‘Were the Americans beastly to you, Tante?’
‘Yes. Yes, Golo, they were. Beastly. The doctor, the doctor — not me, Neffe, but the doctor — told them I had to have an operation in Munich. Every week there’s a train. And this American said, That train’s not for Nazis. It’s for their victims!’
‘That was cruel, dear.’
‘And they think I know where he is!’
‘Do they? Mm. Well if he made it out he could be anywhere. South America, I’ll bet. Paraguay. Landlocked Paraguay, that’d be the one. He’ll send word.’
‘And Golo. Were they beastly to you?’
‘The Americans? No, they gave me a job… Oh. You mean the Germans. No, not very. They were dying to be beastly to me, Tante. But the power of the Reichsleiter held good to the end. Like your lovely parcels.’
‘Perhaps it isn’t the end.’
‘True, dear. But it’s the end of all his power.’
‘… The Chief, Neffe. Killed as he led his troops in the defence of Berlin. And now it’s all gone. The end of National Socialism. That’s what’s so impossible to bear. The end of National Socialism! Don’t you see? That’s what my body’s reacting to.’
The next night she said with a vexed look,
‘Golo, are you still rich?’
‘No, darling. That’s all disappeared. All but about three per cent.’ Which was actually far from nothing. ‘They took it.’
‘Ah well, you see — once the Jews get a whiff of something like… Why the smile?’
‘It wasn’t the Jews, my dearest. It was the Aryans.’
She said comfortably, ‘But you’ve still got your paintings and objets d’art.’
‘No. I’ve got one Klee and one tiny but very nice Kandinsky. I suspect all the rest found their way to Goring.’
‘Ooh, that fat brute. With his three chauffeurs and his pet leopard and his bison ranch. Mascara. Changing his clothes every ten minutes. Golo! Why aren’t you more indignant?’
I shrugged lightly and said, ‘Me, I’m not complaining.’ Of course I wasn’t complaining, about that or about anything else: I didn’t have the right. ‘Oh, I’ve been very lucky, very privileged, as always. And even in prison I had lots of time to think, Tantchen, and there were books.’
She worked her shoulders up the bed. ‘We never doubted your innocence, Neffe! We knew you were completely innocent.’
‘Thank you, Tante.’
‘I’m certain your conscience is completely clear.’
In fact I did feel the need to talk about my conscience with a woman, but not with Gerda Bormann… The thing is, Tantchen, that in my zeal to retard the German power I inflicted further suffering on men who were already suffering, suffering beyond imagination. And dying, my love. In the period 1941–4, thirty-five thousand died at the Buna-Werke. I said,
‘Of course I was innocent. It was the testimony of just one man.’
‘One man!’
‘Testimony extorted by torture.’ And I reflexively added, ‘That’s medieval jurisprudence.’
She slumped back, and went on in a vague voice, ‘But medieval things… are meant to be good, aren’t they? Drowning… throttled queers… in peat bogs. That kind of thing. And duels, Neffe, duels.’
This wasn’t wild talk, about duels (or about peat bogs). The Reichsfuhrer-SS did briefly reintroduce duelling as a way of settling matters of honour. But Germans had already got used to living without honour — and without justice, freedom, truth, and reason. Duelling was re-illegalised after the first Nazi bigwig (an outraged husband in this instance) was briskly shot dead (by his cuckolder)… Now Tante suddenly opened her eyes to their full extent and cried,
‘The axe, Golo! The axe!’ Her head sank downwards into the pillow. A minute passed. ‘All that’s meant to be good. Isn’t it?’
‘… Rest, Tantchen. Rest, my sweet.’
The next night she was weaker but more voluble.
‘Golo, he’s dead. I can feel it. A wife and mother can just feel it.’
‘I hope you’re wrong, dear.’
‘You know, Papi never liked Papi. I mean, Vater never liked Uncle Martin. But I stuck to my guns, Neffe. Martin had such a wonderful sense of humour! He made me laugh. And I wasn’t much of a laugher, even as a child. When I was very young I always thought, Why’s everyone making that silly noise? And even later on I could never see what people found so hilarious. But Papi, he made me laugh. How we laughed… Oh, talk to me Golo. While I rest. It’s the sound of your voice.’
I had a flaskful of grappa with me. I took a swallow and said,
‘He made you laugh. And did you always laugh at the same things, Tante?’
‘… Always. Always.’
‘Well here’s a funny story Uncle Martin told me… There once was a man called Dieter Kruger. I don’t want to patronise you, my angel, but it was a long time ago. Do you remember the Reichstag Fire?’
‘… Of course I do. Papi was so thrilled… Just go on talking, Neffe.’
‘The Reichstag Fire — three weeks after our assumption of power. Everyone thought we’d done it. Because it was made in heaven for us.’ I took another swallow. ‘Anyway, we didn’t. Some Dutch anarchist did it. And he was guillotined in January ’34. But there was another man called Dieter Kruger. Are you awake, Tante?’
‘… Of course I’m awake!’
‘And Dieter Kruger, Dieter Kruger had a hand in one of the Dutchman’s earlier arsons — a welfare office in Neukolln. So he was executed too. For good measure. Kruger was a Communist and a—’
‘And a Jew?’
‘No. That’s not important, Tante. What’s important is that he was a published political philosopher and a fervent Communist… So the night before the execution Uncle Martin and a few of his friends went down to death row. With several bottles of champagne.’
‘What for? The champagne?’
‘For toasts, Tante. Kruger was already a bit bashed about, as you’d expect, but they stood him up and ripped his shirt off, and cuffed his hands behind his back. And in a mock ceremony they awarded him all these medals. The Iron Cross with Oak Leaves. The Order of the German Eagle. The Honour Chevron of the Old Guard. Et cetera. And they pinned them on his bare chest.’
‘… Yes?’
‘Uncle Martin and his pals gave speeches, Tantchen. They eulogised Kruger as the father of fascist autocracy. Which is how he went to his death. A decorated hero of National Socialism. Uncle Martin thought that was very funny. Do you think that’s very funny?’
‘… What? Giving him medals? No!’
‘Mm. Well.’
‘… He started the Reichstag Fire!’
On my last night she made an effort and rallied. She said,
‘We have so much to be proud of, Golo. Think of what he achieved, Uncle Martin. I mean personally.’
There was a silence. And an understandable silence. What? The intensification of corporal punishment in the slave camps. The cautious dissent on the question of the cosmic ice. The deSemitisation of the alphabet. The marginalising of Albert Speer. Uncle Martin wasn’t at all interested in the accoutrements of power, only in power itself, which he used, throughout, for unswervingly trivial ends…
‘How he took on the question of the Mischlinge,’ she said. ‘And the Jews married to Germans.’
‘Yes. And in the end we just let them be. The intermarried ones. Pretty much.’
‘Ah, but he got his Hungarians.’ She gave a soft gurgle of satisfaction. ‘Every last one of them.’
Well, not quite. As late as April ’44, with the war long lost, the cities razed, with millions of people half starved, homeless, and dressed in singed rags, the Reich still felt it made sense to divert troops to Budapest; and the deportations began. You see, Tante, it’s like that man in Linz who stabbed his wife a hundred and thirty-seven times. The second thrust was delivered to justify the first. The third to justify the second. And so it goes on, until the end of strength. Of the Jews in Hungary, two hundred thousand survived, Tantchen, while close to half a million were deported and murdered in ‘Aktion Doll’ in Kat Zet II.