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antidote ahead of the poison.
"You see!" the Red uncle would exclaim. "The Social-Democrats haven't a single constructive
proposal. They only denounce what we propose!"
"But you do some denouncing also, Uncle Jesse."
"The workers know our program; and every time there's an election, the Socialist
bureaucrats lose half a million or a million votes, and we gain them."
"But suppose there aren't any more elections, Uncle Jesse. Suppose Hitler takes power!"
"He can't do any harm to our monolithic party. We have educated and disciplined our
members and they will stand firm."
"But suppose he outlaws your organization!"
"You can't destroy a party that has several hundred thousand members, and has polled four
or five million votes."
"Don't make the mistake of underestimating your enemy."
"Well, if necessary we'll go underground. It has happened before, and you may be sure that
we have made plans—in France as well as in Germany."
"I hope you're not mistaken, Uncle Jesse." Lanny said it and meant it. He argued against the
Communists, but was only halfhearted about it, because after all, they were a workers' party,
and nobody could be sure they mightn't be needed. The first Five Year Plan of the Soviet
Union had been completed with success, and all the Reds were exulting over it; the Pinks
couldn't fail to be impressed, and many wavered and wondered if maybe the Russian way
might be the only way. Anyhow, they had a right to be heard; Lanny did what he could to
persuade both sides to stop quarreling, and he set them an example by refusing to let them
quarrel with him.
II
Any time he was in doubt about what was really happening in Germany he had only to write
to Johannes Robin. A letter from the Jewish money-master was like a gust of wind blowing
away a fog and revealing the landscape. It disclosed the German nation traveling upon a
perilous path, with yawning abysses on every side, earthquakes shaking the rocks loose and
volcanoes hurling out clouds of fiery ashes. Assuredly neither of the Plinys, uncle or nephew,
had confronted more terrifying natural phenomena than did the Weimar Republic at the
beginning of this year 1933.
The ceaselessly aggressive Nazis were waging daily and nightly battles with the Communists
all over the country. And meantime the two ruling groups, the industrialists of the west and
the landlords of the east, were concentrating their attention upon getting higher tariffs to
protect their interests; one hundred per cent wasn't enough in these days of failing markets.
The workers, who wanted lower prices for goods and for food, had refused time after time to
vote for candidates of these groups; but with less than five per cent of the votes, the
reactionary politicians still clung to power, playing one faction against another, using
cajolements mixed with threats.
Chancellor von Schleicher had begun wooing the labor unions, calling himself the "social
general," and pointing out to the moderates among Socialists and Catholics how much worse
things would be if either set of extremists came in. By such blandishments he lost favor with the
paymasters of the Ruhr, who wanted the labor unions broken and were listening to the siren
song of Hitler, promising this service. Also there was the problem of Osthilfe, a scandal
hanging over the heads of the landed aristocrats of East Prussia. Huge public funds had been
voted to save the farmers from ruin, but the owners of the big estates, the powerful aristocrats,
had managed to get most of the money, and they had used it for other purposes than land
improvements. Now hardly a day passed that the Socialist and Communist press didn't print
charges and demand investigations.
Papen and Schleicher still pretended to be friends, while scheming to cut each other's
throats. Schleicher had ousted Papen by a deal with the Nazis, and two could play at that game.
Papen, the "gentleman jockey," was the most tireless of wirepullers. A pale blond aristocrat
with a thin, lined face wearing a perpetual smile, he went from one secret meeting to another
telling a different story to everybody—but all of them carefully calculated to injure his rival.
"Papen has had a meeting with Hitler at the home of Thyssen's friend, Baron von Schroeder,"
wrote Johannes, and Lanny didn't need to ask what that meant. "I am told that Papen and
Hugenberg have got together;"—that, too, was not obscure. Hugenberg, the "silver fox," had
come to one of the Robin soirees; a big man with a walrus mustache, brutal but clever; leader
of the Pan-German group and owner of the most powerful propaganda machine in the world,
practically all of the big capitalist newspapers of Germany, plus U.F.A., the film monopoly.
"Papen is raising funds for Hitler among the industrialists," wrote Johannes. "I hear that the
Führer has more than two million marks in notes which he cannot meet. It is a question
whether he will go crazy before he becomes chancellor!"
III
The Nazis held one of their tremendous meetings in the Sportpalast, and Hitler delivered one
of his inspired tirades, promising peace, order, and restoration of self respect to the German
people. The conservative newspapers in Paris published his promises and half believed them;
they were far more afraid of the Reds than of the Nazis, and Lanny found that Denis de
Bruyne was inclined to look upon Hitler as a model for French politicians. Even Lanny himself
began hesitating; he was so anxious to be sure that he was right. Hitler was calling upon
Almighty God to give him courage and strength to save the German people and right the
wrongs of Versailles. Lanny, who had protested so energetically against those wrongs, now
wondered if it mightn't be possible for Hitler to scare France and Britain into making the
necessary concessions, and then to settle down and govern the country in the interest of those
millions of oppressed "little people" for whom he spoke so eloquently.
The son of Robbie Budd and husband of Irma Barnes might waver, but the German workers
didn't. A hundred thousand of them met in the Berlin Lustgarten, clamoring for the defense
of the Republic against its traitor enemies. "Something is going to pop," wrote Johannes,
American fashion. "Der alte Herr is terrified at the prospect of having the Osthilfe affair
discussed in the Reichstag. Schleicher is considering with the labor unions the idea of refusing
to resign and holding on with their backing. I am told that the Catholics have assented, but the
Socialists are afraid it wouldn't be legal. What do you think?" Lanny knew that his old friend
was teasing him, and didn't offer any opinion on German constitutional law.
Johannes didn't say what he himself was doing in this crisis, but Lanny guessed that he was
following his program of keeping friendly with all sides. Certainly he possessed an extraordinary
knowledge of the intrigues. Now and then Lanny would call him on the long distance
telephone, a plaything of the very rich, and Johannes would speak a sort of camouflage. He
would say: "My friend Franzchen wants to be top dog, but so does his friend the publisher, and
their schemes will probably fall through because they can't agree." Lanny understood that this
meant Papen and Hugenberg; and when Johannes added: "They may harness up the Wild
Man and get together to drive him," Lanny had no trouble guessing about that. Presently
Johannes said: "They are telling the Old Gent that the General is plotting a coup d'etat against
him." It was like reading a blood and thunder novel in instalments, and having to wait for the
next issue. Would the rescue party arrive in time?
IV
On the thirtieth of January the news went out to a startled world that President von
Hindenburg had appointed Adolf Hitler Chancellor of the German Republic. Even the Nazis
were taken by surprise; they hadn't been invited to the intrigues, and couldn't imagine by what
magic it had been brought about that their Führer's enemies suddenly put him into office. Franz
von Papen was Vice-Chancellor, and Hugenberg was in the Cabinet; in all there were nine
reactionaries against three Nazis, and what could that mean? The newspapers outside
Germany were certain that it meant the surrender of Hitler; he was going to be controlled,
he was going to be another Ramsay MacDonald. They chose not to heed the proclamation
which the Führer himself issued, telling his followers that the struggle was only beginning. But
the Stormtroopers heeded, and turned out, exultant, parading with torchlights through Unter
den Linden; seven hundred thousand persons marched past the Chancellery, with Hindenburg
greeting them from one window and Hitler from another. The Communist call for a general
strike went unheeded.
So it had come: the thing which Lanny had been fearing for the past three or four years. The
Nazis had got Germany! Most of his friends had thought it unlikely; and now that it had
happened, they preferred to believe that it hadn't. Hitler wasn't really in power, they said,
and could last but a week or two. The German people had too much sense, the governing
classes were too able and well trained; they would tone the fanatic down, and the soup would
be eaten cool.
But Adolf Hitler had got, and Adolf Hitler would keep, the power which was most
important to him—that of propaganda. He was executive head of the German government, and
whatever manifesto he chose to issue took the front page of all the newspapers. Hermann
Goring was Prussian Minister of the Interior and could say to the world over the radio: "Bread
and work for our countrymen, freedom and honor for the nation!" Dwarfish little Jupp
Goebbels, President of the Propaganda Committee of the Party, found himself Minister of
Propaganda and Popular Enlightenment of the German Republic. The Nazi movement had been
made out of propaganda, and now it would cover Germany like an explosion.
Hitler refused to make any concessions to the other parties, and thus forced Hindenburg to
dissolve the Reichstag and order a new election. This meant that for a month the country
would be in the turmoil of a campaign. But what a different campaign! No trouble about lack
of funds, because Hitler had the funds of the nation, and his tirades were state documents.
Goebbels could say anything he pleased about his enemies and suppress their replies. Goring,
having control of the Berlin police, could throw his political opponents into jail and nobody
could even find out where they were. These were the things of which Adi Schicklgruber had
been dreaming ever since the end of the World War; and where else but in the Arabian Nights
had it happened that a man awoke and found such dreams come true?
V
Lanny Budd lived externally the life of a young man of fashion. He accompanied his wife to
various functions, and when she entertained he played the host with dignity. Having been
married nearly four years, he was entitled to enjoy mild flirtations with various charming
ladies of society; they expected it, and his good looks and conversation gave him reason to
expect success. But instead, he would pick out some diplomat or man of affairs and disappear
into the library to discuss the problems of Europe. These gentlemen were impressed by a
young man's wide range of knowledge, but they thought he was unduly anxious concerning
this new movement of Nazism; they had learned what a French revolution was, and a Russian
one, but had difficulty in recognizing a revolution that happened in small instalments and under
ingenious camouflage. Hardly a man of wealth and importance in France who didn't accept
Nazism as a business man's answer to Bolshevism. When they read in the papers that
Communists were being shot pretty freely throughout Germany, they shrugged their French
shoulders and said: "Eh, Men? Do the Reds complain of illegality?"
Lanny ran up a large telephone bill calling his friends in Berlin. It was his one form of
dissipation, and Irma learned to share it; she would take the wire when he got through and
ask Rahel about the baby, or Mama about anything—for Mama's Yiddish-English was as
delightful as a vaudeville turn. Lanny was worried about the safety of his friends, but
Johannes said: "Nu, nu! Don't bother your head. I have assurances that I cannot tell you
about. I wear the Tarnhelm."
He would retail the latest smart trick of those Nazis, whose cleverness and efficiency he
couldn't help admiring. "No, they will not outlaw the Communist party, because if they did,
the vote would go to the Sozis, and there would be the same old deadlock in the Reichstag. But
if they let the Communist deputies be elected, and then exclude them from their seats, the
Nazis may have a majority of what is left! What is it that you say about skinning a cat? There
are nine ways of doing it?"
How long would a Jew, even the richest, be allowed to tell the inmost secrets of the Führer
over the telephone to Paris? Lanny wondered about that, and he wondered about the magic
cap which Johannes thought he was wearing. Might he not be fooling himself, like so many
other persons who put their trust in political adventurers? Who was there among the Nazi
powers who had any respect for a Jew, or would keep faith with one for a moment after it
suited his purpose? To go to a rich Schieber to beg money for a struggling outcast party was
one thing; but to pay the debt when you had got the powers of the state into your hands—that
was something else again, as the Jews said in New York.
Lanny worried especially about Hansi, who was not merely of the hated race, but of the hated
party, and had proclaimed it from public platforms. The Nazi press had made note of him;
they had called him a tenth-rate fiddler who couldn't even play in tune. Would they permit
him to go on playing out of tune at Red meetings? The Stormtroopers were now turned loose
to wreak their will upon the Reds, and how long would it be before some ardent young patriot
would take it into his head to stop this Jewish swine from profaning German music?
