To everyone else, his friends and neighbors, Ingersoll was Hans Wolfe, a reclusive Berlin businessman who frequently spent weeks at a time abroad.
“So, how does it go?” Kreisler asked.
Heinz rolled his eyes as if to say “don’t ask.”
“I need rest,” Ingersoll said.
“Three months when you finish. We don’t start Das Mitternachtige Tier until spring.”
“It will take me that long to create the character. I have already done a werewolf once; this one must be different.”
“Ah, you go skiing in Austria for a month, think about it around the fire at night.”
“I suppose.”
“I . . . uh . . . you have a visitor,” Kreisler said tentatively.
Ingersoll looked tip sharply.
“I do not take visitors on the set. You know that,” he snapped.
“I think perhaps you will make an exception this time.”
“No exceptions!”
Kreisler took a letter from his pocket and handed it to Ingersoll.
“He’s outside,” the agent said.
Ingersoll turned the letter over. There was an official wax seal on the back. His intolerance with the intrusion was obvious as he ripped open the envelope and unfolded the note. It read:
Herr Ingersoll
This will introduce Dr. Wilhelm Vierhaus, a member of my personal staff. I will be in your debt if you will give him a few moments of your time on a matter of the utmost importance to us both.
It was signed “A. Hitler.”
Ingersoll was shocked when Vierhaus entered the dressing room—the visitor’s body might have been a creation of his own. Vierhaus had a hunchback, a small distortion on his left shoulder which he partially concealed with a cloak. He held his head true instead of cocked to the side and stood as straight as his physical deformity would permit in an attempt to minimize it. Thick glasses magnified keen, scrutinizing blue eyes. His hair was neatly trimmed and short but not in the crew cut one might expect of someone in the Nazi hierarchy. Were it not for the crippling defect and the thick glasses, Vierhaus would have been handsome for his features were cleanly chiseled and perfect, his jaw was firm and hard. Everything about Vierhaus exuded strength except the physical trick birth had played on him, a black joke which he managed to minimize with a sense of confidence and self-assurance. His handshake was firm and deliberate, his smile warm and genuine.
“Please forgive this intrusion,” he apologized. “But I was advised that you are a hard man to approach at the end of the day. Herr Kreisler suggested this might be the best time to talk.”
“Of course, of course,” Ingersoll answered. Heinz placed a small salad and a cup of tea on a tray in Ingersoll’s lap.
“Will you join me in some lunch?”
‘Wein, nein,” Vierhaus said waving his hand. “Danke. I had a late breakfast. But please, go ahead, I know your time is limited.”
Ingersoll nodded, toying with his salad as he studied Vierhaus through his gray eye.
“So, Herr Doktor, why should I suddenly be so important to you and the Fuhrer?”
1t is quite simple, Vierhaus said. - Our Fuhrer is a great fan of yours, Herr Schauspieler. He has seen all your films, some of them several times. He is having friends to his retreat at the Berghof a few weeks from now, a weekend of conversation and perhaps skiing if the early snow is good he would be pleased to have you join him.”
Ingersoll was surprised—no, elated—by the invitation. Although he tried his best to remain calm, his heart pounded with excitement. He had just been invited to the leader’s most private retreat, the house known as the Eagle’s Nest high in the Bavarian Alps above Berchtesgaden.
Hitler wanted to meet him!
“I understand you will finish Der Nacht Hund in ten days,” Vierhaus hurried on. “So it should be perfect for you. The party is not until the first week in February. The Führer’s private plane will take you from Berlin to Munich and his car will carry you on from there. I assure you, it will be a most exciting weekend.”
“I’m sure of that,” Ingersoll replied. The hideous makeup helped him to conceal his excitement. Even for the Führer, Ingersoll did not want to appear overly enthusiastic. “And of course I am flattered by the invitation. Heinz, do you have our schedule handy?”
“I’ll get it, sir.”
“If there’s a conflict Vierhaus said.
“Nein, nothing that can’t be switched around,” Ingersoll answered quickly.
“Excellent. He can count on you then?”
He was unable to conceal his delight any longer at the thought of meeting Germany’s new leader, for he was an ardent supporter of the Nazi party and an unabashed admirer of Hitler. Ingersoll, like many Germans, saw, in this brash, magnetic leader, the answer to the country’s problems. Hitler preached a different kind of patriotism from the Kaiser and his predecessors. There was fire in every word, energy crackled around him like lightning. For the first time since the war, someone was restoring pride to the people, giving them hope, promising revenge for the terrible injustice the Allies had wrought at Versailles. The thought charged his memory and sent it tumbling back in time.
When Ingersoll joined the German Army in 1916, everyone assumed the war was almost won. And things continued to go well. Europe was one big trench from the English Channel to the Black Sea and the news from home was always encouraging. The Turks had killed 6,000 British soldiers at Gaza in Palestine. In the snow and rain at Caporetto, Italy, 400,000 men had deserted after 10,000 of their comrades were killed in two days and another 40,000 wounded. And in a single day at the Somme, over 19,000 British soldiers had died. Russia was torn by revolution, fighting the Germans on its borders and its own people in the streets of Petrograd and Moscow. There were rumors of mutiny all along the front where it was said that the British and French alike were dropping their guns and running. Encouraging news indeed!
But on his first furlough in 1917, he realized that rumors of victory were lies. In Berlin, the cost of the bloody three-year war had turned the city into a civilian battleground. There wasn’t enough food and the country was going bankrupt. On his first day home, lie had been caught up in a street riot, watching in disbelief as German troops fought strikers in the streets. Huddled in a doorway, he was numbed with horror.
“Go back to work or be shot, “an army captain demanded. “Kaiser’s orders!”
When the strikers refused, he ordered his men to fire into the knot of civilians. There was chaos as the soldiers, on horseback, charged the group, trampling men and women under hoof slashing them with sabers, gunning them down.
That night in a restaurant, Ingersoll was served horse meat. When he complained, the waiter, who was missing a leg and wore an Iron Cross on his jacket, snapped, “They’re eating horse meat in Paris, too.’ When you get to the front you will realize there are no farms left, only mud and wire.
“I’ve been to the front!” Ingersoll snapped back.
It was the first time it occurred to Ingersoll that Germany might lose the war. Returning to the horror of battle, Ingersoll was shocked to see German troops dropping their weapons and fleeing in disorder before the American Marines who had now entered the battle.
The American Marines, nicknamed the Devil Hounds, charged maniacally, screaming as they came. As they screamed, the Germans ran, tumbling over each other, wallowing through the mud, screaming in pain and terror as their ranks broke in disarray. In final desperation, the Germans launched deadly poison gas bombs. But, in a final twist of fate, the wind changed and the deadly clouds drifted back into the German ranks. Gasping for breath, they clawed feverishly for their gas masks. Many had thrown the cumbersome masks away and now they attacked their own comrades, desperately ripping away at the lifesaving devices they had carelessly discarded.