Hitler Has Won

by Frederic Mullally

  There was a single door of broad polished mahogany on the landing and a bell-push in the wall to one side. He put his finger to it and pressed once, then again with four quick jabs, the way he had always heralded his return home from college in the old days. After a long silence, a latch clicked and the door opened inward, first a fraction, then wide. Sophie was standing in the shadowy hallway, blinking at him with red-rimmed eyes. She had a bathtowel wrapped about her and was barefooted.

  He had thought about this moment during the walk from Nikolaistrasse, and how they would both handle it. He said, “I came as soon as I could, Liebchen. Now let’s you and I get this ghastly mess sorted out.”

  Sophie didn’t embrace him, and Kurt hadn’t expected it. She moved aside to let him in, closed the door and followed him into a spacious sitting room comfortably, if incongruously furnished with a mixture of Biedermeier and late-nineteenth-century Jugendstil, reflecting the taste of a petit-bourgeois Philistine come up in the world. A third-rate Alpine landscape oil painting and two framed photographs, one of Heinrich Himmler wearing an expression akin to a smile and one of a squad of half-naked men, decorated the walls.

  Sophie hadn’t uttered a word yet. She had crossed to one of the two windows overlooking the Briennerstrasse, and was standing there with her back to him, one hand pressed to the knot in the bath towel. There were bruises on the back of her upper arms and what looked like welts on the pale flesh below the coil of her red hair. Kurt closed his eyes tightly for a moment. Then, “Get some clothes on, Sophie, I’m taking you home.”

  “It’s no use.” Still, she wouldn’t face him. “I have to stay on here. There’s another small point—my clothes have all been locked away.”

  She didn’t resist when he went to her and turned her gently around. But the deadness in her green eyes was something worse than outright rejection.

  “I’ll call a taxi,” he said. “You can come as you are.” And then, with a spurt of anger, “you’re certainly not staying here!”

  Turning away from him, she said, “How is Mother?”

  “Worried to death, wondering what’s happened to you. Is there a telephone in this place?”

  “Please, Kurt, don’t call her. Not yet. Not till we’ve talked.” She was moving erratically about the room, like a sluggish, captive animal. He stayed silent, waiting for her to start. When she finally lowered herself to the edge of one of the two facing sofas, he lit a cigarette and gave it to her. Then he sat down opposite her.

  “He phoned me last Monday, while I was having lunch at home, inviting me to meet him here that evening. When I made one of my usual excuses, he said, ‘All right, but I would suggest you make a note of my telephone number. It’s very likely you might want to talk to me tomorrow.’ I suppose Mother has told you how they came for Father that night, and what they told me next day at the Sicherheitsdienst headquarters?”

  “She did. But I’d like the name of whoever it was you saw there.”

  “I’m sorry, I was too upset and confused to ask. All I can remember is he was a Sturmbannfuehrer. Anyway, I called Voegler on my way back home. I couldn’t believe he had anything personally to do with Father’s arrest, but obviously he had known something was going to happen and, with you away in Madrid, he was the only person I knew with any kind of real authority. He acted very cool. He said he could promise nothing but that he was staying in Munich until the Fuehrer got back from Spain and if I wanted to keep him amused—as he put it —while he looked into the matter I’d better come prepared for a few days’ stay. She drew hard on her cigarette and let the smoke slowly out as she stared past him, frozen-faced. “So I came—”

  “Why didn’t you try to reach me in Madrid—right then?”

  “I thought about it. But I decided not to do anything that might jeopardize you until I heard what Voegler had to say. Above all, I wanted to talk to Father and I felt sure that Voegler could at least arrange that. And, as a matter of fact, he did. . . .” She leaned forward and took a long time crushing her cigarette stub into an ashtray.

  “Tell me about it.”

  “It was the next morning—Thursday. He hadn’t done a thing about Father, like calling anyone or anything. ‘We’ll get around to that,’ he told me, 'after you’ve earned the right to ask favors of an SS officer.’ ”

  Suddenly she was out of the sofa and over by the window again.

  “Well, I thought I had more than earned the fight, that first afternoon as well as most of the night. Do you want me to tell you, brother dear, how an officer of the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler expresses his respect for German womanhood?”

  He said through his teeth, “Don’t twist the knife, Sophie. Go on about Father.”

  “I told Voegler in the morning that he was a louse and a cheat and had neither the intention nor the influence to do anything about Father. He just laughed, picked up the telephone and got through to the commandant’s office at Dachau. I was ordered out of the bedroom while he talked, but about ten minutes later he yelled for me and handed me the receiver and there was—” her voice faltered, “there was Father, on the line. They gave us hardly any time at all, just enough for him to say he was in good spirits and we weren’t to worry because when Kurt got back from Madrid he would get everything straightened out. But you know Father. I could tell from his voice what he must have been going through.

  “After that, I forced myself to keep Voegler in good humor. I cooked meals, laundered his shirts and did all the household chores, while he lounged about reading or just watching me with that ghastly grin on his face. The one thing I couldn’t do, however hard I tried, was show any enthusiasm when he put his hands on me, which—” she gave a little shudder—“was almost incessantly for the first twenty-four hours. He went out Thursday afternoon, telling me he was going to have ‘a little chat’ with his friends at SD headquarters, and that’s when I phoned Mother and gave her Federico’s number, because by then I was beginning to realize that Voegler was in no hurry to get Father out of Dachau and I had decided to give him till noon the next day, or else I was going to walk out.

  “Well, when he came back he brought a lot of food and said he had put certain wheels in motion. But when I gave him my ultimatum he turned nasty. All he had to do, he said, was make one phone call and Father would be shot ‘while trying to escape,’ which he would do if I left here without his permission. From then on—” Sophie paused, then continued in a quieter, almost expressionless voice—“until yesterday, when he left for the Berghof, he treated me like a whore. It didn’t matter, because that’s just what I felt like anyway. But the evening before he left, when I refused to let him do something—” the voice fell to a whisper —“ unspeakable, he laid into me with his belt.”

  She turned away from the window to gaze across the room at her brother, sitting bolt upright and motionless on the sofa. “I came very close to killing him that night in his sleep. I had the kitchen knife ready in my hand. I couldn’t do it because I realized that it would amount to murdering Father and Mother and probably you. Don’t you think it’s amusing, Kurt, the thought of me stabbing someone to death—all that blood?”

  “Where are your clothes, Sophie?”

  “It’s no use, even if you could get the trunk open. If I don’t answer that phone in there, anytime he calls from the Berghof during the next couple of days, he’s going to give the signal to Dachau immediately. If I behave myself he’s going to call me on Thursday and tell me where he’s hidden the key to the trunk. There’ll be an SS car downstairs, half an hour later, to take me to see Father at Dachau. I’ll get my ‘further instructions’ when I report back here afterward. Oh yes—and he advises me to think up a good convincing story for you and Mother and not to answer anyone who rings the front door. He’s already been in touch with my boss to tell him that I’ve been given a special assignment by the SS. A very thorough gentleman, Obersturmbannfeuhrer Voegler.”

  “And unbelievably stupid!” Kurt stood up, tight-lipped. “On your evide
nce alone, I’m going to have Father released and that swine broken. Come over here, little sister.”

  She came, hesitantly, to him and he put his arm around her and nuzzled her hair. “Now listen to me. Voegler’s almost certainly bluffing about Father, but we can’t take a chance on it. Can you bear to stay here another twenty-four hours?”

  “Just tell me what to do.”

  “Call one of your girl friends and ask her to bring you some clothes and anything else you need. Leave me to explain things to Mother. I’m taking the next train to Berchtesgaden and I’m going to speak to the Fuehrer. But if Voegler should call you before I do tomorrow, don’t let on that you’ve seen me or told me anything about what’s been happening here. Let him believe that as far as Mother or I know you’ve just disappeared. And listen, Maedel—whatever you did here, you did out of love of Father. No one’s going to forget that.”

  III

  THE EAGLE’S NEST was an octagonal pavilion isolated six thousand feet up on the summit of the Kehlstein, towering above and behind the Berghof. Acting on a whim of the Fuehrer’s, Martin Bormann had the plans for this fantastic man-made eyrie drawn up in 1936, and the project was completed three years later at a cost of more than 30 million marks. From the Berghof a nine-mile-long road wound upward, to plunge deep into the heart of the rock below the peak. At the end of the underground road a lofty bronze portal opened into a marble hall. Here the visitor entered a capacious elevator of polished brass, furnished with comfortable seats, a deep carpet and two telephones. The elevator shaft rose vertically 165 feet into the colonnaded pavilion itself, whose lofty windows offered breathtaking views of the Bavarian and Austrian Alps, with Salzburg in the distance. One of the few foreigners ever to set foot in the Eagle’s Nest, the French Ambassador Frangois-Poncet, had asked himself whether this extraordinary edifice was “the work of a normal mind or of one tormented by megalomania and haunted by visions of domination and solitude?” That had been back in October 1938. In fact, Hitler’s interest in the eyrie had quickly waned and he hadn’t visited it since the invasion of Poland. He reported the air on the summit to be “insupportably thin,” to the chagrin of Bormann, who could think of no practical solution to the problem—according to Peter Waldheim’s apocryphal account—except to reduce the height of the mountain, “a self-defeating solution if ever there was one!”

  Now, it seemed that the Fuehrer had undergone a change of heart, or was at least oxygenating his lungs better under the more robust diet prescribed by Doctor Morell’s successor. He had made an ascent to the Eagle’s Nest within an hour of his return to the Berghof and had given orders on his return for it to be made habitable and for his orderlies to install cooking facilities and sleeping bunks for themselves in the marble hall at the foot of the elevator shaft.

  When Kurt sought an interview with Bormann the evening of his arrival from Munich, he was told that the Reichsleiter was in private and continuous conference with the Fuehrer but would probably be able to spare him five minutes the following morning. An appointment was later confirmed for noon the next day.

  Bormann’s eyes narrowed as he stared at Kurt across his desk in the Party secretariat. “You want to see the Fuehrer on a matter of great urgency? If so, you’d better tell me what it’s about.”

  “It’s about my father. I now can prove that his arrest was an abuse of the law.”

  Bormann drew in a long breath. “Let me have the circumstances. But make it short, Armbrecht.”

  Kurt, who had been prepared for this, said, “The arrest was trumped up between a certain SS officer and the Munich SD. The officer is using it as sexual blackmail against my sister, Sophie. At the right time we can produce all the necessary evidence.”

  “I see . . . And the name of this officer.”

  “With your permission, Herr Reichsleiter, I would rather divulge that to the Fuehrer himself.”

  “Well, then, Armbrecht,” Bormann said heavily, “we’d better get one or two things straight. In the first place, you’re going to say nothing about this affair to the Fuehrer. I wouldn’t permit it in Madrid, and there are even better reasons for not bothering him with such trivialities at this time. Is that perfectly clear?”

  Kurt remained silent.

  “Now, as to the arrest itself. I was given a full report by Gruppenfuehrer Mueller on the train journey from Madrid, and this business of the unnamed SS officer and your sister—even if it’s true—has absolutely no bearing on your father’s guilt. Depositions have been made by members of the university faculty proving his hostility to National Socialism and citing among many examples—” Bormann’s eyes flicked to a sheet of foolscap typescript on his blotter—“the outrageous criticism of Alfred Rosenberg’s work on Charlemagne, in an article contributed by your father to the Historische Zeitschrift.”

  “But that’s absurd!” Kurt burst out. “A purely academic periodical, completely unknown to ninety-nine percent of the public!”

  “The same could have been said of the Communist Manifesto back in 1919, and look where that got us! There’s a deposition from the Students’ Association accusing Professor Armbrecht of a thinly disguised slander of the Fuehrer in a lecture he gave on Robespierre only last year.”

  The room had suddenly become chilly.

  “A deposition has been filed by your father’s neighbor, Ortsgruppenleiter Krenkler, listing a number of defeatist statements by the Herr Professor, including—and I quote—that ‘the New Order is an abomination in the minds of every civilized person.’ ”

  “That’s a downright lie. I happened to be present at that conversation. Krenkler’s completely distorting my father’s words.” “Of course he is,” Bormann grunted sarcastically. “When did any enemy of the state not complain about his words being twisted?”

  “Herr Reichsleiter, my father hasn’t been tried yet. With the greatest respect, isn’t it a bit early to be referring to him in those terms?”

  Bormann’s scowl dissolved slowly into a little smile. “I stand corrected. I understand that at a specially convened meeting of the university senate this afternoon Professor Walter Armbrecht is going to be stripped of all academic honors.”

  “Before he’s even been tried! But that’s monstrous!”

  “Some of us might call it patriotism and loyalty to the state. But you would agree, Armbrecht, that this business of your sister and the SS officer looks like pretty thin evidence in the light of these depositions taken by the SD?”

  “My sister,” Kurt said, struggling to keep his voice steady, “could have saved my father from being arrested by going to bed with a certain Leibstandarte officer. Since then she has been tyrannized and debauched by him as the price of my father’s eventual release from Dachau. If the Fuehrer wishes it, she is ready to—” He stopped in mid-sentence as Bormann’s clenched fist came down on the desk.

  “For the last time, Armbrecht, leave the Chief out of this! When will you grasp the fact that loyalty to the Fuehrer—and that includes concern for his peace of mind—comes far above any feelings a son might have for his parents? The charges brought against your father will be thoroughly investigated and he will receive a fair trial. And if he’s found guilty, you should rejoice that another enemy of the Reich has got his deserts. As for your sister—” Bormann leaned back in his chair, frowning— “your unmarried, twenty-six-year-old sister, it seems to me there’s something neurotic about her behavior. No normal patriotic German girl would bring such a complaint against an officer of the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler. These men are our elite. They’ve taken a sacred oath to lay down their lives for the Fuehrer. It should be regarded as an immense honor to share the bed of a Leibstandarte officer, and an even greater honor to bear a child by him. My best advice to you, Armbrecht, is to get your priorities straight. The work you’ve been given to do by the Chief is of great importance, and I know he holds you in high regard. It would be sheer madness to let the disloyalty of your father and the eccentricity of your sister spoil this relationship. How
ever—” a little of the harshness went out of his voice —“we don’t want you distracted from your work by having to worry unnecessarily about your sister, so if you would like to give me the name of this SS officer I promise to have a—shall we say ‘unofficial’?—word with him. She won’t be bothered after that.”

  “And about my father, Herr Reichsleiter?”

  “I can promise nothing, except that justice will be done.”

  Kurt hesitated for only a short moment. He had made no pledge to Bormann. Hitler, with his personal power of life and death over all Germans, was still there as his last resort. And the mere fact of Bormann’s intervention, even “unofficial,” would at least guarantee his father’s life, pending trial. He said, “The officer is Obersturmbannfuehrer Werner Voegler” and drew some comfort from the look of malicious anticipation that displaced the surprise on Bormann’s face.

  “Leave Voegler to me, Armbrecht. And now to serious matters. The Chief wants to see you in his study at precisely twelve forty-five. His eyes hardened as they caught Kurt’s expression. “You will listen attentively to what he has to say and return immediately to your quarters to fill out whatever notes you may have taken. Make one carbon copy only, for my files. And speak to no one—I repeat, no one—about anything the Chief tells you at this meeting.” He stabbed one of the buttons on his intercom box. “That will be all, Armbrecht.”

  From where he sat, notebook ready, at one end of the table near the bookshelves, Kurt’s view of the mountain landscape was broken by Hitler’s silhouette as he stood at the window, as still and as crisply outlined by shafts of sunlight as the distant peaks he was gazing upon. The silence in the paneled study was almost palpable. There was a sense of isolation not just in space but in time itself, as if this moment had nothing to do with anything that had gone before or with what was to follow.

  Hitler’s physical presence, which should have shattered this fragile illusion, seemed only to fortify it. For this was another Hitler, a long remove from the demagogue of the Berlin Chancellery and equally unrelated to the self-assured and genial pedagogue of that first “literary session” in the Berghof, almost six months ago. He was wearing a civilian suit of dull-black hop-sack, more appropriate to a mortician than to a country squire, and the blue mesmeric intensity of his eyes had given way to a curiously abstracted gleam, as though lighted by, and at the same time blinded by, some inner exhaltation. When he turned around now to face the stiffly attentive Kurt, the younger man noticed something he had missed when greeted by the Fuehrer on his arrival a few minutes earlier: the unique “Fuehrer’s badge,” that gold symbol of sovereignty depicting the eagle with a swastika in its talons, was nowhere visible on his person.