Dragon's Teeth

by Sinclair, Upton;

  “Well, you know what happens in revolutions. People take things into their own hands, and regrettable incidents occur. The Führer can’t know everything that’s going on.”

  “I’m quite sure of it,” said Lanny. “The moment I heard about it, I said: ‘I know exactly where to go. Heinrich Jung is the person who will understand and help me.’ So here I am!”

  VII

  The young Nazi executive wasn’t a fool, not even with the Rheinwein and the champagne and the brandy. He perceived at once why he had been receiving all this hospitality. But then, he had known Lanny Budd for some twelve years, and had had other meals at his expense and no favors asked. It is injurious to one’s vanity to have to suspect old friends, and Heinrich had a naturally confiding disposition. So he asked: “What do you want me to do?”

  “First, I want you to understand my position in this unhappy matter. I have many friends in Germany, and I don’t want to hurt them; but at the same time I can’t let a member of my family rot in a concentration camp without at least trying to find out what he’s accused of. Can I, Heinrich?”

  “No, I suppose not,” the other admitted, reluctantly.

  “So far, there hasn’t been any publicity that I have seen. Of course something may break loose abroad; Johannes has friends and business associates there, and when they don’t hear from him they, too, may get busy on the telephone. If that happens, it will make a scandal, and I think I’m doing a favor to you and to Kurt and to Seine Hochgeboren and even to the Führer, when I come and let you know the situation. The first person I meet in Berlin is likely to ask me: ‘Where is Johannes?’ And what am I to say? Since he is my sister’s father-in-law and my father’s associate, I’d be bound to call at his home, or at least telephone and let him know of my arrival.”

  “It’s certainly awkward,” conceded Heinrich.

  “Another thing: when Seine Hochgeboren gets my letter in the morning he may call up. He’s a friend of Johannes—in fact, it was at Johannes’s palace that I first met him. Also, Irma expects to meet the Fürstin Bismarck tomorrow—perhaps you know her, a very charming Swedish lady. What is she going to say about the matter?”

  Heinrich admitted that it was verteufelt; and Lanny went on: “If I tell these people what has happened, I am in the position of having come here to attack the Regierung; and that’s the last thing I want to do. But the story can’t be kept down indefinitely, and it’s going to make a frightful stink. So I said to Irma: ‘Let’s get to Heinrich quickly, and have the thing stopped before it gets started.’ Johannes is absolutely a non-political person, and he has no interest in spreading scandals. I’m sure he’ll gladly agree to shut up and forget that it happened.”

  “But the man must have done something, Lanny! They don’t just grab people in Germany and drag them to jail for nothing.”

  “Not even Jews, Heinrich?”

  “Not even Jews. You saw how orderly the boycott was. Or did the foreign press lie to you about it?”

  “I have heard terrible stories; but I have refused to believe them and I don’t want to have to. I want to be able to go out and tell my friends that as soon as I reported this case to the Nazi authorities, the trouble was corrected. I offer you a chance to distinguish yourself, Heinrich, because your superiors will be grateful to you for helping to avoid a scandal in the outside world.”

  VIII

  This conversation was being carried on in German, because Heinrich’s English was inadequate. Irma’s German was even poorer, but she had the advantage of having been told Lanny’s plan of campaign, and she could follow its progress on the young official’s face. A well-chiseled Nordic face, with two sky-blue eyes looking earnestly out, and a crown of straw-colored hair shaved so that a Pickelhaube might fit over it—though Heinrich had never worn that decoration. The face had been pink with pleasure at the evening’s start; it had become rosy with good food, wine, and friendship; now it appeared to be growing pale with anxiety and a crushing burden of thought.

  “But what on earth could I do, Lanny?”

  “It was my idea that you would help me to take the matter directly to the Führer.”

  “Oh, Lanny, I couldn’t possibly do that!”

  “You have access to him, don’t you?”

  “Not so much as I used to. Things have changed. In the old days he was just a party leader, but now he’s the head of the government. You’ve no idea of the pressure upon him, and the swarms of people trying to get at him all the time.”

  “I can understand that. But here is an emergency, and surely he would thank you for coming to him.”

  “I simply wouldn’t dare, Lanny. You must understand, I am nothing but an office-man. They give me a certain job, and I do it efficiently, and presently they give me more to do. But I have never had anything to do with politics.”

  “But is this politics, Heinrich?”

  “You will soon find out that it is. If Dr. Ley has arrested a rich Jew, he has some reason; and he’s a powerful politician, and has friends at court—I mean, near the Führer. If I go and butt in, it will be like walking into No Man’s Land while the shooting is going on. What hold I have on the Führer is because I am an old admirer, who has never asked anything of him in all my life. Now, if I come to him, and he finds that I’m meddling in state affairs, he might be furious and say ‘Raus mit dir!’ and never see me again.”

  “On the other hand, Heinrich, if it should ever come to his ears that you had advance knowledge of this matter and failed to give him warning, he wouldn’t think it was a high sort of friendship, would he?”

  The young Nazi didn’t answer, but the furrows on his brow made it plain that he was facing a moral crisis. “I really don’t know what to say, Lanny. They tell me he’s frightfully irritable just now, and it’s very easy to make him angry.”

  “I should think he ought to feel happy after that wonderful speech, and the praise it is bound to get from the outside world. I should think he’d be more than anxious to avoid having anything spoil the effect of such a carefully planned move.”

  “Du lieber Gott!” exclaimed the other. “I ought to have the advice of somebody who knows the state of his mind.”

  Lanny thought: “The bureaucrat meets an emergency, and has no orders!” Aloud he said: “Be careful whom you trust.”

  “Of course. That’s the worst of the difficulty. In political affairs you cannot trust anybody. I have heard the Führer say it himself.” Heinrich wrinkled his brows some more, and finally remarked: “It seems to me it’s a question of the effect on the outside world, so it might properly come before our Reichsminister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “I know his wife very well. She used to work in Berlin party headquarters. Would you let me take you to her?”

  “Certainly, if you are sure it’s the wise step. As it is a matter of politics, you ought to consider the situation between Dr. Goebbels and Dr. Ley. If they are friends, Goebbels might try to hush it up, and perhaps keep us from seeing the Führer.”

  “Gott im Himmel!” exclaimed Heinrich. “Nobody in the world can keep track of all the quarrels and jealousies and intrigues. It is dreadful.”

  “I know,” replied Lanny. “I used to hear you and Kurt talk about it in the old days.”

  “It is a thousand times worse now, because there are so many more jobs. I suppose it is the same everywhere in politics. That is why I have kept out of it so carefully.”

  “It has caught up with you now,” said Lanny; but to himself. Aloud he remarked: “We have to start somewhere, so let us see what Frau Goebbels will advise.”

  IX

  Heinrich Jung went to the telephone and called the home of Reichsminister Doktor Joseph Goebbels. When he got the Frau Reichsminister he called her “Magda,” and asked if she had ever heard of Lanny Budd and Irma Barnes. Apparently she hadn’t, for he proceeded to tell her the essential facts, which were how much money Irma had and how many guns Lanny’s f
ather had made; also that they had visited at Schloss Stubendorf and that Lanny had once had tea with the Führer. Now they had a matter of importance to the party about which they wished Magda’s counsel. “We are at the Adlon,” said Heinrich. “Ja, so schnell wie möglich. Auf wiedersehen.”

  Lanny called for his car, and while he drove to the Reichstagplatz, Heinrich told them about the beauty, the charm, the warmth of heart of the lady they were soon to meet. One point which should be in their favor, she had been the adopted child of a Jewish family. She had been married to Herr Quandt, one of the richest men in Germany, much older than herself; she had divorced him and now had a comfortable alimony—while the man who paid it stayed in a concentration camp! She had become a convert to National Socialism and had gone to work for the party; a short time ago she had become the bride of Dr. Goebbels, with Hitler as best man, a great event in the Nazi world. Now she was “Frau Reichsminister,” and ran a sort of salon—for it appeared that men cannot get along without feminine influence, even while they preach the doctrine of Küche, Kinder, Kirche to the masses.

  “People accuse Magda of being ambitious,” explained the young official. “But she has brains and ability, and naturally she likes to use them for the good of the cause.”

  “She will have a chance to do it tonight,” replied Lanny.

  They were escorted to the fashionable apartment where the lovely Frau Quandt had once lived with the elderly manufacturer. The “Frau Reichsminister” appeared in a cerise evening gown and a double string of pearls that matched Irma’s; both strings were genuine, but each lady would have been interested to bite the other’s to make sure. Magda had wavy fair hair, a sweet, almost childish face, and rather melancholy eyes with the beginning of dark rings about them. Lanny knew that she was married to one of the ugliest men in Germany; he could believe that she had needed the spur of ambition, and wondered if she was getting the satisfaction she craved.

  It was growing late, and the visitors came to the point quickly. Knowing that the Minister of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda was a bitter anti-Semite, Lanny said: “Whatever one’s ideas may be, it is a fact that Hansi Robin is a musician of the first rank. The concert which he gave with the Paris Symphony this spring brought him a tremendous ovation. He has given similar concerts in London and in all the great cities of the United States, and that means that thousands of people will be ready to come to his defense. And the same thing is true about the business men who know his father. From the purely practical point of view, Frau Reichsminister, that is bad for your Regierung. I cannot see what you can possibly gain from the incarceration of Johannes Robin that can equal the loss of prestige you will suffer in foreign lands.”

  “I agree with you,” said the woman, promptly. “It is one of those irrational things which happen. You must admit, Mr. Budd, that our revolution has been accomplished with less violence than any in previous history; but there have been cases of needless hardship which my husband has learned about, and he has used his influence to correct them. He is, of course, a very hard-pressed man just now, and it is my duty as a wife to shield him from cares rather than to press new ones upon him. But this is a special case, as you say, and I will bring it to his attention. What did you say was the name of the party organization which is responsible?”

  “Die Reichsbetriebszellenabteilung.”

  “I believe that has been taken into Dr. Ley’s Arbeitsfront. Do you know Robert Ley?”

  “I have not the honor.”

  “He is one of the men who came into our party from the air service. Many of our most capable leaders are former airmen: Gregor Strasser—”

  “I have met him,” said Lanny.

  “Hermann Göring, Rudolph Hess—quite a long list. Airmen learn to act, and not to have feelings. Dr. Ley, like my husband, is a Rheinlander, and I don’t know if you realize how it is in the steel country—”

  “My father is a steel man, Frau Reichsminister.”

  “Ach, so! Then you can realize what labor is in the Ruhr. The Reds held it as their domain; it was no longer a part of Germany, but of Russia. Robert Ley got his training by raiding their meetings and throwing the speaker off the platform. Many a time he would have the shirt torn off his back, but he would make the speech. After ten years of that sort of fighting he is not always a polite person.”

  “I have heard stories about him.”

  “Now he is head of our Arbeitsfront, and has broken the Marxist unions and jailed the leaders who have been exploiting our German workers and tearing the Fatherland to pieces with class war. That is a great personal triumph for Dr. Ley, and perhaps he is a little too exultant over it—he has what you Americans call a ‘swelled head.’” The Frau Reichsminister smiled, and Lanny smiled in return.

  “I suppose he saw a rich Jew getting out of the country in a private yacht, obtained by methods which have made the Jews so hated in our country; and perhaps it occurred to him that he would like to have that yacht for the hospitalization of National Socialist party workers who have been beaten and shot by Communist gangsters.”

  “Na also, Frau Reichsminister!” said Lanny, laughing. “Heinrich assured me that if I came to you I would get the truth about the situation. Let the Arbeitsfront take the yacht and give me my brother-in-law’s father, and we will call it a deal. Wir werden es als ein gutes Geschäft betrachten.”

  X

  There was the sound of a door closing, and Magda Goebbels said: “I think that is the Reichsminister now.” She rose, and Heinrich rose, and Irma and Lanny followed suit; for when you are in Berlin you must do as Berliners do, especially when you are suing for favors from a Cabinet Minister who is more than royalty in these modern days.

  “Juppchen” Goebbels appeared in the doorway of the drawing-room. He was small indeed, but not so small as he had seemed when Lanny had seen him standing on the platform at one of those colossal meetings. He had a clubfoot and walked with a limp which could not be concealed. He had a thin face built to a point in a sharp nose. He had a wide, tightly-drawn mouth which became like a Greek comic mask when he opened it for a speech. He had prominent eyes, black hair combed back from a receding forehead, and rather wide ears slightly hanging over at the top.

  Also he had a brain and a tongue. The brain was superficial, but possessed of everything that was needed to delight a hundred thousand German Kleinbürger packed into a swastika-bedecked stadium. The tongue was as sharp as a snake’s, and unlike a snake’s it exuded venom. The Goebbels mind was packed with discreditable facts concerning every person and group and nation which offered opposition to National Socialism, and his eager imagination could make up as many new facts as any poet or novelist who had ever lived. The difference between fiction and fact no longer existed for Dr. Juppchen. Inside the German realm this grotesque little man had complete and unquestioned charge of newspapers, films, and radio, the stage, literature, and the arts, all exhibitions and celebrations, parades and meetings, lectures on whatever subject, school books, advertising, and cultural relations of whatever sort that went on between Germany and the outside world, including those organizations and publications which were carrying on Nazi propaganda in several score of nations. This ugly, dark, and pitiful deformity had a budget of a hundred million dollars a year to sing the praises of the beautiful, blond, and perfect Aryan.

  In private life he was genial and witty, resourceful and quick in argument, and completely cynical about his job; you could chaff him about what he was doing, and he would even chaff himself. All the world’s a stage and all the men and women on it merely players; how did you like my performance tonight? Like all truly great actors, Herr Reichsminister Doktor Goebbels worked terrifically hard, driven by an iron determination to get to the top of his profession and stay there in spite of all his rivals. At the beginning of his career he had been a violent opponent of the N.S.D.A.P., but the party had offered him a higher salary and he had at once become a convert. Now, besides being Minister of Popular Enlightenment and Propaga
nda, he was the party’s Gauleiter of Berlin and director of Der Angriff, the powerful Nazi newspaper of the city.

  He was pleased to find two rich and influential Americans in his home. One of his duties was to receive such persons and explain National Socialism to them. He was quick in reading their characters and in suiting what he told them to their positions and prejudices. For the third time that evening Lanny told his story, and the Reichsminister Doktor listened attentively. When he had heard to the end he turned to his wife. “Na, Magda, there you have it!” he said. “That pothouse brawler, that Saalschlacht hero, Ley! Such a Grobian to represent us to the outside world and involve us in his gangsterism!”

  “Vorsicht, Jockl!” warned Magda.

  But masterful Nazis are above heeding the warnings of their wives. Goebbels persisted: “A drunken rowdy, who wishes to control all German labor but cannot control himself! Have you seen that great organizer of ours, Mr. Budd?”

  “Not that I know of, Herr Reichsminister.”

  “A pot-bellied, roaring braggart who cannot live without his flagon at his side. He likes to tell jokes, and he explodes with laughter and a fine spray flies over the surrounding company. You know that he is building the new Labor Front, and it must be done with melodrama—he personally must raid the union headquarters here in Berlin. Revolvers and hand grenades are not enough, he has to have machine guns mounted in front of the doors—for the arresting of cowardly fat labor parasites who find it difficult to rise out of their swivel-chairs without assistance! That is the way it goes in our land of Zucht und Ordnung—we are going to turn Berlin into another Chicago, and have bandits and kidnapers operating freely in our streets! I hope I do not offend you by the comparison, Mr. Budd.”

  “Not at all,” laughed Lanny. “The home of my forefathers is a thousand miles from Chicago—and we, too, have sometimes observed the imperfections of human nature manifesting themselves in our perfect political system.”