Winter Men

by Jesper Bugge Kold

  Berlin, Germany, April 19, 1939

  Although the hotel was within walking distance of the chancellery, a Mercedes convertible picked Karl up and brought him there. The enormous complex had opened in January of that year. Among the many buildings were the Marble Gallery—which made the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles look like a dollhouse—the massive government buildings, Joseph Goebbels’s Ministry of Propaganda, and the Court of Honor where Karl and the other businessmen were to meet Adolf Hitler. The führer’s private chambers were housed in the old Reich Chancellery. On the other side of the vast central lawn were the soldiers’ barracks, where Hitler’s personal SS elite corps, the First SS Panzer Division, was billeted. Albert Speer, Hitler’s chief architect, was the brain behind the complex, and it was impossible not to be impressed by the immense compound. Karl had never seen anything like it.

  Along with other industry leaders, he was guided down the wide staircase to the Court of Honor. The four imposing columns that marked the entrance were flanked by two sculptures. A military orchestra played marching music, and he made use of the time they spent waiting by studying the Greek-inspired bronze statues of naked men. To his right stood Wehrmacht, whose sword in hand symbolized the army, and to his left stood Party, whose torch represented the party’s fighting spirit. He noted that—unlike their Greek sources of inspiration—the two statues’ faces had Aryan features.

  Karl had difficulty understanding why he and the others were to be honored, but he assumed Hitler was courting them so that they’d support him financially and with increased production. You didn’t say no to Hitler, and that’s why he was at this parade now. He had to admit, however, that he was also curious.

  As they stood waiting, he snuck a glance at his watch. More than an hour had passed. He surveyed the SS troops positioned in two long columns on the opposite side of the flagstone courtyard, facing each other like pieces on a chessboard ready to begin the game. They all wore black uniforms and carried flags and stared straight ahead. His first move would be to push his pawn forward to E4, anticipating that the SS troops would respond by moving their pawn two spaces ahead. Then he would sacrifice his pawn by moving his F-pawn two spaces; if they chose to rebuff his king gambit with the classic defense, pawn to G5, he’d advance his H-pawn two spaces. It would be an open exchange, and the struggle for the four middle squares would be anyone’s to lose. He looked forward to continuing the game, but a hush fell over the crowd just then, and his fantasy burst. The massive oak doors were thrown open, and the führer appeared in a sand-colored uniform jacket. With him was a long retinue of officers.

  The orchestra stopped playing, and everyone turned their gaze upon Adolf Hitler. From the topmost step, he gave a short, energetic speech in which he declared that all Germans needed to support the country’s leaders; it was everyone’s duty to take part in the development of Greater Germany, but above all, to support the military. Karl forgot to listen. Instead he wondered about Hitler’s short stature, which was impossible to ignore—despite the fact that he stood on a higher step than everyone else.

  After his brief, staccato speech, the führer made his way along the row of industry leaders, greeting each one of them personally. Every time he came to a new businessman, an officer whispered a name in his ear. The führer smiled courteously, asked a few questions, and nodded attentively as the responses were nervously given. He was now only five men away from Karl, whose hands suddenly began to sweat. He wondered what the führer might ask him. He glanced at the man by his side, who discreetly wiped his hands on his pants. Karl followed his example.

  When it was Karl’s turn, he gave the führer a firm handshake. He feared that he’d squeezed too hard, but the smile beneath the narrow mustache remained.

  “Mr. Strangl. We greatly value the work you do for Germany.”

  “Thank you, mein führer.” The words came to him automatically, as if his mouth had decided to cover up his anxiety.

  Clearly, the man had no idea what he did for a living, but one could hardly expect the führer to have heard of Karl Strangl from Hamburg. Standing opposite the Reich’s chancellor, he confirmed the man’s short stature. It felt strange talking down to the mightiest man in Germany, maybe even the world. Karl felt rather awkward until Hitler thankfully broke the silence.

  “I understand that you provide the German army with uniforms?”

  “Yes, mein führer, and it’s an honor,” Karl heard himself say.

  “Perhaps you will deliver my parade uniform tomorrow?”

  “No, mein führer.”

  “I see.” Hitler nodded his head slowly and rocked forward on his toes; his gaze grew distant until the officer whispered once again in his ear. As the führer moved on to the next businessman and began asking him questions, Karl couldn’t help but notice how well prepared the chancellor was.

  When the ceremony was over, Hitler and his entourage wandered down the row saluting the attendees. Then they vanished through the same oak doors through which they’d entered earlier. The crowd exhaled, having seemed to collectively hold its breath in the führer’s presence.

  Karl hung back, filled with an indeterminate sensation. He wasn’t the least bit impressed by Hitler, but he recalled the long unemployment lines before his rise to power. Throngs of hopeful people had lined up day after day, though they hadn’t the slightest chance of getting work. Hitler had eliminated the unemployment line, and now everyone had work, just as he’d eliminated the despair following their defeat in the last war. That was all good, of course, but he couldn’t forget all the terrible things that came with the Nazis. They’d even opened a concentration camp just outside the city, in Neuengamme, which was surely already packed with unfortunate Jews.

  He thought of the Robinsohns. Whenever Ingrid or the children had to buy new clothes, the family had gone to Robinsohns Brothers on Neuer Wall, Hamburg’s best shopping street. The three-story department store was well stocked with the latest fashions for women and children. Karl remembered their trips with a mix of joy and irritation. Doing things together as a family was pleasant enough, but he hated the unavoidable waiting that came with outfitting a woman and four children.

  He remembered one trip to Robinsohns in particular. The year was 1933, and it had been one of those days when spring seemed right around the corner. It was cold, but the sun was shining, and so the family had headed out to do some shopping.

  From a distance they saw a man on a ladder leaning up against Robinsohns’ tall storefront windows who appeared to be decorating the building’s façade. As they approached, Karl noticed that it wasn’t a man but a boy in uniform. And he wasn’t decorating. He’d just finished writing the letter “E” in “Jew”—a word the entire country had come to despise, the people whom Germans had been taught to hate. The boy drew a meticulous triangle, then an upside-down triangle over the first one, so that it became the Star of David. Another young man in uniform had been watching him from the sidewalk, and when the boy was finished, they both regarded his work with satisfaction, as if they’d just produced a great work of art. Karl had fumed inside. But he knew all too well that he’d only be inviting trouble if he got involved.

  That was the last time they’d shopped at Robinsohns. An official boycott of all Jewish shops was launched on April 1, 1933, and since then it had become a punishable offense for Aryans to do business with Jews. In 1938, after years of being boycotted and harassed, Robinsohns was sold for well below market price to Franz Fahning—who had Aryanized it by changing the name to Hirschfeld’s House of Fashion.

  As Karl and the others left the Court of Honor, the SS troops remained standing at attention, their chests puffed up. He glanced again at the two sculptures. Everyone was now working to strengthen the party or the army, including himself. Though sewing uniforms for the war machine seemed innocent enough, he was still contributing to the war effort. Should he have declined the uniform order? Should he have declined the invitation to Berlin? He consoled himself by reasoning that n
o one in their right mind defied Adolf Hitler.

  Hamburg, Germany, April 19, 1939

  Gerhard counted them again and again and came up with the same number every time: 666. It could hardly be a coincidence. Maybe the knots in the wooden ceiling were trying to send him a message, but what message? The room must have once served another purpose—he doubted that anyone would build a cell with a wooden ceiling—but it did provide him a diversion. He divided it into sections. The first section covered an area that ran from above the door to the toilet and over half of his bed, ending at a board that was darker than the others. The next section ran to the outlet, from which hung a whitish-yellow cord attached to the bulb. The third and fourth sections were separated by another differently colored board. He began to count again but grew distracted by his own thoughts.

  The devil’s number was 666, but what did it actually mean? He knew that if you were to add up all the numbers on a roulette wheel, it would come to 666. Was that a hidden message to players that roulette was the work of the devil? Hardly. But that meant that the sum of the first thirty-six whole numbers added up to the devil’s number. Was it in the Gospel of John? In Revelation? He didn’t remember but recalled Tolstoy’s War and Peace, in which the count’s son Pierre Bezukhov developed a mathematical proof that Napoleon was the devil himself. By taking the French alphabet and giving it the same numerical values as the Hebraic alphabet—that is, A was 1, B was 2 . . . L was 20, M was 30, and so on—he showed that the sum of the letters in “l’Empereur Napoleon” came to 666. Gerhard tallied the numbers and reached the same conclusion. Not that he’d doubted it, but just to pass the time. He imagined that time—much like the moisture on the stones in a dungeon—ran down the wall. Time had become visible, something he could reach out and touch. It was cold and clammy. It was a time of waiting, but what exactly was he waiting for? Or was it wasted time? The words “wasted time” suggested that one got nothing out of the lost minutes, hours, and days, but could this waiting time be used for something constructive? Or was it just wasted time in disguise?

  How had Pierre Bezukhov come up with the idea? he asked himself. And did it only apply to Napoleon? Maybe there were multiple devils? He tried it with Attila, who’d conquered most of Europe with a mixture of evil and greed, but came up with the number 211. Ivan the Terrible didn’t get 666, either, and he pondered whether or not it should be spelled in Russian. He didn’t speak Russian so moved on to Hitler instead. What about him? He came up with 222. So Hitler could be the devil, but only if you multiplied the original sum by three. He decided to find a simple formula that would show that Hitler was Satan in all his glory. He had time, after all—whether it was wasted time or waiting time—and when it came right down to it, Hitler was the reason he was here at all.

  He paced in his cell, which he’d long ago counted as five times seven steps wide. What was the key to Hitler’s evil? Prime numbers? Irrational numbers? The Fibonacci numbers? He gesticulated with his arms and counted on his fingers as he trudged from the door to the window, then back to the door, then to the window and back. He paused beneath the window and peered at the sky through the iron grate. So simple. It was so simple. If A was 100, B was 101, and so on, then the proof was right in front of him. He added the numbers again. Talking to himself now.

  “If H is 107, I is 108, then T is 119. That’s 334.” His voice trembled now in anticipation as he counted excitedly. “L is 111, E is 104, and R is 117, and the total of that is 332. That makes the grand total,” he shouted, “666!”

  He’d found his proof! Gerhard Strangl had proved that Hitler was the devil himself. It was a mathematical breakthrough on par with the Pythagorean theorem, Euler’s formula, and Gauss’s Theorema Egregium. He snapped out of his euphoria as he realized that what he’d just postulated was useless. If he ever got out, he couldn’t tell anyone. He would just end up back here again, or worse. But what might he use it for, then? He fell onto his bed, and his heart—which only a moment before had been pounding eagerly in his chest—grew calm. He grinned at himself. Are you going mad, Gerhard? No, it would take a great deal more for that to happen. Then he’d wind up in some institution just like Emma and Laura. There was a noise in the corridor. Steps and subdued conversation. He stood. He could tell that whoever was out there was coming closer, but he wasn’t able to decipher what was being said, even when he put his ear against the cold door. A ring of keys clinked and one was inserted into the lock. A ruddy-faced guard opened the metal door.

  “Strangl, you have guests.”

  It’s Karl, he thought. He’s come to get me out of here.

  Kögl appeared from behind the guard’s broad back and entered the cell. He was wearing a pullover and a pair of gabardine pants, and he seemed relaxed. “Well, have you learned your lesson, Mr. Strangl?” He spoke firmly and precisely.

  “I don’t understand what you mean.” Gerhard smiled absentmindedly at the detective superintendent.

  “Listen to me.” Kögl’s clear eyes tried to capture Gerhard’s flickering gaze. Gerhard relaxed. “You must give us names, addresses, something. You are a spy for the Gestapo now, and we just want you to do your job. Everyone knows something.”

  “But I don’t have any names or addresses,” Gerhard pleaded. “How can I give you something when I don’t know anything?” he said, the despair rising in his voice.

  “That’s a shame. Since we have big plans for you.” Kögl rapped three times on the heavy door, and the guard opened it from the outside. In the doorway he turned. “Think hard. We’ll talk in a few days.”

  The metal door slammed shut with a bang. The detective superintendent said they had big plans for him. What could he mean? He dissected the possibilities. How might the Gestapo use a mathematics professor? He could think of only one thing: code breaking. He couldn’t say no to that—the work would be both exciting and challenging. It had to be code breaking. Of course it was code breaking. But that meant he had to give them a name.

  Berlin, Germany, April 20, 1939

  On September 30, 1938, Germany, Great Britain, France, and Italy had signed a pact that forced Czechoslovakia to relinquish the Sudetenland to Germany on October 10. That same day, Hitler and British prime minister Neville Chamberlain signed a peace treaty, and Europe drew a breath of relief. The threat of war had been neutralized.

  Then, in the middle of March 1939, German troops occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia. As the German Wehrmacht marched through the streets of Prague, Hitler declared that Czechoslovakia was no more. The country was divided. The Sudetenland was annexed by Germany, the regions of Bohemia and Moravia were declared a German protectorate, and Slovakia became an independent state that wagged its tail like some lapdog every time the big dog barked.

  Shortly afterward Hitler turned his attention to Poland, pressuring it to return Danzig and the Polish corridor to Germany—a region that had provided the country with access to the Baltic Sea following World War I. Poland rejected German demands, and on April 6 entered a mutual agreement with Great Britain to assist each other in case of attack. To the south, the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini rattled his saber, and on April 7 his forces occupied Albania. To the southwest, the Spanish Civil War had just concluded, and General Franco had defeated the Republicans’ lawfully elected government. February 1939, when the Republicans lost Catalonia, was the beginning of the end of the Spanish Republic. Göring’s Luftwaffe had been especially active in the war, which the inhabitants of Guernica had felt in both their bodies and souls.

  But no one in Germany was thinking of Guernica on April 20, 1939. The day had been declared a national holiday, and everyone had the day off from work and gathered in the streets. They’d donned their Sunday best—large-buttoned dresses, broad-brimmed hats, and starched collars. And it wasn’t just Berlin’s residents; people from around the country had made the trip to the city to celebrate Adolf Hitler’s fiftieth birthday. Nazi flags fluttered from every window and balcony. Doric columns had been erected along Unte
r den Linden—adorned with swastikas, of course—on top of which sat the national eagle symbol. Confectioners had made cakes in tribute, and shop owners had placed portraits of the führer in their windows—the reason for this jubilee was in evidence wherever you looked.

  For the occasion, Albert Speer had unveiled the new east–west axis, which connected the city’s center with Charlottenburg, where the black American Jesse Owens had won four Olympic gold medals three years earlier, to the Nazis’ great chagrin. The Berlin Victory Column, constructed in 1873 to commemorate triumphs against Denmark, Austria, and France, was given a new, central placement so that the goddess of victory could peer out across the city from atop the tall granite pedestal.

  In the evening, they lit flames on top of each of the boulevard’s Doric columns, and the Brandenburg Gate was illuminated at the end of the boulevard, its flags fluttering in the breeze.

  Karl contemplated the amount of fabric used in all the banners across the city and thought it all a waste of good material. He looked at Ingrid, who was staring straight ahead beneath her wide-brimmed yellow hat. The white hatband wrapped around the crown fluttered, and although there was no breeze, she clutched her hat as if she feared it would blow off. She took in all the commotion, wonderment etched into her face. From their excellent seats on Siegesallee, they had a great view of the procession, which exceeded even the Roman victory marches that had once meandered through the streets of Rome following a successful military campaign. An honor once reserved for the likes of Julius Caesar, Marcus Antonius, and Caligula was now given to Adolf Hitler, and he hadn’t even won his first victory. While the old Romans had subjugated most of Europe and northern Africa, Hitler had had Austria served to him on a silver platter, and, like the playground’s biggest bully, he’d done nothing more than threaten Czechoslovakia to get what he wanted.