students. None of them could understand that lack. They had come back yesterday to watch the races; hence the afternoon newspaper's headline.

  Neither Manfred nor Papen had been asked about politics, aside from generalized comments about "You fellers done given them Commies a whuppin big time!" which, once he parsed them, seemed to be a compliment to the success of the Reichswehr. Governor Johnson and everyone else of that age had (or so they said) been in the front lines and (or so they said) often seen the red airplanes flying overhead. (It made Manfred wonder if he hadn't been put through one of those machines the Evil Doktor Krüger had constructed, and been duplicated, all the better to hunt down G-8 and his battle aces.)

  Randolph turned to him now and said, "I didn't get the chance before, so happy birthday. I bet they didn't do a thing for you."

  Manfred said lightly, "I expect we can set up something. There'll be enough partying tonight, one way or another. We had our horse rides. We've a busy schedule; Baltimore in two weeks, Indianapolis at the end of the month, and then New York. After that, Eddie and I will go hunting up north."

  Carmen was perhaps the only woman there wearing anything sensible. Or maybe not. The fad seemed to be for odd hats, so she was wearing her flying helmet. "It's the Earhart Style," she said. "You know, she has her own fashion line? I know it's a day late, but happy birthday, Uncle." And she kissed his cheek.

  Now they were leading the horses out on the track, its brown contrasting with the green grass, the red tulips, the blue sky, and the insanely varied colors of the women's hats. A bugler sounded the call to the post; then the announcer cried out, "All rise for the singing of 'My Old Kentucky Home'!"

  He joined in: "The sun shines bright on the old Kentucky home . . ."

  They sang the melancholy song all the way through as the parade of horses entered the track, going down, around and back into the gate. Governor Johnson asked, "Which horse do you favor, Prince?"

  Manfred tried not to wince. "Prince" was a dog, like Moritz. He looked at the track and said, lightly, "Well, there is the one stable that has such wonderful taste in colors -- there, Whirlaway, with the long tail."

  "Not the Big Red H? Charlie Howard, he's got a horse in this field, too."

  "What, again? If he wants to bring Seabiscuit over to Fancy Farm we can have that best two out of three runoff, but otherwise . . ."

  Randolph had a pair of binoculars now and was glaring down at the starting gate. "Don't you want to watch the race?" he said, irritated, as the last few horses were loaded in.

  Manfred did. They all fell silent as the last horses went into the gate. The bell rang, the mechanical gates opened and the horses leaped out of the starting gate and on down the track. For all he had said about Whirlaway, he was less than confident, as the horse hung back. Did Herr Arcaro have some plan in mind?

  Then, at the top of the stretch, Whirlaway put on some incredible burst of speed and flashed past the three horses ahead of him, the jockey not even making an effort. They began cheering wildly as he thundered down the last few meters of track, drawing away, winning! Eight lengths!
r />   All he said afterwards was to the Wrights, and he said, "I told you he would win."

  Mr. Wright said back, "I hope you will be our guest in New York, when he runs."

  "Woollcott, I have the perfect guest for you. There's only one problem; within five minutes he'll start telling you how to run a radio interview show."

  Last night, the Wrights had been very enthusiastic about celebrating Whirlaway's victory at the Belmont Stakes that day, which triumph put their horse on a par with War Admiral and Omaha, evidently. He had excused himself, citing a prior engagement for early in the morning, and got a decent night's sleep at the Algonquin. Young Manfred had already gone there, reluctantly, after the track closed.

  Wollcott had informed them that they were invited to his apartment for Sunday brunch. Thus Manfred turned out his son in the morning, they found a taxicab, and before long they were at the sardonically named "Wits' End", a small if lavish place. Amidst a splendid banquet of breakfast goods, there presided a Buddha with pointed wit. It was a Sunday morning, and so Woollcott threw an open house for his friends, who seemed to be the survivors of that grand lunch table at the Algonquin.

  "Hmph. Associates and companions, Prince von Richthofen here will grace the airwaves again tonight with the Town Crier, as you all should know. Or so he said back in March. Trying to get out of your obligations, Richthofen?" the host said, acidly.

  Manfred loaded up a place with sausage and scrambled eggs, toast with marmalade and jelly, melon slices and a cherry, remaining silent. He put it on his son's lap, then repeated the process for himself, all the while enduring more Woollcottian barbs about self-centered krauts. Once he was settled, and only when he was settled, did he say, "You're always looking for guests, Woollcott. I'm just trying to be of assistance."

  "And who is this master of wisdom?"

  "My editor, Mr. Campbell, John W. Campbell. I warn you, when I dropped off my article on the new jet airplanes, he spent an hour lecturing me -- me! -- on fighter tactics. I'm merely sharing the burden."

  Woollcott snorted. The conversation around them turned to discussing the book by Upton Sinclair that had come out back in March. "Between Two Worlds, it's called," Woollcott announced ponderously. "All about merchants of war, international intrigue, the rise of fascism in Italy. At this rate, he'll get to someone we know by 'forty-three."

  That turned into a discussion of fascism in Italy, and the usual horrors of castor oil, beatings, blackshirt brutality, and the like were trundled out and gone over. Then Manfred commented idly, "You know, Mussolini was a poor -- I mean, impoverished journalist. Deprivation, I suppose. When I met him in Switzerland he seemed to be showing off, letting them see how far up he had gone in the world."

  Then he caught a glance of Woollcott's face and the spitefulness and pettiness were all gone; he was staring eagerly, looking like a little boy wishing for a story. The little boy he had told stories about living in bunkers now sat beside him, devouring pancakes with sweet syrup; it looked as if he would have to tell another little boy another story of the old days. He sighed.

  "You really want to know? It was right after I was dragged, kicking and screaming, into power. The best way to silence the Nazis was to put into place Brüning's increase in the Army, for which we had to have the agreement of the other powers, so I went to Geneva with my ministers and . . ."

  "This is Woollcott speaking. We all have seen on the newstands the crude and colorful covers of the pulps; detective stories with unthinking, bloody fights and shootouts that bear only a faint and unworthy resemblance to the clever and artful tales of the immortal Holmes, or of his modern-day followers such as Nero Wolfe, the creation of my fellow Baker Street Irregular Rex Stout."

  Manfred reached over to turn the knob.

  "Don't do that, Father, I want to hear Mr. Campbell," young Manfred said.

  He stopped. The mincing voice on the air went on, "Adjoining them, the tasteful reader will find, and reject, similar works displaying grotesque creatures and half-dressed women, on topics of an allegedly scientific nature. I have now learned that a similar dichotomy exists in that field.

  "My guest tonight is Mr. John W. Campbell, Jr., editor of the magazine Astounding Stories, who was educated at Duke University, and has brought to this adolescent field an adult sensibility, demanding literary work combined with scientific speculation for the publication he edits. His efforts have produced a number of new works that, while raw and not totally formed, are fresh and invigorating with the energy of youth, while demonstrating the wonders of the age of science that we live in.

  "Now, Mr. Campbell, how did you begin in this field?"

  The sly sharp voice was replaced by a big booming one. "Thank you for having me on 'The Town Crier', Mr. Woollcott. Like most of my writers, I began by reading the works of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells. That example made me want to write like that . . ." And so the struggle began. Woollcott was in his "sentimental" mood and Campbell in his "missionary" one, so it was not as sanguinary as he had feared, but Manfred was interested to hear two of the more dominant personalities of his acquaintance go at each other. So were the others, evidently.

  "So that was your Mr. Campbell," Putnam said when it was all over.

  The suite at the Algonquin seemed full, but that was because Rickenbacker was such a large and dominant person. He sat back against one wall, glass to one hand, somewhat out of it in the literary byplay. The Putnams were nearer the window, and Earhart looked more willing to discuss the new planes from Fairchild than dull books. For all that the fine furniture and freshly redone decor seemed to be more worthy of an industrial baron (Manfred had already politely turned down Mr. Case's proposal to have a "Richthofen Suite" but he suspected that another would be forthcoming soon), it was still enough for him.

  "It seems to me that he did very well," young Manfred said. He was the only other one who had actually met the editor, so with the tacit consent (or at least the silence) of his father, no one else was in much of a position to be able to disagree.

  Manfred got up, poured (water for Earhart and wine for the others) as a good host should. "So what's new in the literary business?"

  "You know what I got the other day?" Putnam said, and without waiting for answer went on, "Galleys of Upton Sinclair's new book, Dragon's Teeth, featuring our host here. Would you like to see them, Manfred?"

  "He's writing about the air war?" Manfred said.

  "No, the Nazi Crisis of thirty-three."

  "Well, I'm glad someone else took them seriously. Such a bunch of Spitzbuben -- "scoundrels", I guess you'd say -- and they were already ready to take power. What the Bolsheviks would have done! And poor Germany, torn between the two extremes. I wouldn't mind seeing that manuscript."

  Rickenbacker gave a derisive snort.

  Putnam's eyes twinkled, and he bent over a little. "I'd like to see what you had to say about it."

  George Palmer Putnam the publisher was thought by some outside the publishing trade to be an appendage of his wife. Others held the contrary opinion, that she was nothing more than a creation of him. Two strong personalities under one roof would seem to be a recipe for turmoil.

  Some knew better.

  This afternoon, GPP was playing hooky, for all that he was at his desk in his office. He was not doing his own work, but reading on another publisher's work. This book would be out next year -- January, he had been told. The author had already influenced one American President; now another of the same last name was dealing with him.

  But the comments he had to hand weren't from the patrician from Hyde Park; the opinions had been noted by a different ruler, one who had his own experiences and expertise. Some of which Amelia found very interesting . . .

  The room was still and quiet; manuscripts and bound volumes proliferated. The light was good; GPP had to take care of his eyes, after all. It was quiet, too; he needed to concentrate on his reading of this work by Upton Sinclair, about a different kind of jungle. Lanny Budd the art dealer, spiritua
list, and secret agent, having already escaped Italian blackshirts and castor oil, and seen greedy American and English socialites disdain the common folk, was hearkening to a friend from threatened Germany:

  . . . Presently Johannes said: "They are telling the Old Gent that the General is planning a coup d'état against him." It was like reading a blood and thunder novel in installments, and having to wait for the next issue. Would the rescue party arrive in time?

  Some people have said that the alternative to the Nazis was a military regime. But who would have led it? Not Hammerstein, the army commander-in-chief; he was too Prussian, believed that the Army should stay out of politics. I can't imagine Blomberg, Schleicher's assistant, being taken at all seriously. (He had to leave the country a few years ago, there was a scandal about his new wife.) Hardly anybody else from the War has a reputation. Lettow-Vorbeck, maybe, but there the SPD would go with Noske and oppose him. Which leaves Schleicher -- but he was (is) too compromised by all his political double-dealings. MvR

  "What about you, Manfred?" Putnam said, then felt he had wronged the man. Whatever his tendencies towards autocracy, he was too much a defender of order to overthrow the government.

  Then he looked down the page, where Sinclair had let go.

  On the thirtieth of January the news went out to a startled world that President von Hindenburg had appointed Manfred von Richthofen Chancellor of the German Republic. Even the Nazis were taken by surprise; they had been already making their plans for the assumption of power, and couldn't imagine by what magic it had been brought about that their Führer's enemies should so abruptly seize the controls and turn against them. Franz von Papen was the new Chancellor's right-hand man, for all that he held a minor post, and Hugenberg was in the cabinet; what could it all mean?