His devotion had to adopt complex, varied forms, not only that of straightforward obedience. At times it was better to be querulous or sullen; at times it was better to argue, to be rude, stubborn, or contrary. Himmler was speaking to a man he had first met long ago, at a dark time of pitiful weakness. It was important that Hitler should constantly, every minute, sense in some part of his soul the longstanding nature of the bond between them, that this bond should matter more to him than anything that belonged merely to the present moment. But it was equally important that Hitler should feel the exact opposite: the absolute insignificance, today, of such a link from the distant past. Really, this link served only to emphasize the depth of the abyss between them; never, under any circumstances, could it suggest that the two men might in any respect be on equal terms. And in every one of his conversations with the Führer, Himmler had to call up both of these opposites. This was a world where reality was without reality, where the only reality was the mood of the Führer, his whim of the moment.
Now Himmler was making out that he was obliged—in the Führer’s own interest—to argue with him. He, Himmler, understood Hitler’s deepest wish. This wish might seem terrible. It was born, however, not only from long-past yet indelible personal suffering but also from a selflessly noble hatred—the impassioned survival instinct of the race whom the Führer now represented. Still, a rage that does not distinguish between an armed enemy and a helpless baby or adolescent girl is indeed dangerous. In all likelihood, he alone among the Führer’s close associates fully understood what strength of will was required to struggle against the seemingly helpless and weak; he alone knew the dangers of such a struggle. It was a rebellion against millennia of human history, a challenge to mankind’s humanistic prejudices. The weaker and more helpless the victim appears, the more difficult and dangerous the struggle. Among those close to the Führer there was no one else who understood the true grandeur of the special operation, now already underway, that in the language of the enfeebled might be called organized mass murder. The Führer should have no doubt that Himmler was proud to share with him the awful weight of this burden. But no one else, even among the Führer’s most devoted friends, need know all the bitterness of this work. Himmler alone should glimpse the depths the Führer had revealed to him, since he alone could discern in them the truth of a new creation.
Himmler was speaking quickly, in an excited, impassioned tone, conscious all the time of the weight of Hitler’s gaze.
Himmler knew only too well Hitler’s way of appearing to be absorbed in his own thoughts and not to be listening at all—and then, bewilderingly, pouncing on some important and subtle point. Hitler’s unexpected smile at such moments was frightening.
Himmler put his hand on the papers lying on the desk.
The Führer had seen the plans, but he himself had just come back from the empty spaces that lay to the east. There, among uninhabited pine forests, he had seen the severe simplicity of the gas chambers, their steps and doorways adorned with flowers . . . The sad music of the last farewell to life and the tall flames in the middle of the night . . . Not to everyone is it given to understand the poetry of the primeval chaos that blends life and death together.
It was a complex and difficult conversation. For Himmler, every such tête-à-tête with Hitler had one and the same hidden purpose. Whether they were talking about the future of the German nation, the decadence of French painting, the excellence of a young sheepdog the Führer had given to him as a present, the extraordinary fruitfulness of a young apple tree in the Führer’s garden, the bulldog face and fat belly of that drunkard Churchill or the unmasking of Roosevelt as a “secret Jew,” Himmler’s hidden agenda was to consolidate his own position, to establish himself as closer to Hitler than the three or four other men who appeared to enjoy his ephemeral trust.
But progress towards this goal was no simple matter. When the Führer was cross with Goebbels or suspicious of Göring, it was best to disagree with him, to argue in his colleagues’ defence. Conversation with Hitler was always complicated and dangerous. There were no limits to his suspiciousness. His moods changed swiftly and his decisions were beyond all ordinary logic.
Now too Hitler interrupted, repeating, “I want to hear that the work has been completed. I want to hear the simple words all completed! I do not want to have to return to this question when the war is over. What do I want with your flower-adorned steps and your clever little plans? There are enough gullies and ravines in Poland, aren’t there? And enough idlers in your SS regiments?”
He leaned forward, gathered up the papers lying on his desk, held them for a while in the air, as if giving his anger time to build up, then threw them back down on the table.
“To hell with your clever plans and your idiot mysticism! I don’t need your flowers and your music. Who told you I was a mystic?34 I’ve had enough of all this. What are you waiting for? Have they got tanks? Machine guns? Air support?” And then, more quietly, he asked, “Do you really not understand? Do you want to torment me when I need to gather all my strength for the war?” He got up from the desk and moved closer to Himmler. “Shall I tell you the source of your slowness and your love of mystery?” He looked down at Himmler, at the pink, translucent skin he could see beneath Himmler’s thinning hair, and went on with a laugh of disgust, “Do you really not understand? You who know the pulse of the nation better than anyone—do you really not understand your own self? I know only too well why you want to hide everything in dark forests and obscure mysticism. It’s because you’re afraid! And that’s because you don’t believe in me, in my power, in my success, in my struggle! You did not believe in me, I remember, in 1925. And it was the same in 1929, in 1933, in 1939, and even after I had conquered France! Feeble souls, when will you believe? And you—will you really be the very last to understand that there is only one real power in the world? Is every blockhead in Europe going to grasp this before you? Even now, when I’ve brought Russia to her knees—when everyone can see she will stay on her knees for the next 500 years—do you still not believe? I don’t need to hide my decisions. Stalingrad will be ours within three days. I hold the key to victory in my hands. I am strong enough. The time for secrets has passed. What I conceived, I shall carry out—and no one in the world will dare hinder me.”
He pressed his hands to his temples, tossed back the hair hanging over his forehead and repeated several times, as he looked around him, “I’ll give you flowers! I’ll give you music!”
27
COLONEL Forster was now waiting in the Chancellery reception room. He had flown back with a message from Paulus.
This would be Forster’s first face-to-face meeting with Hitler. He felt both happy and frightened.
This time the previous day he had been drinking coffee, looking out of the window at an old woman wearing a ragged man’s jacket. She had been walking down the street with a grey sheep. And then he himself had been walking down that same street—the dusty, ridiculously broad street of a large Cossack village.
In the evening, the plane had landed at Tempelhof, but Forster had been unable to go back home straightaway. Security officers had kept several planeloads of passengers waiting, refusing to allow them through to the exit. Some of the men waiting were generals and they had angrily demanded explanations. The security officers had said nothing. And then a gleaming black limousine swept past, followed by three open cars. Contravening every regulation, the cars drove straight across the airfield, from a plane that had stopped some distance away. One of the other passengers said, “That’s Himmler, we saw him at the airport in Warsaw.”
And Forster had felt a chill of fear—as if sensing a power still greater than the power now forcing its way to the Volga, smashing its way, in fire and smoke, through the Russian defences. He got home only late that night.
He was greeted by his wife and his daughter, Maria.
To joyful cries of “Oh, Papa!” he opened his suitcase and took out the various presents he had
brought back with him—clay pots for milk, wooden salt cellars and spoons, beads and embroidered towels, the little dry gourds that Ukrainian villagers called tarakutski. Maria, who was studying at art school, adored such exotic items and she immediately added them to her collection, which already included examples of Tibetan embroidery, colourful Albanian shoes and bright Malayan matting.
“Isn’t there a letter for me?” asked Maria, when her father bent down again over his suitcase.
“No—I never got to see your student.”
“Wasn’t Bach at HQ?” she asked.
“No, your student is now a tank man.”
“Oh my God—Pieter a tank man! Why? When the war’s nearly over.”
Just then Forster was called to the telephone. A soft voice informed him that a car would come for him in the morning and that he should have his report ready. Forster understood who he would be reporting to: the man speaking to him was one of the Führer’s senior aides-de-camp.
“What’s the matter?” his wife asked. Her husband had seemed happy to be seeing his family again, but now he was looking inexplicably agitated.
He embraced her and said quietly, “Tomorrow’s a big day for me.”
Regretting that this big day couldn’t have been postponed, she said nothing.
Something rather strange happened in the morning: for the second time in twenty-four hours Forster encountered an important figure he had never before been anywhere near.
As he approached the long, two-storey building of the Reich Chancellery, which extended the length of an entire block, Forster consciously set about registering things he could tell his wife and daughter about when he got home. His eye sharpened by excitement and curiosity, he noticed the small black plaque with a golden eagle by the main entrance; he counted the number of steps up to the porch; he measured the huge area, perhaps three-quarters of a hectare, of pink carpet; he touched the grey, fake-marble walls; he thought how similar the countless bronze lamp brackets were to the branches of trees; he looked at the sentries standing by the inner arch. Motionless, in grey-blue uniforms with black cuffs, they could have been cast from steel. And then, from out on the street, through an open window, came the sound of a few curt orders, like muffled shots, followed by the jingle of a presenting of arms and some quiet words of acknowledgement.
A huge, shiny limousine came to a smooth stop outside the main entrance; it was the same black limousine that Forster had seen the day before, at Tempelhof. The two open cars behind it turned round almost without slowing. Members of the SS Reichsführer’s personal bodyguard leaped out with practised agility.
A minute later, the SS Reichsführer, a smile on his plump lips, walked briskly past Forster and under the arch that led to Hitler’s office. He was wearing a billowing grey cloak and a huge cap.
Forster sat for some time in an armchair, waiting to be called, feeling more and more agitated. There were moments when he felt he was about to have a heart attack; he was almost suffocating and there was a blunt, heavy pain under his shoulder blades. He felt oppressed by the silence and the impersonal calm of the secretaries: What did any of them care about this colonel just back from Stalingrad?
An hour or so passed.
Something changed in the atmosphere of the waiting room; Forster sensed that Hitler was now alone in his office. He took out his handkerchief and carefully wiped his damp palms. He felt he was about to be summoned. But another twenty minutes went by, minutes of terrible stress. Forster wanted to prepare his answers to the questions he might be asked, but all he could think about was the coming interview’s very first moments; all he could do was rehearse in his mind, again and again, the click of heel against heel, and his initial salutation. “Like a sixteen-year-old cadet before his first parade,” he thought, and ran his hand through his hair. Then he wondered if everyone had simply forgotten about him. He would sit there for another six hours and then someone would smile at him and say, “It’s probably not worth your waiting any longer. We’ve received a radio message that the Führer’s just arrived in Berchtesgaden.”
He wanted to call home, to tell his family not to talk about where he had been today.
A ruby light lit up on a marble panel.
“Colonel Forster,” said a quiet and seemingly reproachful voice.
Forster got up, gasping for air. Wanting to get his breath back, he tried to walk very slowly. He couldn’t see the person leading him towards the oak door; all he could see was the door itself, which was tall and gleaming.
“Faster!” whispered the same voice, now sounding brutal and commanding.
The door opened. Nothing, of course, went as Forster had imagined.
He had imagined he would salute, then walk briskly over to Hitler’s desk. Instead, he stayed by the door, while Hitler approached from the depths of the office, treading silently on the thick carpet. At first the Führer seemed extraordinarily similar to his image in paintings, stamps and photographs, and for a second Forster felt as if both he and Hitler were acting in a film, which was being screened in daylight. But the closer Hitler drew, the more his face came to differ from all those millions of identical images. It was alive, pale, with large teeth. Forster saw Hitler’s thin eyelashes, his moist bluish eyes and the dark bags beneath them.
Forster thought he could see a smile on the Führer’s large anaemic lips, as if he still remembered the old colonel’s subversive thoughts and could sense how desperately anxious he felt now.
“You look as if the air of the Eastern front has done you good,” said Hitler.
Forster was astonished by the ordinariness of this quiet voice; he had imagined that it could only come out with sounds like shards of broken glass, with fanatical invocations like the speech that had once mesmerized an audience of 20,000 in the Berlin Sports Palace.35
“Yes, my Führer, I feel splendid,” said Forster. His voice was submissive, trembling with emotion; inside him, though, a kind of echo kept repeating, “My Führer, my Führer, my Führer.”
This, of course, was a lie. He had felt ill on the plane and, fearing a heart attack, had taken a nitroglycerine tablet.36 Back home, tormented by shortness of breath and heart palpitations, he had not slept until morning; during the night he had looked at his watch dozens of times and had kept getting up and going to the window, listening out in case his car was already waiting below.
“During the night I received a request from Paulus,” Hitler began. “He wants a postponement of five days. Only an hour before that I’d heard that Richthofen is complaining. Richthofen has completed his preparations, even though they’re more complex than Paulus’s, and he wants to start now. I am disappointed with Paulus.”
Forster remembered how Richthofen had told Paulus he would be asking Hitler to delay the start of the operation by an entire week. By doing the opposite, he was clearly hoping to damage Paulus’s standing. But Forster knew that it was not for him to speak the truth in this office: did anyone still have that kind of courage? “Yes, my Führer,” he replied. “Infantry preparations are indeed a great deal simpler.”
“Let’s go and have a look at the map,” Hitler said quietly.
He walked ahead of Forster, a little stooped, his arms at his side, his hair cut short like a soldier’s. Running across the back of his neck was a patch of pale bare skin with a few sore spots left by the razor. At this moment, there was a sense of natural equality between the two men; both were walking silently over the same carpet. This was very different from what Forster had noticed two years earlier, at the parade in celebration of the victory over France. The Führer had walked with the same quick gait—the gait of an ordinary, anxious man, not that of a ruler—and he had been followed by a crowd of generals and field marshals in helmets and smart forage caps. Even though the generals had been pushing and jostling, clearly feeling no need to observe the usual discipline of a military parade, it had seemed that between them and Hitler lay a vast abyss—an abyss to be measured in kilometres rather than metres. No
w, though, Hitler’s shoulder was almost touching Forster’s.
In the centre of a long table standing parallel to the windows lay a map of the Eastern front. To the right of this lay another map; from the amount of blue and yellow on it, Forster understood that this was the Mediterranean theatre—Cyrenaica and Egypt. He glimpsed pencil marks against Mersa Matrouh, Derna and Tobruk.37 Forster found it strange to be looking at this table, at the windows, at the globe, at the armchair, at the tall doors with mirrors and at the fireplace with its huge grating. He had seen all this in photographs in magazines, and now he was confused: had he already seen this room in a dream—or was he, now, dreaming that he was seeing the room?
“Where was Paulus’s HQ yesterday?” Hitler asked.
Forster indicated a point on the map and said, “The HQ was scheduled to relocate this morning to Golubinskoye, on the bank of the Don, my Führer.”
Hitler leaned his hands on the table.
“You may begin, Colonel,” he said.
Forster began his report.
His sense of anxiety only continued to deepen. Hitler was staring sullenly at the map, his mouth slightly open. Forster felt that everything he was saying, about the operational schedule and the coefficients of bringing up the reserves, probably sounded irrelevant and superfluous; it might be merely irritating the Führer. Forster felt flustered, like a stammering child in the presence of an adult with other things on their mind. As a young man, he had imagined true military leaders as being ever attentive to news from the front, seeking for answers to strategic dilemmas not only in the reports of generals but also in simple stories told by soldiers. He had imagined them looking into the eyes of young lieutenants and hoping to learn the secret of victory from the thoughts of cart drivers and old veterans. He had clearly been wrong.
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