Aces

by T. E. Cruise

  “I can’t argue.” Goldstein smiled.

  “Of course you can’t argue,” Froehlig replied. “You shouldn’t argue. Hermann, I go around every day. I talk to people. I know. Despite the fact the socialists won the election, every day more and more good Germans are coming to resent the way Ebert is stabbing our nation in the back. And then there are the shortages we’re suffering—”

  “But how can we blame the current government for shortages?” Goldstein interrupted. “There will continue to be a lack of everything while the Allied blockade is still in effect.”

  “And why is the blockade still in effect?” Froehlig asked rhetorically. “Because the French wished to kick us now that we are down. Those cowardly Frenchies would never dare presume to tread upon the German people if Ebert showed some guts, some nationalistic pride, the way the Kaiser would have.”

  “It’s the Kaiser your German Workers Party wants back?” Goldstein asked, surprised.

  “At least under the Kaiser there was food, and it was safe to walk down the street,” Froehlig said. “But no, we don’t want the Kaiser. He belongs to yesterday. Germany must change if it is to regain and maintain its superiority in the world. We want a leadership that understands that. Ebert’s moderate Socialist party is too busy trying to placate the Allies in Paris to understand what is needed, and the left wing communists are too busy engaging in class warfare, and endorsing the dictatorship of the proletariat.” Froehlig looked disgusted. “The German people don’t want power handed over to them. They appreciate a wise and just leader telling them what to do.”

  “You’re leaving out the military,” Goldstein pointed out.

  “Like the proletariat, the military desires a master,” Froehlig said.

  “Well, whatever the German Workers Party says is fine with me.” Goldstein looked down at his coffee. “Heiner, I have to ask,” he began timidly. “Why did you stop coming to see me in the hospital?”

  Froehlig looked uncomfortable. “Hermann, we both know that there are many Jews in the socialist, and especially the communist, factions of the Weimar Coalition…”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  Froehlig was frowning. “This is difficult for me to tell you. Have you ever read The Protocols of the Elders of Zion?”

  Goldstein shook his head. “I’ve never even heard of it.”

  Froehlig nodded. “I believe you, my boy. I don’t think you’d lie to me.” He reached inside his suit coat and brought out a thin, tattered pamphlet, which he placed on the table. “It’s a document that was smuggled out of Russia in 1905, by some unsung hero. It reveals the international Jewish conspiracy to control the world’s industry.”

  “What are you talking about, Heiner?”

  “I’m talking about Germany’s future,” Froehlig said forcefully. “And the future of the world! The Jews have seized control.” His fist came down on the pamphlet. “It’s all here in black and white. Read it with your own eyes. Thanks to the Zionists’ grand designs, our country is to be surrendered to her enemies.”

  “But President Ebert—”

  “Is merely a puppet, whether or not he knows it,” Froehlig insisted. “Like the entire Weimar Coalition. Jews from all over the world are pulling the strings, whether or not the politicians know it.” He paused, and smiled. “You know, Hermann, our running into each other might have been destiny… I have an idea… You once told me that while you were born a Jew you don’t feel you have anything in common with those of your race. Do you still feel that way?”

  “Yes, I suppose I do.”

  “Excellent.” Froehlig sounded relieved.

  “What are you getting at?”

  “Do you understand the importance of propaganda?” Froehlig asked.

  “What?” Goldstein was utterly confused.

  “Never mind,” Froehlig said. “You know, if I told my friends in the party about you they’d think that you were something very special. A Jew, there’s no denying it,” he mused, “but also a battle flier, and an ace who was wounded in action; a man who flew with Richthofen.”

  Froehlig reached across the table to grip Goldstein’s arm. “Think of the publicity you’d get, and the good you’d be doing for Germany if you publicly renounced your heritage! If you admitted that the Protocols are true, and if you publicly endorsed the German Workers Party’s efforts to expose the international Jewish conspiracy for what it is?”

  Goldstein stared at his friend. “That’s what this party of yours is all about?” He picked up the pamphlet. “To help them make Jews into some sort of scapegoat for Germany’s failings?”

  “We only want to expose the truth,” Froehlig coolly replied.

  “But how can I accuse innocent Jews of something I know nothing about?” he demanded.

  “First off, they’re not innocent.”

  “How do you know they’re not?”

  “Read the pamphlet, boy,” Froehlig growled.

  “The hell with your pamphlet.” Goldstein tossed it into Froehlig’s lap. “I’m a Jew, but I’m innocent. I never heard of any conspiracy—”

  “But you were an orphan,” Froehlig pointed out. “Your parents died before they could initiate you. And anyway, some innocent are always swept away with the guilty. Look at what happened in the war! It’s the way of the modern world. It’s God’s way.”

  “Is this a joke?” Goldstein demanded, incredulous. “Are you mad? You spoke of the war. What about the thousands of Jews who served in the Kaiser’s army? We didn’t have many in the Air Service, it’s true, but so many Jews were infantry soldiers. They fought and died for their country just like any other German.”

  Froehlig looked disgusted. “When did you become such a Jew lover?”

  “When did you become such a Jew hater?”

  “When I learned the truth,” Froehlig said, exasperated. “Hermann, be reasonable. I don’t hate all Jews, you know I don’t. I hate only the bad ones; the ones that need to be punished.”

  “Goering thought that I needed to be punished,” Goldstein said quietly.

  “Dammit, Hermann! That was something totally different!” Froehlig turned red. “You’re letting your emotions confuse the facts.” His fist pounded down on the pamphlet. “But why are you so concerned in the first place?” he demanded. “You keep telling me that Jews mean nothing to you, and yet you keep defending them—”

  “God help us all, Heiner,” Goldstein said sadly. “Thanks to your pamphlet, and your new friends, you’ve turned into a bigger bastard than Goering ever was.”

  “Who are you to talk, you little piece of shit!”

  “That’s better,” Goldstein said calmly. “Now, at least, you’re being honest about how you feel. Now you and Goering are on equal footing…”

  To his credit, Froehlig seemed suddenly to comprehend Goldstein’s point of view. “I’ve always been a gentle man, Hermann. You can remember that about me?…”

  “I do remember it, and I wish I still knew that man.”

  Froehlig looked genuinely anguished. “But the world has been turned upside down. Everything now is so complicated. I don’t understand what’s happened to my country. We were winning the war, but then we lost. How could that have happened? My friends in the German Workers Party seem to understand what happened, and they’ve told me how I can help to put things right.” He sighed. “When they tell me that I can do something, I feel good. It’s hard to feel good these days—”

  “This shit your friends are feeding you is not the answer,” Goldstein said bluntly. “Hatred will not solve Germany’s problems.”

  “—I want everything to work out all right for everyone,” Froehlig said. “But first comes me, you understand? First come Germans. Germans before Jews.”

  “Jews are Germans!” Goldstein declared.

  Froehlig shrugged. “I see that we can only agree to disagree. You asked me questions and I answered them. Now, if you’d be so kind as to go. My friends are expected.”

  “I wouldn’t wa
nt to embarrass you in front of your friends,” Goldstein said dryly. He stood up, and placed some money on the table. “I’ll buy my own coffee, thanks.”

  “As you wish,” Froehlig nodded. He opened up his pamphlet and began to read.

  Goldstein stared at his lost friend another moment. “I would like to read that pamphlet, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  “I can get another copy easily,” Froehlig replied, handing it over.

  That night, in his room, Goldstein read the damned Protocols through, three times. When he was finished he tore the pamphlet up into little pieces and burned it in the washbasin.

  As he watched the smoke curl against the cracked ceiling plaster, the idea came to him that he should leave Germany. He had no family or friends here, and more and more it looked as if he had no future.

  His eyes fell on a stack of old newspapers taking up one corner of the room. He thought about America. The American President Wilson had wanted to be merciful; it seemed that of all the world, America was the least vindictive toward Germany and its people…

  Now that the idea had crystallized, he wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before. Excited, he went through the entire newspaper stack, tearing out anything that had to do with America, arranging the articles in chronological order, trying to construct a mosaic of facts about America out of the brief clippings. He came upon a photograph of Wilson. The American president was clean-shaven and had short gray hair. He wore spectacles and had the look of a benevolent schoolmaster.

  Goldstein tore the photograph out of the newspaper and propped it up beside his bed. He was not someone to go off half-cocked about something as important as immigrating to America. He would sleep on the idea.

  He wished President Wilson good night, and slept soundly.

  At dawn he woke, to tell the American president that he was sure. He would be coming to America.

  (Two)

  Munich, Germany

  20 March 1920

  Air Park No. 34 was really an airplane graveyard. Located on the outskirts of Munich, the Air Park was created in response to the Versailles Treaty, which stipulated that Germany disarm. All tanks, warships, and military aircraft not confiscated as desirable equipment by the Allies had to be destroyed. The Air Park, which had been a plumbing supply warehouse before the government had requisitioned it, was admirably suited to destroying airplanes. It fronted on a stretch of straight, paved road that could serve as a landing field, and it had plenty of space to stack the broken-winged carcasses once they were stripped of their engines.

  Periodically, Goldstein, who’d been manager of the Air Park since September, would have his work crews pile the fuselages in the yard and burn the war birds in great, towering bonfires.

  The former warehouse’s loading docks were exposed to the elements, and today the weather was raw, with a mixture of sleet and rain slanting down. Goldstein and the Russian, whose name he could never remember, stood stamping their feet against the dock floor’s iron grating. A trash fire flaring and waning in an old petrol barrel afforded them some warmth as they watched the work crews wrestle aircraft engines into the back of the lorry.

  Goldstein studied his clipboard as the last of the engines were loaded and the lorry pulled out of the loading dock. Another lorry, motor idling, was waiting to take its place. Now it began backing into the loading dock.

  “It must please you that the German Air Service will survive,” the Russian said. “Even if it is on foreign soil. Perhaps, someday, you too will come to my country. We could use your talents as a flier and mechanic.”

  Goldstein smiled politely. The only place he was going was America. He’d already begun studying the language and had worked more than halfway through an English primer, thanks to the help of a language tutor he’d found in Munich.

  Goldstein waited until the last lorry was in position and the workers had begun loading it with engines. He then guided the Russian into the warehouse, out of the line of sight of the workers.

  “My money, please,” Goldstein murmured. The Russian handed over a sheaf of bills, which Goldstein quickly crammed into his pocket.

  It had been easy for Goldstein to get the manager’s job. The government bureaucrats in charge of the Air Park needed someone who could on occasion pilot an airplane as well as dismantle them, and most fliers, ex-officers all, were refusing to cooperate with the disarmament program, considering it another example of cowardly surrender on the part of the government. To disarm was simply beneath the dignity of officers and gentlemen.

  Goldstein had hardly begun the job when he was discreetly approached by a group of high-ranking German officers who were willing to pay if he’d help them channel a certain number of the best aircraft engines to Russia. It seemed that aircraft fuselages, instruments, and machine guns that were to be matched up with the engines were moving to Russia from other German disarmament facilities, and that the same thing was happening with tanks, and so on. The Russians were allowing the Germans to reassemble and train with their illicit equipment, in exchange for the Germans teaching the Red Army how to soldier.

  “See you in two weeks,” the Russian said as the last engines were loaded in the lorry.

  Goldstein nodded. It struck him as ironic that the Russians and the right wing German military were in bed together concerning this rearmament conspiracy, considering that it was the politically conservative Friekorps and Reichwehr which were so violently against Germany’s current socialist left wing government. Goldstein had wondered if the officers had thought he’d be amenable to the scheme to benefit Russia as well as Germany because he was a Jew.

  Finally, he didn’t care what the officers thought. He would have been willing to send the engines to hell if it helped pay his way to America.

  He’d already inquired into the cost of the steamship ticket. By summer, his bribes combined with his meager salary would total enough cash to allow him to set sail. He figured his English would be pretty swell by then as well.

  (Three)

  Port of Hamburg, Germany

  9 August 1920

  On the day Goldstein set sail for America the newspapers carried brief articles buried in the back pages concerning the meeting of the Deutsch Arbeiter-Partei in Salzburg. The newspaper coverage was sparse because D.A.P. was just a fringe organization, but Goldstein was interested because it was the political organization to which Heiner Froehlig had said he’d belonged when they’d met that night in Berlin, almost eighteen months ago.

  Goldstein carefully read every article on the D.A.P. convention. He felt sentimental now that he was bidding Germany farewell, so, although he couldn’t abide Froehlig’s views, he was nevertheless happy for the man who had once been his friend. Since Froehlig’s little organization had seemed so important to him that night, it was nice that the newspapers had him as a prominent figure in his party, along with someone named Adolph Hitler.

  BOOK II:

  1921

  * * *

  (advertisement-advertisment-advertisment)

  ATTENTION! ATTENTION! ATTENTION!

  EX-MILITARY FLIERS!

  VETERANS AND NON-VETERANS

  CAPTAIN BOB’S TRAVELING AIR EXTRAVAGANZA, the world’s premier barnstorming troupe, is looking for experienced aviators to perform in its 1921 National Tour.

  You must be young, physically fit, unmarried, and military-trained pilots skilled in aerobatics. You must be willing to learn wing walking, stunt flying, and sky vaudeville.

  Interested, qualified individuals should apply in person, Monday, March 3rd, at Hillsboro Aviation Field, Hillsboro, New Jersey.

  (advertisment-advertisment-advertisment)

  —The New York Times

  Chapter 5

  * * *

  (One)

  Hillsboro Aviation Field, New Jersey

  14 March 1921

  “Please, if you’d tell me where I might find Captain Bob? I wish to apply for the position of stunt pilot advertised in The New York Times.”

&n
bsp; “You and every other squirt hereabouts.” The gaunt, elderly watchman standing guard at the Hillsboro looked disgusted. He wore a shabby overcoat and a wool knit cap, and had a clipboard. It was a cool, damp spring morning, and the weather was making him suffer. His ears and nose were red, and his pale eyes were runny. He kept stamping his feet and blowing into his hands. “Well, what’s your name, kid? Can’t go in until I’ve got your name wrote down…”

  “Herman Gold.” He watched the guard write it down on his clipboard. His new name still sounded funny to him, although he liked the way it looked on paper: much more American than Hermann Goldstein. He wasn’t sure just which immigration officer had cropped it for him as he was being processed. It wasn’t until much later that he noticed his new name inked into permanence on his entry papers.

  “What’s a kid like you want to get mixed up with them fliers, anyhow?” the guard scolded. “I’m only telling you because I can see you’re an immigrant, and maybe ignorant about such things.”

  Gold stiffened, feeling insulted. Look like an immigrant, indeed! He had on his brand new, brown wool suit and was wearing a white shirt and a green and red, striped four-in-hand—not knickers and a cap… “Sir, if you don’t mind…”

  “Take my advice, learn yourself an honest trade. You wouldn’t catch me up in one of them flying contraptions. No sir. If the Lord wanted men to fly, he’d given them wings.”

  “May I go through the gate, now?” Gold asked politely.

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” the watchman sniffled. “You go through here, and follow the crowd to hangar three.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Good luck with the captain,” the guard called after him. “You’ll need it. Lots of young men are here today looking to be stunt pilots. I can’t figure why.”