Wolf and Geli

Wolf and Geli

Chapter One

The Hall of the Mountain Troll

The trees were dappled with sunlight  that morning in the Alexander Platz, while columns of majestic clouds paraded past, serene and untouchable. Among the leaves, sparrows screeched their insistent territorial claims. We students milled about in our regalia; the 1928 class of  Preussische Kochende Schule, the state cooking school, was about to graduate.  My uncle, Fulop Freudigger, professor and pastry meister bustled past, cheeks quivering in agitation, the lap of his ample robe dusted with powdered sugar. Fulop would not be denied his breakfast, no matter what contractual obligations he faced. Right now he faced the obligation of imposing order on a procession of over-excited and self-congratulatory ex-students, who had endured sweat-soaked years of hellish kitchen duty for, it seemed, most of our lives.

Fulop was my mother’s brother, and a magician. He could turn flour, sugar, and eggs into the lightest, most mouthwatering creations ever eaten. His soft, pasty fingers could coax and mold the most recalcitrant dough into loaves of bread that were beautiful and fragrant, that made one think of wheatfields, rivers, and dark forests. Men, stern men, after eating his strudel, had broken down and cried with happiness.

On the death of my father at Ypers, Fulop had taken a benevolent interest in my progress. So benevolent, in fact, that he had offered to put up the funds necessary for me to open a little bistro out by the lake, which, with the current economic upsurge, could only prosper.

He paused as he hurried past. “Franz,” he said, “Your mother’s here.” I hadn’t spotted her anywhere, but it was typical of Fulop that he would keep track of things like this. He was the one that remembered everyone’s birthday, that could be counted on to bring flowers, that carried the addresses of the entire family in his head. Childless himself, he was the father every child wished for.

We had already begun to move toward the steps of the auditorium when a truck with a broken muffler out on Berlinerstrasse ruffled the morning air. No one took any notice. In Berlin, we had all been subjected to much worse. The birds fell silent, though, and something slashed through the leaves above our heads; Pockets of dust puffed from the stone façade of the building. It appeared that the truck with a broken muffler was really a truck with a machine gun mounted on the roof. We could hear shouting now. Uncle Professor Freudigger paused with a hand on my shoulder. “Do not concern yourselves,” he called, “it’s just the usual—” Then the side of his head vanished and I was looking into the eyes of a dead man.



For as long as I could remember, the entire city of Berlin had been the scene of deadly clashes between bands of communist rowdies who wanted revolution, and those who favored a more traditional response to Germany’s problems, and felt the Bolsheviks only wanted to cause trouble. Every day the papers printed the death list, usually thirty or forty casualties. The better papers took pains to inform their readers on which side the deceased had stood. This was enlightening, and it was not unpleasant to contemplate the steady decimation in the ranks of the reds. Usually any confrontation would result in a heavy butcher’s bill for the communists. Of course in a city as large and important as Berlin, the common-sense response was to get on with one’s life as if nothing were happening, and we all did our best. Unfortunately, however, we had held our commencement on a street adjacent to a communist demonstration.



Tin benders and sanitation workers, Uncle Fulop had called them, and indeed, there was something a bit unsavory about the communists. A tendency to confuse their own wants and needs with those of the general populace. The attitude that the whole edifice of civilization needed to be destroyed to cure some trifling problem in the workplace.

Perhaps tin benders and sanitation workers didn’t get the respect they deserved, but after all, no one forced them to become tin benders and sanitation workers. Anyway, they were all Jews.



“You need to get out of here. Berlin is a cesspit,” my friend Siggy told me.

“And with Fulop gone, who will take care of my mother in this cesspit?”

“A fat lot of good you’ll do her with your cooking school diploma. What? Can you help her when you’re making salads at the Rathskeller?”

Siggy could speak with great assurance.  He considered himself an artist, and had been to school for it. His work had been much praised, which probably ruined him for life, though I had to admit I did not understand the first thing about his creations.

“Good,” he told me, “any work of art you can understand has been done by a hack.” He had great disdain for the more traditional art forms. Except he liked to pretend he supported himself by selling cartoons to the more liberal newspapers. In truth, the real money came from his father’s clothing store. 

The cartoons were only to get him noticed. He was a real artist. Siggy even had a letter from the American surrealist, Man Ray. He’d showed it to me. A very polite letter, I thought, though somewhat lacking in warmth. Man Ray advised Siggy to ‘keep working’. The letter, along with an old shoebox festooned with discarded fishnet, with old postcards and a watch face pasted inside, were his most cherished possessions.

Siggy was the most intelligent person I knew, though somewhat misguided. He was half-Jewish, and believed in nothing. Which is not to say he didn’t believe in anything, he had a great deal of belief, in nothing. Or, more specifically, in nothingness. Other of my friends, unaware of his antecedents, thought him a bit, or more than a bit, warped. He had crossed that trackless desert between believing there were answers that someone might know, and believing there were no answers.

You’re not a Berliner,” he told me. I’ve known you all your life, and you just don’t have the cynicism.”

“Are you saying I’m naive? How can I be naïve?”

“Oh, you know what’s what, all right, you just can’t admit it to yourself. You should go to Paris or New York, one of those cities where people go to try and learn about themselves.”

“You seem to have no lack of cynicism.”

“I could lend you some. It’s a terrible burden, though.”

In the end, I did not travel to Paris or Rome. I was needed at home. Should I leave my mother while I went off to learn cynicism? I worked a small job, making, not salads, but little cakes in a confectioners in an old house on Uhlandstrasse.



Meanwhile, summer became fall, as it is wont to do. There was plenty to keep you entertained in Berlin in those years if you had money, and if you had none, there was the war with the Reds. A little disputation worked out in the streets rather than the conference room. Completely unofficial and officially illegal, anyone was welcome to participate. If you had enough gumption to get up on your hind legs, you carried a gun, otherwise, sticks, bricks, and broken bottles were fine. Along with the casualty lists in the papers, there was inevitably a sidebar about the innocent civilian who had been killed by the stray bullet, just as my uncle had been. Everything had its cost.

Trouble was, there was no room for compromise. Everything was skin and bone. There was no margin of fat that in former days had accommodated the inefficient. So when workers began to hear the lies that took the simple truth and twisted it into a misbegotten knot, they began to think about improving their own condition, which generally meant doing as little work as possible. It meant the end of things.

There had been a time, within living memory, when one could succeed with simple drive. Now all that was gone. Wiped away by the poisonous peace treaty at Versailles. Wiped away by traitors who had ended the war at that moment when we had bled ourselves dry but had not yet vanquished the foe. We should have won. We hadn’t even been invaded. There were no foreign troops on our soil when Germany capitulated. But somehow we had lost. There was bitterness everywhere. Crippled beggars, men ruined by shell splinters and hunger, blocked walkways all over the city. Every sidewalk looked like a hospital ward for wounded veterans. Starving shopowners were driven from Luna park when they tried to beg. Men who had never known hunger sat in cars by the lakeside and watched the truncheons fall.

Grown men, men who knew a thing or two, men with families, waited outside restaurants, beside barefoot orphans, in hopes that one of the fortunate might let a few coins trickle from their paws. Generally, they were disappointed. Success came to those who knew how to make money, not give it away.

There had been a time when you could be proud to be German. But that was gone. Germany was the bad child, the one who refused to stop, who didn’t understand the things the grownups told them, and liked to play on the edge of the cliff.

There had been a time when Germany was a land of thinkers, where dreamers dreamt great dreams, where poets roamed the mountains and composers harkened to the sound of water in the valleys. But that was gone. Now we were a land of barbarians, who had plunged the world into war; we were hated by mothers and widows in every land.

Germany was bleeding and dying, but we only needed someone to close the wound. Then wonderful things could happen. It was like this: The war had induced a coma and it would take a skillful doctor indeed to bring us back. But it could be done. There was hope. Once we were awake again there would be no stopping us.



Before I knew it, winter was at hand, and myself still kneading dough on Uhlandstrasse and trudging home to mother’s apartment. If there was no money, and you couldn’t do your bit in the war with the Reds because the police didn’t want to see you again, at least you could hear things on the wireless.

It was not yet winter, so there was no heat in the apartment, but the nights were bitter cold. I lay in the dark under a thin blanket, not having eaten since I left work. The shape of the Luger under my pillow was quite distinct. The wireless was going and in the dim light of the dial I could see my breath turn white. And then a voice came through the ether. Faint, scratchy, but full of passionate intensity. A voice that spoke everything I had felt. Someone at last had the balls to say what was on everyone’s mind. Something had to be done. Who was running our nation? Jews. Who had lost the war? Jews. Who ran the banks and the stock market? Jews. Every day a shop was taken over by a trade union and brought to its knees. Jews. They didn’t care a damn about our country. Vermin.  I listened to every word. I listened. Cold and hunger were far away then.





The speaker, of course, was Adolph Hitler. Who else could have steeled themselves to say those things? I had heard of him and the National Socialist German Workers Party, or NSDAP, known everywhere as the Nazis. At the time I knew little about them, only that they loved Germany. And hated Jews. Here was greatness. Here was heroism. Herr Hitler had fought in the Great War and been decorated with the Iron Cross. He had even tried to wrest control of Germany from the fools who held it. And gone to prison for his trouble. He had tried to do something for his country, and my heart went out to him.

Here was a man who refused to step away from any issue, who said what needed to be said. Who was willing to do what needed to be done, regardless of the cost. Hitler was brash, and down to earth. He’d been to prison, so the only people that cared about him were the people that mattered. Not the banker and the industrialists, not the newspapers and their advertisers, but the people who lived in tenements and took the trolley to work. When there was work. Germany was a country with vast talent, vast energy and resources, enough to make us the greatest country in the world, yet we were frowned on everywhere. Something had gone wrong. We needed a leader that would stop the endless dickering over nothing and channel the boundless energy of the people, energy that would make Germany great again.

Germany was wounded and dying and the Bolsheviks were only too happy to lend a hand. The hand that was offered, though, was red with the blood of people who had stood in their way. Those who had suffered through the war were not eager to become Russian. Of course there were the shameless ones who would accept any insult if it came attached to something that looked like an advantage. There always were. True Germans though, had no wish to join hands with Asiatics. They couldn’t manage their own countries. The Bolsheviks could go somewhere else.



“Winter,” said Herr Thrusencranz, “is a difficult time for us all.”

“I know it well,” I told him, “last night the water in the glass next to my bed froze.”

“Soon the landlords will turn on the heat.”

“Still,” I said. “it’s always warm in the kitchen.”

He nodded slowly and turned away.

Later that same afternoon he was back. “Franz,” he said, “You know I admire your work.”

“And I yours,” I said, “I can’t tell you.”

“We’re going to have to close,” he blurted.



“Look at this,” my mother said. It was a newspaper.

“That’s in Bavaria.” An ad for a private cook.

“It sounds like a good job though. Perhaps you should go.”

“It’s another life down there.”

“What will you do here?”

“Who would take care of you?”

“What do you mean?” The edge in her voice was unmistakable.

“Oh nothing. Let me see that.” Reply c/o Adolph Hitler.

I had to look at a map. Brechtesgaden was far down among the mountains, close to Austria.



“Perhaps you’ll meet a troll,” said Siggy.

“Very funny.”

“No, what’s funny is you going to Bavaria to work for an Austrian, who only came to Germany to look for a job.”

“I haven’t made up my mind. Anyway, Herr Hitler chose to serve in the German army.”

“A wise choice, he knew enough to stay out of Russia.”

“You can’t believe everything you read, you know. They’ll say anything.”

“Oh, of course they will. But I don’t believe what people say. Except for the plot to take over the world.”

“Tell me the newspapers aren’t controlled by the Jews.”

“The newspapers aren’t controlled by the Jews.  The newspapers are controlled by Alfred Hugenberg. He owns them and prints what he likes. —You should take that job.”

“Would you?”

“Of course. But probably my reasons would be different from yours. He’d die of apoplexy if he knew a Jew had touched his strudel.”

“That’s all just politics. He’d probably like you.”

“Of course he would. He’s just a nice man who only wants to be emperor. —Lucky we still have the vote, though who knows how long that will last. But get out there and breath that mountain air. Smell the pollen. When you’re not cooking you can wander the forest and pretend you’re one of the Nibelung. Go bathing with a naiad. Don’t worry about us Jews, we’re survivors.”

“Thank you. I wouldn’t go without your approval.”

“Just remember, history is watching. In later years, you’ll have to deal with questions like ‘why didn’t you poison the crazy fuck and save us a lot of trouble.”

“That’s just wrong in so many ways.”

“Of course I’m wrong. It’s my heritage.”































































Chapter Two

Honorary Landsberg Men





It being near Christmas, I made a cake. It was well known that if Herr Hitler had any weakness at all, he was overly fond of sweets. For myself, I wanted to make a good impression: what could be more natural than to bring Hitler a cake? This was not a simple matter, however. Trudging out to the barn for eggs, or to the cellar for butter was not remotely possible. Butter and eggs were precious. Farmers had them, but farmers trusted little in paper money. At length I had gathered what I needed. A slap to the ear was better than a fifty mark note.

The train from Berlin was crowded with holiday travelers. It creaked and slammed through the switches, the cars redolent of pine, peppermint and wood smoke. Despite the bitter cold, there was laughter and singing; folk determined to be jolly gathered around the stove at the center of the car, the fathers furtively sipping at schnapps and eyeing the ladies. It was Christmas of nineteen twenty-eight, and the terrible era of hopelessness was over. The inflation had passed, and though we were left with little, there were gaily-wrapped presents, children were running in the aisle, the pot-bellied stove was warm and inviting. There were gingerbread songs to be sung.

My cake, more fragile than a day-old child, took up an entire seat beside me, in a pasteboard box. Matrons looked at it and smiled. The train was crowded, but the conductor affected not to notice. No one seemed troubled by my infraction.

We were well into the second hour of our journey when the train clanked to a halt for no apparent reason. We were in the middle of a desolate forest. By shielding my eyes against the reflections of the oil lamps, I was able to make out a large, indistinct form on the snowy bank. A giant loomed before the startled trees. As I watched, this monster lurched toward the baggage car door. There was shouting, and great commotion.  I recognized the voice of the conductor. “What a magnificent stag!” After a moment or two the baggage car door rumbled shut and the train began to move. Immediately our car was filled to over-capacity by the arrival of a gigantic figure, somewhat ludicrous, dressed, apparently, in the costume of a Laplander. Parts of him not covered by fur were covered by leather. Word of the development of fabrics had evidently not reached his homeland.

If his dress was somewhat anachronistic, however, the weapon cradled his arms appeared to represent the height of technical achievement. A breech-loading hunting gun, of a caliber sufficient to stop our train. The workmanship was impeccable. The very metal itself possessed a glow. Filigree and etchings graced the stock and breech. Its lines flowed from gleaming barrel to sensuous wrist to sturdy cheek in a series of sinuous curves.

A reasonable, jolly sort of fellow, by the look of him, if not particularly blessed with intelligence, I thought.

He stood there grinning, in the center of the aisle, rocking with the movement of the train, oblivious to the smear of blood on his shoulder. The conductor bustled up behind him, dwarfed, but still in charge of his car. “Pray you sit, Mien Herr,” he barked. He was correct, for the train was gathering speed, and the weighty individual seemed a trifle unsure of his footing. The Laplander glanced down at my cake. “Move that,” he commanded. Not a jovial Laplander at all, nor even a simple Bavarian, his accent marked him as a Prussian. In any case I scooped up my package and crowded into my corner. I had already experienced the pangs of conscience for monopolizing two seats, and it was a relief to feel that things had been put in their proper order.

He settled himself next to me with the cannon between his knees.

“A beautiful gun,” I told him, “Are there elephants about?”

He laughed. “I don’t know that it would kill an elephant, but it certainly killed a stag.” And he buffed a bit of the brightwork with his thumb. He leaned in closer. His eyes were small, and very bright; there was a thin sheen of perspiration on his forehead. “The design is based on an antique hunting rifle produced for a short while in Swabia. —I’ve paid less for a house.”

“May it serve you well.”

“Never,” and he laid a hand as large as a dinner plate on my shoulder, “Skimp on the equipment. The proper tool could save your life, while the slipshod thing will let you down every time.”

With another person I might have played the fool in the interest of conversation, but there was more than a hint of maliciousness in his eye, and I forebear. There was a longish pause.

“You are a student?” he asked.

“I am a cook.”

“Just so. Well, you wouldn’t try to butcher a hog with a knife that wouldn’t hold an edge, would you?”

“If one were hungry enough, I think a dull spoon would suffice. Even, I think, the first stag—”

He held up a hand. “I’m no philosopher. But a bullet is always better. The tool you have is better than the tool you had. Better than a stone, better than an arrow, better than a spear. Better than a pen, come to that. —In any case,” he grumbled, fiddling with the lock of his piece, “it’s part of a collection.”

The Prussian was not about to be trifled with, and an ill-tempered silence saw us into Munich.

From Munich I needed to travel roughly one hundred kilometers east, to Obersalzburg, and Hitler’s residence. I was standing outside the garage, hoping to hire a ride, when an enormous stag, quite dead, but impressive for all of that, thumped down next to me. “Where are you bound, my friend?” it was the Prussian.

Since we were friends, I told him.

“Ah! Haus Wachtenfeld! You are Hitler’s new cook!”

This Prussian, who was really, truth be told, of Bavarian birth, was Hermann Goring, famous aviator and NSDAP stalwart. He had stood beside Hitler during the 1923 Putsch, and been grievously wounded. The man was a hero, and I was proud to help him hoist the stag to the roof of the battered Opel that was to carry us across the frozen mountains to Herr Hitler. The automobile leaned sickeningly, but Goring was undeterred. He stepped back for a better look at the car. “Doesn’t even know it’s there,” he pronounced.

A light snow was falling as we set off, and the driver, a wizened and middle-aged Joe Soap, voiced considerable trepidation about the outcome of our gallivanting off on such a black-assed, frozen, Godforsaken night, specially with a fucking mammoth tied on the roof. Which would likely send us into a fucking ditch to freeze, if we didn’t suffocate under a drift somewheres first. Luckily, the weight on the roof was balanced by the weight on the seats, Goring himself being nearly equal to the stag. At least the animal was lashed in place, while Herr Goring bounced and swayed on the seat like a sack of mud.

A sack of very ill-tempered mud, it developed. Though it was anything but warm in the automobile, Goring removed his hat. Now I could see that huge balls of sweat stood out on his brow, his skin was the color of chalk, and his eyes were mere pin points.

“Can’t you go any faster? The storm is getting worse.

“Where did you get your license, Poland?

“Are we nearly there yet? I haven’t eaten in hours.

“Gee a little there. Haw. Hup, hup.”

The driver made no reply to this endless grousing, and wisely so, I thought. The man’s impatience was the impatience of a child, but a child with a gun and a vicious temper.

At last we passed though Brechtesgaden, a little town without much to recommend it except a bridge that was no doubt charming in the daylight. There were few lights after that, and the hills grew steeper. The tires spun and the motor raced, the tires caught and the motor nearly stalled. Finally there was nothing for it. The weight of the stag, the weight of Herr Goring, the age of the Opel, the faintheartedness of the driver, it all meant we were at a stand. It was impossibly, stupidly, cold in the car, and there was no sound but for the hiss of snow against the windscreen. We were stranded.

“Where are we?” asked Goring.

“Just outside of Brechesgaden, Mien Herr,” the driver said.

Goring’s eyes were wild, spittle had gathered in the corners of his mouth. “Look, there are no trees,” he cried, “—there must be a farm, all we need is a good horse.”  The Opel rocked on its springs as he launched himself into the darkness. I stared straight ahead. I imagined I heard, amid the falling snow, the tinkle of breaking glass. In a few minutes he was back, looking much improved. His color was better, his eyes appeared normal. “Come,” he said, “There is a house.”

There was a light in the near distance, but very faint. Whoever lived there was asleep.

“Now,” said Goring, “We’re only borrowing their horse. You will return it in the morning.”

“Of course.”

“It’s not even far.”

Not even a dog barked. Goring had a battery-powered torch, not very bright, but enough to enable us to sling the harness across the back of the nag, who made a little scene about being drafted. She must not have been harnessed in the dark often. Hermann surprised me. His touch seemed to calm the horse, and the intricacies of the straps and buckles held no mystery for him.

It was no great surprise when I was the one expected to crawl in the snow to attach the harness to the Opel. The driver sat in the car, both hands on the wheel, his face a mask of stern disapproval.

“That’s Muller’s horse, Krista.”

“The lad will bring her back in the morning.”

“But does poor Muller know?”

“Just steer. Get along, there.” And the car lurched into motion, myself at the bridle.

I assumed that the road was the flat space between fences, and we went along all right, slow and steady. Through woods, over brooks, into the heavy timber. It was growing colder, and a crust beginning to form. My feet were ice.

After a peaceful but cold half-hour or so, Goring stuck his head out and pointed to a side lane. “The turnoff.”

Above the breathing of the horse, and the hiss of falling snow, I began to hear voices. Right where the road took a steep incline, two men blocked the lane. Two men and a sportive dog. There was also a sled, with a spruce tree lashed upon it. I was a bit nonplussed to find people in this God-forsaken spot, but Goring seemed to find nothing unusual. “Hessel, Bormann, what in God’s name are you up to?”

The taller of the two made a halfhearted kick at the dog. “These are not the best conditions for sledding.”

“Perhaps not, but think how pleased he’ll be when we bring the tree in.” said the shorter one. “You know how he loves tradition.”

“A noble idea,” said Goring, “but I think you’ve taken it as far as you can. Too deep and wet. Even tradition must bow before a blizzard. The horse has ice shoes. Hitch on to our car.”

This time, it was not I who crawled in the snow. The short one, who, I gathered, was called Martin, seemed quite willing. His partner glared off into the middle distance, trying to look dignified. The effect was spoiled by the yapping dog and the fact that we were all up to our knees. Ignoring the stupid dog, Krista took up the slack and we moved off, Goring keeping warm and dry, Martin and the other stomping along beside the sled, myself at the bridle. We went up and up, a long steep climb. Eventually, lights began to show through the trees. I was about to meet my new employer.

To my surprise, he looked entirely ordinary and forgettable. The intense blue eyes, the mystical, artistic hands, so much reported on, were there, but aside from the nose and the unusual moustache, there was little that stood out. Graceless, a bit ill at ease, certainly, but completely normal.

Hitler had bought this villa only recently. It was his retreat and his sanctuary. Even in this short time, his irrepressible personality had stamped it as his own. It was the palace of a mountain king. It was the home of a great European statesman. The furnishings were simple and beautiful, with none of the flash and gimcrackery so popular in Berlin. It was the perfect Christmas setting. Here was Christmas as I had dreamt of it. Here was the Christmas of song and story. The glowing tree, the groaning board, the happy guests.

For this occasion, Hitler had gathered about him a few close friends from the early days of the NSDAP. There was Hermann, the famous aviator who had been wounded in the putsch. There were Emil Maurice and Rudolph Hess, who had sat beside Hitler in his cell. There were those whose talents were only lately becoming recognized. Martin Bormann, who had taken on the duties of seneschal and head steward. The retiring Heinrich Himmler, who claimed to be a farmer but had the physiognomy of a corrupt accountant, and the clever but unpleasant Doctor Jozef Goebbels, said to have some talent as a writer. I felt sure that had Bormann, Goebbels, or Himmler been given the opportunity, they would have gladly shared jail time with Hitler. In fact, my impression was that they wished they had. Here Maurice and Hess seemed able to lay claim to the greatest favor; and comments, which referred to the earlier, not-so-merry Christmas at Landsberg Prison flew about like ill-tempered larks, as if Hess and the chauffeur were bent on demonstrating that their closeness was closer, their acquaintanceship was more acquainted, and their intimacy more intimate than that of the unfortunate souls who were not of the brotherhood of sufferers. Goebbels, though, had been to Heidelberg, and was not about to be bested. The competition, fierce and desperate as it was, was muted, like a fistfight under a truck on a dark night.

The candles were in place, but there was still considerable work to be done on the tree. And many were the hands eager to assist. Goring, with a nimbleness hardly creditable for one his size, made a monopoly of the higher branches, until tradition brought him up short. The honor of placing the highest ornament on the tree was one he dared not usurp; “Mien Herr,” he bowed from the tree with great gallantry, “you must place the angel.”

A chair appeared, and Hitler stood upon it, beaming. Even I, the eldest child, had not been allowed to do this, ever. There was a moment of silence, then gasps of appreciation as the halo brought forth its light. “We’re a long way from Landsberg, Mien Herr,” called Hess, but the merriment was cut short by Goebbels’s harsh voice. “We are not so far that any one of us could not wake there tomorrow morning,” and the look of childish joy on Hitler’s face was wiped away in an instant. “Never forget,” Goebbels insisted, “our mission is to destroy. It follows that those in power would be right to destroy us, if they could.”

“He’s right, of course,” said Hitler. “Here we are enjoying ourselves while our brothers rot in prison. They deserve our unceasing efforts.”

I waited on the edge of my seat to hear what those efforts might be, but it was time for the cake.

As if bearing the Eucharist, Bormann marched from a side-room carrying the cardboard box that had traveled so far with me.

When the box was opened, the Führer clapped his hands like a child. I was greatly relieved that the frosting had survived. He produced a knife from somewhere and held it poised over the cake, about to slice down through my very unrealistic depiction of a pear tree. “Wait!”  he said, “Let’s call Geli!” 

With the suddenness of the air leaving a balloon, you could feel the excitement drain away. “By all means,” said Goring in a leaden voice, “let us summon Geli.”

The one called Martin bowed slightly and backed away from the table. Hitler put down the knife and gazed at me. Those famous blue eyes were trying to pierce through to my soul. However, I had suffered through too many of these schoolyard contests not to know to stare right back at the bridge of his nose.

“Herr Cook,” he said finally. “I should like you to know that until tomorrow, when we introduce you to my sister and show you the kitchen, you are one of us. One of us; here we are equal, classes do not exist, these silly bourgeoisie customs do not exist: we have done with all that. One of us.”  That out of the way he turned; no, he snapped his attention from me to Goring. ‘How was your trip?”

“I killed a stag.”

Hitler held himself a bit more erect. “The fifth this year. Is there ever enough?”

Goring shrugged. “I am what I am.”

“A true hunter,” proclaimed Hitler, “would use a spear.”

“That’s preposterous.”

“No more so than using modern weaponry to kill a defenseless beast.”

Goring smirked. “You have not seen its antlers.”

“Antlers. How can you talk to me of antlers. Are antlers any match for a bullet? How can you claim to approach your beast on anything like equal ground when you equip yourself with a device that can project death for the better part of a mile? What chance does the stag have?”

“If you would accompany me, you would see.”

“What? I have to stand up to my ass in snow to understand your childish game? I think not. I understand your game to perfection. Per-fec-tion.”

He cared not a wit what came out of his mouth, this Hitler. Or, if he meant to show how little he cared for Goring’s prowess, his success was complete. He nearly drew blood.

“It’s murder,” Hitler was saying, and there was more to follow, but a woman came into the room.

No one, attempting to judge from photographs, could ever understand the attraction Hitler felt for his niece. No one, having seen her alive, ever doubted it. She had arrived at the villa with her mother, Hitler’s sister and housekeeper. In photographs she appears soporifically plain, fleshy, uninteresting. The camera did not love her. That elemental spark, so necessary for understanding her personality, is not conveyed. The camera may not lie, but it fibs, on occasion.

I had wondered at the very perceptible sag in the room’s energy at the mention of her name, and now I understood. The moment she entered, the other guests ceased to exist. Hitler’s attention went to her like a dart. Goring, Martin, Rudolf, and two others, who had gathered in the wilderness for the Führer’s Christmas, were now  no more than a scattering of dust motes.

“Cake, Geli,”  he called, and she squealed with delight.

Not one of those thin, impossible Prussians, but a sturdy, lively Bavarian, born out of the farms and plots of Southern Germany. But there was nothing of the passive bovine here. Instead there was a spark of merriment and a bit of flint and steel in her eye. Her upbringing might have been as proper as anyone could wish, committed to insuring the fraulein knew her place, but there was also biology to be considered. There was something merrily mutinous, something insubordinate about her. She had her own mind, you could see that. If pushed, biology would trump all the careful nurturing in the world. She paid me no mind. Why should she? She was charming and Herr Hitler was captivated.

The cake was demolished, the coffee was the best I had ever tasted.

“Now,” announced the Führer, “I have a surprise for all of you.”

It was plain that the surprise was no surprise at all, for Hitler’s friends at once got up and began to rearrange the chairs.

A servant scurried forth, yanked on a chord, and a sheet unrolled from the ceiling.  Herr Hitler beamed with pleasure at the success of this operation, though it was obvious the evolution had been rehearsed many times. The servant, whose name was Klaus, disappeared into a cupboard; the Führer blew out the light, and the ever-intriguing images of dust, random scratches, and hand-lettered symbols that signaled the beginning of a motion picture miraculously appeared. I had witnessed this phenomenon before, but never in a private house, and always at ruinous expense. The antics of furry animals are always beguiling, but as I watched I could only recall the way the price of a ticket in Berlin had increased from 10,000 marks to 100,000, then 200, until it cost 104 million marks to visit the cinema. Worthless money had ruined families all across the nation. Starvation and suicide were not uncommon. The currency was worthless, but it was all due to speculation and jewery. Our government was as worthless as our money. Germany needed a new kind of leader, one perhaps just like Adolph Hitler.

I was a bit surprised to see that animals celebrated Christmas, and in amazingly human-like fashion, all except the bear. For reasons that never became clear, the bear wanted to ruin Christmas. He might well have, too, except for some mishap with the picture. The bear had nearly caught the chipmunks when the scene juddered to a halt, the image turned brown, and the bear seemed to melt before our eyes. This was accompanied by grunts of surprise from the guests and cries of distress from the cupboard. Clouds of smoke issued from the doorway as Klaus stumbled forth. The machine had caught fire. The blaze was quickly extinguished without further incident, as the faithful Klaus had thought to provide the tiny room with buckets of sand. Moving pictures were notoriously prone to catch fire. From what I understood, the image was made up of nitrate of silver, the nitrate part being not all that different from gunpowder.

This incident, though easily foreseen, caused Hitler to burst into a fit of temper the like of which I had never witnessed. As smoke billowed from the cupboard and Klaus beat at the flames, Hitler smashed his cup and saucer on the floor. One would think the householder’s first concern would be for the welfare of his servant, but the fact that Klaus might have been seriously injured seemed not to have occurred to Herr Hitler. He pounded the table, wrung his hands, and stamped his feet, all the while screaming that he was surrounded by incompetent freeloaders and pig brains. I thought he would end by doing some injury to himself, as he tore his hair and failed at the air. “Stupid piece of shit! Peasant! Pig snot! Why do you suppose they keep it in a metal can! I hope you’ve burnt your hands off!”

Even Goring was moved to try and placate his rage. “Nitrates,” Hermann said, “you can’t trust ‘em.” But Hitler’s anger was cast in steel, his Christmas eve ruined. Most of all, I felt bad for the girl, who had set herself to play hostess. Now her cheeks were pale and wet. Her uncle raved on. If he noticed her distress at all, it hardly mattered to him.

There had to be purpose for these histrionics, some obscure aim; Whatever it was, it was badly misplaced and horribly managed, no one would have allowed themselves these frothing theatrics on a whim, let alone someone who had set themselves up as the hero of the German people.

The other guests seemed determined to keep their heads down until the storm had past. Not a word of defense for the unhappy Klaus, except from the niece, Geli. Great tears were rolling down her cheeks as she blurted excuses for the unfortunate movieist, but nothing could halt the flow of invective from her uncle’s lips. “When I am leader, all of you stupid, tobacco smelling — were you smoking in there?”

“No, mien Herr, it was the lamp.”

“The lamp, the lamp, any idiot could manage the lamp. Do theatres burn in Berlin?”

“I cannot say.”

“Because the Prussians, dolts that they are, know how to tend a lamp!”

“I don’t know what happened. I was careful—”

“If you were careful we’d be watching the film now! You don’t know how to be careful, pig breath! Get out! Get out!”

Klaus ducked and bowed out of the room, but all of our Christmas cheer went with him. And so the fabric of good fellowship was rent, and we never learned how the chipmunks saved Christmas. The guests thoughtfully twirled their empty glasses with stubby fingers, contemplating the overflowing ashtrays. The tree stood in the corner, dripping melted snow. The niece was in tears, all the airs of the pert hostess vanished.

Sudden as blowing out a lamp, Hitler was calm as soup. Everyone around him sagged with exhaustion and despondency, yet there he sat, unconcerned as the breeze, in his leather chair; surrounded by wisps of smoke, his party in ruins.  “Really,” Going was saying, “it’s like benzene, it can burn, it wants to burn, it’s only waiting for an excuse to burn.”

“Oh, I understand wanting to burn,” said Hitler, “I understand it better than anyone. But that nincompoop nearly destroyed my house! Am I supposed to be happy about that? —You should have shot him. —He nearly burnt the house down, Geli!” he called across the room. “Still, it’s a fascinating image, just before the picture melts. First the halt, then the decay, then the burning. I’ll paint it all some day.”

All my life, coming up through the Hitler Youth movement, I had sung those hymns to the one who would be our savior, harvested forests and leveled mountains, inspired by the speeches of great men. Now, having met the legend himself, I found my foremost emotion to be relief at having escaped his wrath.

Malise was general throughout the sitting room. Emil, the chauffeur, tried to organize a game he called The Obersalzberg Effect. It developed that a beer stein, with a bit of water beneath it, encountered little resistance as it slid along the tabletop. Emil had won large sums, wagering how far a stein would travel. No one was interested in his game. He made a special effort to entice Geli, even set up a target of Champaign glasses for her to aim at. She smiled, but shook her head and went off. A bottle of schnapps went round. I could not keep myself from yawning; it had been a long eventful day. Hitler was deep in a monolog concerning the painting of ruins. It was, no doubt, fascinating, as the others kept nodding, and their eyes never left his face. But I had not the slightest idea where I would lay my head that night, and paid scant heed. Finally Bormann reeled to his feet and gestured for me to follow. He brought me to a tiny room up under the eaves of the house, with just room for a bed, a chair. and a wash basin. He made a vague waved toward the bed. “We breakfast around ten,” he mumbled, and went away.

Of course I slept not a wink. My head was filled with strange images and little insight. I was far from home, in the employ of a highly volatile, perhaps violently unreasonable man. It did not surprise me that in this vast house, as the wind and snow moaned around the windows, I could hear weeping.