A Man and a Plane: An Alternate Germany
Page 70
". . . a movie about bush pilots . . ." Captains of the Clouds (1942). Everything except the participation by Udet (and potentially Richthofen) is true.
". . . that picture . . . with Abbott and Costello . . ." Keep 'Em Flying (1941) with Bud Abbott and Lou Costello as the comic sidekicks of pilot Jinx Roberts (Dick Foran), with Paul Mantz as a stunt pilot.
"And that, Rittmeister, was the famous Mickey Rooney." Who will not, we hope, play Grandpa Spencer in Revenge of the Red Baron (1984) in this timeline.
"Certainly not YOU!" Though what the people in the other car made of this bellowed "DU doch nicht!" is not known.
Chapter Forty-Four
Some of the passages attributed to this version of Upton Sinclair's Dragon's Teeth are actual quotes, but some are only based on it.
. . . 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? Dragon's Teeth, Page 280
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. The passage on Dragon's Teeth, Page 280 is the same up to "Manfred von Richthofen" where it says, of course, "Adolf Hitler", and diverges after that.
Lanny ran up a large telephone bill calling his friends in Berlin. Dragon's Teeth, Page 282 but his friends have different news here.
Up in the room they had coffee, also brandy in large but very thin goblets. Heinrich never felt better in his life, and he talked for a couple of hours about the N.S.D.A.P. and the wonders it had achieved and was going to achieve. Lanny listened intently, and explained his own position in a frank way. Dragon's Teeth, Page 357 but in our timeline's version Heinrich Jung is a member of a party in power, instead of one that still expects power.
. . . Lanny had seen so many pictures of him that he knew what to expect: a mountain of a man, having a broad sullen face with heavy jowls, pinched-in lips, and bags of fat under eyes. He was just forty, but had acquired a great expanse of chest and belly, now covered by a finely-tailored light-gray suit. Suspended around his neck with two white ribbons was a golden star having four double points. Dragon's Teeth, Pages 373-374 including the wrong description of the Pour le Mérite, which was suspended with a black ribbon with two white stripes and was a blue-enameled gold star. But Göring had indeed been awarded it.
. . . Looking at him, Lanny thought once more that here was the world's greatest mystery. Dragon's Teeth, Page 513 and Lanny is somewhat more censorious of Hitler in our timeline's edition.
In other notes:
There was already a series of kiddie books about Slim Lindbergh with the serial numbers filed off. Yes, a book about a scheme to make someone Remarkably Like Slim, but not really, President . . .
The Stratemeyer Syndicate, the creators of Tom Swift, the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and most of the other series of children's books of the era, also had the "Ted Scott Flying Stories". (The house name used as the author was "Franklin W. Dixon", that for the Hardy Boys books, but the real author was Frank Duffield, not Leslie McFarlane, the real author of most of the Hardy Boys books.) The very first book is titled Over the Ocean to Paris. A later volume, the eighth, is titled The Lone Eagle of the Border.
But Ted Scott was an all-American hero and would never take part in, er, a plot against America . . .
Spirit-mediums! The "man in Virginia" is of course Edgar Cayce.
Chapter Forty-Five
For the story of the murder at the Richthofen Castle, read (carefully) Alienation of Affection by Robert Hardaway.
The Richthofen Castle at 7020 East Twelfth Avenue in Denver was built by land-developer Freiherr Walter von Richthofen in his new development (later annexed) of Montclair in 1887, after he failed in the cattle business. It was sold out of the family after his death. If Manfred and Bolko were told the builder were their uncle they would probably be about as pleased as they would have been on hearing the story that Mrs. D. H. Lawrence (geboren Freiin Frieda von Richthofen) were their sister (Ilse would have been appalled, and Kunigunde absolutely horrified!).
"It was the same picture, wasn't it, the Reusing?" For the story of how Manfred had actually pulled that off, see Kilduff's The Red Baron: Beyond the Legend Pages 172-173.
"I had some thoughts about a more contemporary one, with radioactive dust, but they didn't go anywhere." Since "Solution Unsatisfactory" [Astounding, May 1941, as by "Anson MacDonald"] depends on a war with a Germany run by the Nazis, one rather thinks not.
"That Croat" Dushan M. "Dusko" Popov was from Dubrovnik, and disdained being called a Croat. Lacking Nazis to recruit him, he almost certainly wouldn't become a Spy/Counterspy and wouldn't get to show off in front of Ian Fleming, in Lisbon, with $50,000 of German spy money.
"Manfred knew the extra meaning of the mysterious 'Rosebud'" and understood why Hearst was so mad that Welles should be using his intimate nickname for Marion Davies, or part of her anyhow.
Chapter Forty-Six
". . . their ancestor the Old Dessauer. . ." Fürst Leopold I von Anhalt-Dessau, the "Alte Dessauer" [Old Dessauer] of Frederick the Great's army, had been a commander under the first Duke of Marlborough at the battle of Blenheim, or Höchstadt. His son Fürst Leopold II had an illegitimate son, Georg von Beerenhorst, whose daughter Thekla married Manfred's great-grandfather Karl von Richthofen.