Chameleon

One

Berlin
1st November, 1926

The little man was under no illusion; this was not going to be a walk in the park. Berlin wasn’t Munich. Munich had been a bubbling cauldron of political extremists since the end of the war. Berlin was a hotbed of Communists and turning Bolsheviks to National Socialism was a daunting prospect that sent shivers down his spine.
It was a big responsibility the Führer had entrusted him with. Failure was not an option. If he failed here, he would never be given a second chance to prove himself.
Carrot and stick, he told himself as his train pulled under the great glass arches of the Anhalter, and as they crawled into the Hauptbahnhof, another train rolled out and a burst of steam momentarily fogged the view.
His appointment wasn’t popular with the party high-ups from the Berlin chapter, or indeed in Munich, but the Führer had made up his mind, and had given him sweeping powers over the SA and SS and the appointments of their commanders.
He was filled with both trepidation and excitement. He knew that if the Party was going to survive and fully enter the national political arena from the slippery fringes of the political flux, in any meaningful way, Berlin needed to turned from red to Brown.
Not only would they have to conquer Berlin and its Red heart; they would have to woo the bourgeoisie with kid gloves and a lot of sweet talk. It might take a few years, but he was sure he could do it and the Führer will enter Berlin with garlands of flowers instead of walls of lead. The great capital, one of the greatest capitals of the world was a cherry he intended to ripen through means of revolution, negotiation, unrelenting assaults on the Bolsheviks and carefully formulated propaganda.
The Jewish backed Bolsheviks were the true enemy. Not big business and industry, they, he recognised, had to be made their allies and supporters. Without them, the Party will only have limited appeal. They didn’t need a dozen seats in the Reichstag, they needed hundreds of seats, they needed to dominate national politics, not fractious regional protest votes, but grass roots loyalty. The Party needed to be the guiding light of the entire nation and nothing less would do. To make the dream a reality, they needed money and lots of it.
He stepped off the train into a drift of steam from the locomotive, infused with the bright winter sunshine falling through the great glass and iron roof in steam infused shards of light.
Even the air had a different smell, he thought as he took in a deep breath.
A mild looking man wearing a grey suit approached him. ‘Herr Doktor Goebbels?’
Jo turned to the speaker. The man was smiling pleasantly at him.
‘Hans Steiger.’ He proffered his hand. ‘Welcome to Berlin, Herr Doktor.’
Goebbels looked down at the proffered hand as if it were a squid’s tentacle. Finally, he shook Steiger’s hand. ‘Good morning, Herr Steiger.’
‘A pleasant journey I hope?’
It had been an indifferent journey, thus, it deserved an indifferent response conveyed by an indifferent look instead of a reply.
‘I have a taxi waiting, Herr Doktor.’ Steiger reached for Goebbels’s suitcases and lifted them.
‘I wasn’t expecting to be met.’
‘Oh? I couldn’t allow that, Herr Doktor. No, no…’ He gestured. ‘Please, it’s this way, Herr Doktor.’
They joined the line of disembarking passengers, shuffling towards the ticket barrier.
Steiger wondered what the hell was in those cases, they weighed a ton. ‘I have a boarding house,’ he said. ‘I’ve had the best room made ready for you.’
‘Thank you,’ said Jo. ‘It’ll be a temporary measure.’

*

‘Well. Here we are, my boy,’ said Papa Kaufmann as they alighted the taxicab.
Kurt felt like he had a nest of bees in his belly, flying and buzzing around inside him as the anxiety of saying goodbye to the people he loved crept up on him. He always felt like this when he was going back to gymnasium. He had only been back four days, for Aunt Hesta’s funeral. It had been very sudden and unexpected. Aunt Hesta was only 43 after all. St. Hedwig’s granted him leave to attend the funeral.
Dagma had walked to the bahnhof from the mietskaserne with baby Peter in his perambulator. She hugged her little brother, though not so little any more. Just 15 and he was already taller than she was. Oh, and so handsome too, if she did think so herself.
‘There’s really no need for all of this,’ he said. ‘I can see my own way from here. You know how I hate goodbyes.’ He looked at his sister; dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief, still grieving for Aunt Hesta. Now it was just Kurt, Dagma and the baby and there the bloodline ended.
Kurt felt like a little kid who couldn’t look after himself and he couldn’t wait to get away from them and onto the train. He was 15 – a man in his own opinion, if not theirs.
‘We’ll just see you inside,’ said Papa Kaufmann. Mama Kaufmann smiled maternally at him; her eyes watery with tears.
Why do these Auf Wiedersehens always feel like a departure to the afterlife? Kurt asked himself. Dagma had always been the emotional and melodramatic type. The Kaufmanns were far more reserved than to give way to public displays of emotion. The old Generalmajor was the archetypal Prussian officer, stiff and precise. ‘I’ll be home in a few weeks for Christmas,’ he said, trying to soothe his sister.
Mama Kaufmann took Dagma’s hand in hers with remarkable patience. ‘There, there, Dagma. You mustn’t take on so.’
Papa Kaufmann walked ahead of them, or rather marched with Kurt, to impart a few wise words of fatherly advice as he always did.
Had it not been for the Kaufmanns, Kurt would have been put in an orphanage and God knows what would have become of Dagma. They had been the kindest and most generous and selfless people in the entire world, from Dagma’s perspective; and they had taken to Kurt from the day they met him as a small boy whose heart was filled with sadness for the loss of his parents, in the space of just two years. They had welcomed Kurt and Dagma into their lives and cherished them both.
And now here Kurt was, a gymnasium boy, having the finest education at one of the country’s finest gymnasiums. The Kaufmanns had made it all possible.
It was busy in the huge expanse of the Anhalter, it was always busy, the broad concourse a bustling hive of pedestrians, commuters and travellers, hurrying purposefully to their destinations. Kurt’s heart raced along with them, feeling the pull of movement and purpose. He felt like a wild horse fettered to a tree, wanting to gallop away.
Mama Kaufmann framed Kurt’s face in her gentle hands and gave him a kiss on each cheek and tucked thirty marks secretly into his hand so Papa Kaufmann and Dagma didn’t see, just as she always did.
‘No, Mama Kaufmann. I can’t. I have enough. You gave me money after the Summer holiday.’
‘You might need new shoes,’ she said, adding. ‘Our little secret.’
Papa Kaufmann gave him a hug and some more wise words of that he didn’t really listen to, when maybe, in later years, he’d wish he had. ‘There is a difference between being a young man and a young gentleman, Kurt. You must forever strive to be a gentleman. Especially if you hope to become an officer of the Reichswehr. And you are as fine a young gentleman as ever I’ve met, my dear boy.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ It was all Kurt ever wanted, to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a soldier, and in Papa Kaufmann’s to become an officer and nothing would make the old major prouder; and Kurt would be the first officer in the Eichhorn family, just as he was the first to go to gymnasium.
‘You must concentrate on your studies, Kurt. Be fastidious and mindful and conscientious. Now, more than ever, because you’re no longer a child, but a young gentleman. Good marks, good conduct and a good character. That’s the ticket, my dear boy. That’s the key.’ He patted Kurt on the shoulder.
Kurt nodded his head and smiled. ‘I will make you proud, Papa Kaufmann.’
‘Bda. I’m already proud of you.’ He proffered his hand. Gentlemen always shake hands. He pressed sixty marks into Kurt’s palm. ‘For your books, you understand. For your learning, not for cheap schnapps and misadventures with country fräuleins…’
Kurt went red in the face and smiled.
‘Oh yes, I was your age once.’ He gave Kurt a knowing smile.
‘Yes, sir. And I’ll write every week as I always do. To you all.’ He hugged Dagma and kissed baby Peter, then, without any further dallying, he picked up his suitcase and hurried away, into the bahnhof, before he started crying too, and he felt like crying. It was as if his heart was being squeezed by a big invisible hand. These goodbyes were so difficult and they never got any easier.
As Kurt hurried across the concourse towards the platforms, he ran slap into a short gentleman who was walking, or rather stalking briskly across the concourse; albeit with a limp he was trying his best to hide. A man following behind, carrying two heavy suitcases looked horrified and was about to give the clumsy boy a piece of his mind.
‘Excuse me, sir. I’m very sorry,’ said Kurt apologetically as he shuffled to one side with his suitcase.
Jo gave the boy a vague smile. ‘No harm done.’ He hurried on without further ado.

*

Boris kept his distance from Dr Goebbels; he was wearing civilian clothes, looking like an office worker, blending into the crowd as he followed the little limping man outside into the cold bright sunshine.
Dr Goebbels and Steiger got into a waiting taxicab and drove off into Berlin traffic.
Boris loped to his own waiting car, where Leutnant Spellmeyer, who, like Boris, was wearing civilian clothes, was sat behind the steering wheel, a cigarette between his fingers. Boris got into the passenger seat next to him. ‘Follow them.’
Spellmeyer pulled out slowly and as he did, Boris spotted a familiar face. Generalmajor Kaufmann and his wife coming out of the bahnhof with a young woman pushing a baby carriage. ‘Huh. Small world,’ he mumbled as they drove past.
Spellmeyer glanced at him. ‘Herr Hauptmann?’
‘Nothing. I just saw someone I knew during the war, that’s all.’
The Berlin headquarters of the NSDAP in the basement of Potsdamer Strasse 109, was more like a dungeon. Dark, damp and unkempt; the smell of stale sweat, tobacco and beer seemed to linger like a bierkeller at midnight and Jo was far from impressed.
There were three men in the office, apparently waiting for Goebbels.
Jo was acquainted with them all. The bespectacled business manager Franz Gumshield, Deputy Gauleiter Erich Schmiedicke, and the Party treasurer Rudolf Rehm. Jo knew that Rehm and Schmiedicke had both opposed his appointment, and Rehm was furious about the amount Jo was being paid from Party funds. But he wasn’t here to endear himself or to make friends, he was here to drag the Berlin branch of the NSDAP into limelight.
It was dark, untidy and there was barely room to swing a mouse, never mind a cat.
‘We call it the opium den,’ Steiger joked.
Jo found nothing even slightly amusing. First impressions matter, and anybody coming in off the street, would be just as likely to turn right back around again as soon as they stepped into the place. That’s what Jo felt like doing.
He didn’t speak; he just looked disdainfully around the room.
Schmiedicke and Rehm exchanged looks with one another.
There was a couple of battered old desks that were covered in ink stains, and burn marks from cigarettes that had been placed to rest on the edges instead in ashtrays. An ancient typewriter sat on one desk, and a couple of old chairs fit for nothing but the fire, and there were half a dozen empty beer bottles on the other desk.
No, no, this will never do. He looked at Steiger and the others. ‘This place is like a toilet down here. Get the it cleaned up and get rid of those beer bottles. This is unsatisfactory, gentlemen. Very unsatisfactory. No. it won’t do. It won’t do at all. This is the face of the National Socialist German Workers Party, not a dosshouse. And it stinks of unwashed armpits and God knows what else. It’s revolting.’
‘It’s all we can afford, Herr Doktor,’ said Rehm.
Goebbels turned a dismissive look on him. ‘I want the membership list, financial records and details of our donors and fundraising activities. Bring me everything. It seems to me that there’s a lot of dead wood around here. And dead wood’s no good for anyone. Bring everything you have on the local Communist leaders too; their meeting places, their homes, their Arian or no-Arian status and the neighbourhoods they dominate.’
‘Of course, Gauleiter,’ said Schmiedicke. ‘May I ask; what is the intention?’
‘The intention, Erich, is to make an impact that will mark our determination. This is serious politics now. National politics. We are going to let Berlin know that we are the blood enemies of Bolsheviks and Bolshevism. It’s time for the people of Berlin to decide whose side they’re on. Germany’s?’ He looked at them in turn. ‘Or Zionist Russia’s? I want to meet all our big donors, and wealthy individuals, industrialists, bankers and the like, who might be swayed to supporting the Party. But first, make this place presentable, and start looking for better premises. Somewhere we can be seen that will give the right impression.’
Outside, Boris and Spellmeyer sat in the car, shivering in their overcoats, watching the building long enough to smoke a couple of cigarettes.
‘Alright, Leutnant, I’ve seen enough. Let’s go back to the office and do some real work.’
Spellmeyer didn’t need telling twice.