Fire and Steel, Volume 6, Page 2

  He already had two offers of employment. The first was from Ernst, Emilee’s older brother. When Hans had gone to work for the party, he had sold his truck repair business to his brother-in-law. Even in the midst of the Depression, Ernst was making a go of it and was keeping his wife and two children well cared for. When Ernst learned that Hans might be leaving the party due to his back problems—he had said nothing about the real reason—Ernst had immediately offered Hans his full partnership back. Grateful, but cold to the idea, Hans told him no.

  His second offer had come from his old friend Fritz Kharkov. Fritzie was an immigrant from Belarus who had come to Germany not long after the October 1917 revolution in Russia. He and his family had started a popular Biergarten in Berlin. He had given Hans a job when Hans had hit rock bottom and was scavenging through garbage cans for food. Within a few weeks, Hans was fully employed and helping to manage their restaurants. Fritz and his wife were in Munich now too, operating three thriving restaurants. He had been after Hans for years to take over one of them and keep seventy-five percent of the profits. But the thought of that had left Hans even more depressed than the truck garage idea.

  Hans picked up a pen, determined to stay at it today until he came up with some other tenable ideas. But after five more minutes of staring at the blank notepad, he gave it up. He got the morning paper, a cup of coffee, and a small box of Quarkbällchen he had bought from the bakery the day before. These were small, deep-fried dough balls filled with quark, a cross between yogurt and cottage cheese. Pushing back the guilt, he settled in to read the paper.

  10:02 a.m.

  Half an hour later, his coffee cup was empty. All eight of the quark balls were gone. And Hans was pretty sure he had read every word in the paper at least twice, including the advertisements. He pushed back from the table with a weary sigh, disgusted with himself.

  Taking his cane, he went back into his office and sat down in front of his list, staring at the first three words of the last remaining item on his list. Develop a plan.

  He realized now how naive he had been that morning after the book burning when he had told Emilee that it didn’t matter what sacrifices they had to make—he had to find a new life.

  Yeah. Some life. Lying around all day. Using your bad hip as an excuse to stay away from the office. Staring at the walls. Never shaving. Wallowing in the mire of your self-pity.

  “Okay,” he muttered. “What are my options?” He stared at his list for a moment and then wrote quickly:

  1. Stay in the party. Keep a low profile. Hope that you are now too small of a fish to worry about and become a mindless civil servant for the rest of your natural life.

  2. Make an open break with the party and run the risk of offending the Nazi hierarchy, including the Führer himself. A dangerous alternative but highly attractive. Maybe they don’t care about you anymore. But then do what to support your family?

  3. Find alternative employment that is a good enough opportunity that the party will say, “We don’t like it, but yes, that justifies him leaving us.”

  Hans stared at the last one and swore softly. “Right!” he said in disgust. He sat back moodily, glowering at his list. After about five minutes of that, with no more ideas coming, he swore again, this time at himself, and got awkwardly to his feet. It was then that the strangest thought came into his head. He picked up the pencil.

  4. Bell the cat!

  He sat down slowly again. Where had that come from? He knew what it meant, of course. It was a phrase from an old fable called “The Mice in Council.” After being terrorized for weeks by a very efficient and very cunning house cat, a group of mice decided that a simple solution would be to put a bell around the cat’s neck while it was sleeping. That way, every time the cat was approaching, the mice would hear the bell and duck into their holes. They all agreed it was a brilliant solution. The only question was who got to be the one to bell the cat. And thus “bell the cat” had become a metaphor for courageously doing difficult things.

  With that thought came another. It occurred to Hans that he had this irrational and unrealistic hope that Rudolf Hess or Joseph Goebbels, who were now his direct supervisors, might say something to Adolf about Hans’s current circumstances and ask him if he had any objection to Hans leaving the party and finding a job elsewhere. How simple that would be.

  He sat back, his stomach suddenly doing flip-flops. This was his answer! And it made him sick.

  Pushing back the voices in his head that were yelling at him how crazy this was, Hans stood and went into the kitchen. He took a quick breath, opened the phone book to where he had written a number some months before, and dialed quickly before he could change his mind.

  “Ja. May I help you?” a man’s voice asked.

  “Ja, ja. Could you tell me when the next express train to Berlin leaves, bitte?”

  July 12, 1933, 8:06 a.m.—Reichs Ministry of

  Public Enlightenment and Public Affairs, Berlin

  “Hans? Hans Eckhardt?”

  The booming voice brought Hans’s head up with a start, and he realized he must have dozed off. Two men in SS uniforms were standing directly in front of him. When he recognized them, he grabbed his cane and quickly got to his feet. “Heinrich?”

  Heinrich Himmler extended a hand and shook Hans’s vigorously. “What are you doing here in Berlin? Last I heard you were on medical leave. Some kind of accident, no?”

  “Ja, ja. I was run over by a tank.”

  Himmler reared back in surprise, but Hans laughed. “Actually it was a sledding accident in which I cracked my tailbone, but a tank sounds much more impressive, don’t you think?”

  Himmler laughed heartily. The second man, whom Hans now recognized as Reinhard Heydrich, smiled but seemed less amused.

  “And may I say that I am surprised to see you here as well,” Hans added quickly. “Have you been transferred up to Berlin now?”

  “Nein,” Himmler said. “Reinhard and I are up here for a couple of weeks for high-level meetings with the leadership of the more important ministries. We have already met with Goering, Frick, Hugenberg, and von Blomberg. Today we’re meeting with Joseph Goebbels and the department heads in the Reich’s Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Public Affairs. Just seeing what we can do to help them.”

  That made sense. Even though both men were currently stationed in Munich and supervising the Bavarian State Police, Heinrich Himmler was currently Reichsführer–SS, or commander-in-chief of the Schutzstaffel, or the “Protective Squadron,” most commonly known as the SS—which happened to be one of the party’s most powerful and feared organizations. His association with Hans went back to the early days of the party. In August of 1923, Ernst Roehm, head of the storm troopers, or Brown Shirts, had brought Himmler to a party rally and introduced him around as a recent graduate from university and a devout nationalist, anti-Semite, and political activist.

  Himmler had taken part in the Beer Hall Putsch the following November and had been marching with Hans and the other leaders when the battle with the Bavarian State Police had left sixteen Nazis dead and Hans shot in the back. Being so new in the party, Himmler had not been one of those arrested and put on trial. Six years later, when Hitler began to worry about the growing power of Roehm’s storm troopers, Himmler decided to create an elite group of carefully selected men to serve as personal bodyguards for Hitler and other Nazi leaders and to monitor any possible threats to those leaders or to the party. Himmler had been chosen to form and command the group. Which made him a very powerful man indeed.

  Hans had never formally met Heydrich, though he had seen him many times around Munich party headquarters. And since he had started going back to work, they had occasionally passed each other in the hallway and nodded politely. Heydrich was a relative newcomer in the party ranks, having been a member for only two or three years. But Himmler had created a department within the SS known as t
he Sicherheitsdienst, or Security Service. It was an inner branch of the SS tasked with collecting intelligence and ferreting out any plots or threats to Nazi leadership. A second very powerful man and one not to be trifled with.

  Both men had gone to Berlin for a time immediately after Adolf got the chancellorship, but a few months ago they had been sent back to Munich, where they controlled the Bavarian State Police as well as their own two organizations. Now, as Hans studied Heydrich, he remembered what Rudolf Hess had once said of the man: “Watch your back with that one, Hans. He has the heart of an iceberg. Worse, he is inordinately ambitious. He sees himself as the lone wolf in a pack of wolves, and so he is always trying to prove himself to be the strongest, the best, the most efficient, and the most highly qualified of the pack. If you ever cross him, he will have no qualms about destroying you, and with extreme cruelty.”

  “So,” Himmler was saying, “what brings you up this way, Hans?”

  “I came up to see Rudolf Hess about a rather urgent matter.”

  “I thought elections were under Goebbels now?” Heydrich asked, his eyes narrowing slightly.

  That sent a little chill through Hans. It was a challenge, not a conversational gambit.

  “That’s correct, but this is a matter that goes back to when Joseph was my direct supervisor.”

  Himmler nodded and was studying Hans more closely now. “If you don’t mind me saying so, Hans, you look like hell warmed over. How long have you been sitting here?”

  “Not quite an hour.” He rubbed the stubble on his cheeks. “I came on the overnight express from Munich and came straight here from the station.”

  “Ah,” he said. “Well look, Hans, I know that Rudolf will be tied up all day, for he is invited to the same meeting we are going to.” He turned and pointed. “My office up here in Berlin is down the hall and to the right. Room 217. Tell my secretary I sent you. Have her book you a room in a nearby hotel.”

  Taken aback, Hans could only nod. “That is very kind of you, Heinrich. Danke schön. I am pretty weary.”

  “Is Rudolf expecting you?” Heydrich asked abruptly, again in that same half-accusatory tone.

  “I certainly hope so. He was out when I called yesterday, but his secretary said she would give him the message.”

  “We’ll be sure to let him know you are here,” Himmler said. “And I’ll tell him where you are. He can have his secretary come and get you when we are done. See if you can get some sleep.”

  “You are most kind.”

  Himmler clapped him on the shoulder. “It is good to see you up and around again.” He grinned. “Those tanks can be pretty hard on a man.”

  Laughing, they gave Hans a curt wave and moved away.

  As he watched them disappear into another hallway, Hans shook his head. Bell the cat? Yesterday, that had felt like inspiration. Now, pure idiocy seemed like the better description. Cursing himself for acting so precipitously, he turned and went the other way. A minute later, he stopped at the door marked 217 and knocked. A shave, some food, and a nap. It sounded wonderful. He pulled a face. It also sounded like what they gave the condemned man just before they put a noose around his neck.

  July 12, 1933, 8:31 p.m.—Hotel Adlon Kempinski, Berlin

  Hans sat motionless, letting the evening breeze coming through the open window caress his cheeks. He was gazing to the south at the cluster of large, ugly buildings that represented the heart and soul of Germany’s government.

  He frowned. There was a growing number of people—Hans included—who were beginning to wonder if the government had a soul any longer. But they were still a small minority. For the most part, the people of the Fatherland were thrilled that finally they had a government that was getting things done.

  Beyond the buildings to the south was the magnificent Brandenburg Gate, Berlin’s most iconic landmark. Though the sky was still light, the monument was already lit by the spotlights around it. Being only about four or five blocks away, Hans could clearly see the four-horse chariot pulling the goddess Victory, which crowned the monument. But he wasn’t thinking about that, beautiful though it was. His mind was suddenly back to that day in January 1919. His Freikorps unit had assembled around the base of the massive monument to await the Spartacans, a combination of leftists, socialists, Communists, and Bolsheviks, who were trying to overthrow the government and create a Soviet-style state. There had been a major battle there that day, but they had routed the Spartacans and saved the newly-formed German Republic.

  How ironic. Here he was again, and the German Republic was no more. This time there had been no battles in the streets, no revolutionary red flags being hoisted. After just fifteen years, the republic had been dissolved without a shot being fired. Dissolved by the new chancellor and his rubber-stamp Reichstag. Was that the shortest-lived republic in history? Probably not, but certainly it was one of the shortest for a major country like Germany.

  Hans sat back and began to rub his eyes softly with his fingertips. The meeting with Hess had never happened. His secretary had called and apologized profusely. Hess had sent word that he wouldn’t be available until later that evening, or possibly not until the next morning. Could Hans return then?

  Trying not to show his frustration, Hans had assured her that he was fine. And here he was, two hours later, still staring out the window at nothing, getting more and more depressed.

  Tired of it all, he got to his feet. Maybe a walk down by the Brandenburg Gate would take his mind off things. Maybe he’d go to the street where he’d had his motorcycle shot out from under him by a sniper during that battle. Pleased to have something to do, he moved toward the door. Just as he was about to open it, someone rapped on it sharply. Startled, he jumped a little and fell back. Then he opened the door. To his further surprise, there were two SS men standing there. Both stiffened to attention and saluted. “Heil Hitler!” they said as one.

  Automatically, Hans saluted back. “Heil Hitler.”

  “Herr Hans Otto Eckhardt?” said the older of the two.

  “Ja.”

  “Reichsführer–SS Himmler asked us to find you. He said to tell you that you have an appointment in twenty minutes with the Führer.”

  “The Führer?” Hans gasped. “Are you sure?”

  The man smiled briefly. “Ja, Herr Eckhardt. We are quite sure. “Reichsführer–SS Himmler asked us to apologize for the short notice, but he just received the call from the Führer himself. We will transport you to the chancellor’s palace and wait for you there until you are finished.”

  “Will the Reichsführer–SS be coming too?” Hans was trying very hard to take this new development in and decide what it meant.

  “Nein. He was not invited.” The man stepped back. “You may take a moment to get ready if you’d like. We will wait for you.”

  9:06 p.m.—Reich Chancellery, Wilhelmstrasse 77, Berlin

  To his surprise, Hans had barely gotten himself settled in the small sitting room of the chancellor’s palace when he heard the click of boots on marble tiles coming down the hall. He quickly got to his feet again. To his further surprise—even shock—it was Adolf who opened the door and came inside, and he was alone. He closed it behind him.

  “Hans, old friend,” Adolf boomed, coming over to join him. “How wonderful to see you again.”

  Hans snapped to attention, clicked his heels together sharply, and raised his arm in salute. “Heil Hitler, mein Führer.”

  Adolf moved in, brushing aside the raised arm, and gave Hans a crushing embrace, pounding him on the back as he did. “None of that, mein Freund,” he said, stepping back and looking Hans up and down. “We have walked too many miles together for such formalities. Sit down, sit down.” As he said that, he picked up a chair and moved it over to face Hans.

  As they got seated, it suddenly hit Hans that he had just been paid an incredible compliment. The most powerful man
in Germany was taking time out from a schedule so busy few in the world could match it, to see a man that he rarely saw anymore. And he had brought no guards, no escort. Then it also hit Hans that he had not been searched by the two soldiers who had brought him there. Incredible!

  All the way over Hans had fretted and fumed about what this invitation meant. He had come expecting to meet quietly with Rudolf Hess, with the hope that he would pass Hans’s request up the line to whatever level it took to handle it. And now here he was, face-to-face with his old friend and with no one else in the room—which meant that Hitler still trusted him. That was an astonishing thing, and Hans felt a glow of hope rising within him.

  Hans suddenly realized that Hitler was watching him somewhat quizzically, clearly expecting Hans to say something. Not wanting to jump right to his actual purpose, he glanced around the room. Everything about it was ornate and elegant. The furniture, the inlaid floor, the Oriental rug under the table, the drapes, the large paintings of famous people. “I see that you finally have a place to equal the luxury of your cell down in Landsberg Prison.”

  Adolf was momentarily startled but then roared with laughter. “A little larger perhaps, and definitely warmer in the winter.” Then he sobered. “Ah, Hans. That seems like centuries ago now.”

  Hans said nothing. Both were silent for a long time, caught up in memories of the Putsch, the debacle that followed, the trial and prison. Finally, Adolf straightened. “And look at us now.” He waved his hand in a way that included not just the room but everything the room represented. “Look at us now.” And then, as was so typical of him, he abruptly changed the subject. “Hans, tell me why you have come to Berlin.”

  “I came to see Rudolf.”

  “Ja, ja, that’s what Heinrich said. But he didn’t know why. Neither did Rudolf. His secretary told him you were coming, but not why. You came up on the overnight train, ja?”