Lahousen, on the witness stand, told how this conspiracy had been formed before the war, in an effort to prevent that war. He put into the record that Göring, Keitel, and Jodl had planned the bombarding of Warsaw and the extermination of the Polish intelligentsia, nobility, clergy, and Jews. Himmler, the arch-villain who had come so near to getting Lanny in his net, had actually got Polish uniforms, dressed up Polish concentration-camp inmates in them, and had them shot in front of the Gleiwitz radio station, in order to justify the charge that the Poles had committed “aggression” on this station.
Under cross-examination this highly placed witness told how, during the Russian campaign, orders had been given for the mass murder of Communists and Jews—this involving execution of both prisoners of war and civilians. After the escape of the French General Giraud from a German fortress, General Keitel had issued an order, at Hitler’s wish, that Giraud should be assassinated; but Canaris and Lahousen had managed to sabotage this order. And so on and on! Ribbentrop gave his attorney some questions to be asked of this witness, but the attorney said it was no use. “He only throws them back in our faces with more damaging information.”
This appearance of one of their high generals had taken the prisoners completely by surprise, and it was a fascinating thing to read Dr. Gilbert’s account of Göring’s fuming at his lunch hour. “That traitor! That’s one we forgot on the 20th of July!”—meaning the thousand or more persons who were shot in 1944 after a bomb had come near to killing the Führer. “Hitler was right—the Abwehr was a traitors’ organization! How do you like that! No wonder we lost the war—our own Intelligence Service was sold out to the enemy! Now I know why I never could depend on him for accurate information!”
Himmler had got onto Lanny’s trail in Berlin, and Lanny had had to escape. He had perforce chosen the proletarian way, with the help of an old Social Democratic watchmaker, and it had proved hard and exhausting, as most proletarian ways are. Now what a sensation to discover that he might have called upon General Erwin von Lahousen at the War Ministry and been fitted out with proper papers and sent out as a German businessman to Sweden!
IX
One bit of melodrama after another in that slow-moving, solemn trial! Next had come Hess’s sensational declaration that he was perfectly sane and that his amnesia had been faked. He couldn’t bear to miss the excitement of the trial, and the pleasure of hearing himself talked about—even if it meant hanging! But Dr. Gilbert assured Lanny that poor Rudi’s amnesia came and went and was perfectly genuine when it came—the doctor had made sure by a number of psychological traps. Lanny, watching the scarecrow figure in the courtroom, could readily credit this. He might have been taken to Rudi’s cell if he had so requested, but he didn’t. He had nothing to give to any of these tormented men, and nothing to get from them. The circumstances were too serious for mere curiosity.
It was in Dr. Gilbert’s diary that Lanny read about Ohlendorf, a Nazi who had been jailed and had turned against the gang. He had been chief of the SD, the Security Service, and he told how Himmler, on behalf of the Führer, had given him orders for mass murder, and how he had been given command of an action group for the extermination of ninety thousand Jews. He went into the grisly details of the wholesale shooting of men and the gas-wagon extermination of women and children. While Ohlendorf testified Göring fumed, “Ach, there goes another one selling his soul to the enemy! What does the swine expect to gain by it? He’ll hang anyway.”
It was during cross-examination of this witness that Speer, one of the accused, took occasion to reveal that near the end of the war he had attempted to have Hitler assassinated and Himmler delivered to the enemy to be punished for his crimes. This was a bombshell to the rest of the group, and during the intermission Göring rushed to Speer, demanding to know how he dared to disrupt their “united front.” Speer had been Reichsminister for Armaments and Munitions and had been responsible for foreign slave labor. Near the end he had had the courage to tell Hitler that the war was lost, and the revelation he now made was an effort to save his life—which it did. Göring’s uncontrolled fury was one of the factors which had brought about the decision to keep the defendants in solitary and to divide them into groups at the lunch hour.
A curious phenomenon, the dominating will of this man, and the power he exerted over the others, even in jail. In Dr. Gilbert’s diary Lanny read about Hermann’s boyhood, about which he had previously known nothing. The Nummer Zwei’s earliest recollection was of bashing his mother in the face with his two fists at the age of three. He had defied all authority, and even beatings by his cavalry-officer father had not subdued him. He had dominated his schoolmates, organized them for military exploits in the old castle which had been his home, and mocked and defied his teachers except those of military rank. He had been happy only in a school where he was being trained for battle and glory. He had found his destiny in World War I, flying alone in the air, defying danger and death, and shooting down twenty-eight enemy planes. Dr. Gilbert wrote, “Like the typical psychopath, Göring never outgrew the uninhibited acting-out of these infantile ego-drives.”
28
Vengeance Is Mine
I
The outside world went on about its affairs, not giving too much attention to these Nürnberg proceedings. Winston Churchill made a long trip to speak at a place called Fulton, in Missouri. After President Truman introduced him—which was as much as to say “I approve”—the retired Prime Minister told the world over the radio that it was in a dangerous situation. Said he, “No one knows what Soviet Russia and its Communist international organization intend to do in the immediate future, or what are the limits, if any, to its expansive and proselytizing tendencies.” He said that what went on behind and in front of the iron curtain across Europe from Stettin to Trieste was “certainly not the liberated Europe we fought to build up.” He advocated a fraternal association between Britain and the United States to retard the U.S.S.R.
This let loose a tremendous torrent of discussion—in the Nürnberg jail and Palace of Justice as everywhere else. The prisoners were allowed to have newspapers, and Papen read the story aloud to the other three in their lunch room—the group called “the Elders” by Dr. Gilbert. “Donnerwetter nochmal!” exclaimed the onetime vice-chancellor. “He is outspoken, isn’t he!” Admiral Doenitz remarked, “He’s going back to his old line!” Neurath, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, commented, “It is still the British Empire first and last.”
The most excited was Göring, for trouble between Britain and Russia had been his dream from the first. Make a deal with the Tories, he had urged Hitler, and get their consent to put Bolshevism out of business! “Naturally; I told you so!” he exclaimed to the doctor. “It has always been that way. You will see—I was right—it is the old balance of power again.… They could never make up their minds whether to balance us off against the East or the West. Now Russia is too strong for them, and they’ve got to counterbalance her again.”
Three or four days later came the Russian reaction. The newspaper headline read, “MOSCOW CALLS CHURCHILL ‘WARMONGER,’ SAYS HE SEEKS TO SABOTAGE UNO.” At which Göring rubbed his hands and chuckled, “The only Allies who are still allied are the four prosecutors, and they are allied only against the twenty-one defendants!” Doenitz’s remark was, “Churchill was always anti-Russian—that is what I have always said.”
II
There was the son of Budd-Erling, once more in the midst of that world situation—only now it was history. How many arguments he had heard about it, in Berlin and Vienna and Rome, Paris and Madrid and London, Washington, New York, and Newcastle, Connecticut! The basis of the deal called “Munich” had been that Britain should give Hitler some reasonable concession and win and keep his friendship, so that he would form a bulwark against the East. But Hitler had refused to be reasonable, Hitler wouldn’t keep any promises, Hitler wouldn’t stay put. The British statesmen had had the nightmare to contemplate that if Hitler could add the R
ussian resources to his own, he would be in position to go south through the Balkans and Turkey to the oil of the Near East, and through Iraq and Iran to India. So they had made a deal of mutual defense with Poland; and so, in less than a year, World War II was on.
And now another nightmare, even worse! Operating under her camouflage of Communism, Russia had got the Balkans and was threatening Turkey and Iran! Russia had got the eastern half of Germany, the whole of Poland, and the Baltic States. She had penetrated into China and wasn’t getting out of Port Arthur and Dairen as she had agreed. She had got the northern half of Korea—and where was she going to stop? America was the only power in the world that might be able to stop her, and what was America going to do? So Britain’s elder statesman had dropped his painting of landscapes and building of brick walls and had jumped into a plane and flown all the way to a town in the corn-and-hog country to sound the alarm and plead for help.
To be sure he was no longer Prime Minister, only Prime Orator. Britain had a Labour government—but what difference would that make in the outcome? How much attention would the chiefs in the Politburo pay to a government which called itself Socialist, when they were busy ousting and jailing the very same sort of persons in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, East Prussia, Poland, Eastern Germany, Rumania, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Manchuria, and Northern Korea? “Liquidating” them—most odious word when applied to human beings! You put them under the ground and left them for the worms, and they could no longer lift their voices against whatever party line the thirteen men in the Politburo saw fit to ordain.
III
These discussions coincided with Göring’s testimony in his own defense. For three days he sat in the witness box and talked about himself—than which nothing pleased him more. He had been a prisoner for almost a year, he had sat through four months of this trial without being permitted to answer back, and now at last his days in court had come! He told about his background and his many decorations, his meeting with Hitler, his conviction that this was the great man Germany needed, his labors to help build up the party and his motives for doing it. He had taken charge of the SA—the Storm Troopers—and trained them. He had taken part in the so-called Beerhall Putsch and had been wounded. He had become a member of the Reichstag in 1928, president of the Reichstag in 1933, and had helped Hitler to become chancellor in that year. He had set up concentration camps in Prussia to intern Communists.
After his session on the stand he sat on the cot in his cell, smoking his big Bavarian pipe and talking with Dr. Gilbert. “Well, how did I do? I showed them, didn’t I? See my hand, how steady it is. I’m not nervous.”
Praise was necessary to his ego, and the psychologist gave him some, to encourage him to talk. “Your story was clear, and the court was interested.”
Der Dicke, fighting for his life, was in a serious mood, serious-cynical. “Der Mann ist das grösste Raubtier,” he declared—the greatest beast of prey. “He is that because he has brains, he does not kill just to eat. Wars will become more and more destructive. It is fate. There is no way to prevent it.”
Next morning he related the story of the Röhm Blood Purge, defending it as having been the necessary disciplining of disorderly and destructive elements in the party. Lanny Budd, sitting in the visitors’ gallery, watching and listening attentively, thought of Gregor Strasser, of Hugo Behr shot in the face, of the captives in Stadelheim Prison whose fate he would never know. A strange whim of what Göring called fate—it was Göring who was the captive now, trying to guess what was coming to him.
Her Dicke sought to justify the anti-Semitic laws on the basis of the hostility of the Jews to the Nazi program and to all good things German. Some of his fellow defendants in the prisoners’ dock hung their heads, for they thought this was bad tactics; Dr. Funk, the pudgy little coward, had tears running down his cheeks. Göring went on to tell how the regime had abolished unemployment—failing to mention how easy it is to put everybody at work if you don’t mind printing unlimited paper money and are manufacturing not for a market but for war. He praised the annexation of Austria and claimed a great share of the credit.
And then, at his solitary lunch hour, to Dr. Gilbert, “You cannot say I was cowardly, can you?”
“No,” replied the doctor, “you took the responsibility. But how about when you come to aggressive war?”
“Oh, I’ll have plenty to say about that too.”
“And about atrocities?”
He lowered his eyes; it was hard to face that question. “Only insofar as I didn’t take the rumors seriously enough to investigate them—” His voice died away. How would he get away with that when the cross-examination began? He stood at the window, looking at the ruins of Nürnberg, plainly visible. Was he recalling the days when these streets had been bedecked with flags and he had ridden though them, covered with medals and greeted by cheering throngs?
At the afternoon session he dealt with the Czechoslovak affair, then with Poland, then with Norway. His defense was that independence of opinion among military leaders was unthinkable; you had orders and you had to obey them. “Perhaps this is the way to avoid wars in the future, if you ask every general and every soldier whether he wants to go home or not.”
In his cell he boasted, “And all out of my memory! You would be surprised how few cue words I have jotted down to guide me. I am not like poor Hess. God, what a farce it is going to be when he gets up to testify!”
Next day he told about the attack on Yugoslavia and attempted to justify what his Luftwaffe had done at Warsaw, Rotterdam, Coventry. He admitted that he had discussed the plan to attack Russia a year after the starting of the war, but had advised Hitler to postpone it until they had taken Gibraltar, and then to try to bring in Russia against England. This was the part of his story that Lanny Budd knew best and could corroborate. The ex-Reichsmarschall was adhering to the facts most of the time; he had been listening to the cross-examination of other witnesses and knew the risks of lying when the enemy has in its hands tons of your records!
IV
Before Göring’s cross-examination the defense put on another witness in his behalf, a Swedish engineer named Dahlerus. He had been acting as a mediator for Göring, trying to persuade the British to let Hitler have a part of his demands on Poland, so as to avoid the war. This had been going on during the summer of 1939, and among the English active in the affair had been the so-called “Wickthorpe set,” Ceddy and Irma and their friends. Lanny had heard of this Swede being in London and had got hints of what was going on. Der Dicke had been acting on his own, confusedly trying to get more Lebensraum for Germany without taking quite so many risks as Hitler was ready to take.
That was brought out in the cross-examination of Dahlerus, conducted by Sir David Maxwell Fyfe—it being a British affair. In the end the witness admitted the insincerity of the whole “mediation” effort. Göring had warned him that Ribbentrop was sabotaging the negotiations and had even planned to have Dahlerus’s plane crash on the journey to England. (Amusing to see Ribbentrop blow up over that; Göring had predicted to Dr. Gilbert that the ex-champagne salesman would split a gut.) Dahlerus stated the impression he had got out of the whole matter: that the Führer was abnormal, that Göring was in a crazy state of intoxication, and that Ribbentrop was a would-be murderer. Göring had no serious intention of avoiding war but was merely trying to get Britain to give way and acquiesce in the rape of Poland. There wasn’t much comfort for the fat man in that testimony, and there was despair among his fellow defendants.
The ex-P.A. went off and thought it over hard. He had waited, to see how matters would shape up; and now the time had come for him to be introduced to the defense counsel and offer his testimony. He had to make up his mind what attitude to take. He had guessed that they wouldn’t be fools, but here it appeared that they were! They had put this Swedish engineer on the stand when they knew that he had written a book and told his whole, story—and Göring had read that book in his cell! The truth was, they w
ere desperate for somebody to say a good word for this man of blood and terror; they wanted it so badly that they might even take an American secret agent!
What did Lanny Budd owe to Hermann Wilhelm Göring? Not a thing in the world. He had been fed some good meals, but he had paid amply with conversation, with jokes and stories, the coin in which men of wealth desire to be paid. But did he owe any loyalty, any truth? To the murderer of Freddi Robin, the plunderer of Johannes! The question answered itself. In deceiving Göring he would not merely be punishing one individual, he would be doing his part to deflate the Nazi ideology, the Nazi dream; he would be helping the German people recover from the effects of those poison gases they had been breathing for a quarter of a century.
So Lanny went to the American counsel and reported that after watching the trial for a couple of weeks he had changed his mind; he was willing to do what he could to keep the German counsel from guessing that he had anything to say against their client. Thereupon the American counsel informed the German that the Nummer Zwei’s old friend was willing to testify on his behalf and had been flown here for that purpose.
O Shepherd, Speak! Page 59