by Ben Elton
‘Well I thought so. I thought she loved me. She said she did.’
‘But she didn’t?’
‘No,’ Stone replied, with a distant hint of bitterness. ‘In the end it turned out I was just a convenient mate. She loved my brother after all.’
Reichssportfeld, Grunewald
Berlin, 1 August 1936
THE ROAR WAS like nothing that either Otto or Dagmar had ever heard before.
Solid, like a blow. An assault on the senses. Thunderous. Volcanic. An eruption of noise. The air was dense and heavy with it. Noise as a palpable physical entity. Wave upon wave crashing against them. Assaulting them. Punching them.
Dagmar tried to speak, to shout, but her mouth seemed to move in silence. No single voice could prosper amongst those hundred and ten thousand joined as one.
Dagmar and Otto were drowning in a sea of sound.
It crashed into their faces like breaking surf. Filling their heads. Dizzying and disorientating them.
And just when they had imagined it could get no louder, the amorphous atmospheric cacophony took shape and form. Words as well as sound engulfed them.
‘Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil!’
Each ‘heil’ an airborne battering ram. Shaking and vibrating their heads, their bodies and the concrete stand beneath their feet until it seemed as if it would crack under the pressure.
Dagmar pressed her hips against Otto’s. He could feel her shaking and knew that he was shaking too.
Not with fear but with excitement.
It was simply magnificent. The greatest stadium ever built stretched out before them. A vast and elegant oval, surrounding the greenest of fields and the straightest of tracks, on which were assembled, in perfect rows, athletes from every corner of the globe. The finest human bodies on the planet, all gathered together behind their flags in celebration of excellence.
And beyond them, the great viewing platform. Far grander and more monumental than any Caesar had ever looked down on. And on it a tiny cluster of men, with one man standing completely apart. Forward from the rest and alone. His arm outstretched.
The Leader. Sternly acknowledging the familiar salute.
‘Hail victory! Hail victory! Hail victory!’
The German team arrived last and stood closest to the podium. The largest team, it seemed to Otto, and clad entirely in white. Such a brilliant choice. Such a perfect piece of theatre. A deliberate and inspired contrast to the rest. Setting Germany apart completely from the various multi-coloured rigs worn by the nations that had preceded them into the stadium. The striped blazers, jolly boaters and bright ties, the garish turbans, and strangely incongruous bits and pieces of national dress. The flowing scarves, the rowing caps, the neckerchiefs in every hue. And the Italians, strangest of all in what looked like black battle tunics and military-style caps.
Only the Germans wore one single unifying visual theme. And that theme was purest white.
From the white caps on their heads to the white shoes and socks on their feet, they were the white team.
Like a regiment of angels.
The only splash of colour was the blood red banner behind which they marched.
One hundred and ten thousand people stood and raised their right arms in salute. Including Otto and Dagmar. They would have done as much for safety’s sake in such a crowd, but in that moment and amidst that strange infectious madness, they actually almost wanted to salute.
Dagmar put her free arm around Otto and held him tight. He could feel her thigh against his.
Another roar rose up out of the ongoing noise as, far away across the hugeness of the stadium, Hitler approached the microphones. At such a distance he was but a tiny figure, and yet unmistakable. The most famous man in the world. Otto thought he would have been recognizable from across a continent.
The man just held himself in that way.
That particular Hitler way that cartoonists and comedians around the world had been ridiculing for a decade but which for all their efforts remained undeniably uniquely impressive.
Stern. Detached. Separate. Alone.
Few men who had come so far could have borne themselves with the same measured and quiet confidence at such a time. To stand before a hundred and ten thousand people greeting him as a deity and still remain somehow detached.
No triumphalism in his stance. No glee. Plenty around him of course, but not him. For him just the manner of a man who finds things in order and had expected no less.
The Leader’s voice rang round the stadium.
‘I proclaim open the eleventh games of the modern Olympic era,’ he said, ‘here in Berlin.’
Again a brilliant choice. Simple, like the white of his team. No ranting and raving. No spitting passion as the world had come to expect. Just the quiet authority of a man in absolute charge.
The Leader’s brief address unleashed another verbal cannonade of siegs and heils which rang once more around the stadium. The Olympic flame was lit and the games themselves began.
Many spectators left at that point, preferring political theatre to athletics, but Dagmar and Otto intended to stay and watch every single moment that their tickets allowed.
‘If only I could be one of them,’ Dagmar said when finally it became possible to communicate at anything less than a scream. ‘Imagine it! To be in the middle of all this. Ready to compete. Representing Germany. Dressed in pure white.’
‘Ah,’ Otto replied, ‘but if you were competing, you wouldn’t be able to stuff yourself with beer and sausages, which is what I’m going to get for us right now!’
They sat and watched the events all day. Finding themselves cheering on the German team despite themselves. Despite the fact that each athlete turned to the podium and gave the Nazi salute before and after they competed.
‘Who else are we supposed to cheer for?’ Dagmar asked, her mouth full of bratwurst and beer.
They drank all day without anybody seeming to mind their youth. Possibly the stall-holders didn’t recognize Otto’s black Napola uniform was a school one, and Dagmar could easily have been twenty-one.
They were drunk of course by the time they drifted out of the stadium, and so instead of going home took the tram into the Tiergarten for coffee.
The whole of Berlin seemed to be celebrating the successful opening of the games and also the surprising number of early German victories, and Dagmar and Otto forgot their cares as they strolled together through the packed and happy throng.
‘Don’t you have to be back at school?’ Dagmar asked.
‘Fuck ’em,’ Otto replied.
Dagmar’s face fell. ‘Otto, you can’t say that.’
‘Why not? They sent me to that school. I didn’t ask to go.’
‘Yes, but you have to stay there now, Otts. For my sake. The better a Nazi you are, the more you can take me out and we can have fun – that was Pauly’s plan.’
‘Oh yes of course,’ Otto said quickly. ‘I know that. Don’t worry, I know lots of windows I can sneak back in through, and if they catch me I’ll tell them the tram got stuck in the crowd or something. If I get a beating it’ll be worth it. Just to spend a bit more time with you.’
‘Oh, Ottsy. That is such a romantic thing to say. I remember the first beating you took for me. At Wannsee when poor Pauly got four extra for being too clever.’
Dagmar put her arms around Otto and kissed him. There were many couples doing likewise in the exciting twilight of the park and she kissed him long and hard.
‘It’s been so wonderful getting to go out again, Ottsy,’ Dagmar whispered. ‘I feel like I’m alive again.’
Otto felt alive also and hugged her closer and more desperately.
‘Dagmar,’ he half gasped, ‘do you think maybe … maybe some time we could …’
‘Yes!’ Dagmar whispered. ‘But not now. Some time … I want to. Really I do. But not tonight …’
‘We could go to your mum’s place,’ Otto blurted. ‘She never comes upstairs—’
‘Do you think I care about that?’ Otto protested.
‘You may not, darling. But I do. I like having an elite boyfriend.’
‘Did … did you just call me “darling”?’ Otto said, a huge half-idiot smile spreading across his face.
‘Yes, I did … darling. Because that’s what you are. My darling. All mine. Now you get back to school and don’t get caught sneaking in. Because if they gated you then you wouldn’t be able to take me out, would you? And that wouldn’t do at all.’
A Holiday in Munich
1937
FRIEDA BLAMED HERSELF. It had been she who had persuaded Wolfgang to leave the apartment for the first time in a month and go for a little walk. The result had been a nasty encounter with a Hitler Youth squad. He had limped back in agony and it was clear that whatever tiny improvements he had been making in his health and self-confidence had been set back tenfold.
‘The little bastard just pushed me out of the way,’ Wolfgang explained, his voice hovering between tears of anger and tears of despair. ‘It was at the market. They were marching right through the middle, stamping and singing. What else do they ever do except stamp and bloody sing? I just couldn’t get out of the way in time. I’d dropped some coins and I needed them. I was trying to pick them up. They could have gone round me but of course they didn’t. The front kid just gave me a kick and I went rolling.’
Frieda was probing gently at his ribs. ‘Well, it’s either very bruised or you’ve cracked one again,’ she said, trying to speak as if this was just a medical matter like any other, trying not to dwell on the fact that her husband had been sent sprawling in the gutter by a squad of adolescents.
The lift outside clanked. Paulus was home from school.
‘Post!’ he said. ‘One from Australia, one from Britain.’
‘Keep the stamps, don’t forget,’ Frieda said. ‘The little Leibovitz boy absolutely loves them. He steams them off so beautifully – you should see his collection. He’s so proud of it.’
‘Yeah.’ Wolfgang smiled. ‘Little Jewish kids certainly have the best stamp collections. All the countries that don’t want any Jews. Plenty of those.’
Paulus was already reading the letters.
‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘It’s from Government House in Darwin, Australia. The Northern Territory is definitely interested in doctors.’
‘Well, they do need people down there. Why shouldn’t it be us?’ Frieda said as she unbuttoned Wolfgang’s shirt and pulled the tails from his trousers. ‘You’ve heard of Steinberg?’
‘Yes, of course, Mum,’ Paulus said. ‘The Freeland League; he wants to buy a bit of the Kimberly and establish a colony of us. Believe me, there isn’t a rat hole I’m not looking into.’
‘Please don’t call it that, Pauly.’
Frieda studied Wolfgang’s chest and couldn’t help making a little noise of concern. There were black bruises down one side of his white bony torso.
‘Anyway,’ Paulus went on, ‘the point is they need working men as well as professionals. Maybe I’ll end up shearing sheep and studying for the Australian Bar at night.’
‘Ow!’ Wolfgang gasped as Frieda applied a bandage.
His chest was so skinny and hollow and the flesh so sensitive that it was impossible to tie the bandage tightly enough for it to stay on.
‘This one from England looks interesting too,’ Paulus said. ‘From the Central British Fund for German Jewry. They’re happy to help us with visa applications but first we have to find people over there who’ll put us up. I need a list, Mum. A list of every doctor you’ve ever been in contact with in the United Kingdom, in the States, France, Canada, everywhere. You’ve got to think back over all your years at the clinic. You went to international conferences back in the twenties. Forums on public health. Who did you meet? I don’t care how briefly. I want their names, and especially any correspondence. We need somebody to focus on us specifically, that’s the only way to do it now. Too many people are scrabbling for an exit. We have to find a champion, someone who’ll take up our case. I need a list, Mum.’
‘I know. I know,’ Frieda said.
‘You say that but you have to focus on it, Mum. We can’t even apply for any foreign-entry visa unless we can prove that someone will take us in when we get there.’
‘I have a lot to do, Pauly! I have patients.’
‘There’s plenty of sick kids in Britain and Australia that you can worry about.’
‘Pauly. Those kids are not excluded from society. My patients have no one else. They need me.’
‘We need you, Mum. We have to find someone who’ll help us look for a place. We don’t want much. Ottsy can stay here till we’re established and Pops and Grandma won’t leave so it’s just three of us. You’re a doctor, Mum! That’s a huge plus. I’m young and fit and in a year I’ll have graduated school, and I’m going to get top marks if it kills me. We have a lot to offer …’
Paulus’s voice trailed away. As it so often did at this point in their desperate discussions. There was an elephant in the room. A poor half-crippled elephant. All three of them knew that Wolfgang’s chances of convincing anyone that he could fulfil a ‘useful occupation’ had been slim enough when he was healthy but they were less than zero now.
‘Don’t worry,’ Wolfgang said, laughing and trying to cover his son’s embarrassment. ‘I’m sure they have dishes that need washing. That’s what most musicians do for a living anyway.’
‘Yeah, Dad. That’s right,’ Paulus said. ‘We’ll be OK.’
‘And in the meantime,’ Wolfgang announced with exaggerated cheeriness, ‘while you’re trying to get us a bolt hole and Mum’s attempting single-handedly to ensure the health of every Jewish child in Berlin, I’m going on holiday!’
Whatever Frieda might have been expecting her husband to say, it certainly hadn’t been that.
‘A holiday? Wolf, kindly explain.’
‘Just a short one. A holiday for the soul.’
‘Wolf,’ Frieda said, smiling but with a touch of impatience, ‘I don’t really have time for games. What holiday? Where are you planning on going?’
‘To the ends of the earth and to the edge of the conscious.’
‘Wolf! I don’t have time for this!’
‘Into the minds of genius and to the furthest corners of my soul.’
He was almost laughing now.
‘Right, that’s it!’ Frieda said. ‘I’m not listening any more. Sorry, but I have to read up on rickets and juvenile malnutrition.’
‘All right! All right!’ Wolfgang said, producing a newspaper from his pocket and showing it to Frieda. ‘I’m going to Munich to look at this. The Entartete Kunst – the Exhibition of Degenerate Art. They’re actually mounting an exhibition of art they want people to hate. It’s incredible. Every artist I ever loved – Kirchner, Beckmann, Grosz of course. Amazing names: Matisse, Picasso, look, Van Gogh! Can you believe it! All in one exhibition! And for free. All I need to find is the train fare to Munich.’
Frieda took the newspaper and looked over the article.
‘I always, always think,’ she said with a sigh, ‘that they can’t surprise me any more.’
‘But they just keep on doing it, don’t they?’ Wolfgang replied almost cheerfully now. ‘And for once, gawd bless ’em for it! I mean, this really is incredible. They’ve raided every museum and gallery in Germany. They’re that confident in their Philistine vision that they’re putting the best art on the planet on display on the presumption that people will laugh at it.’
‘Incredible,’ Frieda said, looking at the list and shaking her head. ‘No rhyme nor reason, everybody in together. It says here it’s all Jewish Bolshevist but most of these artists aren’t even Jewish, or Communist for that ma
tter.’
‘Ah, but read on, it turns out the Leader has decided that it’s possible to paint like a Jew even if you aren’t one. Apparently it was our influence that created decadent art. I’d say we should be proud, only Pauly would leap down my throat. Anyway, Jew, Commie, Cubist or Expressionist, I want to see that bloody exhibition! So thank you, Herr Goebbels, for organizing that I may be suitably’ – he quoted from the article – ‘revolted by the perverse Jewish spirit which once penetrated German Culture.’
‘Wolf,’ Frieda said with a look of concern. ‘Do you really think it’s wise? If they suspect you’re not there to hate but to admire, and find out you’re a Jew?’
‘Frieda,’ Wolfgang assured her with absolute confidence, ‘I don’t think I’m going to be the only one.’ Wolfgang was right.
He travelled from Berlin to Munich the following week on the night train, squeezed into a third-class carriage amongst a group of noisy soldiers who were being moved south to be deployed on the Austrian border.
During the night, bouncing along on the hard wooden bench, every jolt shooting agonizing pains through his chest, Wolfgang found his mind dwelling on memories of Katharina. She had made this very same train journey from Berlin to Munich in order to see Brecht’s first play. Rattling through the darkness in search of spiritual balm, just as he was doing. That had been fifteen years ago and in a different country.
Arriving early in the morning, Wolfgang freshened up at the station lavatory, treated himself to one cup of coffee from the café and began making his way to the exhibition. This was being held in what had previously been the Institute of Archaeology, but the Nazis had closed that. They had no need of it. Clearly, having established their own thousand-year civilization, they saw no need to study any previous ones.
Wolfgang arrived very early at the venue, but it was fortunate for him that he did, for as he had predicted the exhibition was proving an enormous hit. Many thousands of people each day were struggling to have the chance to be properly revolted by decadent art, and even though it was scarcely seven a.m. the queue already snaked all round the building. Looking at the people waiting, Wolfgang could hardly believe that the Nazis could not see what was so self-evident to him. That almost without exception the people waiting patiently had come not to be outraged but to admire. There were no Brownshirts in the queue whatsoever, no party badges or police. Not a single one. The Exhibition of Degenerate Art was probably the only public event in all Germany that summer in which not a single uniform was to be seen amongst the clientele. Wolfgang thought that if the Gestapo wanted to make a good haul of the remaining free spirits hiding in Munich in 1937, they had only to attend their own propaganda exhibition and arrest everyone.