The Last Innocent Hour

by Margot Abbott

  I also heard about the random brutality of the SA troops and rumors of their secret dungeons and prisons. The Americans I talked to, my father’s secretary, a young man from the Midwest, the naval attaché, Mr. Bushmuller, and others, simply reaffirmed my attitude. We Americans, the Defenders of the Free World, who had had to come get Europe out of its mess, felt superior to all of these folk in their half-baked uniforms and marching music that wasn’t a jot on John Philip Sousa.

  Besides, none of it touched me personally. I had no reason to be threatened, and it was none of my business—it wasn’t my country. My father, after hearing me make fun of Hermann Goring on the phone to Sydney, had told me to keep my opinions to myself. “However much the Reich Air Minister may deserve your approbation,” he added, and I understood that Goring’s already well-known excesses were repulsive to my democratic father.

  That fall, I experienced the first crack in my complacent acceptance of the new order, when Sydney and Brian Stokes took me with them to the first Party Day at Nuremberg. At first, it struck me as a cross between a Boy Scout jamboree and a Shriner’s convention. Not as elaborately stage-managed as later Party Days, this one was more homespun, more an expression of the pride the rank and file felt at their victory. Of course, it was as organized as a German group could want to be.

  The three of us stood on a street among the crush as a detachment of SS went by. They had just been christened the Adolf Hitler Brigade and were commanded to protect the Fuhrer always. Sydney and I joked about the handsome men as they marched by, like using that toylike goose step. They all were so serious, like little boys playing soldiers instead of the real thing, their white belts gleaming in the sun, their uniforms spanking new, their determined faces, slightly ridiculous. That they were deadly, I missed completely.

  Sydney and I spent several hours wandering through the streets of the city, dodging the advances of drunk Brownshirts, following after Brian as he interviewed the ubiquitous man in the street. Late that afternoon, Brian led us to an ancient beer hall, its medieval timbered front completely covered with red, white, and black bunting. Someone had told him that Röhm, or even Hitler, might show up to speak to the storm troopers who favored the place.

  Inside, the din was incredible, the air smoky, and it smelled strongly of centuries of spilled beer. The rafters, as high as an American college gymnasium, were black from years of the smoke of open fires, candles, and cigarettes. The crowd, mostly brown-uniformed SA men, was so happy, so full of self-confidence and a sense of belonging, that the three of us couldn’t help but be swept up in the exuberant atmosphere. Brian steered us toward tables along the wall and wedged us in alongside the group of noisy fellows already there. They good-naturedly made way for us, making tame comments about Sydney and me. An overworked, red-faced, middle-aged barmaid made her way down the line and Brian shouted out our order.

  Our tablemates commented to each other on Brian’s accent, then one of them, a barrel-chested young man sitting next to me, said something I could not hear.

  “Excuse me,” I said, putting my hand behind my ear. He smiled and moved closer and spoke again.

  “Are you English?” he asked.

  I touched my chest and shook my head, to indicate I was not, then I pointed at Sydney, next to me, and nodded. The German pointed at me and shrugged.

  “American,” I answered, then had to repeat it. He leaned forward to listen and when he finally heard, he sat up straight. He smiled and turned to his companions, who had been watching his progress with interest. They all laughed too when he told them what my nationality was. Or maybe the fact that Sydney and I were foreigners of different varieties was amusing.

  The young man leaned back toward me. “And the man?”

  I started to answer when, several rows over, a table burst into song, which infected everyone in the place. Soon, my new friend, who boasted a surprisingly good tenor voice, had joined in. He turned toward his friends, all of whom were singing with all their hearts, waving their huge beer mugs, the beer splashing about.

  Sydney, Brian, and I watched, mesmerized by the spectacle, by the sensation of being in the center of so much sound. It was, as well, a thrilling experience to be surrounded by so much unbounded masculinity. I could smell the sweat of the young man next to me, and as he swayed to the music, his arm and thigh brushed against me. He was so much bigger than I, and from him, from all the men in the huge room, I felt such a sense of strength, of great violence held in check, that I began to be frightened. Excited.

  Disturbed by both feelings, I looked to Brian and Sydney for reassurance, but they were caught up in the moment; Brian, I’m sure, translating it into a story. Besides, they had each other, and Sydney was hanging on to her husband for dear life. I sat by myself in the maelstrom of masculine sound and smell, feeling my own sense of myself invaded by the noise and sweat. I could have screamed, and no one would have heard me, not even my friends just a few feet away across the worn slab of table.

  Then, just as suddenly as it had started, the singing stopped. Not at a natural break, but men began to murmur and whisper and point to the front of the room. Here and there, groups began standing, some even stepping up on the benches. Evidently someone important had entered the beer hall. Brian jumped up on the bench to see, and all of the young men at our table stood up.

  Then the word came back, jumping from group to group like a forest fire: it was Ernst Röhm, the head of the SA and Hitler’s oldest comrade. The excitement level in the room rose several points. My tablemate turned and tugged my arm, forcing me to my feet.

  “Look, look,” he cried, “the Commander!” The rest of his words were lost in the cheering. The room grew quieter; the visitor was speaking.

  “Who is it?” I could hear Sydney ask, as she tugged on Brian’s coat.

  “Röhm,” Brian replied.

  The quiet spread, and we could hear Röhm clearly, although we never saw him. He spoke conversationally to his men, calling them his comrades. The crowd cheered like crazy after that and Röhm was unable to continue for several minutes. The men started yelling his name, their cries melding into a chant.

  “Röhm! Röhm! Röhm!”

  When they finally allowed him to continue, he talked for only a short time more, telling them that this festival of National Socialist brotherhood, which the Fuhrer promised would take place yearly, proved how powerful they had become, what a long, hard, dangerous road they had marched.

  “Adolf Hitler will lead Germany to a new revolution,” Röhm promised. “But,” he cried, “let us not forget one basic truth. Without the Fuhrer, there is no National Socialist party!” Everyone cheered their agreement. “And without you,” he continued, “without each and every one of you, my brave street fighters, there would be no Adolf Hitler!”

  The response to that about took the roof off the building. The cheering went on for a good ten minutes, and then they broke into a song. It was the “Horst Wessel Lied,” the marching song that immortalized the pimp supposedly slain in street fighting against the Communists. They stood facing their commander, whom we could not see, their faces stern and suffused with joy, with determination, and with absolute conviction. When they were finished, they raised their arms in the salute Hitler stole from Mussolini, and thundered their heils to the heavens.

  I stood sandwiched between the young men and my friends, my arms wrapped protectively around myself. Sydney had her arms around Brian’s waist, as he stood on the bench. I saw the concern I was feeling mirrored in both their faces.

  The young man turned to me after the heils died down, his face red with excitement.

  “American,” he said, “what did you think of that?” And, not giving me a chance to answer, he grabbed me and kissed me, a long, sloppy, openmouthed kiss. When he let me go, he watched me expectantly. I could hear his friends laughing. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, keeping a smile frozen on my face. Never in my life had I sensed such danger and never had I felt so aware, so alive. I w
as conscious of the other men around us, waiting, their tension palpable in the smoky heat of the hall. I couldn’t see my friends, and I hoped to God Brian wouldn’t try being noble.

  “And here I thought,” I said to them in German, “that you Europeans were such great experts in love.” I turned to face the young man. “You kiss like an American,” I said, and, making a fist, socked him lightly, but not too lightly, on his big, beefy, brown-shirted arm. Then I picked up my beer stein, raised it to him, and drank.

  He hesitated a moment, digesting what I had said and done. I felt as though I were waiting for a wild animal to make up its mind to attack me or not. I drank some more beer. One of his compatriots called out to him: “Maybe you need more practice, Klaus,” and the rest of the table laughed.

  “He should go visit his uncle in Chicago,” cried someone else, to more laughter. Finally, Klaus smiled at me, looking quite human again, showing dimples at the side of his wide mouth. He was actually rather good-looking; hardly older than I was. I smiled back and we all sat down to drink more beer.

  It was an hour later before we felt we could leave, and in that time, as he drank more beer, Klaus and I became friends. He was only a big, uneducated, working-class guy, enjoying himself with his buddies. Finally, as I struggled to get out over the bench, he apologized for grabbing me, explaining that it was the heat of the moment. I patted his shoulder, trying to keep him away from me, and followed Sydney and Brian out of the beer hall. I hoped I’d never see my new friend again.

  It took forever to get through that large room, fighting our way through hundreds of sweaty, booted men. Finally, as we burst through the front door, the cool evening air cleared my head, restoring my sense of perspective.

  WHEN WE WERE alone, on the train back to Berlin, we talked about what it was that had frightened us. Brian said he thought that Hitler would be furious over all the attention Röhm had received, and he was sure something in the party would give. He pointed out that although the Nazis had not yet been a year in power, the cracks were beginning to show between the different factions. Hindenburg was the last bit of paste holding the Nazis together. Once he died—he was high in his eighties—everything would fall apart. That was fine, Brian told us, but when they went down, they would take as many as they could with them.

  “Besides,” he added, “Goring doesn’t want Röhm to gain any more power, Himmler wants the SS to have it all, and Goebbels is taking over more and more of whatever he can get ahold of. The power plays are absolutely Byzantine.”

  Sydney offered that, obviously, all the energy these young men had was not going to be contained by a three-day camp-out.

  “They’re used to bashing Commie heads in the street,” she said. “If they have to stop doing that, what are they going to do? I mean it,” she said, when Brian shrugged.

  “No one will be safe.”

  I never looked at the marching crowds in the same way again.

  A TELEPHONE CALL

  DECORATING THE HOUSE seemed to take forever, although I enjoyed the work, both the fun of choosing furniture and colors and the responsibility. Daddy and I had moved in as soon as we could and our shipment from the States arrived shortly after that.

  As I expected, Daddy’s study furniture and books, took up most of the crates, but there were also several containing paintings and some other homey things.

  I spent too much money on my own bedroom, buying a handsome walnut bedspread and yards of lace and chintz. Because I hadn’t had a room of my own since the house in Gramercy Park, I reveled in every inch of it.

  One day, as I was standing on a chair, hanging the curtains, a maid poked her head around the door.

  “Telephone for you, miss.” She was a big, horsy girl named Edda, whose timid manners belied her size and health.

  Downstairs, I went into the small, funny telephone cabinet under the staircase. There was one telephone on Daddy’s desk, and I had kept this one for the rest of us. The little booth afforded the user privacy, although it was stuffy and uncomfortable. A dim light came on when the door opened, and it had a built-in chair, complete with carved back and petit-point cushion. The old-fashioned, elaborate telephone, covered with gold squiggles, lay on the small built-in desk.

  “When I identified myself, a German man’s voice said, “Please hold for Colonel Heydrich,” and the line went dead.

  Slowly, I sat down on the chair, perching on the hard cushion, my mind an absolute blank, I was so surprised. I stared at the booth’s paneling until I heard the line come alive again.

  “Miss Jackson?” I recognized the colonel’s high-pitched voice. As he had the other night—as he always would—he spoke to me in English. His accent, like that of many Germans who spoke English, was British, and it was not unpleasant to listen to. Without any preliminaries, he launched into the reason for his call.

  “Miss Jackson, I must attend a most tedious event Thursday evening—the opening of the First Reich Art and Culture Exposition. I find these affairs a great waste of time, but I am told I must go. I understand that you know something of art. This is true?”

  “Well, I took some courses, but it was my mother . . .”

  “Ah, good,” he said, interrupting me smoothly. “Perhaps if you accompanied me, you might lessen the boredom for me. I am not an uneducated person, but I know little of the fine arts. What do you say? I shall send a car for you Thursday at six-thirty. This is another irritation; why must they plan these things at such an inconvenient time?”

  “I would think any time would be inconvenient for you, Colonel,” I said dryly.

  He laughed, making me feel absurdly triumphant. “This is very true, Miss Jackson. I am afraid I am not very good in society. My wife tells me this all the time.”

  Wife? What wife? Where was she and why was he asking me, Sally, to an art exhibit if he was married? He had fallen silent and I said nothing.

  “Miss Jackson? Are you there?” he said sharply.

  “Yes, Colonel, I’m here.”

  “Well, then, will you come with me?”

  “No, Colonel, I don’t think it would be . . .” I searched for the correct word, “appropriate.”

  “Appropriate,” he repeated, “appropriate. What do you . . . ah, it was my mention of my wife, was it not?” He chuckled. Chuckled! I started to speak, but he continued. “My wife, Lina, is in Munich, with our son. I am here, alone. I know few people and no respectable young ladies to whom I may extend an invitation for an extremely respectable evening out. There, you see, I am completely honest with you. I can, of course, go to this function alone or with someone from my office, but I was interested in talking to you. And I will bring with us a chaperon.” He stopped, and I heard him say something muffled in German to someone. I waited, twisting the telephone cord.

  “So, what do you say?” His voice betrayed his impatience.

  “All right, Colonel, I’ll go with you.” In spite of his unpolished manner, I was flattered by his attention and intrigued by him, he was so different from anyone I’d ever known.

  “Thank you, Miss Jackson. Someone will telephone you tomorrow with the arrangements, yes? Good-bye,” he said and hung up.

  I took the receiver away from my ear and looked at it. “Goodbye,” I said to it, somewhat nastily. But I’d been working hard, up to my elbows in curtains, wallpaper paste, selecting pots and pans for the kitchen, and I actually looked forward to an evening out, even an evening looking at Nazi art.

  Thursday evening a medium-sized black sedan arrived exactly at six-thirty to take me to the museum. The driver, a polite, reticent young man, wore civilian clothes that did not hide his military bearing. He drove very carefully through the busy traffic.

  The exhibition was in a renovated palace near the Dom, Berlin’s main cathedral. Outside, red and black banners waved, and a huge white one with red lettering announced the show. The crowd of people entering the building included a few members of the press corps. The car drove past the main entrance, turned down a s
ide street, and pulled up at a smaller entrance. Two men in SS uniforms were standing, waiting. One of them hurried across the sidewalk to open my door.

  The other man waited by the building, and when I had climbed out of the car, I saw it was the colonel. He looked very different in his uniform, and I almost did not recognize him. He moved toward me.

  “Good evening, Miss Jackson,” he said, taking off his cap.

  “Good evening, Colonel,” I replied, holding out my hand. He bent over it, clicking his heels. When he straightened up, he saw my face and looked almost angry.

  “You are amused,” he said, his eyes going cold and hard.

  “Oh, no, I’m sorry,” I said, putting my hand lightly on his arm. “I just was surprised at how different you look. I almost didn’t recognize you.”

  He cocked his head at me. “I came straight from work and must return to it, therefore I had no time to change. And,” he said, managing a small smile, “you have seen my best suit, which is perhaps the worst suit in Germany.”

  “I meant no disrespect.” I was relieved to discover a germ of humor in him, especially one about himself.

  “No, of course you did not. I must become accustomed to your irreverent—is that the word?—irreverent American sense of humor. Now we will go,” he said, gesturing toward the door. The other SS man hurried to open it, and Colonel Heydrich and I walked into the museum, the aide following at a discreet distance.

  I turned my head to look at the aide. His face was bland and ordinary. “Our chaperon?” I asked Heydrich.

  Heydrich inclined his head. “As promised.”

  We were in a bare entry hall, dim corridors stretching out to the right and left. In front of us, through a pair of swinging doors, came a man in evening dress. He bustled up and greeted us, obsequiously, in German. He was middle-aged, his graying hair combed straight back from his broad forehead.