Last Stop Vienna Read online

  “I’ll be with you in a moment,” she said to me. “Frau Schmidt, please bring Claudia in here.”

  Uwe grinned as the nurse turned around and led the mother and child into the other room. “Not bad, huh? Bet you didn’t have girls like that in Berlin.”

  Before I could think of what to say, the nurse was back. “Yes,” she said, looking our way. “What can I do for you?”

  Uwe was immediately at her desk. “You can do something for my friend,” he said, jerking his thumb in my direction. “His ankle seems to be in pretty bad shape. As for me, I don’t need anything special—except maybe to know when you get off work.”

  “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” she replied brusquely. “As for your friend, the doctor will take a look at him as soon as he has time to. He’ll have to wait for these other patients to finish first.”

  Uwe shrugged. Turning to me, he said, “Guess you’re on your own, Karl. You know how to get back.”

  I waited, embarrassed by Uwe’s behavior and trying hard not to stare at the nurse as she walked in and out of the room.

  Finally, she told me to come inside. “Do you need the crutches?” she asked.

  “No, I’ll make it,” I insisted.

  I hopped across to the desk and supported myself, then hopped into the doctor’s office behind her. He was a short, compact man with a broad mustache that curled up at the edges.

  “Looks like you didn’t do too well last night,” he said, glancing at my black eye and smiling slightly. “Who started it this time? I’m sure it was the other guys. Always is.”

  I began mumbling a reply, and he cut me off. “It doesn’t matter. I think this whole town is going crazy with all these fights. Doesn’t anyone just talk anymore?” He didn’t pause for an answer. “So show me the foot.”

  He examined it, prodding gently but still making me squirm. “I’m sure it hurts,” he said, “but it doesn’t look like anything’s broken. Only a bad sprain. I’ll wrap it up, and you’ll have to watch it. Be careful; especially when it begins to feel better, don’t go too fast. You’ve badly sprained those tendons, and they’ll take some time to heal. No more rowdy stuff, at least until this heals, you understand?”

  “Yes,” I said meekly.

  “God, if it were that easy to make all of you behave. Maybe we’d then be able to get this country back on its feet again.” He laughed bitterly as he finished wrapping my foot tightly with a long strip of white cloth. “All right, Sabine, make sure this young hero makes it to the door.”

  I hopped behind her, but as we made it to the waiting room, I stumbled. She turned and grabbed me under my arms. As she steadied me, we were face-to-face, her arms still under mine and holding my shoulders. She blushed first, but I’m sure I was even redder. She stepped back quickly.

  “You really do have to be careful,” she said, not looking in my eyes. She reached for my crutches and handed them to me.

  “Thanks,” I said, failing to think of something more to say.

  As I shuffled to the outside door, she held it open. This time she looked straight at me. “If it hurts, come back in a few days. If it doesn’t, well, you can come back anyway.” She averted her gaze and added: “Four is a good time, because I finish work then.”

  She turned away and returned to the desk, busying herself with some papers. I think I said something like “I’d like that” before going out, but afterward I wasn’t sure whether it was to her or just in my own mind.

  Chapter Three

  Hitler ordered a large escort of SA men to accompany him to Coburg, a town about two hundred kilometers due north of Munich that had recently been incorporated into Bavaria. The organization was truly splendid. For the first time, a special train was put at our disposal, and those of us who boarded it in Munich were soon augmented by additional companies of SA troops who were picked up at stops along the way. In each case, the troops marched to the train in their smart uniforms, proudly carrying the flags bearing the bold black swastika set against a red background. I felt our gathering strength, and I was convinced the local townspeople couldn’t help but be impressed. By the time we reached Coburg, our ranks had swelled to fourteen companies, or eight hundred men.

  The occasion was a “German Day” organized by the town. Hitler had received an invitation from some of the völkisch parties of the right, but the town was dominated by leftists—trade union leaders and communists, he told us. During our train ride, he explained that those groups had effectively terrorized the town for the last couple of years, not allowing other voices to be heard. “Our duty is to break the terror and to guarantee freedom of assembly,” he said.

  To illustrate his point, he told us the reds on the organizing committee had demanded that the SA, if it were to serve as his escort, be as unobtrusive as possible. “Can you imagine they ordered me—yes, ordered—to make all of you keep your flags furled and not to play any music. I laughed in their faces. And you know what we’ll do as soon as we arrive? We’ll march sharply into town, our flags waving and the music playing. Just let them try to stop us.”

  That’s what we defiantly did, and I felt as proud and inspired as any of my fellow troopers. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of angry reds were out on the streets to jeer us. “Murderers!” “Criminals!” they called out.

  We ignored them as we marched into town behind a nervous group of local policemen. We made it to the center without any major incident, but when we turned toward our accommodations, a shooting range on the outskirts of the town, the mob switched from hurling abuse to hurling stones. When the order came, we moved swiftly, lashing back at our attackers with such organized ferocity that they were dispersed within minutes.

  Our triumph was short-lived, however. In the evening, I stayed in our temporary quarters playing cards, but some men decided to walk around town, thinking it was largely pacified. Several of them were caught by larger groups of reds who pummeled them mercilessly, and they came back badly battered. I was furious, determined to exact revenge if I was confronted the next day. It was a sentiment we all shared that night as we dropped off to sleep.

  In the morning, Hitler came carrying the local newspaper and pamphlets. They denounced our “war of extermination against the peaceful workers of Coburg” and called for “a great demonstration of the people” to prove that the town would not be “terrorized.” Hitler waved the papers. “You see the kind of Marxist-Jewish slander we are subjected to?” he shouted. Then, dropping his voice so we had to strain to hear him, he declared: “They won’t get away with this. Your duty is to make them understand that, using whatever means necessary.”

  Our ranks had swelled to nearly fifteen hundred men, as more SA reinforcements had arrived during the night and early morning. When we marched to the main square where the reds were to stage their demonstration, we formed an imposing force. Our message was simple: strength, strength, strength. It had clearly registered. Instead of facing thousands of reds, as we had been led to expect, we saw only a few hundred opponents. We could see the fear in their eyes. A few, probably outside reinforcements who had missed the previous day’s fighting, were bold enough to taunt us. But as soon as we swung into action, most took to their heels. I got in only one or two swipes. Compared to some of our earlier battles, the finale was almost nothing.

  As we marched back toward the train station that evening, some of the locals cheered us for the first time. “You did well, men,” Hitler told us on the train. “We liberated Coburg from the reds.”

  It was a victory that increased our fame. More recruits joined our ranks: from a small band, we were gradually growing into a true army. I felt that I was making up for the experiences I had missed out on during the war. And as one of the early recruits, I already felt a special pride in my ability to welcome the newcomers. No one questioned my credentials anymore.

  —

  My ankle had healed, and I decided to meet Sabine as she got off work. To tell the truth, I had decided that right away and planned the
meeting in my head over and over. The problem was that I didn’t know whether she had meant the invitation seriously and if she remembered it. And beyond meeting her, I wasn’t sure what to do. Should I invite her to a café? Certainly not to the kind of beer halls where I normally went with my buddies. And what would it cost to treat her to anything?

  With the price of a beer now counted in millions of increasingly worthless marks, I was hardly in the position to afford much of anything. We were paid a small wage in the SA, never enough to keep up with the raging pace of inflation. It was as if your marks shrank every moment they were in your pocket or under your mattress. Hitler was right: Our enemies were intent on not only proving that they had won the war but also on destroying and humiliating us. Here I was worrying whether I could invite a girl for a cup of coffee. The demands for reparations, particularly by France, kept growing more and more outrageous.

  I was standing in front of Sabine’s office at four o’clock in the afternoon. Actually, I had arrived almost a half hour earlier and then walked up and down the street, not daring to go too far for fear of missing her. I wanted to seem like I was there by chance, especially if she looked surprised—or annoyed—when she saw me. In that case, I’d nod hello and keep going. No humiliation, purely an accidental meeting, was the way I’d play it. But if she seemed the least bit pleased, I’d invite her to a café, no matter what it cost.

  The problem was that no Sabine emerged from the two-story house. I thought she may have been sick, and I came back the next day for another hour or so of nervous pacing. Again she never showed. The same thing happened on the third and fourth days. I suppose I could have gone to the doctor’s office to ask about her, but I didn’t have the nerve. The thought occurred to me that I could go in and ask the doctor to check my ankle again, but I quickly rejected it as too transparent a ploy. Maybe she had deliberately lied about her schedule. She probably had.

  Angry and full of self-pity, I walked in circles near her office. I hadn’t imagined it, I told myself. She clearly had said to stop by around four. Was this some kind of joke or a brush-off?

  I looked at my watch for the umpteenth time. It was five-ten. All right, I told myself, I’ll make the loop around her office this final time. After that, I’ll never set foot on this street again.

  The door to the doctor’s office opened, but it was only a man with a bandaged head. I squeezed my right fist and, angry with myself and her, punched it into my left hand before I turned around to retrace my steps to the barracks. I put my head down and began walking at a brisk pace, seeing nothing of my surroundings.

  “Good evening, Herr Patient, I see you’re not limping anymore.”

  Startled, I looked up at the woman I had almost passed. Dressed in a plain brown coat, Sabine looked even prettier than I remembered her.

  I guess I didn’t say anything at first, because she laughed. Then she looked at me more closely and turned serious. “Why the glum look? Is something the matter?”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “Are you angry with me?”

  “I’ve been walking around your office like an idiot for a week,” I blurted out. “I mean, I stopped by a few times and never saw you.”

  She smiled. “You did? I thought you had forgotten about me.”

  “No, no. But why weren’t you ever there at four o’clock?”

  “The doctor changed my hours. I come in later and don’t get out till five now. I thought of letting you know . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “And?”

  She colored. “How was I supposed to do that? I didn’t even know whether you wanted to come see me. Besides, you live in some barracks, with all those men like the one who brought you to the office that day. He’s not exactly my type, you know.”

  “You mean you didn’t tell me the wrong time on purpose?”

  She laughed, pretending to feel my temperature by placing her hand lightly on my forehead for a moment. “Are you still sick? Besides, why didn’t you just come in and ask for me?”

  I shrugged, trying to mask the excitement that her brief touch had sent through me.

  “Well, what now?” she added.

  “Would you like to go to a café?”

  “Would I?” She crumpled her mouth into an intense frown, as if carefully weighing her answer, but her eyes were still laughing. “Of course I would.”

  —

  I hadn’t known what to think about Hitler at first. There was something strange, even unsettling, about a man who was so mercurial—perfectly calm one moment and ready to explode from the emotions churning within him the next. But when he talked about all the guilty parties—the reds, the Jews, the cowards—who had betrayed Germany and allowed its enemies to defeat it, I couldn’t help but feel moved. Here was the explanation for all the troubles so manifestly around us; here was the reason why the deaths of my father and brother had contributed not to a glorious victory but to Germany’s humiliation.

  It wasn’t just Hitler’s message that was convincing; above all, it was the way he delivered it. He increased his number of political meetings, and more often than not, our presence began to guarantee order without force, which meant I could watch him more. Initially, I found his behavior downright bizarre and the dyspeptic rhythm of his speeches unnerving. Looking back at those days, I now think I should have trusted my early discomfort, not allowing myself to gradually fall under his spell, at least when he was rallying his supporters.

  But I was mesmerized, simply astounded by the physical effort that went into his speeches. He would sound calm at first, speaking so softly but intensely that his audience would lean forward in hushed attention. His voice would begin to rise, the accusations would grow angrier and angrier, and he would reach a crescendo by invoking his vision of a powerful, proud Germany for the Germans, which would no longer accept the humiliating conditions of a defeat engineered by treacherous politicians. By then the applause would be enormous, the hall electrified. I watched older women become enraptured to the point where they were aroused in a way they probably hadn’t been for years, carried away by his words to near ecstasy. None of us who watched him elicit those responses again and again could remain unmoved.

  In the course of his speeches, Hitler would down bottle after bottle of mineral water. They were small bottles, but I was taken aback by how many he could consume. Most people didn’t notice, since they were focused on his speech. As someone who was there so often, I began to pay attention to such details. Usually, he drank at least a dozen, and once I counted twenty empty bottles after he spoke. In the summer, he’d sometimes keep a piece of ice on the rostrum to cool his hands. In any weather, his shirt was soaked through with sweat by the middle of his performance; by the end, it was dripping. Afterward he would rush off to bathe and change before rejoining the meeting. This was a man who gave his all, without fail, on every occasion, before every audience. I admit that I found that impressive.

  So did many who came out of curiosity and left converts. He knew how to draw them in. I may not have understood his methods, but I could feel their impact. And now, after I’ve had the time to read in prison, I’ve developed a bit of understanding as well.

  Take the question of timing. I finally read Mein Kampf, which he wrote during his own days in prison. He explained why he held almost all his meetings in the evening rather than during the day. He pointed out something I never thought about: how a play or a movie always seems better when you see it at night. People find it easier to absorb something new, and to submerge themselves in another world, in the evening. “In the morning and even during the day people’s will power seems to struggle with the greatest energy against an attempt to force upon them a strange will and a strange opinion. At night, however, they succumb more easily to the dominating force of a stronger will.”

  —

  From a tiny fringe party, the Nazis were growing into a movement in Bavaria. The leftist press angrily denounced Hitler, claiming he was a threat to everyone and
everything, and printed scurrilous rumors. This made people curious about him, bringing more potential recruits to his meetings. Even the titles of his speeches—“The Future or Doom” was one frequent billing—aroused controversy, and he knew how to turn every bit of attention to his advantage.

  One day I was ordered to deliver a letter from my SA commander to Hitler. I had to look up the address I was given, Thierschstrasse 41, on the city map. After making my way down past the English Gardens, I reached Maximilianstrasse, one of the most affluent streets in the city, and turned left to Maximilianplatz. At the proud statue of Maximilian II, I turned right on Thierschstrasse, a less imposing street with a tramline running down the middle. Just past a pharmacy whose window offered a huge array of brown bottles, I found number 41. The ocher-colored building featured windows with elegantly carved decorative peaks. Between two windows on the first floor, where Hitler lived, a statue of the Virgin was mounted in a recess. With her hands crossed, Mary gazed upward in prayer.

  I was nervous pushing open the building’s main door. I had seen Hitler often enough, but until then only as part of a larger force. He had never had reason to single me out, and I assumed he wouldn’t recognize me. Besides, I was entering his private world. I had heard he spent much of his free time in the mountains, in Obersalzberg, but this was his home when he was in Munich.

  In the downstairs hallway, I noticed the usual wooden mailboxes on the wall and several bicycles parked along the walls. To the left was a long wooden stairway with a wooden banister held up by wrought-iron bars. The stairs creaked as I marched up to the door on the first landing. To its right was another bas-relief, featuring some saint I couldn’t recognize blessing a woman. After a moment’s hesitation, I knocked.

  A middle-aged woman opened the door, the landlady, as I later learned. “Herr Hitler, he’s over there,” she said, pointing to the second door on the left. A slightly disheveled Hitler was already opening it. His hair was poking out at odd angles, and he wore only a loose shirt hanging out over his pants. I saluted. “A letter from Captain Wulff,” I reported.