The title is from verses quoted when author writes about the grief at FDR passing away:
"The shepherd is dead, and the sheep
"Wander alone in the hills;
"The night comes on, the black night,
"And the heart with terror fills.
"The wolves slink in the shadows,
"They who must be fed;
"Their breath is hot and panting,
"They know that the shepherd is dead.
"Oh, sorrow beyond telling!
"Oh, sheep that none can save!
"Oh, heartbreak of the future!
"O shepherd, speak from the grave!"
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The tenth volume in the World's End series, "O Shepherd, Speak!", begins where the previous one, One Clear Call, had left off, with FDR newly elected and Lanny having seen his victory parade of arriving in Washington D.C., after they'd gone for a drive and discussed future of Europe, and next assignment for Lanny; Lanny had gone walking and seen Lincoln Museum from the sidewalk and reflected on the similarity of the two great leaders, worried about his boss's health.Here Lanny has arrived in Europe, in Paris, heard from Laureland from Raoul Palma, and Jerry Pendleton, and Beauty, and gone to work with the two groups as diverse as they can get - the Monuments group, working at retrieving art objects subjected to theft by Nazi occupation, and restoring them to their previous owners whom nazis stole them from;
"In Paris is a museum which was once the handball court of the playful monarchs, the Musée du Jeu de Paume. The Nazi plunderers had used it as a sort of clearing house, where their trophies were brought and exhibited to the privileged few.
"The large staff of the Musée had been mostly German, but several French employees had managed to win favor and be retained. One of these was secretly a member of the Resistance and had made it her business to smuggle out copies of the lists and records of the institution, and even photographs of its employees, so that they could not change their names and hide."
and Alsos, the scientists, who are worried about Germany acquiring atomic weapons before U.S., and are looking at papers and talking with scientists, and with workers and technicians, who know more than the bosses might be aware of;
"Presently came word that the American Seventh Army had taken Strasbourg, a great French city on the upper reaches of the Rhine. This was of importance to Alsos, for there was a famed university there, and it had a competent physics department—German for the past four years and part of a fifth. Alsos sent a representative, and first he telegraphed that he had been unable to locate any of the physicists; then came a second telegram—the nuclear laboratory had been situated in a wing of the Strasbourg Hospital, and its four physicists had been posing as physicians. Just a little matter of changing two letters in a word!
"They were put under arrest—the head physicist in jail, so that he would have no chance to agree upon a story with the others. The Alsos men set out for Strasbourg, full of anticipation, hoping to find clues that would tell them what German science had achieved in one remote and difficult field.
"The Germans were questioned closely but apparently didn’t have much to tell, except the names of their colleagues who had fled: Weizsäcker, a leading theoretical physicist, and Haagen, who was a virus specialist, believed to be preparing dreadful diseases to be turned loose behind the American armies.
"The invaders confiscated all the papers in the laboratory, and in Weizsäcker’s office at the University. All night they sat studying these, by the light of candles and one compressed gas lamp.
"Planes flew overhead, and bombs and shells exploded; American mortars roared near by, but the scientists paid no heed, for they had come upon an alarming discovery, an envelope with the imprint: “The Representative of the Reichsmarshall for Nuclear Physics.” The implications of this were obvious: a Reichsmarshall is the highest rank in the German military system, and if they had one of these in charge of nuclear physics they must have a colossal establishment, possibly even greater than that of the Americans; they might be producing bombs wholesale!
"The son of Budd-Erling pointed out the obscurity in this title; it might just as well mean the Reichsmarshall’s Representative for Nuclear Physics, which would mean one of Göring’s assistants, and he might be a person of less importance than, for example, the Reichsmarshall’s Representative for Stag Hunting. The American scientists drew an audible breath of relief.
"They found still greater comfort before this night and early morning had passed, for in the Weizsäcker papers they got the information they were seeking. It took no skill in divination to know that “Lieber Walter” was Professor Gerlach and that “Lieber Werner” was Professor Heisenberg. Evidently it had never occurred to “Lieber Carl Friedrich” that American physicists might get to Strasbourg, and in his hurry to get out he must have forgotten these papers.
"There was another professor, named Fleischmann, who had been even more indiscreet. He was a gossipy person who liked to record interesting events and personalities. He dated everything, which was a great help. He put down names and addresses of the leading physicists of Germany, and even the telephone numbers of secret laboratories. The Americans would have liked to call them up—if the Germans hadn’t cut the lines across the river. Professor Fleischmann wrote in shorthand part of the time, but one of the Americans knew the Gabelsberger system, so that was easy. Sometimes he wrote formulas, and if they were wrong, this gave the Americans satisfaction and made up for the strain of reading by candlelight."
Lanny helped with the interactions, interpretation and of course, his knowledge of languages, places and people was the value factor. He sent his report from Paris, after he returned from Strasbourg.
"But Lanny was growing more and more uncomfortable every time he returned to Europe, for he knew that the time to shape iron is while it is hot, and that when it has grown cold it may be steel-hard. The Army didn’t know who its true friends were; it considered Socialists to be crackpots, just as they were called in America, and the people who knew how to get things done were the powerful ones at the top—the same who had hired the Nazi-Fascist gangsters to put down labor and keep political control in the hands of the well-born and well-to-do. F.D.R. himself understood this quite clearly; but how many in his administration understood it, and how many in Congress—and how many in AMG—the American Military Government that was being set up in so many strange parts of the world?"
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Laurel had written to say that Emily Chattersworth had established a trust named American Peace Foundation with Lanny as the sole trustee, and bequeathed it a million dollars, with the aim to stop wars. She sent a copy of the will. Lanny's two groups had to wait for allied armies to progress, so he caught a plane ride and was in Cannes soon, and got a ride in a jeep going East. Laurel was at the villa on the estate at Bienvenu with a servant from the family that had served the place for decades, and she was writing about the local people.
"The Midi, like the rest of France, had withstood a four-year siege of hunger, cold, and terror. The Nazis had wielded this three-thonged whip over them, with the help of renegade Frenchmen, and the rest of the people hated the renegades with a fury beyond description.
"There was a woman known as “Catherine,” recuperating here in Cannes, who had become a legend already. She had helped a total of sixty-eight American and British flyers and secret agents to escape from the enemy—many of them persons who had been under sentence of death. The Nazis had known all about her—except who she was. ... There were fishermen who had carried men out, hidden under their nets, or even wrapped up in them; there were peddlers of fish or vegetables who carried in their carts radio sending sets by which messages were sent and appointments made for meeting such fugitives at sea. The enemy had detecting devices by which they could instantly locate the spot from which such messages came, but before they could get to the spot the cart would have moved and been safely hidden.
"But often the plans had gone awry, and there were stories of failure and martyrdom. Women whose husbands and sons had been tortured to death hated the collaborateurs even more than they hated the Nazis; they would have torn these wretches limb from limb if the victorious armies had not intervened. As it was, many had been hunted down and shot or hanged in the first turbulent days. Now the rest were being tried, and the trials were public spectacles; the women came and sat with their knitting, reincarnations of the tricoteuses of the Revolution of a century and a half ago."
Lanning Prescott Budd and his third and final wife, Laurel Creston Budd, went up to Sept Chênes, the home and estate of Emily Chattersworth which she'd lived on in her final years, having sold her other properties near Paris at the behest of Lanny who'd expected war soon; they rented a bicycle and carried their coats and lunch, and came to the house where Lanny had since childhood been a silent listener to the conversations of various thinkers, writers and artists Emily had entertained, including Anatole France and Bernard Shaw, Paul Valéry and Romain Rolland, Auguste Rodin and Isadora Duncan, Blasco-Ibáñez and Henri Bergson, in her lifelong career as a salonnère. She'd bequeathed this home and property to Lanny as part of the trust, and proved her approval of Laurel Creston as his wife, by naming her as the one to take over after Lanny.
Laurel made Lanny take the necessary legal steps to establish the will and his own identity, in France and in U.S..
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"One front all the way from the North Sea to the Alps, another across Italy, and the longest of all from the White Sea down to the Black, with ten million men in a death struggle in snow and arctic cold. Not to mention all the fronts in China and Burma, and some thousands of islands and millions of square miles of water in the Western Pacific!
"Lanny told his wife of a GI in North Africa who had remarked, “First the Japs attack us and then we attack the Germans; I don’t get it.” And one in France who had attended Christian Front meetings in New York and who remarked, “We are fighting the wrong guys.”
"The best of all stories of American military education was one that Laurel had read in Ernie Pyle’s newspaper column. A week or so after D-day Ernie had observed an ack-ack gunner sitting on a heap of sand and reading a copy of Stars and Stripes, the Army paper. Ernie met all the men he could, so he got up a conversation with this one, and was asked, “Where is this here Normandy beachhead that it talks about here?” The newspaperman looked at the gunner, to make sure that he wasn’t spoofing. Then he said, “Why, you’re sitting on it.” The gunner replied in astonishment, “Well, I’ll be damned! I never knowed that.”"
Allied armies were stretched long in Saar and those aimed at Cologne were bogged down in December weather, ground waterlogged and not yet frozen, Lanny got a telegram from Monuments and packed and caught a ride to the airport, and the telegram assured him of a seat assigned; he was set down in Versailles as a special favour, and walked over to the offices of Monuments over the stables.
"There could be meaner weather than Paris in December, but you would have to go to London to find it."
The first person he encountered was Peggy Remsen. She was thrilled at the opportunity to deal with art treasures of Europe, and vexed at being not allowed closer to war front, being a woman. The men told Lanny about the reason for the telegram.
"A telegram had come from G-2 of the 28th Infantry Division, stationed in the Ardennes, reporting that a German truck, carrying art treasures from Paris at the time of the evacuation, had broken an axle; the Germans, being desperately short of transportation, were believed to have hidden the art works somewhere on a hunting estate in the forest. Would Monuments care to come and look for them? Monuments surely would, and a dozen volunteered for a job to which only two would be assigned. These happened to be admirers of the son of Budd-Erling and had asked his help."
They rode a staff car next morning via Reims, its cathedral destroyed yet again by Germans, and Sedan with its fortifications. They were fed by the army which was everywhere, working, tired. They went through Ardennes forest and Belgium and Luxembourg to a town called Wiltz, headquarters of Major General Cota, called Dutch, commander of 28th division, greatly feared by Germans who called it "Bloody Bucket" division. They were put up for the night and started before full daylight escorted by jeeps of armed soldiers behind and in front, picking up more arms and ammunition on the way, and arrived at a rustic hunting lodge of a steel baron after losing way once, and were met by the old caretaker and his wife who were frightened, relieved to find someone who spoke the language, and said they knew nothing of any artworks.
They searched the property and grounds thoroughly and there was nothing, and sent out scouting parties, and found a hut on a hill hidden in forest that was locked.
"The cars followed the leader, and the next couple of hours were spent examining the stuff with flashlights—it was packed in so closely that it was difficult to move anything, and they did not want to carry it outside on account of the weather. There were objects screwed up in wooden cases, and others in heavy leather. There were framed paintings tied in burlap, presumably a hasty job. There were rugs rolled up, doubtless old and valuable, but there was no way to tell without unrolling them, and that could not be done in snow-covered underbrush.
"In the back part of the little structure were medieval saints, some carved in wood and some in stone, some plain and others multicolored. This obviously was ancient stuff and might have come out of a museum. One ancient saint might be worth thousands of dollars. The excitement of Monuments work lay in the fact that you could never tell when you might hit a jackpot. Among the treasures to be sought were the crown jewels of the Holy Roman Empire, the Ghent altarpiece, the stained glass from the Strasbourg Cathedral, and the treasures which had been taken from the Cathedral of Metz. You weren’t apt to find any of these on the outskirts of Germany, but you never could tell. Somebody might have been careless or overconfident."
They brought it to the lodge and discovered a Cranach, a Watteau and a whole lot of modern french; they settled down to wait for transport, having sent of a telegram and there being no shortage of firewood or game, and the caretakers serving willingly.
"Blazing color, magnificence of costume, beauty of person, elegance of surroundings—farm boys from Maine and the Carolinas, ranch boys from California and Texas, stood awe-stricken and whispered, “Jeepers, I never knew there were such things in the world!”"
In three days all but the heavy stuff was catalogued, repacked and ready for transport, which was arriving, but they heard enemy planes overhead and woke up to a barrage in east; they consulted, and decided that they had to leave, and couldn't carry it, but if enemy came it was no use leaving a guard, and if not the caretakers had no way of taking it away.
They rushed through the forest, Lanny destroying his papers since he was the most vulnerable if caught, and suddenly came to an opening, and halted; there were four men in American uniform, but the troops accompanying Lanny expected German paratroopers in American uniform, and when questioned - "what's the river that's the East border of Iowa?", asked after the guys claimed they were from Iowa - they opened fire. The soldiers retalited, and Lanny's driver turned and drove through the forest.
A while later the car skidded and hit a tree, and they decided they'd better walk West, and they took the weapons from the dead man amongst them. Lanny told them to leave the baggage, for they needed to be able to move. They didn't know it, of course, but they were in midst of what would be known as the Battle of the Bulge.
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"The fugitives avoided the roads, on which the enemy was most apt to travel; they avoided the thickets because they could not see through them or penetrate them without making a noise; they preferred stretches of forest with great trees because they could stand behind trees and see a long way. The land was cut up with ravines, and these were bad because, both in descending and climbing, you might set a loose stone to tumbling, and were a helpless target because you couldn’t move fast. Frozen swamps were bad too, for they wouldn’t hold your weight, and if you got your legs wet, how would you get them dry? These and other things you had to learn, and your first mistake might be your last."
They came across a Panzer Grenadier battalion, and lay flat to hide.
"Germans were sending in four whole divisions of them, about sixty thousand men; also four Wehrmacht Panzer Divisions, that is, of the regular Army, and four SS Panzer Divisions, who were Hitler’s own chosen troops, his private army, as you might say, trained from childhood to be cruel and deadly killers."
The enemy had broken through allied lines, and headed to where Americanforces were known to be; they couldn't go in that direction. Presently they came to a farmhouse, and hid in the hayloft, only to have a bunch of troops from the SS take shelter under the loft. Lanny had to think fast about what to do, for himself and for others, but soon there came a knock below and more crowded in, which turned out to be Americans, prisoners of war. Lanny contacted one and he came up, and they thought of the hayloft window. They managed to escape and marched to safety of the forest, Lanny speaking German so anyone hearing in dark would take them for another part of their own.
"They did not know where they were; they could only say that there had been an overwhelming offensive. The 9th Armored had been ordered to hold at all costs and they had done so; the noncombatants—the cooks, clerks, mechanics, and even members of the band—had caught up weapons and stood fast until their last cartridges had been fired. They had fallen back, got more ammunition, and fought again. They had surrendered only when they found themselves surrounded and helpless. The Germans had taken everything they had, so they could not offer the Monuments officers so much as a can of bully beef."
In the forest they scattered, groups of three, and the Monuments group went independently, resting in the night by turns since they were afraid of dying of cold if they fell asleep while starving.
"It was one of the most beautiful forests in Europe, but they wholly failed to appreciate it. They did not admire the snow-laden fir trees which now and then dropped loads upon their heads; they did not like the high ridges, strewn with rocks behind which snipers might hide and take potshots; they did not like the deep ravines which filled up with snow, and sometimes with treacherous ice-covered water. If you slipped you might lose all your toes when you stopped walking and started freezing."
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Next day they finally caught up with a bunch of GIs, chopping trees to block roads, and drove back with them to rejoin army, still surrounded by the enemy in the thick of the siege, at Longwilly. Lanny offered to help by interrogating the prisoners, and other Monuments men learned by listening until they too could on their own; soon they began to see the pattern emerge.
"The offensive had been in preparation for weeks, with extraordinary precautions being taken to keep the troops hidden in forests. The assault had been made on a front of at least fifty miles, and there were more than a score of divisions named as taking part: Paratroopers, Panzers, Panzer grenadiers, Volksgrenadiers, everything the enemy had. Field Marshal von Rundstedt was commanding, and the Führer himself had come to the Rhineland and briefed the higher officers, telling them that this was the great crisis of the war, that they were going to take the huge American supply base at Liége, break through to the port of Antwerp, cut off the American First Army and the British to the north and annihilate them. Word of this had been spread among the troops, and now they were sure it was all coming true. Their great armored forces weren’t bothering with small towns and villages like Longwilly, but were leaving them to be mopped up later; they were driving straight through for the great strategic bases, Sedan and Namur and Liége. Sieg Heil!
"The Allied armies were facing the Germans over a front of some four hundred miles, extending from the North Sea, first eastward, and then southward. There were, in order, the Canadians and the British, then the American Ninth Army, then the First, then General Patton’s Third, and then the American Sixth Army Group, including the Seventh Army with which Lanny Budd had traveled in the late summer. Farthest to the south were the French, closing the Belmont Gap, near the Swiss border. The Ardennes lay at about the center of this four-hundred-mile line, and the divisions which had been caught there and were fighting for their lives were a part of the American First Army. About fifty thousand men had been holding fifty miles, a thousand men to the mile, or one every five feet, and no reserves; that was spreading them thin indeed. There was a group of highly trained brass at SHAEF—Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force—who had been quite sure the Germans would not attack through such uninviting country; they had overlooked the fact that to be so sure was the way to invite an attack.
"Now it had come, with every division the enemy could spare from the rest of the front, plus all the reserves he could scrape together in besieged Germany. He had rolled over the American 28th and 106th Divisions and the 9th Armored, which had been directly in front of him; he had scattered them, driven them back, captured perhaps half of them; but the rest had reassembled and were making a stand wherever they found themselves. The tactics were to destroy bridges and culverts and block and hold the roads. It was possible for tanks and heavy vehicles to move through snowbound forests, but only at great expense of time and fuel, and both these were vital to the Germans if they were going to reach Namur and Liége, to say nothing of Antwerp."
They were soon moved to Bastogne, five miles West of where theyd been.
"Bastogne was of supreme importance because no fewer than eight roads ran out of it, and five of them were paved; it lay pretty close to the middle of the Bulge, and so long as it was held the enemy would be greatly handicapped. It had some four thousand inhabitants; just one more Belgian town, dull and dingy, but it was destined to immortality, like that other one called Waterloo, and another called Ypres.
"It was the biggest battle that Lanny Budd had ever been near, and it was much too near for comfort. Five enemy divisions surrounded the town, and their artillery was pouring shells into it; also, they seemed to have a new-style rocket bomb, smaller than the V-2 but more precisely directed. Houses crumbled on top of the terrified inhabitants crouching in the cellars. The Americans were out on the high ground; they had tanks and tank-killers, but the biggest German tanks carried 88 mm. guns, so heavy that they could knock out even the tank destroyers. Expert marksmen fought them with rifles, aiming into the firing slits, and men hidden in foxholes threw bottles of gasoline. Forests were good places for the American style of fighting, every man ready to be on his own and to think for himself.
"Heavy fog lay everywhere, and it began to rain again; how the officers and men cursed this weather! If only there had come one hour of sunshine the fighter-bombers would have been all over the place, knocking out enemy tanks and paralyzing his communications. As it was, this might have been an old-time battle, before air power existed. No doubt the Germans had planned it so; their weather stations in Greenland and Spitsbergen had been captured, but they got the same information by wireless from their submarines, so they knew what kind of weather was coming. Lanny could guess that the Führer’s meteorologists had promised him what he wanted, and that the date of the blitz had been set by them.
"Soon after Lanny’s arrival in Bastogne a terrible item of news was reported to him. On the previous day, near the town of Malmédy to the north, a group of a hundred and twenty-five Americans had been surrounded by tanks and forced to surrender. The 12th SS Panzer had disarmed their captives and taken their valuables from them, then herded them into a vacant space and turned machines guns on them; men had fallen in heaps, and afterward officers had tramped among them, shooting all who showed any signs of life. A score of men had thrown themselves down when the shooting began and were buried under the heaps; these escaped to tell the story. It spread quickly, and American soldiers made note of the designation of those black-uniformed murderers."
In Bastogne Lanny resumed the interrogation work, and soon came upon another person who knew him, this time closely. Lanny talked to Heinrich alone, and got a lot more. Lanny told Heinrich that he'd since Madrid discovered about Himmler intending to depose Hitler, and Himmler had possibly intended to take Lanny on his side but having failed, had lied about him; Heinrich being simpler than Kurt, was still the friend he'd been, and talked to Lanny.
"General Dietrich, known as “Sepp,” which is short for Joseph, was to go in a wide curve to Liége and take possession of its enormous stores of supplies, thus crippling the enemy and building his own power. General Manteuffel—which means “man-devil,” exactly what Hitler thought of him—was to go on to Antwerp, the port upon which all Allied power depended. General Montgomery’s entire army of British and Canadians would be cut off and destroyed, and the loss would so discourage America that it would quit."
Lanny got the officers to separate Heinrich from the Wehrmacht officers he was caught with, and Heinrich didn't like their treatment of him, so Lanny's identity wasn't yet public in Germany. So Heinrich went to work at the hospital, he was willing to help anyone wounded and not just Germans, and Heinrich agreed solemnly to not mention lanny to anyone. He was pleased to keep this secret.
"Lanny wouldn’t want anybody in the American Army to know that he was a friend of the Führer. It pleased the SS Oberst Oberführer to be keeping so deadly a secret from his foes. When the Germans took Bastogne, which was bound to happen in a day or two, Lanny would give a lot of priceless information to the German forces."
"The fugitives avoided the roads, on which the enemy was most apt to travel; they avoided the thickets because they could not see through them or penetrate them without making a noise; they preferred stretches of forest with great trees because they could stand behind trees and see a long way. The land was cut up with ravines, and these were bad because, both in descending and climbing, you might set a loose stone to tumbling, and were a helpless target because you couldn’t move fast. Frozen swamps were bad too, for they wouldn’t hold your weight, and if you got your legs wet, how would you get them dry? These and other things you had to learn, and your first mistake might be your last."
They came across a Panzer Grenadier battalion, and lay flat to hide.
"Germans were sending in four whole divisions of them, about sixty thousand men; also four Wehrmacht Panzer Divisions, that is, of the regular Army, and four SS Panzer Divisions, who were Hitler’s own chosen troops, his private army, as you might say, trained from childhood to be cruel and deadly killers."
The enemy had broken through allied lines, and headed to where Americanforces were known to be; they couldn't go in that direction. Presently they came to a farmhouse, and hid in the hayloft, only to have a bunch of troops from the SS take shelter under the loft. Lanny had to think fast about what to do, for himself and for others, but soon there came a knock below and more crowded in, which turned out to be Americans, prisoners of war. Lanny contacted one and he came up, and they thought of the hayloft window. They managed to escape and marched to safety of the forest, Lanny speaking German so anyone hearing in dark would take them for another part of their own.
"They did not know where they were; they could only say that there had been an overwhelming offensive. The 9th Armored had been ordered to hold at all costs and they had done so; the noncombatants—the cooks, clerks, mechanics, and even members of the band—had caught up weapons and stood fast until their last cartridges had been fired. They had fallen back, got more ammunition, and fought again. They had surrendered only when they found themselves surrounded and helpless. The Germans had taken everything they had, so they could not offer the Monuments officers so much as a can of bully beef."
In the forest they scattered, groups of three, and the Monuments group went independently, resting in the night by turns since they were afraid of dying of cold if they fell asleep while starving.
"It was one of the most beautiful forests in Europe, but they wholly failed to appreciate it. They did not admire the snow-laden fir trees which now and then dropped loads upon their heads; they did not like the high ridges, strewn with rocks behind which snipers might hide and take potshots; they did not like the deep ravines which filled up with snow, and sometimes with treacherous ice-covered water. If you slipped you might lose all your toes when you stopped walking and started freezing."
............................................................................
Next day they finally caught up with a bunch of GIs, chopping trees to block roads, and drove back with them to rejoin army, still surrounded by the enemy in the thick of the siege, at Longwilly. Lanny offered to help by interrogating the prisoners, and other Monuments men learned by listening until they too could on their own; soon they began to see the pattern emerge.
"The offensive had been in preparation for weeks, with extraordinary precautions being taken to keep the troops hidden in forests. The assault had been made on a front of at least fifty miles, and there were more than a score of divisions named as taking part: Paratroopers, Panzers, Panzer grenadiers, Volksgrenadiers, everything the enemy had. Field Marshal von Rundstedt was commanding, and the Führer himself had come to the Rhineland and briefed the higher officers, telling them that this was the great crisis of the war, that they were going to take the huge American supply base at Liége, break through to the port of Antwerp, cut off the American First Army and the British to the north and annihilate them. Word of this had been spread among the troops, and now they were sure it was all coming true. Their great armored forces weren’t bothering with small towns and villages like Longwilly, but were leaving them to be mopped up later; they were driving straight through for the great strategic bases, Sedan and Namur and Liége. Sieg Heil!
"The Allied armies were facing the Germans over a front of some four hundred miles, extending from the North Sea, first eastward, and then southward. There were, in order, the Canadians and the British, then the American Ninth Army, then the First, then General Patton’s Third, and then the American Sixth Army Group, including the Seventh Army with which Lanny Budd had traveled in the late summer. Farthest to the south were the French, closing the Belmont Gap, near the Swiss border. The Ardennes lay at about the center of this four-hundred-mile line, and the divisions which had been caught there and were fighting for their lives were a part of the American First Army. About fifty thousand men had been holding fifty miles, a thousand men to the mile, or one every five feet, and no reserves; that was spreading them thin indeed. There was a group of highly trained brass at SHAEF—Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force—who had been quite sure the Germans would not attack through such uninviting country; they had overlooked the fact that to be so sure was the way to invite an attack.
"Now it had come, with every division the enemy could spare from the rest of the front, plus all the reserves he could scrape together in besieged Germany. He had rolled over the American 28th and 106th Divisions and the 9th Armored, which had been directly in front of him; he had scattered them, driven them back, captured perhaps half of them; but the rest had reassembled and were making a stand wherever they found themselves. The tactics were to destroy bridges and culverts and block and hold the roads. It was possible for tanks and heavy vehicles to move through snowbound forests, but only at great expense of time and fuel, and both these were vital to the Germans if they were going to reach Namur and Liége, to say nothing of Antwerp."
They were soon moved to Bastogne, five miles West of where theyd been.
"Bastogne was of supreme importance because no fewer than eight roads ran out of it, and five of them were paved; it lay pretty close to the middle of the Bulge, and so long as it was held the enemy would be greatly handicapped. It had some four thousand inhabitants; just one more Belgian town, dull and dingy, but it was destined to immortality, like that other one called Waterloo, and another called Ypres.
"It was the biggest battle that Lanny Budd had ever been near, and it was much too near for comfort. Five enemy divisions surrounded the town, and their artillery was pouring shells into it; also, they seemed to have a new-style rocket bomb, smaller than the V-2 but more precisely directed. Houses crumbled on top of the terrified inhabitants crouching in the cellars. The Americans were out on the high ground; they had tanks and tank-killers, but the biggest German tanks carried 88 mm. guns, so heavy that they could knock out even the tank destroyers. Expert marksmen fought them with rifles, aiming into the firing slits, and men hidden in foxholes threw bottles of gasoline. Forests were good places for the American style of fighting, every man ready to be on his own and to think for himself.
"Heavy fog lay everywhere, and it began to rain again; how the officers and men cursed this weather! If only there had come one hour of sunshine the fighter-bombers would have been all over the place, knocking out enemy tanks and paralyzing his communications. As it was, this might have been an old-time battle, before air power existed. No doubt the Germans had planned it so; their weather stations in Greenland and Spitsbergen had been captured, but they got the same information by wireless from their submarines, so they knew what kind of weather was coming. Lanny could guess that the Führer’s meteorologists had promised him what he wanted, and that the date of the blitz had been set by them.
"Soon after Lanny’s arrival in Bastogne a terrible item of news was reported to him. On the previous day, near the town of Malmédy to the north, a group of a hundred and twenty-five Americans had been surrounded by tanks and forced to surrender. The 12th SS Panzer had disarmed their captives and taken their valuables from them, then herded them into a vacant space and turned machines guns on them; men had fallen in heaps, and afterward officers had tramped among them, shooting all who showed any signs of life. A score of men had thrown themselves down when the shooting began and were buried under the heaps; these escaped to tell the story. It spread quickly, and American soldiers made note of the designation of those black-uniformed murderers."
In Bastogne Lanny resumed the interrogation work, and soon came upon another person who knew him, this time closely. Lanny talked to Heinrich alone, and got a lot more. Lanny told Heinrich that he'd since Madrid discovered about Himmler intending to depose Hitler, and Himmler had possibly intended to take Lanny on his side but having failed, had lied about him; Heinrich being simpler than Kurt, was still the friend he'd been, and talked to Lanny.
"General Dietrich, known as “Sepp,” which is short for Joseph, was to go in a wide curve to Liége and take possession of its enormous stores of supplies, thus crippling the enemy and building his own power. General Manteuffel—which means “man-devil,” exactly what Hitler thought of him—was to go on to Antwerp, the port upon which all Allied power depended. General Montgomery’s entire army of British and Canadians would be cut off and destroyed, and the loss would so discourage America that it would quit."
Lanny got the officers to separate Heinrich from the Wehrmacht officers he was caught with, and Heinrich didn't like their treatment of him, so Lanny's identity wasn't yet public in Germany. So Heinrich went to work at the hospital, he was willing to help anyone wounded and not just Germans, and Heinrich agreed solemnly to not mention lanny to anyone. He was pleased to keep this secret.
"Lanny wouldn’t want anybody in the American Army to know that he was a friend of the Führer. It pleased the SS Oberst Oberführer to be keeping so deadly a secret from his foes. When the Germans took Bastogne, which was bound to happen in a day or two, Lanny would give a lot of priceless information to the German forces."
............................................................................
"Things did look pretty black for the Americans that Monday night. Fog hung over the battle scene, so thick that you could put your hands in it. Sometimes it rained and sometimes it snowed, and there could be no help from the air. All over that black forest groups of men were fighting, and between times blocking roads and blowing bridges, doing everything they could to delay the enemy hordes. Small groups would join themselves to larger groups—there were some who had fought with as many as nine different units before the month-long battle was over; they were caught there, and had nothing to do but fight, and then fall back to some other crossroads and fight again.
"Bastogne was completely surrounded; but the wireless telephone was in use, and headquarters told them to hold on at all hazards. Headquarters of the First Army had been at Spa, a luxurious springs resort to the north. It was uncomfortably near to the enemy’s line of advance, and the staff had got out in a hurry, some not even stopping to pack their duds. Where they had gone to now was not being told over the radio, even in code, but they had code words to identify them, and they kept saying, “Hold at all costs.” Bastogne kept saying, “We are holding.”
"Somewhere just outside the Bulge, to the north, was the 101st Airborne, known according to its insigne as the “Screaming Eagle” Division. “Airborne” means that its members are flown in transport planes or towed in gliders; they are tough guys and have been taught all there is about combat. This division had been put down in Normandy and had fought all the way to Holland. They were supposed to be resting now, and it was only a few days to Christmas; they had been planning a football game, the most wonderful ever, and they were greatly excited about it—but it was never played. On Sunday morning had come telephone orders, in double-talk, telling them to be ready to move on Tuesday; a little later it was changed to Monday at fourteen, which is two in the afternoon. Nothing could be “airborne” in this weather, so their SOS—Service of Supplies—scoured the neighborhood for trucks big and little and all sizes between.
"The commanding officer of this division happened to be in Washington. The second in command was Brigadier General McAuliffe, a little man, quiet but determined, known to his men as the “Old Crock”—although he was young. He got his twelve thousand men under way at the time specified, using all the north-south roads there were. Plenty of Germans were in the way, but led by tanks the Americans broke through everything. It was like an episode in a movie, the grand climax where the cavalry comes galloping in with flags flying and is welcomed with frantic cheers; the only difference was that the Screaming Eagles came packed in trucks, and had no flags, and there was nobody to cheer, because the Belgians were hiding in their cellars and the fighting men were out in trenches and foxholes and didn’t even know what was happening.
"The way they found out was that fresh men kept sneaking up behind them and joining them in the trenches; very cocky fellows who called themselves “paradoughs” and thought that nobody else knew very much. Presently they began charging out and driving the enemy back, with the help of shells from their batteries posted behind the lines. Something new began to happen to the Germans then, and most of them never knew what it was. There had come to the rescue of Bastogne not merely some thousands of paradoughs and their artillery, but a large group of scientists and engineers working in laboratories three or four thousand miles away.
"It was one of the great secrets of the war, and one of the engineering marvels of all time; a thing known as a “proximity fuse.” Lanny heard a strange phrase, “pozit ammunition,” as the new device had come to be called.
"When a shell is fired at an airplane in the sky, the gunner has to calculate or guess the spot where the plane will be when the shell arrives; then he has to set the fuse of the shell so that it will explode in the number of seconds required for it to reach that spot. A tremendously difficult task, and experience showed that a gunner fired twenty-five hundred shots to bring down one plane. But suppose a fuse could be made with some sort of radar equipment that would send out signals as it sped, and when these signals were echoed back with sufficient strength from some object in the sky, the shell would explode near the target?"
The scientists and engineers had managed to solve the problems of bringing this idea to work, and had something that could be held in hand and fired through a cannon, and only burst when intended, at or over the target, by radio signal returned.
"At this time there were five German divisions attacking Bastogne; at full strength that would have been seventy-five thousand men. Pozit shells couldn’t kill them all, especially as Bastogne’s supply of them was limited. The battle was fought fiercely, day and night. The Americans would sally forth and seize a ridge; the Germans would attack and cut it off, and the Americans would fight their way back. Then it would be the Germans who got cut off and they would fight their way back."
"The bombarding was incessant, and the town was gradually being reduced to rubble."
The men held up through the bad weather and shelling, because losing nerve wasn't an option.
"A man named Beaster went out in a newly arrived tank-killer, and he came up over a ridge and there were five enemy tanks which had turned to get away from him. He fired five quick shots and knocked them out like so many stupid partridges sitting on a limb; then two more came into sight and he hit them. Over his telephone he reported, “I have just killed seven tanks.” A moment later a shell from a German 88 hit his tank and knocked him out; but he lived to get more tanks."
Lanny being a Colonel of the Monuments was entitled to go to the map room. Red flags for German and blue for allied.
"The Bulge was about sixty miles wide at its base and just about as deep; it was a triangle with irregular, curved sides. The Germans had got within fifteen miles of Namur, and within twenty of Liége; there they seemed to have been stopped.
............................................................................
"Thursday, the 21st of December, the shortest day of the year, was the sixth day of the offensive; that longest night, instead of fair weather there was a high wind and heavy snow, what in America is called a blizzard. In the midst of it the Germans attacked Bastogne with renewed fury; evidently they had realized that unless they could have the use of those eight major roads they could no longer supply their troops that had plunged on to the west. They even recalled some of their armored forces to complete the encirclement of the town. By the next afternoon they had made such progress that they sent a major, accompanied by a captain and a couple of common soldiers, out into a field waving a flag made of a bedsheet. An American sergeant south of the town, getting ready a mortar barrage with some of those wonderful new proximity-fused shells, observed the flag and held up his fire. The Germans requested to be taken to an officer, so they were escorted to the nearest command post, and from there driven to town and into the presence of General McAuliffe.
"That small-sized man with one star on each shoulder was very busy and probably not very elegant in appearance just then; he hadn’t been expecting company. The German major handed him a letter, and he took time off to read it. It was in English and employed the very formal style which Wehrmacht officers considered protocol. It informed the American commander that: “The fortunes of war are changing, and this time United States Army forces in and near Bastogne have been encircled by strong German Army units.… There is only one possibility to save American troops from total annihilation, and that is honorable surrender.” The letter went on to say that the Americans would be granted a two-hour period “in order to think this over,” and it took the opportunity to offer a moral sentiment, pointing out that civilians might be killed in the bombardment, that the American Army would be to blame for this, and that it was not in line with “that well-known American humanity.”
"Was this a touch of irony, or was it just hypocrisy? Did they really think the Americans hadn’t learned anything about German humanity, from Warsaw and Rotterdam on? The “Old Crock” may have felt a little bit sick at his stomach; anyhow, what he said was “Nuts!” He didn’t have any idea that he was making himself immortal by that word; millions of American boys had said it, and continued to say it when they had grown up and wished to express the ultimate of boredom and disgust. McAuliffe wrote on a scrap of paper: “To the German Commander: Nuts!”—and drew two lines under the word. The German major knew English, but not of that inelegant kind. On his way out he asked the staff officer who was escorting him, “What does ‘nuts’ mean?” The answer was, “It means about the same as ‘Go to hell.’” The German flushed and said no more. In his heart he would know that he was dealing with backwoodsmen, low-born men without breeding or manners; but unfortunately they could fight.
............................................................................
"The strange silence of the truce was broken, and the battle became still more fierce. The Germans attacked again and again, and shells poured into the town, making its lack of charm still more evident. Scores of fires were burning, many civilians were killed, and it was the Americans’ fault, but they bore up under the burden. And next morning came a miracle—a decent day. The storm had blown itself out, and, actually, there was a sun in the sky!
"So there came the planes; all kinds and sizes, on their various errands; more than five thousand flew from the Continent and England that day. Thunderbolt fighter-bombers dropped their stuff on enemy tanks, truck concentrations, and supply dumps; Budd-Erlings sprayed road convoys with machine-gun bullets; and the pot-bellied cargo planes, the C-47S, came in swarms, flying low and dumping off stuff with parachutes. McAuliffe had called for all sorts of supplies and now he was getting them. Red parachutes meant one kind, blue another, yellow a third, and so on. The men below did not fail to make note of the spot and to collect.
"That wonderful weather held for five days, and the Air Force made use of every hour. It was the end of German hopes, and the higher-ups could not have failed to realize it. Their supply lines far to the rear were being bombed out; ammunition depots and oil dumps, railroad yards, locomotives and trains, bridges and culverts—the Germans were back in the days when their trains and trucks dared to move only at night and had to be hidden off the roads by day. They sent out the best they had against the Air Force, and their planes were shot out of the sky by the mysterious new shells, whose accuracy appeared to be supernatural. They couldn’t, alas, make any appeal to The Hague Convention, for they had taken The Hague and everything in it; and anyhow, since when had the laws of war forbidden gunners to shoot too accurately?
"The attack on Bastogne continued unabated. On Christmas Eve there was a fearful bombing, and it cost the young Monuments man from Wisconsin one of his arms. Fortunately a few surgeons had got into the town with Piper Cubs and gliders, and plenty of blood plasma had been dropped from the skies.
"At three o’clock on Christmas morning the Germans made their fiercest attack, throwing four full divisions against the fourteen-mile perimeter of the town. They broke through on a front of about a quarter-mile. There was the wildest kind of melee in the snow, men using bayonets and knives, which were supposed to have got out of date in war. Ten Tiger tanks broke into the town, and kitchen and office men and the wounded fought them with anything they could pick up, including bottles of gasoline thrown from windows of houses. During those two days the Germans lost a couple of hundred tanks and before darkness fell on Christmas night had had to give up the ground gained. But they didn’t yield a foot without fierce fighting, and many chose to die in the trampled snow. Their Führer had ordered it, having told them that the loss of this battle would mean the loss of the war.
"General McAuliffe might well have been worried, for his supplies were getting desperately low and he had to ration ten cartridges to each man in the trenches. But he knew that help was coming. It was another motion-picture finale, this time on an even bigger scale, and the hero of the event was that doughty warrior with the two pearl-handled revolvers, “Old Blood and Guts,” officially known as General George Patton. His Third Army was next in the line to the south, a couple of hundred miles away. It had been facing east, ready for a grand slam, when the Battle of the Bulge began, and it was ordered to make a left face and go to the rescue.
"Only a military man could conceive what that meant; an army has things that belong at the front and others that belong at the rear, and if any of them get mixed up there is confusion beyond imagining. When you have several hundred thousand men performing such a maneuver there are several hundred thousand things that may go wrong, and a headquarters staff has to work all day and all night and its members are lucky if they don’t go mad. After it was all over, some of them figured up that in six days 133,178 motor vehicles had traveled 1,654,042 miles; 61,935 tons of supplies had been moved; and enough telephone lines laid, what is called “field wire,” to reach six times across the United States. Some had to prepare and others had to distribute hundreds of thousands of maps, terrain analyses of the new battle area, estimates of the enemy situation, and detailed orders of battle.
"The 4th Armored Division, deep in the Sarreguemines salient, was ordered to move at once to the Ardennes. The order came at midnight, and in black darkness the division withdrew, and by nine o’clock next morning was at Nancy, fifty miles behind its former position; this in the midst of the blizzard just before Christmas. The division sped northward, and by the next morning it was fighting enemy tanks at a town called Arlon, some thirty miles below Bastogne. The Germans knew all about the 4th Armored, for it had chased them all the way through Normandy, across France, and across the Moselle River. Apparently they didn’t like what they had learned, for they called the men “Roosevelt’s Butchers,” which didn’t annoy the men a bit.
"And then came the 80th Infantry Division, who called themselves the “Blue Ridge Mountain Boys.” They too had fought all the way across France. They had been resting at St. Avoid, and had traveled forty miles on their way back into the line when the Ardennes battle started. The division was loaded into open trucks at one o’clock in the morning and traveled in bitter cold for fourteen hours. Then it got out and fought, and destroyed two-thirds of a German division which blocked its path. That helped to explain why the Germans did not succeed in their efforts to widen the shoulders of the southern salient and take the city of Luxembourg.
"The fighting advance went on for five days, and on the day after Christmas the commander of one tank battalion announced, “We are going into Bastogne today.”
"The tank men stepped on the gas, and they came to a little village only a mile and a half south of Bastogne. American artillery was firing into the town and knocked out several of the American halftracks. But the road was cleared and the Sherman tanks sped on. The Germans literally threw their Teller mines into the road, and the Americans lifted them off by hand. Then they came to a pillbox that had been knocked out and was still smoking; they didn’t know whether it was American or German. They halted, afraid to fire, and both sides stared at each other. It was almost evening and the light was bad. Finally an American officer came forward, and when he had made sure who it was he said, “I am glad to see you.”
"Such was the ending of the Siege of Bastogne. But right away another struggle began, no less fierce, which was properly to be called the Battle of Bastogne. The enemy couldn’t give up and retire because Bastogne and the new corridor constituted a bulge driven into his bulge, and it imperiled all the forces he had sent far to the west. He had hoped to fight at Namur and Liége, but instead he was forced to fight at this dingy little town which was now a mass of rubble. He had to bring in troops from both east and west to meet those Patton was driving in from the south. It took two days to widen the corridor so that American supplies could be safely brought into the town, and after that there were ten days of ceaseless fighting."
Another blizzard, and Lanny decided they'd leave. There was transport enough. He took leave of Heinrich, who was in tears because Germany was at end of her last hope, and so was his career. The Monuments men traveled and were at Arlon in the morning, had a hot breakfast after long, and having heard heard Patton was there, Lanny went to meet him.
"All the men, high and low, called him this, and loved him because he fought for them as hard as he fought against the enemy. When a battle was on he did not sit on his backside and direct it in comfort; he was all over the place, mixing with the men, laughing, joking, exhorting, scolding. He rode in a plane when weather permitted, and when it didn’t he came in a car; any GI could tell him his troubles and say “What the hell!” The old man himself rarely uttered a sentence without cussing, and that was the soldier’s idea of soldier talk.
"Lanny told what he had been doing, interrogating for the “Old Crock,” and added, “I’m expecting to see the President before long, and I’ll tell him that you have a real man’s army.”
"“Jesus Christ!” burst out the militant Episcopalian. “Tell him about these goddam blizzards, and here we are without snow camouflage for either men or tanks, and both are sitting ducks for German tanks and machine gunners. I put in my requisition two months ago, and those SOBs at SOS sit on their fat fannies and do nothing. Tell the Old Man I got a hundred and twenty-five thousand pairs of shoe pacs from Com Z and the inner felt linings were missing. My QM didn’t waste any time complaining to those goddam bastards in Paris, he just cut up blankets to make liners. Imagine, if you can, I have to buy white cloth and have a salvage repair company turn out makeshift suits. I have bombarded Com Z for white paint for helmets, raincoats, and shoes, and for lime to whitewash vehicles. But do I get it? Like hell I do! They can’t read the goddam calendar in Paris and they don’t know the goddam winter has come. The best they can do is to send me five thousand mattress covers to make suits out of. There are seven hundred goddam tons of winter-warfare clothing in Le Havre, and I can have it if I send the trucks—and me trying to save you and your goddam heroes in Bastogne!”"
Lanny was flown from Nancy to Paris, and having read letters from Laurel, went to Bienvenu, having caught rides as before; he'd decided He needed a respite from the effects of the stress he'd been through, and the forces were resting at front while supplies were being straightened out; neither the Monuments nor Alsos could do much until the front moved. He told Laurel part of the truth, so as to not alarm the wife but give material to the writer. Laurel and Lanny listened to the radio, and the news from allies was a couple of days old for caution, but reliable.
"Bulge was being steadily squeezed from both north and south. There was the possibility of a large-scale pocketing of Germans; but no, they kept backing out, contesting every step. Lanny could guess from this that Rundstedt was now having his way. The Führer, as military strategist, had a fatal weakness: he could never bear to give up territory that he had conquered and would sacrifice whole armies rather than admit a failure."
"Things did look pretty black for the Americans that Monday night. Fog hung over the battle scene, so thick that you could put your hands in it. Sometimes it rained and sometimes it snowed, and there could be no help from the air. All over that black forest groups of men were fighting, and between times blocking roads and blowing bridges, doing everything they could to delay the enemy hordes. Small groups would join themselves to larger groups—there were some who had fought with as many as nine different units before the month-long battle was over; they were caught there, and had nothing to do but fight, and then fall back to some other crossroads and fight again.
"Bastogne was completely surrounded; but the wireless telephone was in use, and headquarters told them to hold on at all hazards. Headquarters of the First Army had been at Spa, a luxurious springs resort to the north. It was uncomfortably near to the enemy’s line of advance, and the staff had got out in a hurry, some not even stopping to pack their duds. Where they had gone to now was not being told over the radio, even in code, but they had code words to identify them, and they kept saying, “Hold at all costs.” Bastogne kept saying, “We are holding.”
"Somewhere just outside the Bulge, to the north, was the 101st Airborne, known according to its insigne as the “Screaming Eagle” Division. “Airborne” means that its members are flown in transport planes or towed in gliders; they are tough guys and have been taught all there is about combat. This division had been put down in Normandy and had fought all the way to Holland. They were supposed to be resting now, and it was only a few days to Christmas; they had been planning a football game, the most wonderful ever, and they were greatly excited about it—but it was never played. On Sunday morning had come telephone orders, in double-talk, telling them to be ready to move on Tuesday; a little later it was changed to Monday at fourteen, which is two in the afternoon. Nothing could be “airborne” in this weather, so their SOS—Service of Supplies—scoured the neighborhood for trucks big and little and all sizes between.
"The commanding officer of this division happened to be in Washington. The second in command was Brigadier General McAuliffe, a little man, quiet but determined, known to his men as the “Old Crock”—although he was young. He got his twelve thousand men under way at the time specified, using all the north-south roads there were. Plenty of Germans were in the way, but led by tanks the Americans broke through everything. It was like an episode in a movie, the grand climax where the cavalry comes galloping in with flags flying and is welcomed with frantic cheers; the only difference was that the Screaming Eagles came packed in trucks, and had no flags, and there was nobody to cheer, because the Belgians were hiding in their cellars and the fighting men were out in trenches and foxholes and didn’t even know what was happening.
"The way they found out was that fresh men kept sneaking up behind them and joining them in the trenches; very cocky fellows who called themselves “paradoughs” and thought that nobody else knew very much. Presently they began charging out and driving the enemy back, with the help of shells from their batteries posted behind the lines. Something new began to happen to the Germans then, and most of them never knew what it was. There had come to the rescue of Bastogne not merely some thousands of paradoughs and their artillery, but a large group of scientists and engineers working in laboratories three or four thousand miles away.
"It was one of the great secrets of the war, and one of the engineering marvels of all time; a thing known as a “proximity fuse.” Lanny heard a strange phrase, “pozit ammunition,” as the new device had come to be called.
"When a shell is fired at an airplane in the sky, the gunner has to calculate or guess the spot where the plane will be when the shell arrives; then he has to set the fuse of the shell so that it will explode in the number of seconds required for it to reach that spot. A tremendously difficult task, and experience showed that a gunner fired twenty-five hundred shots to bring down one plane. But suppose a fuse could be made with some sort of radar equipment that would send out signals as it sped, and when these signals were echoed back with sufficient strength from some object in the sky, the shell would explode near the target?"
The scientists and engineers had managed to solve the problems of bringing this idea to work, and had something that could be held in hand and fired through a cannon, and only burst when intended, at or over the target, by radio signal returned.
"At this time there were five German divisions attacking Bastogne; at full strength that would have been seventy-five thousand men. Pozit shells couldn’t kill them all, especially as Bastogne’s supply of them was limited. The battle was fought fiercely, day and night. The Americans would sally forth and seize a ridge; the Germans would attack and cut it off, and the Americans would fight their way back. Then it would be the Germans who got cut off and they would fight their way back."
"The bombarding was incessant, and the town was gradually being reduced to rubble."
The men held up through the bad weather and shelling, because losing nerve wasn't an option.
"A man named Beaster went out in a newly arrived tank-killer, and he came up over a ridge and there were five enemy tanks which had turned to get away from him. He fired five quick shots and knocked them out like so many stupid partridges sitting on a limb; then two more came into sight and he hit them. Over his telephone he reported, “I have just killed seven tanks.” A moment later a shell from a German 88 hit his tank and knocked him out; but he lived to get more tanks."
Lanny being a Colonel of the Monuments was entitled to go to the map room. Red flags for German and blue for allied.
"The Bulge was about sixty miles wide at its base and just about as deep; it was a triangle with irregular, curved sides. The Germans had got within fifteen miles of Namur, and within twenty of Liége; there they seemed to have been stopped.
............................................................................
"Thursday, the 21st of December, the shortest day of the year, was the sixth day of the offensive; that longest night, instead of fair weather there was a high wind and heavy snow, what in America is called a blizzard. In the midst of it the Germans attacked Bastogne with renewed fury; evidently they had realized that unless they could have the use of those eight major roads they could no longer supply their troops that had plunged on to the west. They even recalled some of their armored forces to complete the encirclement of the town. By the next afternoon they had made such progress that they sent a major, accompanied by a captain and a couple of common soldiers, out into a field waving a flag made of a bedsheet. An American sergeant south of the town, getting ready a mortar barrage with some of those wonderful new proximity-fused shells, observed the flag and held up his fire. The Germans requested to be taken to an officer, so they were escorted to the nearest command post, and from there driven to town and into the presence of General McAuliffe.
"That small-sized man with one star on each shoulder was very busy and probably not very elegant in appearance just then; he hadn’t been expecting company. The German major handed him a letter, and he took time off to read it. It was in English and employed the very formal style which Wehrmacht officers considered protocol. It informed the American commander that: “The fortunes of war are changing, and this time United States Army forces in and near Bastogne have been encircled by strong German Army units.… There is only one possibility to save American troops from total annihilation, and that is honorable surrender.” The letter went on to say that the Americans would be granted a two-hour period “in order to think this over,” and it took the opportunity to offer a moral sentiment, pointing out that civilians might be killed in the bombardment, that the American Army would be to blame for this, and that it was not in line with “that well-known American humanity.”
"Was this a touch of irony, or was it just hypocrisy? Did they really think the Americans hadn’t learned anything about German humanity, from Warsaw and Rotterdam on? The “Old Crock” may have felt a little bit sick at his stomach; anyhow, what he said was “Nuts!” He didn’t have any idea that he was making himself immortal by that word; millions of American boys had said it, and continued to say it when they had grown up and wished to express the ultimate of boredom and disgust. McAuliffe wrote on a scrap of paper: “To the German Commander: Nuts!”—and drew two lines under the word. The German major knew English, but not of that inelegant kind. On his way out he asked the staff officer who was escorting him, “What does ‘nuts’ mean?” The answer was, “It means about the same as ‘Go to hell.’” The German flushed and said no more. In his heart he would know that he was dealing with backwoodsmen, low-born men without breeding or manners; but unfortunately they could fight.
............................................................................
"The strange silence of the truce was broken, and the battle became still more fierce. The Germans attacked again and again, and shells poured into the town, making its lack of charm still more evident. Scores of fires were burning, many civilians were killed, and it was the Americans’ fault, but they bore up under the burden. And next morning came a miracle—a decent day. The storm had blown itself out, and, actually, there was a sun in the sky!
"So there came the planes; all kinds and sizes, on their various errands; more than five thousand flew from the Continent and England that day. Thunderbolt fighter-bombers dropped their stuff on enemy tanks, truck concentrations, and supply dumps; Budd-Erlings sprayed road convoys with machine-gun bullets; and the pot-bellied cargo planes, the C-47S, came in swarms, flying low and dumping off stuff with parachutes. McAuliffe had called for all sorts of supplies and now he was getting them. Red parachutes meant one kind, blue another, yellow a third, and so on. The men below did not fail to make note of the spot and to collect.
"That wonderful weather held for five days, and the Air Force made use of every hour. It was the end of German hopes, and the higher-ups could not have failed to realize it. Their supply lines far to the rear were being bombed out; ammunition depots and oil dumps, railroad yards, locomotives and trains, bridges and culverts—the Germans were back in the days when their trains and trucks dared to move only at night and had to be hidden off the roads by day. They sent out the best they had against the Air Force, and their planes were shot out of the sky by the mysterious new shells, whose accuracy appeared to be supernatural. They couldn’t, alas, make any appeal to The Hague Convention, for they had taken The Hague and everything in it; and anyhow, since when had the laws of war forbidden gunners to shoot too accurately?
"The attack on Bastogne continued unabated. On Christmas Eve there was a fearful bombing, and it cost the young Monuments man from Wisconsin one of his arms. Fortunately a few surgeons had got into the town with Piper Cubs and gliders, and plenty of blood plasma had been dropped from the skies.
"At three o’clock on Christmas morning the Germans made their fiercest attack, throwing four full divisions against the fourteen-mile perimeter of the town. They broke through on a front of about a quarter-mile. There was the wildest kind of melee in the snow, men using bayonets and knives, which were supposed to have got out of date in war. Ten Tiger tanks broke into the town, and kitchen and office men and the wounded fought them with anything they could pick up, including bottles of gasoline thrown from windows of houses. During those two days the Germans lost a couple of hundred tanks and before darkness fell on Christmas night had had to give up the ground gained. But they didn’t yield a foot without fierce fighting, and many chose to die in the trampled snow. Their Führer had ordered it, having told them that the loss of this battle would mean the loss of the war.
"General McAuliffe might well have been worried, for his supplies were getting desperately low and he had to ration ten cartridges to each man in the trenches. But he knew that help was coming. It was another motion-picture finale, this time on an even bigger scale, and the hero of the event was that doughty warrior with the two pearl-handled revolvers, “Old Blood and Guts,” officially known as General George Patton. His Third Army was next in the line to the south, a couple of hundred miles away. It had been facing east, ready for a grand slam, when the Battle of the Bulge began, and it was ordered to make a left face and go to the rescue.
"Only a military man could conceive what that meant; an army has things that belong at the front and others that belong at the rear, and if any of them get mixed up there is confusion beyond imagining. When you have several hundred thousand men performing such a maneuver there are several hundred thousand things that may go wrong, and a headquarters staff has to work all day and all night and its members are lucky if they don’t go mad. After it was all over, some of them figured up that in six days 133,178 motor vehicles had traveled 1,654,042 miles; 61,935 tons of supplies had been moved; and enough telephone lines laid, what is called “field wire,” to reach six times across the United States. Some had to prepare and others had to distribute hundreds of thousands of maps, terrain analyses of the new battle area, estimates of the enemy situation, and detailed orders of battle.
"The 4th Armored Division, deep in the Sarreguemines salient, was ordered to move at once to the Ardennes. The order came at midnight, and in black darkness the division withdrew, and by nine o’clock next morning was at Nancy, fifty miles behind its former position; this in the midst of the blizzard just before Christmas. The division sped northward, and by the next morning it was fighting enemy tanks at a town called Arlon, some thirty miles below Bastogne. The Germans knew all about the 4th Armored, for it had chased them all the way through Normandy, across France, and across the Moselle River. Apparently they didn’t like what they had learned, for they called the men “Roosevelt’s Butchers,” which didn’t annoy the men a bit.
"And then came the 80th Infantry Division, who called themselves the “Blue Ridge Mountain Boys.” They too had fought all the way across France. They had been resting at St. Avoid, and had traveled forty miles on their way back into the line when the Ardennes battle started. The division was loaded into open trucks at one o’clock in the morning and traveled in bitter cold for fourteen hours. Then it got out and fought, and destroyed two-thirds of a German division which blocked its path. That helped to explain why the Germans did not succeed in their efforts to widen the shoulders of the southern salient and take the city of Luxembourg.
"The fighting advance went on for five days, and on the day after Christmas the commander of one tank battalion announced, “We are going into Bastogne today.”
"The tank men stepped on the gas, and they came to a little village only a mile and a half south of Bastogne. American artillery was firing into the town and knocked out several of the American halftracks. But the road was cleared and the Sherman tanks sped on. The Germans literally threw their Teller mines into the road, and the Americans lifted them off by hand. Then they came to a pillbox that had been knocked out and was still smoking; they didn’t know whether it was American or German. They halted, afraid to fire, and both sides stared at each other. It was almost evening and the light was bad. Finally an American officer came forward, and when he had made sure who it was he said, “I am glad to see you.”
"Such was the ending of the Siege of Bastogne. But right away another struggle began, no less fierce, which was properly to be called the Battle of Bastogne. The enemy couldn’t give up and retire because Bastogne and the new corridor constituted a bulge driven into his bulge, and it imperiled all the forces he had sent far to the west. He had hoped to fight at Namur and Liége, but instead he was forced to fight at this dingy little town which was now a mass of rubble. He had to bring in troops from both east and west to meet those Patton was driving in from the south. It took two days to widen the corridor so that American supplies could be safely brought into the town, and after that there were ten days of ceaseless fighting."
Another blizzard, and Lanny decided they'd leave. There was transport enough. He took leave of Heinrich, who was in tears because Germany was at end of her last hope, and so was his career. The Monuments men traveled and were at Arlon in the morning, had a hot breakfast after long, and having heard heard Patton was there, Lanny went to meet him.
"All the men, high and low, called him this, and loved him because he fought for them as hard as he fought against the enemy. When a battle was on he did not sit on his backside and direct it in comfort; he was all over the place, mixing with the men, laughing, joking, exhorting, scolding. He rode in a plane when weather permitted, and when it didn’t he came in a car; any GI could tell him his troubles and say “What the hell!” The old man himself rarely uttered a sentence without cussing, and that was the soldier’s idea of soldier talk.
"Lanny told what he had been doing, interrogating for the “Old Crock,” and added, “I’m expecting to see the President before long, and I’ll tell him that you have a real man’s army.”
"“Jesus Christ!” burst out the militant Episcopalian. “Tell him about these goddam blizzards, and here we are without snow camouflage for either men or tanks, and both are sitting ducks for German tanks and machine gunners. I put in my requisition two months ago, and those SOBs at SOS sit on their fat fannies and do nothing. Tell the Old Man I got a hundred and twenty-five thousand pairs of shoe pacs from Com Z and the inner felt linings were missing. My QM didn’t waste any time complaining to those goddam bastards in Paris, he just cut up blankets to make liners. Imagine, if you can, I have to buy white cloth and have a salvage repair company turn out makeshift suits. I have bombarded Com Z for white paint for helmets, raincoats, and shoes, and for lime to whitewash vehicles. But do I get it? Like hell I do! They can’t read the goddam calendar in Paris and they don’t know the goddam winter has come. The best they can do is to send me five thousand mattress covers to make suits out of. There are seven hundred goddam tons of winter-warfare clothing in Le Havre, and I can have it if I send the trucks—and me trying to save you and your goddam heroes in Bastogne!”"
Lanny was flown from Nancy to Paris, and having read letters from Laurel, went to Bienvenu, having caught rides as before; he'd decided He needed a respite from the effects of the stress he'd been through, and the forces were resting at front while supplies were being straightened out; neither the Monuments nor Alsos could do much until the front moved. He told Laurel part of the truth, so as to not alarm the wife but give material to the writer. Laurel and Lanny listened to the radio, and the news from allies was a couple of days old for caution, but reliable.
"Bulge was being steadily squeezed from both north and south. There was the possibility of a large-scale pocketing of Germans; but no, they kept backing out, contesting every step. Lanny could guess from this that Rundstedt was now having his way. The Führer, as military strategist, had a fatal weakness: he could never bear to give up territory that he had conquered and would sacrifice whole armies rather than admit a failure."
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A fortnight later Lanny, having had a restful interlude at his home of childhood and decades more, and told Laurel about those days, was ready for action, and Laurel needed to see her editors, so he contacted the OSS in Cannes and arranged through Baker to fly to U.S.; he was informed that they'd be flown from Cannes to Marseille and thence via Marrakech where they wanted a couple of days.
Beauty asked about Marceline.
"Marceline was in besieged Naziland, and Lanny hadn’t told his mother what he knew: that his half-sister had been in dire peril and had risked her life to warn Lanny that he too was in peril."
He could do nothing, being now known in Germany to officials and top leaders who'd been close, as enemy agent. Beauty asked Laurel about details of her new grandson, the almost two yesr old baby named Lanning Creston Budd after both his parents. Parsifal wanted Laurel to try a seance, and this time Henri Bergson came.
A fortnight later Lanny, having had a restful interlude at his home of childhood and decades more, and told Laurel about those days, was ready for action, and Laurel needed to see her editors, so he contacted the OSS in Cannes and arranged through Baker to fly to U.S.; he was informed that they'd be flown from Cannes to Marseille and thence via Marrakech where they wanted a couple of days.
Beauty asked about Marceline.
"Marceline was in besieged Naziland, and Lanny hadn’t told his mother what he knew: that his half-sister had been in dire peril and had risked her life to warn Lanny that he too was in peril."
He could do nothing, being now known in Germany to officials and top leaders who'd been close, as enemy agent. Beauty asked Laurel about details of her new grandson, the almost two yesr old baby named Lanning Creston Budd after both his parents. Parsifal wanted Laurel to try a seance, and this time Henri Bergson came.
............................................................................
The couple was flown via Dakar and Brazil to Washington and Laurel flew to N.Y. while Lanny checked inyo Mayflower, and was informed his appointment was next day, and Professor Alston was in his hotel. They talked about the Battle of the Bulge.
"Battle of the Bulge; it was over now, having lasted just a month, and Alston knew the results. “We were taken badly by surprise,” he said, “but in the long run I don’t think it matters. We have taken fifty thousand German prisoners and inflicted twice as many casualties as we suffered. We had to fight all those Germans somewhere, and they won’t be on hand when we start our advance to the Rhine. ... I was talking yesterday with an American officer who was captured at Celles, a place at the tip of the salient only four miles from the Meuse. A Panzer battalion made the rush, and then they waited three days for their army to bring them more gasoline and it didn’t. They realized that they would be cut off, and there was nothing for them to do but to burn all their tanks and other vehicles and walk back. They were lost and had to fight all the way, hiding from Americans as you hid from Germans—and they didn’t find it a bit more comfortable. They shot anyone who tried to lag behind.”
"“What happened to your officer?” asked Lanny, to whom it was a human-interest story.
"“He had nothing to eat and was very tired. He waited until the Germans were busy in a fight and then just walked off to one side. Presently he came to an American outpost and made himself known.”"
They talked about the pozit and the atomic weapons, and about the war, and about FDR. Lanny met FDR next evening, and they talked about the Bulge, the weapons, and then about the coming meeting with Stalin that FDR was to have in Crimea. Lanny stressed the importance of knowing the mind of the opposite player, and told again about the Molotov deal that broke down at question of Balkans control, which Stalin and Hitler each wanted.
"“Remind yourself how Tsar Alexander the First dropped his friendship with Napoleon and shifted over to Napoleon’s enemies in the middle of a war.”
"“That is what keeps our General Staff from getting any sleep at night—the fear that Stalin may make a separate peace and release Hitler’s armies for the western front. Also, we need his help to beat down the Japanese in China. I am taking this journey to persuade him that his true interests lie with us, and to get the best deal out of him that I can.”"
FDR invited Lanny to accompany him to the meeting with Stalin in Crimea.
The couple was flown via Dakar and Brazil to Washington and Laurel flew to N.Y. while Lanny checked inyo Mayflower, and was informed his appointment was next day, and Professor Alston was in his hotel. They talked about the Battle of the Bulge.
"Battle of the Bulge; it was over now, having lasted just a month, and Alston knew the results. “We were taken badly by surprise,” he said, “but in the long run I don’t think it matters. We have taken fifty thousand German prisoners and inflicted twice as many casualties as we suffered. We had to fight all those Germans somewhere, and they won’t be on hand when we start our advance to the Rhine. ... I was talking yesterday with an American officer who was captured at Celles, a place at the tip of the salient only four miles from the Meuse. A Panzer battalion made the rush, and then they waited three days for their army to bring them more gasoline and it didn’t. They realized that they would be cut off, and there was nothing for them to do but to burn all their tanks and other vehicles and walk back. They were lost and had to fight all the way, hiding from Americans as you hid from Germans—and they didn’t find it a bit more comfortable. They shot anyone who tried to lag behind.”
"“What happened to your officer?” asked Lanny, to whom it was a human-interest story.
"“He had nothing to eat and was very tired. He waited until the Germans were busy in a fight and then just walked off to one side. Presently he came to an American outpost and made himself known.”"
They talked about the pozit and the atomic weapons, and about the war, and about FDR. Lanny met FDR next evening, and they talked about the Bulge, the weapons, and then about the coming meeting with Stalin that FDR was to have in Crimea. Lanny stressed the importance of knowing the mind of the opposite player, and told again about the Molotov deal that broke down at question of Balkans control, which Stalin and Hitler each wanted.
"“Remind yourself how Tsar Alexander the First dropped his friendship with Napoleon and shifted over to Napoleon’s enemies in the middle of a war.”
"“That is what keeps our General Staff from getting any sleep at night—the fear that Stalin may make a separate peace and release Hitler’s armies for the western front. Also, we need his help to beat down the Japanese in China. I am taking this journey to persuade him that his true interests lie with us, and to get the best deal out of him that I can.”"
FDR invited Lanny to accompany him to the meeting with Stalin in Crimea.
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Baby Lanny, the almost two year old son of Lanny and Laurel, named Lanning Creston Budd after his parents, had been living at Newcastle at home of his grandfather Robbie and his family, and had not only enough competent adult supervision from Esther, the stepmother of Lanny, and other women and men, but also plenty of cousins on the estate who played with him, and he was quite happy, especially now he was running and tumbling in snow and playing with snowballs and more. Laurel couldn't find fault with leaving him there while she was to next go inyo Germany after the American forces as suggested by the editors.
Lanny and Laurel were now a respectable enough couple for Esther and their work no longer secret, and Esther had been affected by Lanny's ideas seeping in, so that she'd invited the union leaders at the plant home for tea, and found them well behaved and intelligent. Their ideas about what was needed were reasonable, and her championing them had brought Robbie around. He talked to Lanny about Emily Chattersworth's will.
Robbie and Esther were troubled about their only daughter Bess who'd turned hard line communist, unlike Lanny and Bess's husband Hansi. Esther talked to Lanny about Bess, and Lanny pointed out that Bess and communists weren't different in attitude, stance or actions, from Esther and her puritan ancestors, only in the philosophy and ideals, and in proportion there were far more massacred in Ireland perhaps than by communists.
Lanny and Laurel visited Hansi and Bess, who had two lovely children and a home halfway between N.Y. and Newcastle overlooking the Long Island Sound, but a marriage troubled due to their political differences. They were excited by Emily Chattersworth's will, especially since she'd played a key role in their life, they'd fallen in love when Bess heard Hansi playing classical music on violin accompanied by Lanny playing piano in Emily Chattersworth's Paris townhouse.
"Not even the topic of music was absolutely safe, for the Soviet rulers objected to musical compositions that were oversubtle and precious, and Hansi had remarked that Stalin wanted tunes the commissars could whistle. Better to leave out modern music and stick to the classics, by which the taste of all four had been molded. What was Hansi playing now? He had composed a little “Concert Piece” which he used as an encore, and the audiences gave evidence of liking it. He played that for his relatives; it was gentle, lovely, and a little bit sad, like himself. Could any Jew be really happy, knowing what had been going on in Germany for twelve years?"
"In the afternoon the two men put on their overcoats and went for a walk in the softly falling snow. Bess and Laurel stayed and talked, and then music was forgotten. Bess poured out her troubles. She had the idea that Laurel was more radical than Lanny, or at any rate took her social creed more seriously; perhaps she thought that Laurel might be able to influence Hansi. He persisted in reading newspapers like the New Leader, which filled his mind with all the evils that could be found in the Soviet Union and never by any chance reported what was good: the hundred and fifty million people who had been lifted out of ignorance and superstition, who had been taught to read and write and had had the world’s classics put before them; the hundred or more tribes and races which had been given cultural freedom, many of them given an alphabet for the first time, and books printed in it. Bess would tell things like this for hours, and had done so with Hansi—but how much effect had it had? Nothing that next week’s New Leader couldn’t wipe out!
"Meantime there was Hansi walking and telling about Bess and the evil company she kept. Nothing sexual—it wasn’t like that, but something worse; conspiratorial persons who went about under aliases and carried dark secrets which they mentioned in whispers; efforts to steal the secrets of American weapons and plans to promote strikes after the war. Lanny himself had been doing that sort of thing in Germany, but he hadn’t told Hansi and didn’t tell him now. He listened sympathetically to statements that his half-sister read poisonous papers like the Daily Worker and the New Masses, which told her only the evil things about America and never by any chance mentioned the good: the New Deal and all the benefits it had brought to the public; the Tennessee Valley Authority, a model of what a public service enterprise ought to be; the laws establishing social security and protecting the rights of labor.
"Wasn’t it true, asked the violinist, that a revolution sometimes degenerated and fell into the hands of men who used its slogans as covers for their love of personal power? And when you had a one-party system and suppressed all criticism, how could any evil be corrected? Even Stalin himself couldn’t get truth, because the men around him, seeking to please him, would tell him what they knew he wanted to hear. Hansi insisted that the Communist world revolution had become a tool of Russian power politics; every day it grew more narrow, more limited, less open to modern ideas. Birth control, for example; wasn’t that a test of reaction versus progress? To suppress knowledge of birth control could only mean that you were breeding soldiers for war. Just as with the Catholics, the top classes had the knowledge and used it but denied it to the poor underlings.
"The Hansibesses had been in Russia for nearly two years, returning only a short time ago, so Hansi knew what he was talking about. On the concert platform he had been welcomed tumultuously, but in private life few Russians dared to be his friend. To associate with a foreigner meant to fall under the suspicion of the dread secret police; and even foreign Communists, who came to work for the cause in Moscow, found that they were watched, and only in a very few cases were they trusted."
This was so about Jesse Blackless, uncle of Lanny who was brother of Beauty, who found his independence of mind resulting in him being sidelined to translating jobs with no friends who werent watching him, having migrated to Russia after having proven his credentials in France as a left leader, including being elected to the chamber of deputies. Hansi told Lanny about it, having toured Russia for two years and met Jesse Blackless there.
Lanny and Laurel returned to N.Y. driving the car Robbie loaned them, and Lanny went to art dealers with Zoltan Kertezsi.
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"In the previous October the Russian armies had come to a halt along the Vistula River, in front of Warsaw, and had begun preparations for a winter offensive. Tanks can move in snow, unless it is very deep; the only thing that really troubles them is sticky mud; and on the level plains of Poland everything freezes. The Russians brought up enormous masses of supplies, and artillery in such quantities as the world had never seen before. They had many thousands of American trucks and uncountable swarms of peasant carts—their advance was more like a migration than an army. They had all lived more than half their lives in cold and knew how to exist in spite of it.
"Just as the Battle of the Bulge was ending, the second week of January, these vast hordes struck. Artillery barrages knocked down the German defenses, and the Russians poured through great gaps in the line, all the way from the Baltic Sea to the Carpathian Mountains, a distance of some four hundred miles. They had command of the air, and the supply bases of the Germans behind the lines were being pounded by British and American bombers flying from France. The Germans brought reserves from the western front and threw them into the battle, but in vain. Hitler had sent too many of his troops to the south, trying to keep the Russians away from Budapest and Vienna. That was Adi’s way; he couldn’t bear to give up anything, and so he was losing everything.
"The Germans had constructed immense defense areas and turned whole cities into fortresses, but the Russians by-passed most of these; they were so sure of their own strength and their enemy’s weakness that they no longer feared counteroffensives. They were going straight through this time, their destination Berlin. The only thing that troubled the American listeners was fear that the Allied armies might be too slow in getting started and might take too long to get across the Rhine. The Russians might take all Germany; and what if they refused to get out? Uneasiness was spreading, and Lanny heard more than one of his rich friends express the idea that maybe there might have been something in Hitler’s ideas after all. Wouldn’t it have been better to make a deal with him? Perhaps he couldn’t be trusted, but at least the armies would have been moving east instead of west!"
"In the previous October the Russian armies had come to a halt along the Vistula River, in front of Warsaw, and had begun preparations for a winter offensive. Tanks can move in snow, unless it is very deep; the only thing that really troubles them is sticky mud; and on the level plains of Poland everything freezes. The Russians brought up enormous masses of supplies, and artillery in such quantities as the world had never seen before. They had many thousands of American trucks and uncountable swarms of peasant carts—their advance was more like a migration than an army. They had all lived more than half their lives in cold and knew how to exist in spite of it.
"Just as the Battle of the Bulge was ending, the second week of January, these vast hordes struck. Artillery barrages knocked down the German defenses, and the Russians poured through great gaps in the line, all the way from the Baltic Sea to the Carpathian Mountains, a distance of some four hundred miles. They had command of the air, and the supply bases of the Germans behind the lines were being pounded by British and American bombers flying from France. The Germans brought reserves from the western front and threw them into the battle, but in vain. Hitler had sent too many of his troops to the south, trying to keep the Russians away from Budapest and Vienna. That was Adi’s way; he couldn’t bear to give up anything, and so he was losing everything.
"The Germans had constructed immense defense areas and turned whole cities into fortresses, but the Russians by-passed most of these; they were so sure of their own strength and their enemy’s weakness that they no longer feared counteroffensives. They were going straight through this time, their destination Berlin. The only thing that troubled the American listeners was fear that the Allied armies might be too slow in getting started and might take too long to get across the Rhine. The Russians might take all Germany; and what if they refused to get out? Uneasiness was spreading, and Lanny heard more than one of his rich friends express the idea that maybe there might have been something in Hitler’s ideas after all. Wouldn’t it have been better to make a deal with him? Perhaps he couldn’t be trusted, but at least the armies would have been moving east instead of west!"
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Lanny got a telegram to report in two days at Mitchell Field, the army airbase, and checked, he didn't need to take his passport or other papers. He reported accordingly and was flown with assortment of others via Bermuda, Azores, Casablanca, and Naples, to Malta. Naples and Malta airbase had been bombed, but that was past.
"Franklin Roosevelt’s fourth inauguration had taken place in Washington, a brief and simple ceremony, and two days later he had been taken in his special train to Norfolk, the Army’s secret port of embarkation, and had boarded the heavy cruiser Quincy; a week later he was in the Strait of Gibraltar. Those on board had held their breath, wondering how many German subs would be waiting for them. The last time the President had come there, on his way to the Teheran Conference, Franco had turned all his searchlights on the battleship Iowa, to give what help he could to the subs. But this time he hadn’t done so, and the P.A. remarked, “He has found out how the war is going.”"
The trip from Malta was rough. Lanny looked down on Greece recalling his cruise on Ezra Hackabury's yacht, The Bluebird, with Beauty and Marcel Detaze who was later his stepfather, and Beauty's friends. The landing at Crimea was managed.
"The Germans, after holding the Crimea for a couple of years, had wrecked everything before they left."
The road to Yalta was guarded by young women with weapons, freeing men for the front. They went through country devastated by Germans, and later the road to Yalta was like Grand Corniche of Lanny's childhood home region, in mountains looking down on ocean, which here was Black Sea.
"Yalta had been a town, the summer playground of the tsars and their court. The Germans, before retiring, had reduced every building of the town to rubble, sparing only three palaces along the coast. The Livadia, assigned to the Americans, had been the residence of Tsar Nicholas II; it was an enormous place, which had been the headquarters of Marshal von Rundstedt, who had come so near to capturing Lanny in the Ardennes. The report was that Hitler had promised these palaces to three of his best generals, and so the historic buildings hadn’t been blown up or burned. All that Rundstedt’s men had done was to take the furniture and even the plumbing fixtures. The Russians had brought down trainloads of stuff and done their best to make fastidious Americans feel at home. Lanny was told that the medical corps had fumigated the palace; this because Churchill had radioed Roosevelt on the Quincy, reporting that it was swarming with typhus-bearing lice.
"All along the Black Sea coast, where the planes had to fly, were Russian antiaircraft batteries, and the young soldiers manning these were apt to be “trigger-happy”; they wouldn’t know American planes and might take one for an enemy. Before he let the President fly that route, Mike had decreed that there must be an American Air Force man stationed with every battery. To that the Russian military commander had said “Impossible,” and Mike had replied, “Then no President.” The issue had been referred to Stalin, who, to the obvious bewilderment of the Russian officer, had assented at once. So now there was a noncom in every battery, armed with a pair of binoculars, and he called the turn on all the approaching planes. He had been taught one Russian word, “Stoy,” which means stop. All the Americans learned that word, for when a Russian sentry said “Stoy!” he meant it, and stoy you did."
Lanny went for a walk and discovered he'd been assigned a shadow. He tried to make friends, but regulations defined that the shadow stay behind. Lanny wanted to see people and how they lived, and discovered that they all had radio with no dials. The people in a totalitarian regime wouldn't know why a radio would have a dial, if they saw one.
"Lanny recalled the story of Caliph Omar in the Alexandrian library: “Burn all the books but the Koran, for their value is in that.”"
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"Roosevelt had a new plane, built especially for his travels, and this was his first trip in it. The Air force men dubbed it “The Sacred Cow,” and before long the symbol was painted on the nose. Also he had an armored car with bullet-proof glass, which was brought by plane and in which he made the drive from Saki to Yalta. This wasn’t new; it had belonged to Chicago gangster Al Capone. The Treasury Department had got the car when it succeeded in sending Capone to jail for understating his income taxes due.
"The President was put up in one of the Tsar’s numerous bedrooms; War Mobilization Director Jimmy Byrnes slept in the Tsarina’s room, and that was certainly an odd adventure for a country boy from South Carolina. The royal lady’s boudoir was occupied by the very stiff and proper Admiral King, Commander of the Fleet. There was only one bathroom in this entire palace, and queues formed up; only the VGDIPs got showers.
"Churchill and his outfit were installed in the Alupka Palace, about twelve miles away from the Livadia. He showed up at the conference wearing a round fur hat, Russian style, which he had had made in Canada; he had learned a few phrases of Russian to say to Stalin, but Stalin, alas, wasn’t able to understand them. The Red Marshal came by train and was established in the palace which had belonged to Prince Yussupoff, the slayer of Rasputin. He brought a large staff, headed by Molotov, his Foreign Commissar. For the Americans, among themselves, the pair were “Uncle Joe” and “Auntie Mol.”
"The first day of the conference was Sunday, the 4th of February. Stalin and Molotov came to call on Roosevelt, bringing their interpreter. Half an hour later the first formal meeting began in the Grand Ballroom of the Livadia Palace. There was an immense round table in the center, and around it sat about thirty men: the heads of the three governments, their secretaries of state, and their chief military officers, army, navy and air force. They spent nearly three hours in discussion and then adjourned for dinner, with Roosevelt as host; there was consommé, sturgeon with tomatoes, beef and macaroni, plus the fixings. It was not an elegant menu, but the diners presumably made it palatable with vodka and five kinds of wine."
Lanny was not asked to the banquet, his credentials were provided by Baker and he was known to secret service staff. He was asked to help Harry Hopkins until FDR had time, and did so gladly. Lanny heard him, and gave his opinion when asked.
"Harry the Hop told how in Malta our military men had had a tough argument with the British, who had a different plan for the advance upon Germany; it had become so hot that Marshall, Chief of Staff, had advised Eisenhower to say that he would resign if the British plan were followed. Our Navy people were demanding more forces against Japan; but F.D.R. settled that one, sticking right to the program he had laid down at the beginning—Germany must be beaten first. Our main problem was to get the Russians’ promise to help us drive the Japanese out of China. When would they undertake that job, and what price would they charge for it? This, alas, was not an altruistic world. They would want the Kurile Islands, and probably Dairen and Port Arthur, and they might want Manchuria, which would hurt. Chinese cities and provinces weren’t ours to give away; but they weren’t China’s either; was it our business to pour out American blood to save China’s possessions and lay them in China’s lap? All we could do was to try to persuade Stalin not to keep too much.
"The most important of all tasks, in the view of F.D.R., was the forming of an international organization to settle future disputes and keep the peace of the world. There must never be another war like this, if civilization was to endure. The President had called an international conference at a mansion in Washington called Dumbarton Oaks, and it had worked out the details of such an undertaking; now he wanted to persuade Stalin to agree to a time and place for a formal assemblage of delegates to organize and launch the project."
Lanny told Harry in confidence about the bequest by Emily Chattersworth, and they agreed to meet later and talk about it. Harry was desperately sick and when he could no longer sit, Lanny helped him in whatever ways possible.
"The Times was flown from London every day of the conference, arriving the day after its issue date—this despite the fact that a two-hundred-mile motor drive was part of the route. Mail was brought daily by a special courier of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Harry would read, dictate, and consult all morning, have lunch with Roosevelt, and then attend a conference with the American staff. At four o’clock would come the formal meeting of the three delegations, lasting about three hours. At eight would come one of those exhausting dinners, with numerous toasts, and discussion which had to be translated. A sick man had to be excused from these affairs."
This is when Lanny sat by his bedside and helped with orders, reports and opinions.
"Stalin was being very accommodating, Lanny was told. He was in agreement with all the military plans for the finishing of the war, and he promised to enter the war against Japan within two or three months after the German surrender. He agreed to all the plans for the demilitarization of both enemy lands. He was not so keen for the proposed international organization; he preferred to have the three nations which were winning the war keep the right to settle the peace; he couldn’t see much sense in a proposal which would place the Soviet Union and Honduras, for example, on the same plane of power. He was persuaded to agree on the basis that the Big Three should retain the power to veto actions they didn’t like—they being the ones who would have to supply the military force if it was required.
"Harry had long talks with his underground adviser on this subject. They agreed that the principal reason the old League of Nations failed was because America had refused to come in; so now there could be no use in proposing at Yalta anything that the United States Senate would refuse to endorse."
Harry had told FDR about Lanny being a great help, and he was invited to dine with him along with Mrs Boettiger, his daughter who was acting as his secretary, and the elderly brigadier general Watson who was his military aide. They discussed the future of Germany, and Lanny had the same opinion as FDR, that dividing Germany into four zones was a mistake; but Churchill and Stalin were agreed in this, and in priority of putting down the enemy.
Stalin saw Lanny at a post dinner casual get together although Lanny kept in background wishing not to be photographed, and sent an aide to say he wanted to see him. They had a very friendly small chat, and with Churchill there was less formality. He asked Lanny why he no longer visited, and Lanny said he'd taken his daughter away to safety from the German buzz bombs. Churchill told him England would soon be free of those and safe again.
"Russians were continuing their drive to the Oder and the Baltic, and on the western front the Americans, British, and Canadians were beginning their drive for the Rhine."
"Roosevelt had a new plane, built especially for his travels, and this was his first trip in it. The Air force men dubbed it “The Sacred Cow,” and before long the symbol was painted on the nose. Also he had an armored car with bullet-proof glass, which was brought by plane and in which he made the drive from Saki to Yalta. This wasn’t new; it had belonged to Chicago gangster Al Capone. The Treasury Department had got the car when it succeeded in sending Capone to jail for understating his income taxes due.
"The President was put up in one of the Tsar’s numerous bedrooms; War Mobilization Director Jimmy Byrnes slept in the Tsarina’s room, and that was certainly an odd adventure for a country boy from South Carolina. The royal lady’s boudoir was occupied by the very stiff and proper Admiral King, Commander of the Fleet. There was only one bathroom in this entire palace, and queues formed up; only the VGDIPs got showers.
"Churchill and his outfit were installed in the Alupka Palace, about twelve miles away from the Livadia. He showed up at the conference wearing a round fur hat, Russian style, which he had had made in Canada; he had learned a few phrases of Russian to say to Stalin, but Stalin, alas, wasn’t able to understand them. The Red Marshal came by train and was established in the palace which had belonged to Prince Yussupoff, the slayer of Rasputin. He brought a large staff, headed by Molotov, his Foreign Commissar. For the Americans, among themselves, the pair were “Uncle Joe” and “Auntie Mol.”
"The first day of the conference was Sunday, the 4th of February. Stalin and Molotov came to call on Roosevelt, bringing their interpreter. Half an hour later the first formal meeting began in the Grand Ballroom of the Livadia Palace. There was an immense round table in the center, and around it sat about thirty men: the heads of the three governments, their secretaries of state, and their chief military officers, army, navy and air force. They spent nearly three hours in discussion and then adjourned for dinner, with Roosevelt as host; there was consommé, sturgeon with tomatoes, beef and macaroni, plus the fixings. It was not an elegant menu, but the diners presumably made it palatable with vodka and five kinds of wine."
Lanny was not asked to the banquet, his credentials were provided by Baker and he was known to secret service staff. He was asked to help Harry Hopkins until FDR had time, and did so gladly. Lanny heard him, and gave his opinion when asked.
"Harry the Hop told how in Malta our military men had had a tough argument with the British, who had a different plan for the advance upon Germany; it had become so hot that Marshall, Chief of Staff, had advised Eisenhower to say that he would resign if the British plan were followed. Our Navy people were demanding more forces against Japan; but F.D.R. settled that one, sticking right to the program he had laid down at the beginning—Germany must be beaten first. Our main problem was to get the Russians’ promise to help us drive the Japanese out of China. When would they undertake that job, and what price would they charge for it? This, alas, was not an altruistic world. They would want the Kurile Islands, and probably Dairen and Port Arthur, and they might want Manchuria, which would hurt. Chinese cities and provinces weren’t ours to give away; but they weren’t China’s either; was it our business to pour out American blood to save China’s possessions and lay them in China’s lap? All we could do was to try to persuade Stalin not to keep too much.
"The most important of all tasks, in the view of F.D.R., was the forming of an international organization to settle future disputes and keep the peace of the world. There must never be another war like this, if civilization was to endure. The President had called an international conference at a mansion in Washington called Dumbarton Oaks, and it had worked out the details of such an undertaking; now he wanted to persuade Stalin to agree to a time and place for a formal assemblage of delegates to organize and launch the project."
Lanny told Harry in confidence about the bequest by Emily Chattersworth, and they agreed to meet later and talk about it. Harry was desperately sick and when he could no longer sit, Lanny helped him in whatever ways possible.
"The Times was flown from London every day of the conference, arriving the day after its issue date—this despite the fact that a two-hundred-mile motor drive was part of the route. Mail was brought daily by a special courier of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Harry would read, dictate, and consult all morning, have lunch with Roosevelt, and then attend a conference with the American staff. At four o’clock would come the formal meeting of the three delegations, lasting about three hours. At eight would come one of those exhausting dinners, with numerous toasts, and discussion which had to be translated. A sick man had to be excused from these affairs."
This is when Lanny sat by his bedside and helped with orders, reports and opinions.
"Stalin was being very accommodating, Lanny was told. He was in agreement with all the military plans for the finishing of the war, and he promised to enter the war against Japan within two or three months after the German surrender. He agreed to all the plans for the demilitarization of both enemy lands. He was not so keen for the proposed international organization; he preferred to have the three nations which were winning the war keep the right to settle the peace; he couldn’t see much sense in a proposal which would place the Soviet Union and Honduras, for example, on the same plane of power. He was persuaded to agree on the basis that the Big Three should retain the power to veto actions they didn’t like—they being the ones who would have to supply the military force if it was required.
"Harry had long talks with his underground adviser on this subject. They agreed that the principal reason the old League of Nations failed was because America had refused to come in; so now there could be no use in proposing at Yalta anything that the United States Senate would refuse to endorse."
Harry had told FDR about Lanny being a great help, and he was invited to dine with him along with Mrs Boettiger, his daughter who was acting as his secretary, and the elderly brigadier general Watson who was his military aide. They discussed the future of Germany, and Lanny had the same opinion as FDR, that dividing Germany into four zones was a mistake; but Churchill and Stalin were agreed in this, and in priority of putting down the enemy.
Stalin saw Lanny at a post dinner casual get together although Lanny kept in background wishing not to be photographed, and sent an aide to say he wanted to see him. They had a very friendly small chat, and with Churchill there was less formality. He asked Lanny why he no longer visited, and Lanny said he'd taken his daughter away to safety from the German buzz bombs. Churchill told him England would soon be free of those and safe again.
"Russians were continuing their drive to the Oder and the Baltic, and on the western front the Americans, British, and Canadians were beginning their drive for the Rhine."
............................................................................
Lanny got a note in code from uncle Jesse Blackless, delivered by hand by a messenger. He went to meet him, and they met in dark. Jesse wanted Lanny to take him out with him, and Lanny didn't want to cause a diplomatic incident. Jesse said he was in danger, and had come to Yalta on a firged permit; and that they were being swindled.
"“Have you applied for a permit to leave?”
“There would be no sense in applying. I know too much, and they would never trust me. Others have applied, and they have disappeared.”
“What sort of citizenship have you now?”
“Many years ago I took French citizenship in order to stand for the Assembly. You know that.”"
Jesse wanted Lanny to ask FDR, but Lanny said he couldn't, and Jesse vanished without a sound along with his messenger. Lanny told Harry who knew of Jesse, and agreed that they couldn't smuggle him out.
FDR asked Lanny his next plans, and Lanny said he'd better get to Paris unless the boss had another job. FDR invited Lanny to go with him, and Lanny rode in the cavalcade to Sevastopol, destroyed thoroughly by Germans. Lanny went in the presidential flight to Egypt where FDR rejoined the Quincy. The king of Egypt and emperor of Ethiopia visited him, and next day it was that of Saudi Arabia.
"His oil was the lifeblood of the American defense forces in the Mediterranean area, ships, planes and tanks, and so Ibn Saud could have anything he wanted to make him happy."
He'd brought over fifty of his men, some sheep and some slaves, and the deck of the U.S. destroyer Murphy was turned into a space he was accustomed to. He came over to the Quincy to meet FDR.
"Afterward F.D.R. told Lanny that this old Arabian was the toughest proposition he had ever tackled; he hated the Jews and was not the slightest bit moved by the President’s appeal for those hundreds of thousands who had fled from the Nazis and wanted to get into Palestine. But host and guest preserved the amenities; Ibn Saud presented the President with four Arabian costumes, and one each for his wife and daughter. Roosevelt presented the King with a two-motored transport plane and, more important yet, with the wheel chair for which His Majesty had expressed admiration. Fortunately there was an extra on board the cruiser."
FDR worked hard on his documents and correspondence on the Quincy as they sailed, and Lanny couldn't help with those. Later FDR asked about Europe. Would they surrender when Rhine was crossed, or fight on?
"By this time the Russians had overrun the whole of Silesia, a district second only to the Ruhr as a source of war materials—a hundred million tons of coal and eight million tons of steel every year, and many tank and munitions factories which the Allies had not been able to reach with their bombers. From such losses there could be no hope of recovery."
Lanny left the Quincy at Algiers, telling FDR to rest awhile.
Lanny got a note in code from uncle Jesse Blackless, delivered by hand by a messenger. He went to meet him, and they met in dark. Jesse wanted Lanny to take him out with him, and Lanny didn't want to cause a diplomatic incident. Jesse said he was in danger, and had come to Yalta on a firged permit; and that they were being swindled.
"“Have you applied for a permit to leave?”
“There would be no sense in applying. I know too much, and they would never trust me. Others have applied, and they have disappeared.”
“What sort of citizenship have you now?”
“Many years ago I took French citizenship in order to stand for the Assembly. You know that.”"
Jesse wanted Lanny to ask FDR, but Lanny said he couldn't, and Jesse vanished without a sound along with his messenger. Lanny told Harry who knew of Jesse, and agreed that they couldn't smuggle him out.
FDR asked Lanny his next plans, and Lanny said he'd better get to Paris unless the boss had another job. FDR invited Lanny to go with him, and Lanny rode in the cavalcade to Sevastopol, destroyed thoroughly by Germans. Lanny went in the presidential flight to Egypt where FDR rejoined the Quincy. The king of Egypt and emperor of Ethiopia visited him, and next day it was that of Saudi Arabia.
"His oil was the lifeblood of the American defense forces in the Mediterranean area, ships, planes and tanks, and so Ibn Saud could have anything he wanted to make him happy."
He'd brought over fifty of his men, some sheep and some slaves, and the deck of the U.S. destroyer Murphy was turned into a space he was accustomed to. He came over to the Quincy to meet FDR.
"Afterward F.D.R. told Lanny that this old Arabian was the toughest proposition he had ever tackled; he hated the Jews and was not the slightest bit moved by the President’s appeal for those hundreds of thousands who had fled from the Nazis and wanted to get into Palestine. But host and guest preserved the amenities; Ibn Saud presented the President with four Arabian costumes, and one each for his wife and daughter. Roosevelt presented the King with a two-motored transport plane and, more important yet, with the wheel chair for which His Majesty had expressed admiration. Fortunately there was an extra on board the cruiser."
FDR worked hard on his documents and correspondence on the Quincy as they sailed, and Lanny couldn't help with those. Later FDR asked about Europe. Would they surrender when Rhine was crossed, or fight on?
"By this time the Russians had overrun the whole of Silesia, a district second only to the Ruhr as a source of war materials—a hundred million tons of coal and eight million tons of steel every year, and many tank and munitions factories which the Allies had not been able to reach with their bombers. From such losses there could be no hope of recovery."
Lanny left the Quincy at Algiers, telling FDR to rest awhile.
............................................................................
Lanny had a letter in Paris from Laurel, she had to wait. He found that the groups he worked with were waiting too. The Monuments people told him about the art treasures they'd left in the Bulge. The lodge was burned, and there was no trace of the art, nor of any metal wires or clasps of boxes they were packed in; presumably they'd been taken by the Germans.
The scientists of Alsos could explain it to the military how they knew it had to be Werner Heisenberg and nobody else who could run a German atomic program, and if someone else did it wasn't worth worrying about? Bureaucracy and military were used to shifting people and telling the next bunch to do it, and that was it.
"The Germans, overlooking nothing, had had their own Scientific Intelligence group in Paris, using as camouflage a firm and business called “Cellastic.” Oddly enough, they were in the Rue Quentin Beauchart, right next door to the supposedly secret American OSS. They had cleaned their place out but hadn’t been able to conceal the fact that they had had soundproof rooms and interphones of a special type which could not be tapped. Also, they had left a lot of litter around, including a floor plan with the names and technical interests of the various occupants. A doorman’s list gave the names and addresses of callers, and a switchboard record gave a list of call numbers. All that was straight out of the latest detective-story magazine, and so was the use of this information in the tracing down of traitor scientists in Holland.
"Or take the story of Professor Joliot-Curie, son-in-law of the Curies who discovered radium. He was a leading nuclear physicist, and the Germans confiscated his Paris laboratory. The rumor spread that he was collaborating with the Nazis, and he let it stand that way, for he was secretly helping the Resistance. The Germans sent a competent physicist, Dr. Gentner, to take charge of the laboratory, and Gentner was an anti-Nazi at heart, a man who had worked in California with the inventor of the cyclotron. Gentner knew about Joliot’s political activities and protected him from the Gestapo. Later the Alsos people uncovered a Gestapo report on the German physicist, who had fallen under suspicion because his wife was a Swiss. Gentner was recalled to Germany, and managed to get word to Joliot in Paris, warning him that the man who took Gentner’s place in Paris was a genuine Nazi and to be on guard against him.
"In a French internment camp for German civilians the Alsos came upon a German chemist who had saved all his notebooks, which were full of valuable information. A Jew who had fled to Switzerland, the Nazis had lured him back by promises of special treatment, which promises they did not keep. He had ducked out of Berlin and got to Paris after a series of adventures which warmed Lanny’s heart—they were so much like Lanny’s own.
"Also there was the great mystery of the Auer-Gesellschaft, a great German chemical concern; it appeared to be an A-bomb matter. There was a French company called Terres-Rares, which dealt in rare chemicals and owned a monopoly on the world’s supply of thorium; Auer had taken this company over and hurriedly removed all its thorium to Germany. This element could be used in a late stage of A-bomb manufacture, so Washington went crazy with fear and kept hounding Alsos to trace the matter down among the French employees of Auer and find out what the Germans had meant to do with the thorium."
There began a hunt, resulting in two employees being brought back and questioned, and they coukdnt imagine what the fuss was; the company had been planning to use thorium to make a toothpaste that would shine teeth.
Alsos was looking for the laboratories and so on that worked on the V-1, V-2 and the next V-3, which could be anywhere in Germany. Lanny suggested they get in touch with socialist workers, and told them about Monck who was now an OSS man. OSS worked, and three days later Monck called Lanny at his hotel identifying himself only as Trudi's friend; they met with the usual precautions since German forces might have left agents behind. Lanny told him about being helped by Seidl and Anna in escaping Berlin.
Monck was willing to meet Alsos; they met in Lanny's room, and he gave them several names of people who'd help if alive.
"One of them was found in the Rhineland within a few days and gave information concerning a huge rocket-assembly plant, eight hundred feet deep in the heart of the Kohnstein Mountains, near Nordhausen, where the Germans were making a V-2 that could fly three thousand miles and hit with pinpoint accuracy."
Monck's wife had fled to Argentina and wanted to return; Lanny had kept Monck's money with Robbie, and now he undertook to have two thousand dollars sent to her.
Lanny had a letter in Paris from Laurel, she had to wait. He found that the groups he worked with were waiting too. The Monuments people told him about the art treasures they'd left in the Bulge. The lodge was burned, and there was no trace of the art, nor of any metal wires or clasps of boxes they were packed in; presumably they'd been taken by the Germans.
The scientists of Alsos could explain it to the military how they knew it had to be Werner Heisenberg and nobody else who could run a German atomic program, and if someone else did it wasn't worth worrying about? Bureaucracy and military were used to shifting people and telling the next bunch to do it, and that was it.
"The Germans, overlooking nothing, had had their own Scientific Intelligence group in Paris, using as camouflage a firm and business called “Cellastic.” Oddly enough, they were in the Rue Quentin Beauchart, right next door to the supposedly secret American OSS. They had cleaned their place out but hadn’t been able to conceal the fact that they had had soundproof rooms and interphones of a special type which could not be tapped. Also, they had left a lot of litter around, including a floor plan with the names and technical interests of the various occupants. A doorman’s list gave the names and addresses of callers, and a switchboard record gave a list of call numbers. All that was straight out of the latest detective-story magazine, and so was the use of this information in the tracing down of traitor scientists in Holland.
"Or take the story of Professor Joliot-Curie, son-in-law of the Curies who discovered radium. He was a leading nuclear physicist, and the Germans confiscated his Paris laboratory. The rumor spread that he was collaborating with the Nazis, and he let it stand that way, for he was secretly helping the Resistance. The Germans sent a competent physicist, Dr. Gentner, to take charge of the laboratory, and Gentner was an anti-Nazi at heart, a man who had worked in California with the inventor of the cyclotron. Gentner knew about Joliot’s political activities and protected him from the Gestapo. Later the Alsos people uncovered a Gestapo report on the German physicist, who had fallen under suspicion because his wife was a Swiss. Gentner was recalled to Germany, and managed to get word to Joliot in Paris, warning him that the man who took Gentner’s place in Paris was a genuine Nazi and to be on guard against him.
"In a French internment camp for German civilians the Alsos came upon a German chemist who had saved all his notebooks, which were full of valuable information. A Jew who had fled to Switzerland, the Nazis had lured him back by promises of special treatment, which promises they did not keep. He had ducked out of Berlin and got to Paris after a series of adventures which warmed Lanny’s heart—they were so much like Lanny’s own.
"Also there was the great mystery of the Auer-Gesellschaft, a great German chemical concern; it appeared to be an A-bomb matter. There was a French company called Terres-Rares, which dealt in rare chemicals and owned a monopoly on the world’s supply of thorium; Auer had taken this company over and hurriedly removed all its thorium to Germany. This element could be used in a late stage of A-bomb manufacture, so Washington went crazy with fear and kept hounding Alsos to trace the matter down among the French employees of Auer and find out what the Germans had meant to do with the thorium."
There began a hunt, resulting in two employees being brought back and questioned, and they coukdnt imagine what the fuss was; the company had been planning to use thorium to make a toothpaste that would shine teeth.
Alsos was looking for the laboratories and so on that worked on the V-1, V-2 and the next V-3, which could be anywhere in Germany. Lanny suggested they get in touch with socialist workers, and told them about Monck who was now an OSS man. OSS worked, and three days later Monck called Lanny at his hotel identifying himself only as Trudi's friend; they met with the usual precautions since German forces might have left agents behind. Lanny told him about being helped by Seidl and Anna in escaping Berlin.
Monck was willing to meet Alsos; they met in Lanny's room, and he gave them several names of people who'd help if alive.
"One of them was found in the Rhineland within a few days and gave information concerning a huge rocket-assembly plant, eight hundred feet deep in the heart of the Kohnstein Mountains, near Nordhausen, where the Germans were making a V-2 that could fly three thousand miles and hit with pinpoint accuracy."
Monck's wife had fled to Argentina and wanted to return; Lanny had kept Monck's money with Robbie, and now he undertook to have two thousand dollars sent to her.
............................................................................
"The armies on the western front had begun their offensive while Lanny was on the way to Yalta. Hitler had elected to fight west of the Rhine, which meant that his troops no longer had much ground to give; they had to stand where they were and win or die. ... Retreat was forbidden to the Germans, and there were SS men behind the lines with machine guns to turn on stragglers."
Meanwhile Lanny carried on his art business in Paris, using his funds in Cannes and Paris, and promising to pay the rest as soon as the war restrictions were over. Visiting the artists in Paris, he was at home, being the son of Beauty who had been a model for painters in Paris, including her brother Jesse Blackless, in her youth, and subsequently had married Marcel Detaze, the since renowned French artist. These artists had carried on painting and sketching through the war, since it cost little, and kept them indoors, hidden from Germans who might otherwise have sent them to labour, possibly East. Lanny could see their works hung in local cafes and restaurants and shops, and if he liked something, go see the artists.
He wrote to Rick about Yalta, now all public knowledge. Rick's father had passed on and Rick was now Sir Eric Vivian Pomeroy-Nielson, but he intended to stand for election to Parliament House of Commons. Rick told his news, including Alfy being at Amiens close to Paris. Alfy came to visit Lanny. There were many English young men and women in Paris and Lanny met those Alfy knew, and they spent time at the English Officers' Club, once home of Baron Maurice Rothschild; Göring had taken it after he'd fled, and shipped all the paintings to Germany, and given it to Luftwaffe.
Denis fils was wounded again, recuperating at home, and Lanny called on him. The father was paralysed but active in finance and wanted Lanny to make Robbie use his influence to release the De Bruyne funds in Newcastle bank accrued from his investment in Budd-Erling. The son felt his wounds and scars went towards reclaiming the honour of France lost when the leaders had surrendered in 1940. They both wanted to know if Charles De Gaulle would be the leader they thought France ought to have.
Raoul Palma wrote to say he'd won the election in Toulon on socialist ticket, but meanwhile the communists were already breaking faith and sabotaging the leftist front.
"“We Socialists are caught between two millstones, Lanny”; and then the inevitable question, “What will President Roosevelt do about it?” President Roosevelt was going to solve all the problems for all the people of the world."
Lanny was despondent looking at the French politics going back to the same mess that had allowed her foe to conquer France so easily.
"The armies on the western front had begun their offensive while Lanny was on the way to Yalta. Hitler had elected to fight west of the Rhine, which meant that his troops no longer had much ground to give; they had to stand where they were and win or die. ... Retreat was forbidden to the Germans, and there were SS men behind the lines with machine guns to turn on stragglers."
Meanwhile Lanny carried on his art business in Paris, using his funds in Cannes and Paris, and promising to pay the rest as soon as the war restrictions were over. Visiting the artists in Paris, he was at home, being the son of Beauty who had been a model for painters in Paris, including her brother Jesse Blackless, in her youth, and subsequently had married Marcel Detaze, the since renowned French artist. These artists had carried on painting and sketching through the war, since it cost little, and kept them indoors, hidden from Germans who might otherwise have sent them to labour, possibly East. Lanny could see their works hung in local cafes and restaurants and shops, and if he liked something, go see the artists.
He wrote to Rick about Yalta, now all public knowledge. Rick's father had passed on and Rick was now Sir Eric Vivian Pomeroy-Nielson, but he intended to stand for election to Parliament House of Commons. Rick told his news, including Alfy being at Amiens close to Paris. Alfy came to visit Lanny. There were many English young men and women in Paris and Lanny met those Alfy knew, and they spent time at the English Officers' Club, once home of Baron Maurice Rothschild; Göring had taken it after he'd fled, and shipped all the paintings to Germany, and given it to Luftwaffe.
Denis fils was wounded again, recuperating at home, and Lanny called on him. The father was paralysed but active in finance and wanted Lanny to make Robbie use his influence to release the De Bruyne funds in Newcastle bank accrued from his investment in Budd-Erling. The son felt his wounds and scars went towards reclaiming the honour of France lost when the leaders had surrendered in 1940. They both wanted to know if Charles De Gaulle would be the leader they thought France ought to have.
Raoul Palma wrote to say he'd won the election in Toulon on socialist ticket, but meanwhile the communists were already breaking faith and sabotaging the leftist front.
"“We Socialists are caught between two millstones, Lanny”; and then the inevitable question, “What will President Roosevelt do about it?” President Roosevelt was going to solve all the problems for all the people of the world."
Lanny was despondent looking at the French politics going back to the same mess that had allowed her foe to conquer France so easily.
............................................................................
Orders came for Lanning Prescott Budd to report for duty from G-2 of SHAEF, to Colonel Koch, which Lanny knew meant they'd captured someone he knew; he was flown to headquarters of the third, and they said it was Furtwängler, which Lanny had guessed. Furtwängler had joined the war recently and his group had mistaken the tanks they came across for panzers. He had been anxious to let it be known that he was captured in combat, Koch said, for sake of safety of his family. Lanny told Koch about him and about the general relationship Lanny had had with him and his boss, Göring.
Lanny met Furtwängler and told him the same thing he'd told Heinrich, about Himmler, and Furtwängler expressed surprise but didn't react as Kurt had; they discussed the war. Hitler had said Germany would be safe, and the systematic bombardment showed it wasnt; Göring had boasted that Germany had important industries scattered all over, but allies had showed they could get them.
"Duisburg on the Rhine, the largest inland harbor in Europe, was in ruins; the marshaling yards at Hamm, which had handled ten thousand cars a day, were smashed beyond repair; the same with the three-miles-long Badische Analin works at Ludwigshafen, the optical works at Jena, the artificial rubber works at Huls, and all the airplane factories which Göring had boasted could never be destroyed because they were so scattered. They had all been located and were being steadily bombed—Siemens, Dornier, Heinkel, Argus, and Daimler-Benz in Berlin, Junkers at Leipzig, Messerschmitt at Nürnberg and Stuttgart, Heinkel at Warnemünde, Dornier at Friedrichshafen, Focke-Wulf at Hamburg."
Furtwängler lamented about Germany being attacked, and Lanny reminded him that it was on the contrary Germany that had attacked Russia and declared war on U.S.; Furtwängler didn't admit this but complained about unconditional surrender demanded by U.S., and Lanny pointed out U.S. was treating the two million prisoners of war with every consideration including food and medical care; accused Lanny of turning, and Lanny said Hitler had clearly lost, and the only question was, how many German cities would be destroyed and German lives lost. Furtwängler kept arguing over and over for most of the day and Lanny had to remove the delusions that had set in at early age, now hard for years.
"Furtwängler had been certain that the Battle of the Bulge would mean the capture of Antwerp and the annihilation of the American First Army and the British and Canadian armies. Now Lanny had to pound into him the fact that this dream was dead. Trier, in front of which Furtwängler had been captured, lay east of the southern shoulder of that Bulge; so now there was an American Bulge instead of a German. Lanny had seen recco photographs of Trier and offered to bring them to his friend; there was nothing but a few smoke-blackened walls of this, the oldest city of Northern Europe, a city founded by the ancient Romans. It had had ninety thousand inhabitants, and now they were scattered all over the German countryside, sleeping in cellars, in chicken houses, in caves or holes in the snow-covered ground.
"Now Patton’s armies had turned to the east, headed for the Rhine. Coblenz was in front of them, and the airmen were reducing that to rubble. Coblenz, being on the west bank, would fall easy prey—"
Furtwängler asked if Lanny wanted him to turn traitor, and Lanny said if General Meissner and other officers of Wehrmacht, and some of SS, could and did provide information that saved thousands of German lives, Furtwängler could do so, too. Furtwängler asked what information he was supposed to have, and Lanny pointed out his work was about saving art works. He assured Furtwängler that the works would be returned to the previous rightful owners, including Germans who hadn't stolen them or acquired them in improper ways.
Lanny went to talk with the army guys while all this sank in, and they talked about the war.
"How the fellows on this staff didn’t like that bugaboo known as “Monty,” the British commander up north who was getting “gas” and “ammo” that Third so desperately needed! Monty wanted to win the war and reap the glory for himself, and so he sat on his backside and prepared and prepared, and when he advanced and got stuck in the mud of Holland he stopped and prepared some more. Meantime Georgie Patton fought and scratched, and called on Jesus Christ and God Almighty to help him get more supplies and kill more of the minions of Satan out there near the Rhine.
"Early in last November, Lucky Forward had had the Germans on the run, and Georgie had wanted to drive to the Rhine and cross it and keep the enemy from reorganizing. But SHAEF had ordered a sitdown, and Georgie had sat and made the air blue with his rage. Again, just recently, while Georgie had been on the point of taking Trier, the goddam down-sitters had tried to take his 10th Armored away from him—the very spearhead of his striking force—because CCS had decreed that SHAEF must keep a reserve against the possibility of another Bulge. Patton was sure the Germans didn’t have the forces for another Bulge, and the way to prevent it was to keep them on the run, goddam ’em.
"It was really funny, if you could keep your sense of humor while so much blood was being poured out. The two-gun General’s little private war with SHAEF was being waged with such infinite subtlety; he would wangle another division the way a small boy wangles another cookie. He would lure SHAEF into giving him permission to “probe” the enemy, and he would turn a probe into the taking of Trier; he would get his superior, General Bradley, to admit that of course if a “break-through” should occur, it would be his duty to take advantage thereof; and now he was making the “break-through,” and would use it to drive all the way through the Eifel Mountains to the Rhine. He would keep out of reach by telephone in order that nobody might stop him.
"Right at this juncture, as if to help Lanny with his arguments, came one of the most picturesque developments of the war. He had told Furtwängler that the Americans would get across the Rhine, and he had imagined a mighty battle to achieve it; never had it occurred to him that they might get across by accident. A detachment of the 9th Armored, heading for the river at the town of Remagen, on the far side of the Rhine, came over the ridge and were astounded to discover a great bridge intact. Hitler’s orders had been that every bridge was to be blown under penalty of death; but no bridge should be blown until all the troops were across—that also under penalty of death; it was a trifle confusing. This time someone had blundered; charges had been set, and two had gone off but weren’t big enough, and the Ludendorff Bridge, as it was called, was still usable.
"The order was given, and the Americans charged across; the engineers, trained in demolition work, knew wires when they saw them, and had cutters in their belts; there were no more explosions. There was no German armor in sight and the German engineers had no means of resisting tanks; the tanks proceeded to clear the town and the shore both north and south—the beginning of a bridgehead. Field telephones carried the magical tidings, and more troops came racing to the scene.
"When General Eisenhower got word of the lucky strike he ordered five divisions to the spot, two of them armored. ... Day and night for ten days that bridge roared and rumbled with vehicles and fast-running infantrymen. Then the Germans succeeded in knocking it out with artillery, but it was too late; the engineers had built pontoon bridges, which served even better.
"The Germans had no Panzers in that neighborhood and very few reserves, for they had had to send everything up north to stop the British and Canadians. By the time they got troops there the American First Army had built a strong bridgehead, ten miles along the river and five miles back into the hills."
When Lanny told Furtwängler, he said this was one point they needn't argue further. Lanny listened and made notes while Furtwängler told about the art works, and Lanny had asked about this so Furtwängler would ease later into information about other matters.
"Reichsmarschall’s cherished paintings of naked ladies and velvet-clad great gentlemen, Spanish and Italian, French, English, and Dutch, had been removed to an immense bunker especially built near the old hunting lodge on the Karinhall estate. At least ten thousand paintings, including all those from the Museum of Vienna, had been stored in one of the great salt mines, that at Alt Aussee, in Austria."
Lanny asked about Baron von Behr, Herr Hofer, Bruno Lohse and others, and Furtwängler talked.
"He told of an enormous collection of art works in Neuschwanstein Castle near Munich. The treasures of the great Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin had been hidden in the Merkers copper mine in Thuringia; and so on for a long list."
Lanny led thence into the other matters related to Göring.
"Yes, there was a tremendously fast new jet, expected to knock the Americans and British out of the skies, if only it could be produced fast enough. Also, there was a multiple rocket gun that would discharge one hundred of the V-1½s in ten minutes. Lanny said, “We captured one of those in the Bulge, I am told.”
"Such things as “Schnorkel” submarines and “booster” guns a hundred yards long were outside the General-Major’s province; but he might have heard some talk, or taken a look at some “GeKdos” (top secret) report. Atomic fission must never be mentioned by the P.A.; but it was possible to skirt the subject carefully, and perhaps the captive officer would say, “We have something even more deadly, which will give us the victory if we can get it in time.” But he didn’t say that.
"He did tell about the V-3, the immense rocket that would leap into the stratosphere, travel several thousand miles, and deliver a load of explosives that would destroy most of London or even New York."
Furtwängler said that although Göring was shelved, his official designation was still number two. They spoke of the forces.
"Furtwängler revealed that Army Group B, fronting this part of the Rhine, had just been placed under the command of Field Marshal Walther Model. Lanny didn’t know this, and didn’t know if the CP here in Luxembourg did. He knew that Model was on the list of war criminals for the killing of prisoners of war and civilians; he was the most fanatical of Nazi generals, known as “der kleine Hitler.” Lanny remarked, “I suppose that means war to the finish,” and Furtwängler replied, “It does.”"
Orders came for Lanning Prescott Budd to report for duty from G-2 of SHAEF, to Colonel Koch, which Lanny knew meant they'd captured someone he knew; he was flown to headquarters of the third, and they said it was Furtwängler, which Lanny had guessed. Furtwängler had joined the war recently and his group had mistaken the tanks they came across for panzers. He had been anxious to let it be known that he was captured in combat, Koch said, for sake of safety of his family. Lanny told Koch about him and about the general relationship Lanny had had with him and his boss, Göring.
Lanny met Furtwängler and told him the same thing he'd told Heinrich, about Himmler, and Furtwängler expressed surprise but didn't react as Kurt had; they discussed the war. Hitler had said Germany would be safe, and the systematic bombardment showed it wasnt; Göring had boasted that Germany had important industries scattered all over, but allies had showed they could get them.
"Duisburg on the Rhine, the largest inland harbor in Europe, was in ruins; the marshaling yards at Hamm, which had handled ten thousand cars a day, were smashed beyond repair; the same with the three-miles-long Badische Analin works at Ludwigshafen, the optical works at Jena, the artificial rubber works at Huls, and all the airplane factories which Göring had boasted could never be destroyed because they were so scattered. They had all been located and were being steadily bombed—Siemens, Dornier, Heinkel, Argus, and Daimler-Benz in Berlin, Junkers at Leipzig, Messerschmitt at Nürnberg and Stuttgart, Heinkel at Warnemünde, Dornier at Friedrichshafen, Focke-Wulf at Hamburg."
Furtwängler lamented about Germany being attacked, and Lanny reminded him that it was on the contrary Germany that had attacked Russia and declared war on U.S.; Furtwängler didn't admit this but complained about unconditional surrender demanded by U.S., and Lanny pointed out U.S. was treating the two million prisoners of war with every consideration including food and medical care; accused Lanny of turning, and Lanny said Hitler had clearly lost, and the only question was, how many German cities would be destroyed and German lives lost. Furtwängler kept arguing over and over for most of the day and Lanny had to remove the delusions that had set in at early age, now hard for years.
"Furtwängler had been certain that the Battle of the Bulge would mean the capture of Antwerp and the annihilation of the American First Army and the British and Canadian armies. Now Lanny had to pound into him the fact that this dream was dead. Trier, in front of which Furtwängler had been captured, lay east of the southern shoulder of that Bulge; so now there was an American Bulge instead of a German. Lanny had seen recco photographs of Trier and offered to bring them to his friend; there was nothing but a few smoke-blackened walls of this, the oldest city of Northern Europe, a city founded by the ancient Romans. It had had ninety thousand inhabitants, and now they were scattered all over the German countryside, sleeping in cellars, in chicken houses, in caves or holes in the snow-covered ground.
"Now Patton’s armies had turned to the east, headed for the Rhine. Coblenz was in front of them, and the airmen were reducing that to rubble. Coblenz, being on the west bank, would fall easy prey—"
Furtwängler asked if Lanny wanted him to turn traitor, and Lanny said if General Meissner and other officers of Wehrmacht, and some of SS, could and did provide information that saved thousands of German lives, Furtwängler could do so, too. Furtwängler asked what information he was supposed to have, and Lanny pointed out his work was about saving art works. He assured Furtwängler that the works would be returned to the previous rightful owners, including Germans who hadn't stolen them or acquired them in improper ways.
Lanny went to talk with the army guys while all this sank in, and they talked about the war.
"How the fellows on this staff didn’t like that bugaboo known as “Monty,” the British commander up north who was getting “gas” and “ammo” that Third so desperately needed! Monty wanted to win the war and reap the glory for himself, and so he sat on his backside and prepared and prepared, and when he advanced and got stuck in the mud of Holland he stopped and prepared some more. Meantime Georgie Patton fought and scratched, and called on Jesus Christ and God Almighty to help him get more supplies and kill more of the minions of Satan out there near the Rhine.
"Early in last November, Lucky Forward had had the Germans on the run, and Georgie had wanted to drive to the Rhine and cross it and keep the enemy from reorganizing. But SHAEF had ordered a sitdown, and Georgie had sat and made the air blue with his rage. Again, just recently, while Georgie had been on the point of taking Trier, the goddam down-sitters had tried to take his 10th Armored away from him—the very spearhead of his striking force—because CCS had decreed that SHAEF must keep a reserve against the possibility of another Bulge. Patton was sure the Germans didn’t have the forces for another Bulge, and the way to prevent it was to keep them on the run, goddam ’em.
"It was really funny, if you could keep your sense of humor while so much blood was being poured out. The two-gun General’s little private war with SHAEF was being waged with such infinite subtlety; he would wangle another division the way a small boy wangles another cookie. He would lure SHAEF into giving him permission to “probe” the enemy, and he would turn a probe into the taking of Trier; he would get his superior, General Bradley, to admit that of course if a “break-through” should occur, it would be his duty to take advantage thereof; and now he was making the “break-through,” and would use it to drive all the way through the Eifel Mountains to the Rhine. He would keep out of reach by telephone in order that nobody might stop him.
"Right at this juncture, as if to help Lanny with his arguments, came one of the most picturesque developments of the war. He had told Furtwängler that the Americans would get across the Rhine, and he had imagined a mighty battle to achieve it; never had it occurred to him that they might get across by accident. A detachment of the 9th Armored, heading for the river at the town of Remagen, on the far side of the Rhine, came over the ridge and were astounded to discover a great bridge intact. Hitler’s orders had been that every bridge was to be blown under penalty of death; but no bridge should be blown until all the troops were across—that also under penalty of death; it was a trifle confusing. This time someone had blundered; charges had been set, and two had gone off but weren’t big enough, and the Ludendorff Bridge, as it was called, was still usable.
"The order was given, and the Americans charged across; the engineers, trained in demolition work, knew wires when they saw them, and had cutters in their belts; there were no more explosions. There was no German armor in sight and the German engineers had no means of resisting tanks; the tanks proceeded to clear the town and the shore both north and south—the beginning of a bridgehead. Field telephones carried the magical tidings, and more troops came racing to the scene.
"When General Eisenhower got word of the lucky strike he ordered five divisions to the spot, two of them armored. ... Day and night for ten days that bridge roared and rumbled with vehicles and fast-running infantrymen. Then the Germans succeeded in knocking it out with artillery, but it was too late; the engineers had built pontoon bridges, which served even better.
"The Germans had no Panzers in that neighborhood and very few reserves, for they had had to send everything up north to stop the British and Canadians. By the time they got troops there the American First Army had built a strong bridgehead, ten miles along the river and five miles back into the hills."
When Lanny told Furtwängler, he said this was one point they needn't argue further. Lanny listened and made notes while Furtwängler told about the art works, and Lanny had asked about this so Furtwängler would ease later into information about other matters.
"Reichsmarschall’s cherished paintings of naked ladies and velvet-clad great gentlemen, Spanish and Italian, French, English, and Dutch, had been removed to an immense bunker especially built near the old hunting lodge on the Karinhall estate. At least ten thousand paintings, including all those from the Museum of Vienna, had been stored in one of the great salt mines, that at Alt Aussee, in Austria."
Lanny asked about Baron von Behr, Herr Hofer, Bruno Lohse and others, and Furtwängler talked.
"He told of an enormous collection of art works in Neuschwanstein Castle near Munich. The treasures of the great Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin had been hidden in the Merkers copper mine in Thuringia; and so on for a long list."
Lanny led thence into the other matters related to Göring.
"Yes, there was a tremendously fast new jet, expected to knock the Americans and British out of the skies, if only it could be produced fast enough. Also, there was a multiple rocket gun that would discharge one hundred of the V-1½s in ten minutes. Lanny said, “We captured one of those in the Bulge, I am told.”
"Such things as “Schnorkel” submarines and “booster” guns a hundred yards long were outside the General-Major’s province; but he might have heard some talk, or taken a look at some “GeKdos” (top secret) report. Atomic fission must never be mentioned by the P.A.; but it was possible to skirt the subject carefully, and perhaps the captive officer would say, “We have something even more deadly, which will give us the victory if we can get it in time.” But he didn’t say that.
"He did tell about the V-3, the immense rocket that would leap into the stratosphere, travel several thousand miles, and deliver a load of explosives that would destroy most of London or even New York."
Furtwängler said that although Göring was shelved, his official designation was still number two. They spoke of the forces.
"Furtwängler revealed that Army Group B, fronting this part of the Rhine, had just been placed under the command of Field Marshal Walther Model. Lanny didn’t know this, and didn’t know if the CP here in Luxembourg did. He knew that Model was on the list of war criminals for the killing of prisoners of war and civilians; he was the most fanatical of Nazi generals, known as “der kleine Hitler.” Lanny remarked, “I suppose that means war to the finish,” and Furtwängler replied, “It does.”"
............................................................................
Monuments in Versailles needed him urgently if he was done, and he took leave; the third army invited him back cordially, and he said he'd return whenever his art work needed it, and they promised to treat Furtwängler gently. He was providing information as and when needed. Lanny was flown to Paris and driven to Versailles, and they said they needed him to go search for trail of art treasures hidden by Germans in Rome.
Monuments people in Rome had heard in course of this search of an agent named Lanny Budd who was in rome a while ago, so they'd told Monuments in Versailles, who had contacted OSS in Washington D.C., who had stamped an OK before they were reassured.
They needed him to fly to Rome, and several young Fogg people wanted to go, but they might soon be needed in Germany. Flying to Rome was roundabout due to straight flight path being over territory held by enemy, so it was Marseille, Algiers, Tunis, Naples, Rome. He met the Monuments people, who were having a hard time persuading anyone that U.S. intended to restore art treasures to rightful owners, without them trying to see an angle for themselves to benefit.
They were put up in the mansion of a nazified Italian wine merchant who'd fled North, and there was no fuel to heat and no bathroom in the building. Lanny bathed and shaved with cold water in a crystal basin, and wearing his uniform freshly pressed by an Italian servant, visited Julie, Marchesa di Caporini, bringing coffee with him. They talked of people he'd met last time, of his work, and war.
"“Oh, Lanny!” laughed the Roman lady. “Your people are so altruistic you embarrass us! We have no such moral fervor!”
"He answered that it was a police duty; the Nazi plunderers, and all who aided and abetted them, must be taught that war did not pay. Surely all decent Romans would want to punish thieves. Could not Julie think of some person interested in art who had access to society and would take the trouble to ask questions, not too pointedly? Lanny didn’t suggest that Julie herself might do it; he waited to see if she would offer, as that would reduce the price.
"She was just as shrewd as he was and forced him to make the overture. But the price wasn’t exorbitant. Ten thousand lire a month sounded impressive but it was less than a hundred dollars and going lower. There would be five thousand additional for tips to servants, and Julie would keep most of this, and it would provide her with the cosmetics so necessary to ladies when their charms begin to fade."
Lanny decided her husband would help her, and this small nucleus would expand into an efficient intelligence outfit; he had funds authorised by FDR in an account in his name and didn't have to ask the Monuments people to OK this expense, FDR would OK it. Lanny met the fashionable set he'd met before. Ciano had hidden in Vatican, but found and shot.
"Il Fascismo was forgotten, and the password was Democrazia, but it was a new style, adapted to a country having ancient traditions of Royal and Papal infallibility and threatened by blood-red Communism. The property-owning classes were afraid, and the ladies of smart society were devoting their best efforts to winning American diplomatic and military authorities over to their point of view. The English were already won; it was Winston Churchill’s program to maintain the Italian monarchy by setting aside a widely hated old lecher and put in his place a handsome tall prince who couldn’t be blamed for anything and was too stupid ever to interfere with what the politicians might want to do.
"It didn’t take Julie very long to come upon support of the rumor that an ex-minister of the Badoglio government had concealed a roll of stolen paintings in a secret compartment in his wine cellar. The GIs made a raid and found them, and of course that made a tremendous scandal in fashionable Rome. Some other persons lost their nerve and brought in stuff they had thought was safely hidden. The Marchesa got an extra fee, and the promise of more.
"Also, this highly placed Roman lady told him the life story of Italy’s crown princess, fit theme for some tragic dramatist. Fair blond daughter of the King of the Belgians, she had been married in a week of nationwide festivities to the handsome son of the pint-sized Italian king. Dissolute like his father, he had humiliated her, and she had had to live in silent loathing of the whole House of Savoy, as well as the Fascists whose puppets they had become. Secretly she had carried on intrigues against them—how interested Lanny would have been to know it, in those days not so far in the past when he had been doing the same thing in Rome! When the Americans had surged into Italy the Nazis had taken over Rome, and the Princess Marie José had gone into exile in Switzerland, where she still was. “Go and see her,” said the Marchesa; but the Monuments man had no time for royal visits now.
"The American communiqué reported that the Seventh Army had forced a crossing of the Rhine not far north of Heidelberg, which lies twelve miles east of that river. There was a great university there, and it had a physics laboratory."
Lanny handed over his charge to a competent Monuments man, with funds he reminded him were government funds for a purpose, and gave some coffee to Julie, before leaving Rome to go to Paris by the same series of flights.
............................................................................
Back in Paris Lanny found Laurel impatient because they weren't yet allowing her at the front, and couldn't blame the army, having been in the Bulge.
"Lanny found that both Alsos and Monuments would be glad to have his company in Heidelberg. There were bound to be art treasures hidden in the neighborhood, and there was a physics laboratory, with a famous nuclear experimenter, Professor Bothe, and also a famous chemist, Professor Kuhn. As to the question of Laurel, Lanny soon made up his mind that the danger was slight; the Germans just wouldn’t be able to make any counterattacks. All their good reserves had been rushed to the north; and then had come the Remagen coup, and half a dozen divisions had been hurried to that spot, where they had made no headway whatever. Farther to the south Patton’s armor had made hash of all the enemy forces west of the river. These were mostly the Volksgrenadier and Volkssturm troops, last-ditch organizations made up of the old and the very young, the sick and the crippled; many of them had no uniforms, only armbands, and obsolete weapons with very little ammunition. The Third’s north and south prongs had formed pincers and gathered them in by the tens of thousands—so many that the depots behind the lines refused to take any more.
"Now, at the beginning of April, all the various Allied armies had got across the Rhine, and the real collapse of Germany was underway. Lanny went to see the Seventh people in Paris and agreed to assume responsibility for his wife; also, Monuments put in a request on her behalf, because she had offered to write her first article on the search for art treasures. Everything that Alsos did was top secret, but Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives had no military value, and their devotees were free to splurge in newspapers and magazines. It was good publicity for the Army, because it showed these tough guys appreciating culture, and knowing that beauty was truth, truth beauty."
Lanny asked for Jerry Pendleton and when Lanny and Laurel arrived in Heidelberg they found him waiting, having secured a comfortable cottage for the three and a non-nazi maidservant.
"Captain Jerry had been interrogating men from a Stalag on the west bank of the Rhine, where some fifty thousand Russian and Polish prisoners of war had been kept by the Germans under wretched conditions. Many were staying on after the Americans had come because they had no other place to find shelter and be fed. Among them were a number of Germans, accused or suspected of anti-Nazi ideas, and Jerry had taken a leaf out of Lanny’s notebook and sought out the Reds and Pinks among these. Before leaving for Heidelberg he had consulted his card file and got the names and addresses of several who lived in the town."
Contacting one meant entry, for they knew one another, and were now coming out of hiding and helping.
"Did the Herren want to know whether the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Medical Research had any secret laboratory outside the town? Did they want to know where the art works of the Museum had been taken and who had done the taking? Ja, ja, meine Herren, so schnell wie möglich! Thus it quickly came about that Monuments went scouting in a jeep, looking for a cave in the high hills of the Elsenzgau, and that one of the house servants of Professor Phillip Lenard, head physicist of the University, was interviewed and set to finding out where that eighty-year-old nazified scientist had fled to. All that for about one carton of American cigarettes, judiciously distributed.
"Alsos was concerned about two institutions, a branch of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute and the Physics Department of the University of Heidelberg. The former had a cyclotron, the only one in Germany, and it was important to know what had been done with it. The Institute had been constructed by Professor Bothe, a nuclear physicist of renown, and a former friend of Goudsmit, encountered at various international conferences. Now he was an enemy alien and might be made a prisoner of war at Goudsmit’s direction. They talked, and Bothe told about the work in theoretical physics he had been carrying on; but when asked about war work he refused to talk and declared that he had burned all his papers under orders. The same statement was made by Professor Kuhn, director of the Institute, who, so he said, had been working exclusively on the chemistry of modern drugs. Were you to believe this professor, who had started all his classes with “Sieg Heil” and the Hitler salute?
"Lenard had fled to an unknown destination; and the search for him got Lanny Budd into an amusing adventure. This old man was the most rabid Nazi scientist in Germany, having been one before Hitler was born; of course he hadn’t had the name then, but only the spirit; he had been a pan-German fanatic, and at the end of World War I had been jailed for making violent monarchist speeches. On this record, Adi Schicklgruber had declared him the leader of German physical science and had assigned to him the noble task of eliminating the poison of Judaeo-Einsteinian relativity from the intellectual life of young Germany. Hitler hat immer recht!
"Word came that this prize scientific bird was roosting in an obscure village some ten miles back in the hills, and that he might soon be off on another flight. It so happened that Professor Goudsmit was out on another expedition and could not be reached by telephone. Jerry said, “Let’s go and bring the bird in.”"
Lanny went in alone and found the old man alarmed, thinking the armed contingent was to shoot him. He reassured him, and talked to him most of the afternoon, being questioned about authenticity of his claims about having been the privileged friend of Hitler and Göring and been to their exclusive retreats. Lanny then managed to convince him to disclose everything he knew to U.S., for the future expected conflict against reds. But on the way, Lanny called Professor Goudsmit, who said Lenard was of no use and not wanted, and Lanny could do whatever he wanted with him. Lanny took him back saying army had decided to not trouble an old man.
Lanny confined himself to Monuments for a while. Truckloads of art had been discovered in a cave and brought in, most were Dutch, and Dutch experts were brought to help.
"Word had come in of a “pile” laboratory in a village in the Thuringian forest, to the northeast; also in that region was the Merkers mine, stuffed full of art treasures. Near Stuttgart, toward the southeast, was the laboratory of the great Werner Heisenberg; and here also were castles full of paintings. The Seventh Army was heading for both these places, and it was a question which would be reached first. Both the scientists and art lovers were on tiptoe, ready to start their small caravans at an hour’s notice."
Lanny and Laurel were both ready to go, Laurel would stick by Peggy Remsen who had been in Heidelberg. But word came from Baker that the President wanted Lanny immediately, and he went, speculating as to the reason. He imagined an abduction of Hitler at Berghof via paratroopers and an airplane at Berchtesgaden, with his presence helping in lay of the place. It was not that, however.
............................................................................
Lanny was hit hard at the sight of how unwell FDR looked, but the subject FDR began with was Stalin. Lanny explained his disappointment, and FDR said they had prepared for such an abduction, but Hitler seemed to be intent on staying in Berlin. Lanny said he knew the bunker there, but FDR said it seemed certain that Russian forces would reach Berlin ahead of the allies, and FDR wouldn't play against the ally by landing paratroopers to abduct Hitler ahead of them.
That, however, wasn't the concern. The worry FDR had was Stalin and Russians being not quite as in agreement with U.S. as FDR thought he'd come to win them at Yalta, and words or phrases or concepts meaning very different things to them. U.S. had carried on some negotiations with a few people of German forces disenchanted with Hitler regime, which had to be confidential if it were to succeed, but Stalin had found out and sent blasting messages to FDR about such things being done behind his back.
The larger concern was that FDR was getting ready to begin building the foundations of United Nations, and Russians coming to San Francisco in two weeks needed to be in accord, not suspicious and sabotaging.
"“We are not setting any trap for them; we are trying to build a world in which all the nations, great and small, can be left in freedom, each to work out its destiny in its own way.”
"“Yes indeed; but suppose that isn’t what Stalin wants. Maybe he wants to compel the other nations, at least those near him, to abolish capitalism and capitalists and come into a Communist system.”
"“If he wants that, Lanny, it can mean only another world war. What I hope to do is to persuade him that if he will let the free nations alone, their people will find their own solution to their problems. If they want a Socialist state, surely I have no desire to stop them; only let them get it by the democratic process and not by repression and dictatorship.”"
Lanny said FDR could send Harry Hopkins to speak with Stalin, but FDR nixed that, Harry wasn't well enough and as it is his strength reserves were needed at San Francisco. Lanny was alarmed and asked if FDR was sending him, and indeed that was it. The idea was to hear him, and explain that FDR wanted every nation and people to peacefully exercise self determination in choice of form of government. FDR said he'd provide Lanny with documents to study, and they discussed Poland, Greece, Balkans and Dardanelles.
Lanny went and thought over, and prepared for the next meeting with his boss, but when he arrived with Baker they were told FDR was ill, and they waited with others. A heart specialist arrived, but FDR passed away. Lanny left, and went North by train.
"In Washington he learned from the papers that most of the world felt just as he did; the world was dazed and lost.
"Abraham Lincoln had been mourned like that all over the North; but this was the first time in history that a man had been mourned like that all over the world. For days the stories kept coming in by radio and cable. For the first time in history the British House of Commons adjourned out of respect for an American; Lloyd’s rang the famous Lutine Bell. Over the Kremlin was raised the black-fringed red banner of mourning, hitherto sacred to the Soviet Union’s own greatest. Italy declared three days of national mourning. All the way from Belgrade to Buenos Aires people stopped Americans on the street and poured out their grief in tears. Strangest thing of all, the Japanese radio expressed the people’s grief! Roosevelt had vowed the extermination of the Japanese government, and his planes were showering bombs on their cities; yet, somehow, behind their steel-barred barricades, the people of Japan had managed to find out that they had good things to expect from this greathearted man, and they managed to get their feelings spoken!
"With the body of Franklin Roosevelt not yet underground, this congressman declared that he knew Harry Truman, and that Truman would “go definitely to the right.” This statement was considered to be of interest, not merely to Americans, but also to people abroad; it was cabled to London, and a couple of days later Lanny received a cablegram from his friend Rick. When properly paragraphed and punctuated it turned out to be some verses:
"The shepherd is dead, and the sheep
"Wander alone in the hills;
"The night comes on, the black night,
"And the heart with terror fills.
"The wolves slink in the shadows,
"They who must be fed;
"Their breath is hot and panting,
"They know that the shepherd is dead.
"Oh, sorrow beyond telling!
"Oh, sheep that none can save!
"Oh, heartbreak of the future!
"O shepherd, speak from the grave!"
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Lanny grieved, stayed on in Washington, but needed new credentials, no longer being a presidential agent, and talked to his three other contacts he'd worked with - Monuments, Alsos and OSS; all were happy to have him work with them, and Bill Donovan at OSS happy to provide credentials. Bill suggested he pose as a Nazi again, but Lanny said his ability to do so was over, and he'd do better interrogating prisoners of war. Laurel had cabled Newcastle, and Robbie read it to him.
Lanny travelled via the northern route via N.Y. and London, with a day to meet Hansi and Bess in N.Y.; he caught their concert and met them after, and Hansi told about his nephew Freddi - named Johannes in first half of the series! - who had lied about his age and got away being tall, and was with the seventh army. Lanny promised to look him up.
Lanny talked to Zoltan and took care of some art business before he was flown from Mitchell Field via Newfoundland and Iceland to Prestwick, Scotland. He called Rick and learned that his cablegram hadn't arrived, but they'd meet him at the Savoy in London. He was no longer a secret agent, and could meet them openly.
They talked about FDR, and Rick said he meant the verses. They talked about Emily Chattersworth's will and bequest, and Lanny's plans. He asked Rick to join him, and let Alfy stand for elections while Rick wrote and edited from a small village in New Jersey or Long Island.
Lanny called Irma, who said there hadn't been a bomb for a month, and he therefore must bring Frances home as promised. He told her Frances was happy, doing well, and her school year mustn't be interrupted. He suggested she visit Newcastle with family instead, and she said Ceddy was serious about farming. Lanny wondered, was this attempt to live down his having been pro nazi?
Lanny grieved, stayed on in Washington, but needed new credentials, no longer being a presidential agent, and talked to his three other contacts he'd worked with - Monuments, Alsos and OSS; all were happy to have him work with them, and Bill Donovan at OSS happy to provide credentials. Bill suggested he pose as a Nazi again, but Lanny said his ability to do so was over, and he'd do better interrogating prisoners of war. Laurel had cabled Newcastle, and Robbie read it to him.
Lanny travelled via the northern route via N.Y. and London, with a day to meet Hansi and Bess in N.Y.; he caught their concert and met them after, and Hansi told about his nephew Freddi - named Johannes in first half of the series! - who had lied about his age and got away being tall, and was with the seventh army. Lanny promised to look him up.
Lanny talked to Zoltan and took care of some art business before he was flown from Mitchell Field via Newfoundland and Iceland to Prestwick, Scotland. He called Rick and learned that his cablegram hadn't arrived, but they'd meet him at the Savoy in London. He was no longer a secret agent, and could meet them openly.
They talked about FDR, and Rick said he meant the verses. They talked about Emily Chattersworth's will and bequest, and Lanny's plans. He asked Rick to join him, and let Alfy stand for elections while Rick wrote and edited from a small village in New Jersey or Long Island.
Lanny called Irma, who said there hadn't been a bomb for a month, and he therefore must bring Frances home as promised. He told her Frances was happy, doing well, and her school year mustn't be interrupted. He suggested she visit Newcastle with family instead, and she said Ceddy was serious about farming. Lanny wondered, was this attempt to live down his having been pro nazi?
............................................................................
Lanny arrived in Paris ten days after death of FDR.
"Georgie Patton had plunged all the way across Germany and reached the western tip of Czechoslovakia. The Seventh had reached Stuttgart and Nürnberg, the First had reached Leipzig, and the Ninth was spread along the Elbe River. The British were nearing Bremen and Hamburg, the Canadians were all the way up through Holland and close to the German naval base of Emden. A million prisoners had been taken in three weeks."
He was to report to the three organisations he was working for.
"He found a letter from Laurel, telling him that she was at Frankfurt; a wonderful thing, they had brought all the art works of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum which had been found in the Merkers mine in Thuringia; they had been two thousand feet underground, in galleries half a mile long. The place was dripping wet, so there was a lot of repairs to be done. ... “Your cousin Peggy is supervising the inventory,” she wrote, and added, “I hope you got my cablegram. I knew you would be heartbroken. I cried a whole night. I doubt if there is a person on our staff who didn’t shed tears.”"
Laurel was going back to Heidelberg, she was comfortable there and would make it her headquarters for writing. Lanny joined her there, and they talked about baby Lanny, FDR, and friends and family. She was aware of his being heartsick.
"Laurel told of the sights she had been enjoying in the Reichsbank building in Frankfurt. Imagine, if you could, several hundred of the world’s greatest paintings lined up against the wall of one immense room; a polite GI had set them up, one after another, for her examination. Others were boxed and had to be opened for inventory. Leather-bound cases contained the most marvelous etchings she had ever seen. In other rooms were all the Egyptian treasures. Upstairs, in a vault, were priceless gold and silver church vessels looted from Poland.
"She tried to awaken his interest in an art cache which had just been discovered in the neighborhood of Heidelberg; it included Holbeins, a treasure indeed. An expert had been flown from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam to inspect them, and the next day Lanny would meet this gentleman."
Lanny arrived in Paris ten days after death of FDR.
"Georgie Patton had plunged all the way across Germany and reached the western tip of Czechoslovakia. The Seventh had reached Stuttgart and Nürnberg, the First had reached Leipzig, and the Ninth was spread along the Elbe River. The British were nearing Bremen and Hamburg, the Canadians were all the way up through Holland and close to the German naval base of Emden. A million prisoners had been taken in three weeks."
He was to report to the three organisations he was working for.
"He found a letter from Laurel, telling him that she was at Frankfurt; a wonderful thing, they had brought all the art works of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum which had been found in the Merkers mine in Thuringia; they had been two thousand feet underground, in galleries half a mile long. The place was dripping wet, so there was a lot of repairs to be done. ... “Your cousin Peggy is supervising the inventory,” she wrote, and added, “I hope you got my cablegram. I knew you would be heartbroken. I cried a whole night. I doubt if there is a person on our staff who didn’t shed tears.”"
Laurel was going back to Heidelberg, she was comfortable there and would make it her headquarters for writing. Lanny joined her there, and they talked about baby Lanny, FDR, and friends and family. She was aware of his being heartsick.
"Laurel told of the sights she had been enjoying in the Reichsbank building in Frankfurt. Imagine, if you could, several hundred of the world’s greatest paintings lined up against the wall of one immense room; a polite GI had set them up, one after another, for her examination. Others were boxed and had to be opened for inventory. Leather-bound cases contained the most marvelous etchings she had ever seen. In other rooms were all the Egyptian treasures. Upstairs, in a vault, were priceless gold and silver church vessels looted from Poland.
"She tried to awaken his interest in an art cache which had just been discovered in the neighborhood of Heidelberg; it included Holbeins, a treasure indeed. An expert had been flown from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam to inspect them, and the next day Lanny would meet this gentleman."
............................................................................
But Lanny got a call from Alsos, they needed him urgently .
"This time it was a metallurgist from the laboratories of Westing-house in Pittsburgh. Dr. Allan Bates was his name, and he had just got word that a research man from the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Metallurgical Research in Stuttgart had sought refuge in a small village in the Swabian Alps and was believed to have with him priceless records."
Bates had the expertise, and Lanny would provide the rest, knowledge of German language and of people of Europe in general, Germany in particular. Lanny saw the point about art could wait but this was urgent, and agreed, so he was taken up the valley to Stuttgart in a jeep.
"The bombers had been working on it for a couple of years, for it had key industries; their procedure was to smash them, give the Germans time to get them in repair, and then smash again, until the time came when the Germans no longer had either labor or materials for another job. French colonial troops, Algerians and Moroccans, had taken the city."
Bates was waiting with an Opel and a GI to drive them, other escort was thought not necessary.
"Heinies here in the southwest area knew they were licked, and besides, they had been the least nazified of all the tribe. The unarmed scientists in uniform went where they pleased and were treated as the lords of creation."
They came to Urach, and could see disturbance. There was pillaging and worse. Germans came running to them, terrified.
"They didn’t wait to be asked, but poured out their story. “Die Arbeiter vom Lager! Sie sind frei!” The foreign laborers, Russian, Polish, and Czech, who had been brought here as semi-slaves, had broken loose and were pillaging. “Beschützen Sie uns, General!”"
Bates asked them to bring the twon official, and asked him to pick twenty men of his choice. Lanny did the same with a Frenchman, and he brought twenty Frenchmen. Bates asked if they had weapons, they had. The two marched these twenty each men, got them just enough weapons, and sternly commanded they will have order in town, Bates in German and Lanny in French. Word went round, and in half an hour they had control of the town. Bates was a fit wrestler even at Lanny's age, and set right the odd one or two who were opposed to order.
They called a town meeting of Germans and declared that the town must have a new government, free of nazis and Nazi sympathisers. There was a clamour.
"Dr. Bates was unanimously elected Bürgermeister of Urach. With stern mien he commanded that all former Nazis should be hinausgeworfen, and he appointed new officials who were declared to have been non-political in the evil days that were past.
"Lanny acquired the title of Bürgermeisterstellvertreter (deputy), and went off to a town meeting in the compound of the easterners. Poor devils, they had been kidnaped outright or lured here by promises of fine treatment—promises which had been shamelessly broken. They had been in effect slaves, and their emaciated condition showed that they had been on short rations for a long time. With the help of translators the American explained that they could not be returned to their homes because no transportation was available until the war was won. In order that this might happen quickly, they must govern themselves and not make it necessary for Lanny to summon American soldiers to keep order. He appointed educated and trustworthy deputies of the various nationalities to run the camp."
Bates found his guy and busier himself. Lanny was busy governing the place.
"Lanny discovered an anti-Nazi worker who informed him of a large cache of arms hidden in near-by farm buildings, and these were confiscated and put under guard. After that, the ex-P.A. was occupied in arbitrating and adjudicating, fixing the price of potatoes and bacon, getting multilingual proclamations printed, deciding whether German girls should be allowed to marry foreign laborers—in short, engaging in all the activities which AMG, American Military Government, would be performing in Württemberg for years to come."
When they left, the townspeople presented them with swords from Napoleon's army that had been prized possession of the town. Bates decided to drive West to Strasbourg and handed over the material there to Alsos people there, instructing them to send it straight to Washington D.C..
............................................................................
The outfit at Strasbourg was more professional and travelled with armoured cars and trucks under command of Colonel Boris Pash, and their ultimate destination was Munich, so Lanny took leave of Dr Bates and joined Professor Goudsmit. Their next destination was Hechingen, where Werner Heisenberg had his secret atomic laboratory. Goudsmit was sure he hadn't got far in this project, but orders were to go get whatever there was. On the way they told Lanny what went on in Europe while he was busy with Urach.
"Russian troops had reached the center of Berlin and were fighting to capture Gestapo headquarters. British planes had dropped six-ton bombs on the Berghof, Hitler’s Berchtesgaden chalet—no doubt on the chance that he might have fled there. British troops had reached the River Po in Italy. Most interesting of all, Heinrich Himmler had made an offer to surrender Germany to the Western Allies alone—which offer the Allies were ignoring.
"There was no delay in finding the Heisenberg laboratory; part of it was in one wing of a textile plant and another part in an old brewery. Several miles away was a small underground cave containing the uranium pile. The Army had got to the cave and removed all the apparatus and blown it up. No more scientific hocus-pocus there!
"The great Heisenberg had skipped the town, or, rather, had rolled out of it on a bicycle. He had left half a dozen of his colleagues, including Otto Hahn, the discoverer of uranium fission; also that Professor von Weizsäcker, the Prussian aristocrat who had lent his services to the Nazis and had skipped out of Strasbourg before Alsos had got there."
Another was Professor Plötzen. Lanny spent hours with him, and his story about Himmler was now more plausible; Plötzen said it was all water under the bridge, and what mattered was preserving scientific knowledge.
"Confidentially he was willing to tell his friend Budd where Heisenberg had had the materials of the laboratory buried. The cache was dug up: a ton and a half of uranium, a ton and a half of heavy water, and ten tons of carbon. The first item was of tremendous value and would be transported to a secret place in New Mexico as quickly as it could be loaded into a flying boxcar. The heavy water had been produced at great expense in Rjukan, Norway, a place whose name Lanny had obtained a couple of years ago at the expense of a great deal of his nervous energy.
The GI Joes didn't like having to dig that up, and left it outside the window of the room where Professor Goudsmit spent the night.
"In the morning it was cleaned and opened up, and there were the real secrets. They were sealed again and taken to Heidelberg to be shipped to Washington. Thousands of such treasures were pouring into that center, and thousands of scientists of all specialties were waiting to study them and decide if any immediate use could be made of them. The half-dozen German scientists were put into cars and taken to Heidelberg for a very special and polite sort of internment, which consisted of living in a steam-heated villa and having long technical conversations with their former colleagues—American, British, and French."
............................................................................
Colonel Pash was going to go capture Heisenberg and Lanny accompanied him, allowed because Pash was impressed with the Urach story.
"They traveled fast, not stopping for anything. They cut up into the foothills to avoid Munich. They had passed not far from Dachau, but had no way of knowing what had happened or might be happening there. Americans had found it difficult to believe the atrocity stories, but now that they were liberating one after another of these packed concentration camps they were horrified by the conditions they found.
"The little T-force had no trouble in locating their quarry. He was a dignified gentleman, very conscious of his scientific standing. He had, of course, no idea what progress the Americans had been making in the esoteric field of atomic fission; he took it for granted that what he knew must be far ahead of what anybody else in the world knew—it had been that way in so many branches of science. The news that they had been to Hechingen and had found his uranium and his heavy water and his can full of atomic secrets must have seemed to him like the invasion of ancient Rome by the barbarians from the northern forests. When he was told that he would have to accompany the task force to Heidelberg where his colleagues were interned, he yielded politely, since there was nothing else he could do.
"While preparations for departure were under way an amusing incident took place. Two high SS officers presented themselves. They had learned that American officers had arrived in town, and it did not occur to them that the Americans might have come without an adequate force. The SS men stated that they had six hundred troops up in the mountains; the snow was deep and they had little food, and, recognizing that the war was over, they desired to surrender. Very gravely Colonel Pash agreed to accept the surrender and specified the spot at which the Germans were to present themselves.
"At this moment the young lieutenant happened in. Perhaps he failed to grasp the situation, or perhaps he was one of those persons whose wits do not work quickly. He blurted out, “But we are only seven men!”
"Colonel Pash answered quietly, “Our troops will be here in an hour or two, and that is before these gentlemen can get back.” He sent the enemy officers away, and the tiny T-force hightailed it out of Urfeld to find a larger American force and send it up there."
While on the way back, Lanny talked with him, telling him nothing about Princeton or Einstein but about Salzmann and Plötzen. Heisenberg opened up and said he didn't think there was anything in the talk about atomic weapons, but it was useful for industry. It never occurred to him that he was not miles ahead of others, especially outside Germany. Pash smiled, listening, since was far more aware about reality of what was going on at Oak Ridge, Tenessee.
............................................................................
Learning that Munich had been taken, Lanny left them and went to Munich.
"There had been an attempt at revolution, and the SS troops had been attacked front and rear; so the city had held out only one day, but the Nazis had succeeded in blowing up most of the bridges in their retreat. Nearly half the population had fled, and the rest were in such confusion as Lanny had never seen before.
"It was the Seventh Army which had taken the city, having come down from Nürnberg on a broad front in about ten days. Meantime the Third had reached the tip of Czechoslovakia. Presumably having orders to leave that country to the Russians, they had swung south to the Danube and deep into Austria. At all hazards the Americans meant to possess that Alpine Redoubt, and block the enemy’s plans to fortify it. To hold any city requires only a few troops, and the rest would go on, looking for the enemy’s armed forces. That would include six hundred SS men holed up in a snow-filled valley above the Walchensee. This time the six hundred wouldn’t ride into the valley of death, but into a valley of K-rations and warm stoves."
The Hamburg radio gave news of deaths of Hitler and Göbbels.
"The Russians had broken through the defenses of Berlin and their artillery had been tearing the New Chancellery to pieces when the Führer had at last made up his tortured mind that his cause was lost. ... He would make his foes take Germany foot by foot—and they had done just that, and in another day would have been standing over his head and smoking him out like a rat in its hole."
Mussolini had been hunted down by partisans, shot dead and hung upside down in Milan.
"Now the evil pair were dead; but not until they had caused the loss of some thirty or forty million human lives, and an amount of treasure difficult to estimate but that couldn’t have been less than half a million million dollars ..."
............................................................................
Lanny stayed on in Munich, now that it was captured he expected the Monuments and Alsos people to come, and meanwhile find out information ahead of their arrival. Lanny had known people, mostly nazis, and they were frightened expecting the treatment they'd meted out, and denied ever being Nazi.
Knowing headquarters of both third and seventh, Lanny got billet and meals and permission to go around, and the help he asked, a T-force of three GIs and a car, to go scouting at the university.
"The president, a Doktor Walther Wüst, was also professor of Sanskrit and Persian, and director of Scholarship in the Ahnenerbe, a semi-lunatic organization founded by Heinrich Himmler for the purpose of collecting and cherishing knowledge about the ancient Germanic tribes, the forefathers of the “Aryan” world."
Lanny dealt with SS Colonel Wolfram Sievers who was obsequious to him since Lanny was of equal rank in conquering army, and introduced him to heads of various departments including speleology and ancient knitting methods of Vikings. Lanny was interested in physics, and impounded all papers, locking them up in a room until arrival of Goudsmit.
Lanny asked seventh army for the young Robin, and they asked Lanny to get him, which he did. Freddi Robin - in two earlier volumes named Johannes Robin - was happy to see Lanny and go with him, and their first thought was Dachau. Lanny was not going for sentimental reasons, he thought he might find some trace of Ludi Schultz. He thought it possible that Ludi, or even Trudi, might gave survived, although Hess had told him she died in Dachau - Trudi Schultz being a common enough name in Germany.
Also, Lanny might find information, from survivors well enough. The train to Dachau being not a possibility, Lanny got a Daimler because some Nazi had left it behind, due to not getting fuel.
" ... it was odd to hear how these masters of the Thousand-Year Reich had hitched horses, oxen, cows, and even Poles and Russians to their rubber-tired chariots in order to get their corpulent selves hauled away toward the east. They fled from General Patch’s Seventh Army, only to run into Georgie Patton’s Third, headed hell-for-leather into Austria. And believe it, those were real man-sized armies! Patton alone had more than three hundred and fifty thousand men."
Before going they had to have typhus shots. There were two thousand cases of typhus and inmates had to be treated until they were in reasonable health before being released. Lanny remembered the place, the wide roads and well constructed structures specially done for the enemies of nazis. Homes for officers had every comfort and elegance. They were shown in one by the American officer they met had just moved in, and on the centre table was a volume of Goethe, and Lanny noticed a table lamp with a shade he found curious; the officer said it was human skin. He told them to see the train first.
The train was from Buchenwald, it had taken twenty one days, and most people had died of starvation, cold, and some had been shot, whipped. They saw the barracks where some had only strength enough to move their eyes. Bodies were piled like wood.
The town was well fed and people sturdy. The starvation had been deliberate.
The inmates who could move were outside in warmth of sun and came running to them, liberated only two days ago, not over the excitement yet. It was dangerous to be in the compound, and they got out, walked between barracks and saw people dead or all but dead.
"The GIs had never seen anything like this; they had heard stories but hadn’t believed them. Now they wanted to tell the world, and they started on one buddy and one “Doc”; ask them one question, and they would pour out a flood of horror and rage. Look in this barrack where the Poles had been herded, the poor devils who had been hated worst of all. Triple-tiered bunks just deep enough to slide into, and five feet wide; five men had slept in each bunk, and a lot of them were still in there, dead. Or this place where a group of Jewish women had been herded three weeks ago; things here that could not be put into print."
They saw the torture chambers and medical experiment facilities. Records had been burned, but copies were found later with Luftwaffe.
"Dr. Rascher, who conducted these unique experiments, had requested that he be transferred to Auschwitz, because it was colder there and “patients” could be frozen in the open; also because they made trouble in Dachau, they “roared while being frozen.”"
They found no trace of Freddi Robin or Ludi Schultz or Trudi, thousands of people had died here. Lanny asked about Oskar and Marceline, but drew a blank.
When they returned to Munich the war was about over; the German armies in Italy, Holland and Berlin surrendered one after other. Lanny sent the young son of Freddi Robin back to his outfit. Professor Goudsmit and his party arrived, and Jerry was with them. They'd found some small scale experiments regarding atomic fission in North.
"They had found some important reports by Professor Walther Gerlach, a physicist whom Hitler had named as the man whom Lanny should see at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin. Now Gerlach had fled to Munich, and Jerry was to help in the hunt for him."
............................................................................
Lanny thought he'd help Monuments and went to meet Freiherr von Breine, from whom he'd bought paintings while working on a scheme to get Freddi Robin out. His house had been taken by nazis and now occupied by American forces, and he was living in the gardener's cottage, pleased that Americans had the house, because they'd pay. He wanted to know what Americans would do to Germans, and if they could get his paintings back from nazis.
"No one of them ever stated whether he had been among those crowds, sometimes a million in one spot, which whooped and roared for National Socialism and its Führer."
Freiherr asked what he was supposed to do, and gave information .
"“I am informed that all his Karinhall collection was put into freight cars and brought south, and that the train is somewhere near Berchtesgaden. The French got to it first, and so you had better hurry if you plan to do anything altruistic.”"
He said Emmy was at a across at Zell Am See and must have some of the paintings. Lanny asked if he could take notes.
"He made a note of the Göring train and of the castle at Zell am See. He noted that there might be treasures hidden in Ribbentrop’s castle at Fuschl, and also in one of those built by the mad King Ludwig II of Bavaria. There was a colossal hoard in the salt mine at Alt Aussee, high up in the mountains southeast of Berchtesgaden; it was said to contain ten thousand paintings, including most of, and perhaps all, the treasures from the Vienna Museum. And so on and on, until Lanny had a sheet of paper full of notes and the promise of more in a few days."
Monuments people arrived, were aollted up the Verwaltungsbau and its duplicate, the Führerbau, and had the work of engaging German staff for various jobs, including museum technicians and clerks, and excluding nazis and their sympathisers. In a land where everyone had been forced to be nazi, and now was denying any loyalty or sympathy to the creed, this was not trivial. They were happy lanny had done preliminary work of finding information about Göring's train location.
Lanny went with the first T-force, over the familiar road to Berchtesgaden.
"The Monuments hunted up the CP and asked about the Göring train. It developed that somebody had waked up to the importance of a possible billion dollars’ worth of paintings, and the stuff was now being unloaded and taken by a back road to a little place called Unterstein, where there was a rest house until recently used by German officers. This had some fifty rooms, all that could be needed to sort and catalogue nine freighter-car loads of art treasures.
"So there was no longer an emergency, and the Monuments man in charge of the T-force decided that the thing to do was to go on to Alt Aussee, some seventy miles farther east, inspect the salt mine, and make sure the thousands of paintings there hidden were not in danger from either pillagers or dampness and mold."
Word had come that the three military chiefs of Germany had signed surrender effective at a minute past eleven that night on. Army was too tired to celebrate. Lanny asked if he visited in the neighbourhood, he might get information of importance. He intended walking over to see Hilde, the Fürstin Donnerstein, but Major Jennings of G-2 said that was out of the question, the war wasn't even legally over yet, any soldier of the enemy was legally in his right to shoot an American in uniform, and Lanny was OSS and his credentials were of the best, so if he needed to go to Obersalzberg he'd be provided with an escort, it wouldn't do for him to go strolling about as if this were Adirondacks. So Lanny arrived in a Mercedes with a driver and a guard.
............................................................................
Hilde was happy to see him, and said she'd been expecting him, but surprised at the uniform. He explained he was noncombatant, but she said it didn't matter, everyone was sick of nazis anyway. They talked in the summer house overlooking the Berghof, and Lanny refused her offer of opera glasses to look at the bombed ruin of a beautiful place that, if it weren't destroyed, would have become a shrine and so had to be destroyed. That's why allies wouldn't punishe the war criminals without proper trials, he told her.
"“That will include your neighbor, Der Dicke,” he said with a smile, and she told him the amazing story of what had been happening to Göring in the last week or two. He had gone to Berlin and tried to convince Hitler that the war was lost, but Hitler would not be convinced and had flown into one of his rages; Göring had come away and told his friends that the Führer was insane. Later he had telephoned Hitler, proposing to take over Germany and carry out the surrender; Hitler in return had called him a traitor and scoundrel and had ordered the SS to seize him and shoot him at once. The SS had obeyed the first half of the order, but they had hesitated about the second half, for the Reichsmarschall with his jeweled baton was a majestic person in their eyes. In the confusion of defeat there had been a conflict of authority, and a group of Göring’s paratroopers had dashed in and rescued him and carried him off somewhere into the mountains."
She wanted to know how he had escaped after she helped him, and he told her. Now he was collecting information and had funds for the purpose, and intended her to collect part of it for providing the information. She thought there wouldn't be aristocracy any more, and he said there was a new president in U.S. and his guess was private enterprise would be protected and encouraged everywhere. She was surprised he was talking like old times, and he told her he'd only been posing. She was afraid U.S. might let Russia control Germany, and he reassured her.
"She told him about several places on the Obersalzberg where Göring would be apt to have such works hidden. “You know his hunting lodge here?” she asked; and he reminded her how he had sat before an enormous log fire in that sumptuous place and heard Der Dicke discourse upon the joys of sticking a spear into a wild pig. “You should have a search made in those forests,” she said; “undoubtedly he has hiding places there. Emmy went to Berchtesgaden when he was arrested and has fled to the mountains with him. She will be pretty sure to come back to Zell, and there is where she would have her paintings—unless they are in the trunk of her car. I don’t need to tell you that a single Rembrandt might be enough to keep a woman in comfort the rest of her life.”
"Also, there was Ribbentrop; he fancied himself as an esthete, in art as in every other way, and would undoubtedly have hidden old masters. Goebbels had a place here, and Rosenberg, for whom the Einsatzstab had been named; there had been the bitterest rivalry between him and Göring as to who should get the first choice of prizes, and if those two men were caught they would no doubt tell on each other. Adolf Wagner, lame Nazi boss of Munich, was a great plunderer too, but Hilde didn’t know what had become of him. Hofer, Göring’s so-called curator, was in Berchtesgaden, a red-headed rascal who cheated everybody, including his master."
"He gave her a box of delicacies from the Army PX, and he promised to come again and not forget the insecticide. This was a product unobtainable in Germany, because the materials had gone into the making of poison gases for war. The Nazis had prepared enormous quantities but had never used them, because they knew that the Amis had them too."
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Lanny went back to Berchtesgaden and talked to Major Jennings, who agreed it was a good idea to look at the hunting lodge in the neighbourhood, and offered to bring anyone Lanny suggested in for questioning; Lanny thought for him it would be better to approach them as art expert; he said they realised their game was played out, and it was better for them to please their new masters.
Jennings went to arrange it, and returned to say Göring had just surrendered; hearing he was at “Kitzbühel,” Lanny thought he was the best option for getting information out of him, and since Himmler had gone and done exactly what Lanny said about him as a cover story, it would work; Jennings said he'd give a note for Major General Dahlquist, and Lanny said to make it personal. Major Jennings was able to come with him, and that was better; they set off, travelling over mountain passes, arriving at the Grand Hotel in Kitzbühel after dark, and went to a rear entrance, where Göring's blue Mercedes, a Maybach, was parked with its steel plates two inches thick and it's glass twice as thick. They managed to avoid the newspapermen who were no doubt in the lobby.
Lanny was permitted to see Göring alone, and to fraternise. Göring was pleased to see him, having come down in the world, although he was fed well. Lanny hastened to assure him that he was non combatant, only involved in protecting art works, and told the story about Himmler. Lanny knew that Göring might not believe it, but might choose to seem to accept it. They talked about his boss, who, Göring said, had gone crazy and lost control.
"“Do you think he is dead, Hermann?”
"“I do not doubt it. He had told me many times that he would never be taken alive.”
"“But might he not have escaped?”
"“He couldn’t bring himself to face the thought of defeat, and when at last the idea was forced upon him, it was too late. The Russians broke through suddenly, and it was the same here in the south; we had planned to set up a Redoubt and make a last-ditch stand, but your General Patton cut the country in half.”"
They talked about art collections, of Göring's own and others.
"He jotted down the fact that the Karinhall collection had first been transported to Göring’s castle of Beldenstein on the Pegnitz River in Northern Bavaria. When Patton had got too near to that, it had been removed to Berchtesgaden. ... Göring imparted the fact that the crown jewels of the Holy Roman Empire had been taken to Nürnberg and walled up under the Paniers-Platz; these included the crown of Charlemagne, which the Pope had placed upon that emperor’s head in the year 800. The Prussian crown jewels had been placed in a sort of shrine, along with the bones of Frederick the Great and of Frederick William the Great Elector, and buried deep in a salt mine in Central Germany."
Göring told about Ribbentrop and Rosenberg and others, about where each had kept his art collection. Lanny noted that he had nothing good to say about any top nazis, not even Hitler; he pointed out that Hitler had never travelled, was narrow and ignorant; the colossal blunder of two front war and six months later declaring war on U.S. just to oblige Japan was all due to that. That Göring had protested against The war on two fronts was what alienated him, and the more Göring was proved right the worse the fury against him.
Lanny could now talk freely about weapons, and said the more information Göring could give about their new stuff the sooner Japan could be defeated. They talked about rockets, jets, radar and more.
"Thus there was a V-2 rocket that could be fired from a submarine—and the submarine didn’t have to come to the surface but could fire from three hundred feet under water. “That would have been pretty good off New York harbor, nicht wahr?” said Göring with one of his old-time smiles. Lanny answered, “It may be pretty good off Tokyo harbor.”
"Also there was an improved V-2—the “flying telegraph pole”—almost ready for service, and having a range of eighteen hundred miles; and there was the dreaded V-3, which was to fly through the stratosphere from Berlin to New York and even farther. “It’s really too bad we couldn’t have had a try at that!” said the genial Reichsmarschall; but now alles was kaput, and the Americans were free to dig out all these secrets at Peenemünde and at the huge rocket-assembly plant built eight hundred feet deep in the Kohnstein Mountains near Nordhausen.
"Then Göring asked a question that startled Lanny, though a practiced intriguer didn’t show it. “Did you ever visit a place called Oak Ridge, Tennessee?”
"The other replied, quite truthfully, “No,” and then added a dutiful lie, “I don’t think I ever heard of it.”
"“Our Intelligence Service in America hasn’t been anything to brag about, but we were told that at that place you have built a tremendous plant with the idea of making an atomic bomb. Of course it may be just camouflage for some other line of activity.”
"Said Lanny, “That is something outside my father’s province, and I wouldn’t know about it. If it comes off, we can be glad it won’t be over Germany.”"
Göring said German physicists told them it was delusion and would be glad U.S. wasted money on it; Lanny said FDR had a hunch about it. Lanny took his leave promising to take care of the paintings, and Göring was in tears about never seeing them in his home again; not about the millions of lives lost and cities ruined.
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Lanny was now expecting a communication from Marceline to have reached Beauty at Bienvenu where they had returned, but there was no word, and he gave up on his hope. He sent off reports to Monuments and Alsos, and went to Alt Aussee with Monuments men.
"Here two OSS men had taken up their abode, and they welcomed Lanny as a colleague. They had brought with them for questioning no less a personage than Herr Walther Andreas Hofer, the Berlin art dealer whom Göring had chosen as his number-one expert and supervisor of plundering.
"This was the man who was credited with having invented the ingenious scheme of inviting wealthy Germans to give art presents to the Reichsmarschall on his birthday. Hofer had a most extraordinary memory; he knew the name of every such donor, what he had given, and the price he had paid for it. He could remember every art transaction he had carried on since the coming of the Nazis; the name of the painting, the price asked and the price paid, the size of the work, and sometimes even the kind of frame it was in. There were some things that he professed to have forgotten; but when Lanny told him how he had visited Göring only the night before last and obtained the great man’s approval of the American program, Herr Hofer suddenly remembered a lot more.
"The balked and frenzied SS, seeing the Americans drawing near, had brought large cases containing dynamite, preparing to blow up and flood the mine and destroy all the art works in one grand bust. But the miners had risen and had blown up the mine entrances, making it impossible for the Nazis to get in. The American Army had arrived in the nick of time—“ten, twenty, thirty,” said one of the OSS men; there was so much melodrama in this war that the movies would be telling about it for a thousand years. In this case it was not a virtuous maiden who was saved but a hundred thousand objets d’art, many of which were quite literally priceless.
"Salt mines had been chosen as art shelters because the salt absorbs moisture and makes them comparatively dry; also the temperature is uniform, about forty degrees Fahrenheit, and, oddly enough, slightly warmer in winter. The systematic Germans had come, curators, restorers, and a great staff of clerks; for there had to be exact records of everything. There were 6755 paintings, 5350 of them being old masters. More than half bore tags reading “A.H., Linz,” meaning that they were the property of Adolf Hitler, intended for that thousand-year museum that was to end all museums."
Monuments men were busy and miners only too eager to help them take the art treasures out so they could get back to work. Lanny returned to Berchtesgaden and Laurel arrived, she asked about Marceline; war was over, he was no longer an agent, and now they could talk. She asked about how hed become friends with such people, and would he do it for the new president. He said he'd rather have a private life, and she said wait until they got to the business of bequest by Emily Chattersworth's will. They went to Unterstein and to Kehlstein.
Lanny went with T-force to Zell am See and recovered paintings from Emmy including the supposed Vermeer that Göring had paid a million and half guilders total worth hundred and thirty seven paintings in exchange, which had been questioned and later turned out to be a Meegeren, who had to paint in jail to prove he'd committed the forgery. Emmy's seven year old daughter cried to see her mother weep at losing what was supposed to be her security.
Lanny and Laurel went to Fuschlsee and later to Salzburg, where he told her about the last time he was there. They went to see the Detazes hung in Bechstein Haus, which was intact, although the main building at Berghof was a shell. The Detazes were there, and would later be turned by U.S. to French government, Marcel Detaze being French citizen and soldier who'd died in WWI.
They heard on radio about fates of Quisling and others, and then Himmler who'd been caught trying to cross at Bremerwörde, west of Hamburg, with an eye patch, but his forged papers were too good, and British soldiers had stopped him; he'd confessed, and bit a cyanide capsule, and they'd buried him in the forest by throwing him in a pit and levelling it.
............................................................................
With death of Himmler The only possibility left for Lanny was to go through Gestapo records to see if there was any clue about Marceline, and he was about to give up any write to Beauty to that effect, when he got a letter from Monck in his own name, informing him that he'd found a young woman in Leipzig.
"“A woman was found in the women’s hospital of the Leipzig Concentration Camp. She was one of a thousand or so who had been working twelve-hour shifts in a near-by munitions factory. She was wearing a canvas skirt and jacket, nothing else, and no identification marks of any sort. I am guessing that she is young, but it is hard to be sure. She had been through the torture mill; all her teeth have been knocked out, her back and legs are a mass of welts which the doctors say have been there for some time, and her finger ends show scars of fire, probably caused by shoving matches under the nails.
"“Apparently she suffers from complete amnesia; she does not know who she is or where she came from. She answers everything about her past with ‘I do not know.’ When let alone, she sits perfectly still, and cowers when she is approached. Her eyes and hair are brown, the hair with some gray. She has a strawberry mark on her left leg; no other peculiarity that I can see. She is about five feet seven, and is fearfully emaciated, but not beyond the point where she can be restored.”
Monck said if Lanny hadn't yet found her he could come see her, and he hoped it wasn't Marceline. She had amnesia and just said she didnt know, to any question. Lanny knew immediately it had to be Marceline, due to the strawberry mark on her leg that Monck mentioned. He asked Laurelfor permission before leaving for Leipzig to bring Marceline home to Bienvenu. He knew Marceline had been tortured because of him, and she hadn't told them.
With death of Himmler The only possibility left for Lanny was to go through Gestapo records to see if there was any clue about Marceline, and he was about to give up any write to Beauty to that effect, when he got a letter from Monck in his own name, informing him that he'd found a young woman in Leipzig.
"“A woman was found in the women’s hospital of the Leipzig Concentration Camp. She was one of a thousand or so who had been working twelve-hour shifts in a near-by munitions factory. She was wearing a canvas skirt and jacket, nothing else, and no identification marks of any sort. I am guessing that she is young, but it is hard to be sure. She had been through the torture mill; all her teeth have been knocked out, her back and legs are a mass of welts which the doctors say have been there for some time, and her finger ends show scars of fire, probably caused by shoving matches under the nails.
"“Apparently she suffers from complete amnesia; she does not know who she is or where she came from. She answers everything about her past with ‘I do not know.’ When let alone, she sits perfectly still, and cowers when she is approached. Her eyes and hair are brown, the hair with some gray. She has a strawberry mark on her left leg; no other peculiarity that I can see. She is about five feet seven, and is fearfully emaciated, but not beyond the point where she can be restored.”
Monck said if Lanny hadn't yet found her he could come see her, and he hoped it wasn't Marceline. She had amnesia and just said she didnt know, to any question. Lanny knew immediately it had to be Marceline, due to the strawberry mark on her leg that Monck mentioned. He asked Laurelfor permission before leaving for Leipzig to bring Marceline home to Bienvenu. He knew Marceline had been tortured because of him, and she hadn't told them.
............................................................................
He found Marceline in the hospital attached to the concentration camp, she was a skeleton and feared anyone new. She'd worked filling shells for hours, and doctors thought it was necessary for her to do something, so a nurse taught her knitting, and she turned out socks with mechanical regularity. Doctors said it could have been the climax of her ordeal that caused loss of identity. SS had set fire to the men's building when American forces were close.
She took time accepting him, but resisted all attempts to be told who she was, and only accepted him as the brother after a while, as he took over feeding her at two hour intervals and told her about her home, Bienvenu, and her family, including her mother and her son.
He found Marceline in the hospital attached to the concentration camp, she was a skeleton and feared anyone new. She'd worked filling shells for hours, and doctors thought it was necessary for her to do something, so a nurse taught her knitting, and she turned out socks with mechanical regularity. Doctors said it could have been the climax of her ordeal that caused loss of identity. SS had set fire to the men's building when American forces were close.
She took time accepting him, but resisted all attempts to be told who she was, and only accepted him as the brother after a while, as he took over feeding her at two hour intervals and told her about her home, Bienvenu, and her family, including her mother and her son.
............................................................................
Lanny met Monck, and now they exchanged stories freely. Lanny asked him about Seidl, but Monck hadn't been to Berlin,it was in Russian hands. Monck told him about his working with Eric Erickson, and destroying oil plants of Germany.
"Monck, in Stockholm, had had some thirty agents, men and women, working under his command in Germany, and only four of them had been lost. They had reported on eighty-seven vital targets connected with oil, and in the last ten months of the war General Spaatz’s airmen had dropped nearly two hundred thousand tons of bombs on or near those targets. When he had started the war Hitler had had on hand only two or three months’ supply of oil, but he had made tremendous efforts to increase his supply and had succeeded for five years, as all the world knew. Synthetic oil was the answer, and by what was known as the Karinhall Plan he had raised Germany’s oil production to eight million tons per year.
"Listening to Monck’s story, Lanny realized that this had been an oil war. Lack of oil was the reason the mad Führer had had to drop his program of bombing Britain out of the war and to fall back upon a defensive program. He had made the mistake of building too many of his plants in the west and had to build new ones in Silesia and Poland. The plants were the most secret places in Germany, the most carefully camouflaged and most heavily defended. Vital machinery was put under heavy concrete, blast walls were built around the rest, and every plant was surrounded with smoke screens, searchlights, and solid rings of anti-aircraft batteries. This had been a life-or-death war for the Nazis, and they had all known it.
"“We got the information,” Monck said quietly, and went on to tell the story of the tremendous Leuna works near this city of Leipzig. The plant had produced more than one-third of all Germany’s aviation and motor gasoline, and during the last year there had been twenty-two knockout air raids upon it. The first, on May 12, 1944, had dropped five hundred tons of bombs and stopped production entirely. But the Germans had their plans to restore full production in a month—“We got a copy of those plans,” said Monck; “I had them in my own hands a week after the raid.”
"So the bombers had come again in sixteen days, and this war between destroyers and repairers went on for the full year. At the end of July, after the landing in Normandy and when the rout of Rommel and Rundstedt was beginning, the Leunawerke was hit by nearly three thousand tons of bombs in two days. There had been an attack every fortnight, and nine total knockouts of production. “I have just been looking over the records,” reported the secret agent. “Our bombs caused more than five thousand breaks in pipe-lines at Leuna, and every one of those had to be repaired and fully tested before they could carry the highly inflammable gases and liquids. In the end we had the Nazis reduced to building little plants in the forests, like what you call moonlight stills in America.”
"“Moonshine,” corrected Lanny with a smile. “I was told about one in the Black Forest that was run by the power of a steam locomotive. I saw tanks and armored vehicles that had been hauled into the Ardennes by horses and oxen; and they didn’t get out again. Also, there were Tiger tanks that had been fitted with gas generators, to burn charcoal.”
"Said Monck, “That was why the Luftwaffe didn’t appear to defend the Rhine; and why the Führer shot himself, and Goebbels and Himmler took poison.”"
Lanny met Monck, and now they exchanged stories freely. Lanny asked him about Seidl, but Monck hadn't been to Berlin,it was in Russian hands. Monck told him about his working with Eric Erickson, and destroying oil plants of Germany.
"Monck, in Stockholm, had had some thirty agents, men and women, working under his command in Germany, and only four of them had been lost. They had reported on eighty-seven vital targets connected with oil, and in the last ten months of the war General Spaatz’s airmen had dropped nearly two hundred thousand tons of bombs on or near those targets. When he had started the war Hitler had had on hand only two or three months’ supply of oil, but he had made tremendous efforts to increase his supply and had succeeded for five years, as all the world knew. Synthetic oil was the answer, and by what was known as the Karinhall Plan he had raised Germany’s oil production to eight million tons per year.
"Listening to Monck’s story, Lanny realized that this had been an oil war. Lack of oil was the reason the mad Führer had had to drop his program of bombing Britain out of the war and to fall back upon a defensive program. He had made the mistake of building too many of his plants in the west and had to build new ones in Silesia and Poland. The plants were the most secret places in Germany, the most carefully camouflaged and most heavily defended. Vital machinery was put under heavy concrete, blast walls were built around the rest, and every plant was surrounded with smoke screens, searchlights, and solid rings of anti-aircraft batteries. This had been a life-or-death war for the Nazis, and they had all known it.
"“We got the information,” Monck said quietly, and went on to tell the story of the tremendous Leuna works near this city of Leipzig. The plant had produced more than one-third of all Germany’s aviation and motor gasoline, and during the last year there had been twenty-two knockout air raids upon it. The first, on May 12, 1944, had dropped five hundred tons of bombs and stopped production entirely. But the Germans had their plans to restore full production in a month—“We got a copy of those plans,” said Monck; “I had them in my own hands a week after the raid.”
"So the bombers had come again in sixteen days, and this war between destroyers and repairers went on for the full year. At the end of July, after the landing in Normandy and when the rout of Rommel and Rundstedt was beginning, the Leunawerke was hit by nearly three thousand tons of bombs in two days. There had been an attack every fortnight, and nine total knockouts of production. “I have just been looking over the records,” reported the secret agent. “Our bombs caused more than five thousand breaks in pipe-lines at Leuna, and every one of those had to be repaired and fully tested before they could carry the highly inflammable gases and liquids. In the end we had the Nazis reduced to building little plants in the forests, like what you call moonlight stills in America.”
"“Moonshine,” corrected Lanny with a smile. “I was told about one in the Black Forest that was run by the power of a steam locomotive. I saw tanks and armored vehicles that had been hauled into the Ardennes by horses and oxen; and they didn’t get out again. Also, there were Tiger tanks that had been fitted with gas generators, to burn charcoal.”
"Said Monck, “That was why the Luftwaffe didn’t appear to defend the Rhine; and why the Führer shot himself, and Goebbels and Himmler took poison.”"
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Lanny tried hypnosis with Marceline, but it wouldn't work, and he realised she had to be willing to be hypnotized. He thought it was best he take her home, and managed to get her to Paris. A flight to Cannes wasn't easy, he was told he'd have to see General Patton who was in charge and happened to be there. He met Patton and explained the situation; Patton was incensed at what was done to Marceline, and said the army could certainly help fly them home. He and his officers were happy about winning in Europe, but less so about having been held back several times, and decidedly unhappy about not being allowed to go fight in the Pacific.
"When they were parting the tired man said, “My work is done, Budd. The Lord can take me any time.” Lanny remembered the words, and thought of them a few months later when he heard over the radio that the commander of the. Third Army had been killed in a motorcar crash."
Lanny brought Marceline to Bienvenu and with Parsifal treating her, everyone surrounding her with love, and Lanny using a treatment that consisted of a recording heard while she slept, she began to recover. They believed her memory was returning when she suddenly exclaimed about how Vittorio had been horrid, for they'd agreed to never mention him.
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Over and over including in this part, the author reiterates Marceline having been of no use to anyone, until this part where she has lost herself due to the torture she underwent, and now will do anything anyone tells her to, or join in anything anyone is doing.
And yet, his false accusation is all too obvious. Marceline could have, instead of saving her half-brother's life by calling him, let him be caught while she saved herself. She could have denounced him to the authorities to save her torture, and she went through it rather than save her skin and let him suffer the results of risks he'd chosen to undertake. What's more she stuck be her lover and returned to care for him rather than select to be safe and relocate to U.K. or U.S. when it was war, even after having returned to Bienvenu.
And that's only the topping of the concoction. One look at the babyhood, the childhood that Marceline went through, the bringing up she received, and it's only too obvious she's the heroine of the piece and not the lesson her creator meant her to be.
Lanny benefited by having not only his own father Robbie set up an estate and a more than adequate allowance in addition to more help and gifts from time to time, but learning from him by example and proximity, as much as he did from the mother and the tutor, the stepmother and grandfather and great uncle, the various friends and visitors and more.
Moreover, Lanny had the benefit of learning from Marcel Detaze, in his company and from his life. But Marceline the daughter lost her father when she was a baby, and her mother promptly went to Paris, leaving her to the care of servants at Bienvenu, hiwever good and loving; Beauty chose to take a German spy for a lover and relocate to Spain for a significant amount of time to save him from French law, rather than let him suffer consequences of his choices whik e she returned to care for the baby.
When she did return, it was with the German lover, who despised everyone not German, and his harsh discipline was imposed on the baby who wasn't his own. Lanny took his side, and neither took Marceline as the recipient of benefits of their care or education, as Robbie and Marcel had with Lanny, but subjected her to male disdain for a female, especially for the little girl who looks to her mother for a role model. Lanny wrote her off early for having aspired to be like her and his own mother.
Did he expect her to aspire to be a fisherman, a cook, or even himself, only accidentally saved from being the useless playing that he's taken for by most, especially by most Germans?
He was, in fact, the reason why Marceline was subjected to the harsh discipline of Kurt, since it was he who had hidden Kurt in his mother's hotel suite, leading to their involvement, and later made and helped her execute the plan whereby she went to Spain with him and not back to Bienvenu to be with the baby.
Funny, the author offers far more leniency to almost every Nazi, compared to the poor little half sister who was an orphan for all practical purposes.
What's more, Lanny is set up by his father with a home and an allowance, but Marceline has only a one third share in her own father's paintings. Beauty and Lanny could have realised they had Robbie's money sent them regularly and they could have put money from sale of Marcel Detaze's works in a trust for her, but no, they divide it in three equal parts, so Marceline has always had needs nurtured by the life shes brougyt up in, with Beauty and her friends and Irma for examples, but no way to achieve it except by marrying money cold heartedly.
And they did set it up, by arranging a match with a future baron, Alfy, except Marceline is too proud, too upright. She wants to be loved and wooed, and makes her own mistakes because others have only paid her a superficial attention. But she's the raw diamond that the author had set up to be crushed.
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Laurel decided she'd written all she could about the war and Europe, and would help Lanny. They flew to London and took a train to The Reaches, and spent time planning what Lanny thought was the best way to execute Emily Chattersworth's will. Rick would join Lanny and they would buy two houses near N.Y., one for Rick to live and work from, other the office that Laurel would head as Mary Morrow, while Lanny would be in the background.
They flew to U.S. and went to Newcastle and relaxed with the family. Baby Lanny was two and a half, France's fifteen and divided between two countries, she was happy where she was and had been so before. Lanny and Laurel were charmed to see Frances dance with baby Lanny, and after she'd been camping, her mother and stepfather were coming over to take her back in a while.
Jim Stotzlmann came to town, and Lanny mourned FDR with him. He visited Alston who was again a Professor in New England, after having attended the birth of United Nations Organisation, as the name originally was and later used by Britain even when the last word was dropped. Alston had tears when Lanny recited the poem from Rick, mourning the shepherd, to him, as he'd recited it to Jim.
Alston suggested Lanny go to Los Alamos, after talking to Einstein, and gave him his card with a note to Oppenheimer. Lanny called Robbie and they arranged Robbie's man meeting Lanny and Laurel with the trailer in Newark, and the couple drove to Princeton. Lanny parked in shade so Laurel was comfortable and he walked over to see Einstein.
"A curious sort of revenge which the whirligig of time had brought: it was upon Einstein’s formula governing the relationship between matter and energy that all these discoveries were based; and it was this formula which Lenard and the other Nazi lunatics had been banning by force from Germany."
Lanny told him about the physicists he'd met in Germany, and Einstein proposed playing music, but Lanny explained why he was there, and Einstein too gave a note for Oppenheimer. ............................................................................
They drove in turns via northern route to the twon of Budd in New Mexico, where Lanny saw Laurel settled comfortably, and went towards Los Alamos, but there were no signs and when he found the road he wasn't allowed past the gate without a pass; he drove to Santa Fe and booked into a hotel, and having mailed a note to Oppenheimer, waited. A call came in the evening asking him to come next day, and after presenting his credentials to get a pass, he drove, this time allowed in after a search of the car and checking his papers. He was interviewed by military security before being allowed to proceed further, and then told to go to Alamagordo.
He offered to give a ride to Dr Fairchild, Oppenheimer's assistant who had met with him, and now he talked freely, telling him about Oak Ridge and Washington facilities, about the great Oppenheimer and more. He told about the life at Los Alamos, the privileges and restrictions, being forbidden to go away except on business and then remain incognito to those non related to work.
"In Berkeley, where Oppy had taught, the report was that he had been arrested as a German spy."
They arrived at Alamagordo where Lanny had his credentials and car searched again before meeting Oppenheimer. The finale was three days later, and Lanny drove to see the steel tower. They spent nights on army cots in tents, and Lanny heard them talk during day.
"He couldn’t say to these scientists, “I have a million dollars with which to prevent an atomic war”; but he could feel them out and judge which men would be most useful for his purposes; he could make friends with them, so that later, if he wrote to them or went to see them, they would know who he was. Whether nuclear fission was to be used in war or only for the purposes of industry, these were the experts whose say-so the world would have to heed. He found them in a grave mood, ready to speak."
The time was shifted from four a,m. to five thirty. They were given dark glasses but preferred crooks of their elbows, lying flat on ground.
"At the precise second there came a flash of light, the like of which had never been seen on this earth, many times the brightness of the sun at its brightest. A blind girl a hundred miles away perceived it somehow, and before the sound reached her she asked, “What was that?” The scientists leaped to their feet and looked through their dark glasses at an enormous half-bubble of light that had been shot up into the sky. They braced themselves for the blast, the mass of air pushed from the explosion, with the greatest force ever created by human beings. At ten miles distance it was not serious, but it knocked flat two men who had stood outside the control room. A few seconds more and there came the sound, a thunderous all-pervading roar like nothing anyone could imagine.
"A huge cloud of many bright colors had surged up into the sky. Explosions seemed to be going on inside it, and the shock waves and sounds continued. It billowed and boiled and became an immense mushroom, emitting light like the sun and growling and roaring like the monsters of primeval time.
"One of the scientists confided to Lanny the astounding fact that the bomb which had wrought this colossal effect was slightly larger than a baseball and weighed no more than twenty or thirty pounds.
"Specially equipped tanks, with thick lead covering, were wheeled to the scene in course of the day. One of them carried the quiet Professor Fermi; he came back and reported that the steel tower, with all its instruments, had completely disappeared; the steel had been vaporized and must have gone up in the cloud. At the base of the tower was an immense crater with sloping sides. The sand of the desert floor had been fused and was now a sheet of green glass, upon which nobody would dare to set foot for many a day, perhaps a year.
"“If we drop this over Japan it will end the war,” said 99; and Oppy added, “I hope it won’t end civilization.”"
............................................................................
Lanny returned to the town of Budd and told his wife he'd been to something momentous but not to be talked of at the moment, however, it was soon to be official in news and then she'd have his first hand description to write about. They listened to the radio. Truman had gone to meet Churchill and Stalin at the Potsdam Conference, a successor to Yalta. The conference took two weeks, while Lanny and Laurel brought the trailer back to Newcastle and told what they saw at Budd. Privately Lanny told Robbie, confidentially, not to quote him but he could base his future plans on Japan being out of the war soon; Robbie looked his son, whom he knew well, in the eye, and asked if he was sure. Positive, Lanny told him, and said he couldn't say more.
Frances was excited because her mother and stepfather were coming, and were taking her on a tour across continent to Western Canada where Ceddy had bought a farm with Irma's money and was growing wheat for England, and then to California, before they returned home. She was supposed to make a choice about staying on or returning to England. Before leaving Newcastle to return to N.Y., Lanny took her rowing and told her that it was entirely her decision; but he wasn't supposed to say anything that would be contrary to Irma's choice of a lifestyle.
Lanny returned to N.Y. and tried to rent an apartment for Rick, and this was solved when Zoltan offered his apartment. He was going to stay at Curtice estate in Princeton for a while, cataloguing their art collection, and invited Lanny to join him.
Rick and Nina had their passports and waiting for visa, and meanwhile there were elections in Britain in midst of the Potsdam Conference, which was adjourned for three days so Churchill and his staff could fly home. But Winston Churchill didn't return.
"The most amazing thing, a parliamentary upset the like of which had never been known in British history.
Britain preferred someone else for peace.
"The Labour party obtained a majority of almost two to one; they got it upon the basis of a definite program calling for the nationalization of the five most important of the nation’s industries: coal, steel, transportation, communications, and finance."
Lanny and Laurel called Rick and Nina to celebrate, and Alfy had been elected too.
"The Potsdam Conference came to an end on the 2nd of August and a summary of its results was released. Japan was called on to surrender, and warned of dreadful things to come. Germany was to be divided into four zones, each to be governed by one of the four nations, America, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union."
Lanny had taken to turning the radio on every hour, and on morning of August 6th the announcement came about Hiroshima having been bombed sixteen hors ago.
"It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its powers has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East.”"
Now Lanny could tell Laurel where he was going when he had crashed in North Atlantic, and where he'd been in New Mexico. Lanny told her about what he'd seen, and what various scientists and military staff had said, and she took the eyewitness account to be published while Lanny got her security clearance. Then came Nagasaki. Japan surrendered.
Lanny returned to the town of Budd and told his wife he'd been to something momentous but not to be talked of at the moment, however, it was soon to be official in news and then she'd have his first hand description to write about. They listened to the radio. Truman had gone to meet Churchill and Stalin at the Potsdam Conference, a successor to Yalta. The conference took two weeks, while Lanny and Laurel brought the trailer back to Newcastle and told what they saw at Budd. Privately Lanny told Robbie, confidentially, not to quote him but he could base his future plans on Japan being out of the war soon; Robbie looked his son, whom he knew well, in the eye, and asked if he was sure. Positive, Lanny told him, and said he couldn't say more.
Frances was excited because her mother and stepfather were coming, and were taking her on a tour across continent to Western Canada where Ceddy had bought a farm with Irma's money and was growing wheat for England, and then to California, before they returned home. She was supposed to make a choice about staying on or returning to England. Before leaving Newcastle to return to N.Y., Lanny took her rowing and told her that it was entirely her decision; but he wasn't supposed to say anything that would be contrary to Irma's choice of a lifestyle.
Lanny returned to N.Y. and tried to rent an apartment for Rick, and this was solved when Zoltan offered his apartment. He was going to stay at Curtice estate in Princeton for a while, cataloguing their art collection, and invited Lanny to join him.
Rick and Nina had their passports and waiting for visa, and meanwhile there were elections in Britain in midst of the Potsdam Conference, which was adjourned for three days so Churchill and his staff could fly home. But Winston Churchill didn't return.
"The most amazing thing, a parliamentary upset the like of which had never been known in British history.
Britain preferred someone else for peace.
"The Labour party obtained a majority of almost two to one; they got it upon the basis of a definite program calling for the nationalization of the five most important of the nation’s industries: coal, steel, transportation, communications, and finance."
Lanny and Laurel called Rick and Nina to celebrate, and Alfy had been elected too.
"The Potsdam Conference came to an end on the 2nd of August and a summary of its results was released. Japan was called on to surrender, and warned of dreadful things to come. Germany was to be divided into four zones, each to be governed by one of the four nations, America, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union."
Lanny had taken to turning the radio on every hour, and on morning of August 6th the announcement came about Hiroshima having been bombed sixteen hors ago.
"It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its powers has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East.”"
Now Lanny could tell Laurel where he was going when he had crashed in North Atlantic, and where he'd been in New Mexico. Lanny told her about what he'd seen, and what various scientists and military staff had said, and she took the eyewitness account to be published while Lanny got her security clearance. Then came Nagasaki. Japan surrendered.
............................................................................
The four got busy with individual efforts to get on with the Emily Chattersworth project. Laurel went to publishers and editors about publication, Rick went to Rand school to talk to them, and Lanny went scouting for a large enough house for the four of them to live and work. Nina had the firm idea that radio was the future, and that's what she looked at; she found several small local broadcasters who let you air your thing, and they had connections around who'd pick it up, so you built an audience, and if they liked your program you could ask for money and they sent it.
By doing their own research they built contacts and found that people were interested and friendly, and would have subscribed if they'd asked. Rick's lecture at the Rand school had a large audience, of students and ex-students, and their parents. They were all very interested about the Labour victory in Britain. The questions were largely about how to bring it about in U.S., and Rick said he couldn't presume he was competent on another country, but parliamentary democracies could effectively bring about changes in countries where they were established.
"The Communists, who put an end to free speech wherever they can, found it suited their purposes in the Rand School auditorium. A bespectacled young woman arose and wanted to know if the speaker really thought that the capitalist class of Britain would permit the abolition of their privileges without forcible resistance. The speaker answered that they had already done it. The Coalition government was out and the Labour government was in, and Winston Churchill had already taken his place as leader of His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition. He would criticize and he would scold, as the free institutions of Britain permitted him to do; but he wouldn’t dream of sedition, and if in 1950 the Labour party carried the elections with a program for further socialization, he would submit as he had done before, regretfully but politely."
Rick pointed out the system in U.S. was unlikely to allow more than two parties.
"“What I fear is that the Kremlin will yield to the temptation to grab while the grabbing looks good. In that case they will compel the capitalist world to rearm, and thus will keep the capitalists in the saddle for nobody knows how much longer.”
"Oh, how mad that made the Communists! They got up and started an argument, and the audience started to hiss and boo them. But Sir Eric said, “Let them ask their questions. We Englishmen are used to being heckled. It is a difference of opinion that makes horse races, and if nobody disagrees with me I’d be sure I hadn’t said anything worth listening to.” So they laughed and listened, and the meeting was a success."
The four got busy with individual efforts to get on with the Emily Chattersworth project. Laurel went to publishers and editors about publication, Rick went to Rand school to talk to them, and Lanny went scouting for a large enough house for the four of them to live and work. Nina had the firm idea that radio was the future, and that's what she looked at; she found several small local broadcasters who let you air your thing, and they had connections around who'd pick it up, so you built an audience, and if they liked your program you could ask for money and they sent it.
By doing their own research they built contacts and found that people were interested and friendly, and would have subscribed if they'd asked. Rick's lecture at the Rand school had a large audience, of students and ex-students, and their parents. They were all very interested about the Labour victory in Britain. The questions were largely about how to bring it about in U.S., and Rick said he couldn't presume he was competent on another country, but parliamentary democracies could effectively bring about changes in countries where they were established.
"The Communists, who put an end to free speech wherever they can, found it suited their purposes in the Rand School auditorium. A bespectacled young woman arose and wanted to know if the speaker really thought that the capitalist class of Britain would permit the abolition of their privileges without forcible resistance. The speaker answered that they had already done it. The Coalition government was out and the Labour government was in, and Winston Churchill had already taken his place as leader of His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition. He would criticize and he would scold, as the free institutions of Britain permitted him to do; but he wouldn’t dream of sedition, and if in 1950 the Labour party carried the elections with a program for further socialization, he would submit as he had done before, regretfully but politely."
Rick pointed out the system in U.S. was unlikely to allow more than two parties.
"“What I fear is that the Kremlin will yield to the temptation to grab while the grabbing looks good. In that case they will compel the capitalist world to rearm, and thus will keep the capitalists in the saddle for nobody knows how much longer.”
"Oh, how mad that made the Communists! They got up and started an argument, and the audience started to hiss and boo them. But Sir Eric said, “Let them ask their questions. We Englishmen are used to being heckled. It is a difference of opinion that makes horse races, and if nobody disagrees with me I’d be sure I hadn’t said anything worth listening to.” So they laughed and listened, and the meeting was a success."
............................................................................
Goudsmit reported to Washington and came to N.Y. and called Lanny, and came over for dinner; Nina and Rick came over and he met them, and they all talked about the atom bomb, which he found novel, that it was no longer a top secret but topic in drawing rooms. He told about his having been in Berlin, about the city and the physics institutes.
"Goudsmit reported that the place had been completely plundered by the Russians; they had taken even the electric wiring and the plumbing. They had dumped a lot of trash into the back yard, and there Alsos had found blocks of pressed uranium oxide, probably the most valuable property that had ever been in the place.
"In charge was the “Director of Intelligence of the U.S. Control Council,” and he told them that there was in the sub-basement what appeared to be a swimming pool. Goudsmit recognized it as the “bunker laboratory” of which the German physicists had been so proud. The “swimming pool” was the sunken pit in which they had built their atomic pile, thinking it might become a bomb; the metal frames which were to contain the uranium cubes were standing near by. Goudsmit called it “the physicists’ symbol of the defeat of Nazism.”
"Alsos head had to tell about the fate of the German scientists whom Lanny had helped to find and intern. They had been delivered to the American military, and apparently these non-scientific brass hats hadn’t known quite what to do with them. The British had kindly offered to take them off our hands, and so were getting the benefit of the best German brains. These brains were housed in a fine estate not too far from London, with a radio, a piano, a tennis court, newspapers and books, and the best of food.
"Goudsmit hadn’t seen the place, or even been told where it was, but he had talked with an English scientist who happened to be visiting them at the time the news of Hiroshima came over the radio. The reaction of the Germans was of utter incredulity: the American claim was absurd. The Germans were the people who knew better than anybody else in the world, for they had been trying and had made sure how difficult it was, impossible in that short space of time. The Americans had no doubt invented some new and more powerful chemical explosive, and they were calling it “atomic” in order to frighten the Japanese. Dr. Goebbels’ fellow countrymen were familiar with that method of carrying on warfare.
"No, the so-called “atomic bomb” could have nothing to do with nuclear fission or with uranium—“oo-rahn,” as it is in German. The ten were so certain of it they could eat their dinner with enjoyment. But later in the evening came a more detailed report, and the effect upon the Germans was devastating; their own little world came to an end. For six years they had been working, and they had failed, while the despised Americans, the Jew-ridden upstarts, had succeeded. How dare the radio claim that Lise Meitner, a Jewess, had discovered uranium fission when everybody knew it was Otto Hahn, a pure Aryan German?"
More of the details, and none made sense to them, heavy water, plutonium, Rjukan, ... until Heisenberg worked it out and saw how German science had failed, and they realised they were better where they were, in Germany they might get lynched by nazis turned "werewolves".
............................................................................
Beauty wrote to say Marceline had got her memory, and told them. Her gardener had said his daughter working in a cafe in next village had heard Gestapo who were at lunch there, and called her father to warn Marceline who'd been kind to him; she'd picked up her bag and hat and walked to another town to friends' house, stopping only to call Lanny. She'd been hidden by them but discovered by Gestapo, probably due to a servant, and tortured for Lanny's whereabouts. Beauty said Marceline now had new dental plates. Lanny found out later that Oskar had been hanged.
Beauty wrote to say Marceline had got her memory, and told them. Her gardener had said his daughter working in a cafe in next village had heard Gestapo who were at lunch there, and called her father to warn Marceline who'd been kind to him; she'd picked up her bag and hat and walked to another town to friends' house, stopping only to call Lanny. She'd been hidden by them but discovered by Gestapo, probably due to a servant, and tortured for Lanny's whereabouts. Beauty said Marceline now had new dental plates. Lanny found out later that Oskar had been hanged.
............................................................................
They met Stuart Chase who'd taken up semantics; early in Russian revolution the soldiers asked to shout for "Constitutza" had done so vigorously under the impression this was the Tsar's mistress; their descendents were shouting for "Democratzia" under the impression it amounted to a ballot without alternative options.
Emanuel Haldeman-Julius was ecstatic about pamphlets, because they were cheap and easy and didn't frighten common people; he advised them against expensive and fat books, quoting names of several illustrious authors largely not read by masses they wrote for.
"He had published a short story by Maupassant entitled “The Ball of Tallow” and had sold fifteen thousand copies a year; then it occurred to him to give it a different title, and as “A French Prostitute’s Sacrifice” it sold nearly four times as many. Théophile Gautier’s Fleece of Gold sold only five thousand a year, but when it became In Quest of a Blonde Mistress its sales were multiplied by ten.
"“The people get a recognized masterpiece, and they learn something about the world they live in. Believe me, I know what the discovery of great literature means to people who are poor. I began earning my living as a boy, driving an elevator in a school, and I devoured good literature in between passengers.”"
Sam de Witt told them about his experience and about Marshall Field. They asked him what he advised, and he thought and described a plan for them to hold world leaders to ransom with a false but unverifiable threat of atomic bombs to get them to abolish all military, all national boundaries and tariffs, passports and other such stuff, and get on with an international government.
............................................................................
Rick was amused that Americans were surprised they had an accent. Lanny found it was easier to love people in imagination, but more difficult in reality, especially when they hadn't had opportunities to learn manners or grooming, even though he was at home in their world politically. This became more obvious when the four drove up to Newcastle. The British aristocracy were celebrities in the town and the clan, but wanted to leave after three days, since Lanny's children were unavailable - baby Lanny had measles and Frances had gone back with her mother.
Rick was amused that Americans were surprised they had an accent. Lanny found it was easier to love people in imagination, but more difficult in reality, especially when they hadn't had opportunities to learn manners or grooming, even though he was at home in their world politically. This became more obvious when the four drove up to Newcastle. The British aristocracy were celebrities in the town and the clan, but wanted to leave after three days, since Lanny's children were unavailable - baby Lanny had measles and Frances had gone back with her mother.
............................................................................
They looked at the Garland Fund model, of publishing books and selling them cheap; Rick met the publisher, and others concerned. They pointed out that fighting totalitarianism was most urgent need of the times and a third war was imminent, and not only unavoidable but must be won by America; that such publications, of classic good books sold inexpensively, had glossies and cartoons for competition, and had little effect on general public.
"“No consideration of this kind would be honest if it failed to take into account the damned low intelligence quotient of a considerable segment of the American public. How large this segment is, and how low its intelligence quotient is, I leave for others to say, but any study of the extremely popular radio programs will prove that the programs with the highest rating, with extremely few exceptions, are directed at the ten to twelve-year-old mind.”"
Laurel invited Richard Armour, a poet, who said he hoped their paper had a column of relief from materialistic things, not mere equal distribution of material needs that made people narrow and dull and thankless.
So Nina and Laurel visited John Haynes Holmes, a pastor of a fashionable set who'd made his Unitarian church a "community church"; he advised them to go see Gandhi. Nina argued that British deserved credit for achievements attributed to Gandhi, for treating him humanely unlike nazis who'd have finished off him and every follower. The pastor said ideas don't die, and gave the example of his son of god; Nina said this wasn't ages, it was atomic era. The pastor said the fault was of mechanical era, and machines have taken over souls; Nina thought this was fraud if he used a car or a subway, and there was no need to see Gandhi, Holmes was holy enough.
............................................................................
Therein another example of the author's racist and colonialist mindset - his contempt for India is along the British lines, of attitude and thought; no ranting a la Hitler's pronouncements about Jews and others, only a chopping off any credit accorded to anyone of India, especially if they weren't of a non Jewish abrahmic faith.
So much so, one has to infer at this point that independence of India has come about, and the author who waxed eloquent about Mao hasn't seen it fit to mention this, or the millions starved to death due to Churchill policy of simply taking the harvest away, and refusing to allow ships full of grain sent by FDR for India to proceed further West of Australia; Churchill did wax eloquent about letting Indians die in millions, but Upton Sinclair chooses to criticise him for his British accent, leaving this murder of millions due to theft of their harvest by British go unmentioned.
Actually, the author has Nina discuss the question of credit for independence of India, as if it's a done deal, but this point but he story is shortly after the end of war in Pacific, which is still 1945; the author wrote this, however, presumably after India was independent, so there is confusion. In 1945 it wasn't yet a done deal, albeit Churchill had planned, the day Russian tanks rolled into Berlin, to break up India, so he along with allies could have permanent use of military bases in the northwest part of India broken off from heartland in name of communal strife; this isn't different from what was done by the same british to Ireland, separating a piece to keep control. For that matter the so called potato famine of Ireland, when millions starved, including babies, was repeated by Churchill in stealing harvest while millions starved to death, and declaring openly that india starving to death was preferable for him.
Therein another example of the author's racist and colonialist mindset - his contempt for India is along the British lines, of attitude and thought; no ranting a la Hitler's pronouncements about Jews and others, only a chopping off any credit accorded to anyone of India, especially if they weren't of a non Jewish abrahmic faith.
So much so, one has to infer at this point that independence of India has come about, and the author who waxed eloquent about Mao hasn't seen it fit to mention this, or the millions starved to death due to Churchill policy of simply taking the harvest away, and refusing to allow ships full of grain sent by FDR for India to proceed further West of Australia; Churchill did wax eloquent about letting Indians die in millions, but Upton Sinclair chooses to criticise him for his British accent, leaving this murder of millions due to theft of their harvest by British go unmentioned.
Actually, the author has Nina discuss the question of credit for independence of India, as if it's a done deal, but this point but he story is shortly after the end of war in Pacific, which is still 1945; the author wrote this, however, presumably after India was independent, so there is confusion. In 1945 it wasn't yet a done deal, albeit Churchill had planned, the day Russian tanks rolled into Berlin, to break up India, so he along with allies could have permanent use of military bases in the northwest part of India broken off from heartland in name of communal strife; this isn't different from what was done by the same british to Ireland, separating a piece to keep control. For that matter the so called potato famine of Ireland, when millions starved, including babies, was repeated by Churchill in stealing harvest while millions starved to death, and declaring openly that india starving to death was preferable for him.
............................................................................
They considered other options. Nina and Laurel visited Eileen Garrett, retired head of British College of Psychic Science, who published in N.Y., and she told Nina to not worry, she didnt have cancer. They told her about Holmes, and she said Gandhi was only a politician they would put a halo around, there was no need to go to India.
Meanwhile soldiers returned home, but the new president had given in and relaxed controls, so affordable homes were no longer built, and when they did they were sold for twice as much; fashion industry was worse, and if you didn't throw away perfectly good clothes because this season they were old, you were made to feel ashamed. Newcastle was hit hard, but Robbie had learned from WWI and hadn't paid out all profit as dividends, and had invested in bonds. He'd let the younger sons take over while only the original plant ran and rest were closed, waiting for next war.
Hansi met Lanny. Bess was getting more of a hardliner, and Hansi found it difficult.
"“It won’t come to a showdown, Lanny; the Reds won’t let it. They will use the much more deadly weapons of propaganda and intrigue. You know that they have got the Balkans; and does anybody imagine they won’t know how to root out the opposition and put those peoples under the dictatorship of the Politburo? We invited them into China; and that means they will have four hundred million hard-working people thoroughly indoctrinated. Britain is going to have to get out of India, and how long will it be before the Communist propaganda will begin to show its effects there?”"
Meanwhile Laurel heard Bess patiently, partly due to her southern upbringing and partly as an author observing people so she could write them in. She even went and attended a communist meeting, introduced by Bess as Miss Creston.
Harry Hopkins was now settled in NYC on Fifth Avenue and Lanny went to see him and to ask him to join in a broadcast, but he was far too ill. Lanny entertained him with tales of Monuments work and Göring. Harry told about his visit to Stalin, and those to Churchill, "His Majesty's Loyal Opposition", to discuss invasion options, Overlord vs Balkans, Europe's underbelly.
"“Winston would throw the British Constitution at me; but as it isn’t written, no damage was done.”"
They considered other options. Nina and Laurel visited Eileen Garrett, retired head of British College of Psychic Science, who published in N.Y., and she told Nina to not worry, she didnt have cancer. They told her about Holmes, and she said Gandhi was only a politician they would put a halo around, there was no need to go to India.
Meanwhile soldiers returned home, but the new president had given in and relaxed controls, so affordable homes were no longer built, and when they did they were sold for twice as much; fashion industry was worse, and if you didn't throw away perfectly good clothes because this season they were old, you were made to feel ashamed. Newcastle was hit hard, but Robbie had learned from WWI and hadn't paid out all profit as dividends, and had invested in bonds. He'd let the younger sons take over while only the original plant ran and rest were closed, waiting for next war.
Hansi met Lanny. Bess was getting more of a hardliner, and Hansi found it difficult.
"“It won’t come to a showdown, Lanny; the Reds won’t let it. They will use the much more deadly weapons of propaganda and intrigue. You know that they have got the Balkans; and does anybody imagine they won’t know how to root out the opposition and put those peoples under the dictatorship of the Politburo? We invited them into China; and that means they will have four hundred million hard-working people thoroughly indoctrinated. Britain is going to have to get out of India, and how long will it be before the Communist propaganda will begin to show its effects there?”"
Meanwhile Laurel heard Bess patiently, partly due to her southern upbringing and partly as an author observing people so she could write them in. She even went and attended a communist meeting, introduced by Bess as Miss Creston.
Harry Hopkins was now settled in NYC on Fifth Avenue and Lanny went to see him and to ask him to join in a broadcast, but he was far too ill. Lanny entertained him with tales of Monuments work and Göring. Harry told about his visit to Stalin, and those to Churchill, "His Majesty's Loyal Opposition", to discuss invasion options, Overlord vs Balkans, Europe's underbelly.
"“Winston would throw the British Constitution at me; but as it isn’t written, no damage was done.”"
............................................................................
The four in the Peace group each came to a different conclusion. Laurel wanted a small monthly magazine of distinguished appearance. Rick wanted pamphlets for masses. Nina was convinced about radio, and Lanny had discovered that mailing newspapers cost a tiny fraction of mailing books or pamphlets, he wanted a small four page weekly newspaper where every word counted, which could be mailed in bulk and distributed door to door.
Rick admitted Lanny's idea was better, and Nina pointed out that a radio program clubbed with the newspaper would be advantageous for the paper; they decided Lanny should do it, but Lanny wanted to remain in background. Rick would sound too foreign, Rick said, Lanny could use another name, Bienvenu; but Nina said the name shouldn't sound foreign, it should be Billy Budd, and Lanny did his programs announcing himself as Billy Budd.
They had Ben Huebsch over for dinner, and he discussed the question of good editors, good writers, small magazines vs big business.
"Under present business techniques only those periodicals which circulated by millions and had the support of the big advertisers could survive. “Writing for other magazines, you write for a small number of scholars and experts, and if you devote your capital to that, you can become effective only after the work of the scholars has seeped through a generation of students who have sat at the scholars’ feet.”
"“And by that time we may not have any civilization to write for,” said Laurel.
"The publisher nodded assent. “In my youth,” he continued, “the North American Review, the Forum, the Arena, the Outlook, the Independent, McClure’s, the early American Magazine, Everybody’s and Collier’s under Norman Hapgood—all influenced the public. Everybody’s, also, as a muckraker, helped people to recognize corruption that called for remedy. But now all that is gone. Unless a magazine represents Big Business, and is conducted on the scale of the Curtis-Crowell-Luce publications or the Reader’s Digest, it is out of the running.”"
He pointed out that books had a similar problem, and there was another option, newspaper syndicates. He explained it, and heard their ideas, and said it was better to combine the three. So they decided.
"Rick would run a writers’ bureau, feeding material to a syndicate; his wife would run a radio program; Lanny and Laurel would run a small weekly paper, hoping to break through the barriers and achieve mass circulation."
The four in the Peace group each came to a different conclusion. Laurel wanted a small monthly magazine of distinguished appearance. Rick wanted pamphlets for masses. Nina was convinced about radio, and Lanny had discovered that mailing newspapers cost a tiny fraction of mailing books or pamphlets, he wanted a small four page weekly newspaper where every word counted, which could be mailed in bulk and distributed door to door.
Rick admitted Lanny's idea was better, and Nina pointed out that a radio program clubbed with the newspaper would be advantageous for the paper; they decided Lanny should do it, but Lanny wanted to remain in background. Rick would sound too foreign, Rick said, Lanny could use another name, Bienvenu; but Nina said the name shouldn't sound foreign, it should be Billy Budd, and Lanny did his programs announcing himself as Billy Budd.
They had Ben Huebsch over for dinner, and he discussed the question of good editors, good writers, small magazines vs big business.
"Under present business techniques only those periodicals which circulated by millions and had the support of the big advertisers could survive. “Writing for other magazines, you write for a small number of scholars and experts, and if you devote your capital to that, you can become effective only after the work of the scholars has seeped through a generation of students who have sat at the scholars’ feet.”
"“And by that time we may not have any civilization to write for,” said Laurel.
"The publisher nodded assent. “In my youth,” he continued, “the North American Review, the Forum, the Arena, the Outlook, the Independent, McClure’s, the early American Magazine, Everybody’s and Collier’s under Norman Hapgood—all influenced the public. Everybody’s, also, as a muckraker, helped people to recognize corruption that called for remedy. But now all that is gone. Unless a magazine represents Big Business, and is conducted on the scale of the Curtis-Crowell-Luce publications or the Reader’s Digest, it is out of the running.”"
He pointed out that books had a similar problem, and there was another option, newspaper syndicates. He explained it, and heard their ideas, and said it was better to combine the three. So they decided.
"Rick would run a writers’ bureau, feeding material to a syndicate; his wife would run a radio program; Lanny and Laurel would run a small weekly paper, hoping to break through the barriers and achieve mass circulation."
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Jerry Pendleton wrote, he was sent to Montdorf-Les-Bains near Luxembourg to help watch over the war criminals, due to his knowledge of languages and people and Europe in general. He said that denazification program was off the track, because army guys weren't comfortable dealing with any leftists. Also, other than the major nazis, no one admitted to being or having been Nazi, but they all had been Nazi.
"The prisoners were permitted to see movies, but only of one kind, those taken of scenes in the concentration camps. Doenitz had viewed some of them and had written a letter, blaming Allied air raids for the emaciated condition of the inmates. The American commander had replied that no doubt the Allied air raids were also responsible for the fat and sleek condition of the SS guards who had watched over the concentration-camp inmates.
"Another curious detail was the class feeling which manifested itself among the prisoners. The ranking officers played cards with one another, but never with the low-caste civilians. Everybody disliked Ribbentrop and ignored him. When Julius Streicher, vile anti-Jewish propagandist, was brought to the place, Admiral von Doenitz had refused to eat at the table with him. He had been given the choice of eating there or not eating at all."
Jerry Pendleton wrote, he was sent to Montdorf-Les-Bains near Luxembourg to help watch over the war criminals, due to his knowledge of languages and people and Europe in general. He said that denazification program was off the track, because army guys weren't comfortable dealing with any leftists. Also, other than the major nazis, no one admitted to being or having been Nazi, but they all had been Nazi.
"The prisoners were permitted to see movies, but only of one kind, those taken of scenes in the concentration camps. Doenitz had viewed some of them and had written a letter, blaming Allied air raids for the emaciated condition of the inmates. The American commander had replied that no doubt the Allied air raids were also responsible for the fat and sleek condition of the SS guards who had watched over the concentration-camp inmates.
"Another curious detail was the class feeling which manifested itself among the prisoners. The ranking officers played cards with one another, but never with the low-caste civilians. Everybody disliked Ribbentrop and ignored him. When Julius Streicher, vile anti-Jewish propagandist, was brought to the place, Admiral von Doenitz had refused to eat at the table with him. He had been given the choice of eating there or not eating at all."
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Lanny often met people he'd knows during his marriage to Irma, and they invited him to join them, which he did, trying to get to know people. Nina similarly listened to rsdio to understand. Rick invited former editors and authors to lunch with him. Word got around, and they came to see him, but he wasn't likely to get Palmer off, also, Freddi Robin Jr wanted to join, and was back from Europe.
Laurel went to see radio station XYZ recommended by Huebsch and was asked if she'd like to speak, and she spoke over the radio declaring the program, the intentions and mentioning the paper they'd publish. Next day at the radio station she found a carton full of mail for her that was from her listeners, sending money because they didn't want another war, and it was a flood for a week, with three eligible gentlemen sending marriage proposals.
They moved to Edgemere and were welcomed by the town before they could unpack. The bureau was already up and running, Rick was reading manuscripts sent by people, and hired Philip Edgerton, a rewrite man for a top daily, for his top assistant. The bureau already had Laurel's article about Göring and another about German scientists, and Rick wrote one about plight of British isles. They were ready to take off with the other two and so had a housewarming, a Sunday afternoon with a smörgåsbord and no alcohol. Rahel and Freddi managed to get food arranged. Everyone had already met Rick and seen Lady Nielson in photographs, now they saw Mary Morrow, and took the silent Mr Budd to be the business end. No one knew Freddi was nephew of Hansi Robin, who came alone, Bess being busy with party work. After the meal, the other three spoke on the aim and policy of Peace, Rick about world cooperation and need to turn away from profit orientation, Laurel about need to provide birth control to women, Nina welcoming everyone, and then Lanny played piano accompanying Hansi.
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Beauty wrote to say Marceline had met an American war veteran recuperating in Cannes, fallen in love and there was to be a proper wedding. She wished Lanny could be present.
Monck's letter arrived with an American stamp, mailed in N.Y. and obviously entrusted to someone to mail it. He was in Berlin, reunited with his family after several years, and in alarm, despairing.
"“I have information that after a struggle inside the Politburo the decision has been taken for a hard policy. They think they have a chance for world revolution, and they are going to plunge for it.
"“I do not think the Reds want war; they are in no position to fight, and will not be for a long time. But they mean to take everything that can be taken without war; they will test you to the limit, and only pull back at the moment when they see it means an open break. Agreements mean nothing to them; their diplomats look you straight in the eye and say the opposite of the facts, even when they know that you know the facts.
"“Already I am sorry that I brought my family back, and I am thinking of sending them to some new place in South America—but we cannot be sure of any place."
Lanny called Professor Alston and drove with his wife to meet him. This was the first time Laurel was meeting Professor Alston. He despaired too, saying it was no use trying to wake up Washington, the new crowd hated FDR and his people, and business lobbies had taken the town over.
"“They damn the Yalta Agreement—because the Russians aren’t keeping it. As if that was anything against an agreement, that the other side breaks it! How could Roosevelt know they would break it, and what could he have done if he had known? Turned against Stalin and joined Hitler? Do they think Hitler would have kept agreements better?”
"Russian armies stayed on in Northern Iran and threatened to take Teheran unless their oil demands were granted. They were demanding the northeastern provinces of Turkey and forcing America to send arms to that country. They were making no pretense of allowing a genuinely democratic government in Poland, according to the Yalta Agreement. They were gradually ejecting everybody but Communists from the governments of Rumania and Bulgaria and Hungary. Everywhere they were pushing to establish their dictatorships, according to the technique which Lenin had taught and which Stalin was modifying by the addition of more roughness.
"“Here we are, planning to talk about peace!” exclaimed Laurel. “Are we going to have to face about and call for armaments?”
"All that the old Professor could answer was, “There is nothing so hard as to steer a middle course when extremists are buffeting you from both sides.”"
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Mary Morrow, popular writer, brought Sir Eric Vivian Pomeroy-Nielson and his wife, Lady Nielson, to radio XYZ, where people were reassured to see the couple; even more reassuring, Miss Morrow brought a cheque from American Peace Foundation, signed by treasurer, Laurel Creston, whom the radio had never heard of but the cheque didn't bounce. Staff at XYZ promised to call their contacts at other radio stations, including some in other states,to recommend broadcasts of recordings of their programs, and Miss Morrow said they'd pay for those. Their radio announcer would be Billy Burnes, since Lanny changed his mind about using his last name for this new identity. Their first program, aired via phone connection from Edgemere, had six guests - Rick and Nina, Hansi, Rahel and young Freddi, and Zoltan Kertezsi. Lanny spoke about danger of another war in atomic era. He then introduced Laurel as Mary Morrow, and she spoke of her thoughts about the last war, about danger of another and about her experiences in Europe, and about the Peace Program.
"“We subscribe to Jefferson’s motto, that truth has nothing to fear from error where reason is left free to combat it. That does not mean that we grant the use of our platform to those whose purpose it is to undermine freedom of discussion. We grant them the right to try their undermining, but we let them do it in their own papers and at their own expense.
Lanny announced Rick would speak next time, and gave a brief introduction about him; Hansi would play the week after. He announced their newspaper, Peace. Immediately after, phones rang with calls for subscription, and one proposal for Miss Morrow. Freddi brought two sacks of mail next morning, some with ladies' photographs for Billy Burns. Four times sacks came, and post office needs expand. The flood of the mail continued through the week. They had to hire more staff, a business manager who was a Harvard graduated eager young Gerald de Groot from old Dutch families of New York, and several girls or women to handle mail, especially subscriptions. Flood of orders continued after Lanny as Billy Burns interviewed Rick on radio.
"Americans approved of an Englishman, provided he was modest and recognized the social position of America. They knew that England was their “unsinkable aircraft carrier,” and they surely wanted to keep it afloat."
Comrade Tipton, the old whispered laundryman whose wife managed their house and business needs under supervision of Rahel and Freddi - catering, hiring staff, putting up De Groot - had said they'd be invited by Kiwanis, and so they were. The local gentry - the doctor, the minister, druggie and the department stores owner - were all curious about the baronet, but wouldn't show it. Rick spoke briefly and they asked questions, and would have asked more but time limit was observed.
Having been to white collar club, they had to do the workers' Club too, and attended a bean supper of Mrs Tipton's. They served beans and sandwiches on paper plates, and juice Lanny had sent, in paper cups.
"All these supplies had been ordered from the People’s Co-operative of Edgemere, an institution which the Tiptons had founded several years ago, and which they ran as a sort of adjunct to the Socialist party, and of the Methodist Church and the Model Laundry. Needless to say, the town grocers didn’t like this and had complained to the proprietor of the laundry, who hadn’t dared to fire Tipton for fear that he might take the business to a rival."
"The Tiptons knew this town inside out and washed its dirty linen in more than one sense of the words. They had constituted themselves a center of disaffection and preached the gospel of social change day and night, wherever they went. The coming of the Peace Program and its adjuncts was the most exciting event of their lives, and a large stout grandmotherly laundrywoman welcomed it quite literally with open arms. She was a somewhat unusual laundry-woman, in that she belonged to the Daughters of the American Revolution and spoke her mind even in that ultraconservative atmosphere. That revolution, a hundred and seventy years old, was respectable.
"Present were the town’s three intellectuals, previously mentioned by Tipton; the elderly lawyer, the stationer, and the refugee bootblack. There was a Swedish carpenter who had worked fixing up the Peace office; there was a history teacher from the local high school, and there were half a dozen students, one of them a daughter of Mr. Puckett, the Kiwanis hardware merchant. So it is that ideas get spread in a town. You can never be sure who will be the one to take them up; it can be the town’s garbage collector, or it can be a son of the town’s leading banker. There was a rich lady in Edgemere who sometimes came and ate beans when she might have been eating caviar; the wife of Philip Edgerton would come and eat beans because she was hoping to meet this elegant Mrs. Parmenter—the department-store Parmenters, you must understand."
Tipton had his argument with Mary Morrow here, about his individualistic apolitical stance against that of most others who were socialists; Laurel pointed out that if a co-operative is unwilling to touch politics, then politicians would ignore it and serve interests of business.
"The co-ops themselves did not go into politics, but their members were free to do so, and generally they did, for the reason revealed in the argument at the Tiptons’. The business groups resented the co-ops as a menace to what they were pleased to call “the American way,” and presently their lobbyists would show up at the various state capitals with ingenious taxation measures designed to drive the newcomers onto the rocks.
"The business-for-profit men had reason to worry, for the movement in America, slow to start, was now growing fast; it had more than five thousand units, with close to two million member families. In the Middle West it was creeping into one industry after another; the co-operative groceries had established a co-operative wholesale, for greater economy in buying; from there they had gone to producing and processing. A network of service stations had established a refinery, and then had purchased and were operating more than a hundred oil wells. There were rural electric co-ops, telephone co-ops, credit unions, and insurance associations. ... Altogether the amount of such business in the United States was almost a billion dollars a year.
"In Britain the co-op wholesale was an enormous institution and had gone in for a great variety of manufactures, from shoes to the catching and canning of fish. The co-ops had nearly ten million members, which was, in proportion to population, as if America had forty million."
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Lanny meanwhile handled the subscriptions, mails, and banking, apart from being Billy Burns on radio. He had prepared a set of questions to interview Hansi for the radio program and arranged it at a hotel in NYC, but Bess came, and she announced that any questioning about Soviet Russia or communist party line would be considered a personal attack by her, and that she was an integral part of his success, even though it could be argued that Hansi could have hired accompanying musicians.
Lanny crossed out a couple of questions, but it became clear that Bess would censor, and it would lead to the strife in their marriage that Lanny didn't intend causing.
Lanny and Laurel drove to Princeton, where Laurel need no longer stay in the car but could meet Einstein; they spoke about their program, and arranged to bring him over a few weeks hence for interview.
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"Not long after Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt had proposed to the various Allied nations the forming of a War Crimes Commission, to collect evidence and provide for the trial and punishment of the guilty men. All through the rest of the war this body had been working, and in October of 1945, two months after the Japanese surrender, an International Military Tribunal brought indictments against twenty-two of the leading military and civilian officials of Germany, charging them with war crimes, crimes against humanity, and conspiracy to commit such crimes. Nürnberg was selected as the scene of the trial, and, there in the Palace of Justice, one of the few buildings not destroyed in that ancient city, the most elaborate judicial procedure in all history was going on."
Lanny was content to hear about it at a distance while he was busy at work he loved and valued and surrounded by people who were like minded and all loved each other. He wished FDR and Harry Hopkins were there to see it.
"Harry the Hop—that long-suffering man had passed from the scene of his success early in the new year. He had once told Lanny of a scene with the Boss, who had been in favor of the Army’s plan of taking the war criminals out and shooting them as they were captured; it was Hopkins and Judge Rosenman who persuaded him that the wiser course would be to make a world show of it and put the record of Nazism formally and officially on the pages of history."
Lanny had informed Robbie about being Billy Burns on radio and Robbie was grateful, and always asked for Billy Burns when he called; he asked for the now three year old baby Lanny who had been brought to The Willows, as the mansion had been named when they had seen it and bought it, and then talked business after asking about everyone else. This time Lanny told him they'd crossed one hundred thousand subscriptions, and Robbie questioned if it was at loss; then he told why he'd called.
"“There is a call for you from Washington. You are to call the War Crimes Branch, Civil Affairs Division of the War Department General Staff. Ask for Colonel Josephus.”"
Lanny called, and was told to come at once; he said it would be past working hours before he could arrive, and he was told next morning would do. He said he'd drive, and he was told his expense account would be honoured at Mayflower hotel. He told Laurel, and they decided to drive together. Lanny took a taxi to Pentagon and met the official, who informed him that he was named by Göring as his witness, and Lanny was questioned about truth of Göring's claims about his opposing the war, and about how he met Hitler and Göring at those times. Lanny informed him about having been a presidential agent, and responded to his question about Göring to say that Lanny's testimony could in no way absolve Göring's of war crimes, since Göring's objections to war were military decisions with nothing to do with humanity.
The official asked if Lanny could testify against Göring, and Lanny told about Johannes Robin, his son Freddi Robin, and about Solomon Hellstein. The official spoke about Lanny testifying, and Lanny said he was averse to publicity due to his years of being secret agent, but would do so if needed; since there was little or no likelihood of his continuing as a secret agent, the official said Lanny would be allowed to be called as a witness for Göring, so prosecutors bringing out his testimony in cross questioning would be effective, and defence couldn't then cross question him, but Lanny said he preferred that they did so, since he'd only be telling the truth.
Lanny was asked to stay on in town, and told he'd be flown out in a couple of days. He met La
Lanny could see how people would like to hear the stories about Strasser, Kurt, and so on. But Laurel pulled out the ace.
"“Don’t you know that deep in his heart Robbie must be troubled about the reports that his son was a Nazi sympathizer and perhaps a paid agent of the enemy? Such whispers must be all over Newcastle.” ... how can they know you didn’t fool the Army? Rumors like that are hard to kill. If it definitely comes out that you were Roosevelt’s agent, everything will be cleared up and Robbie will just about burst with pride.” ... You have been on the inside helping to win the war—he’d never get through bragging about it. If you don’t believe it, call him up and ask.”
Lanny couldn't talk this over the telephone, but instead called Shoreham for Jim Stotzlmann after sending Laurel to the National Gallery, and he was in town. Jim invited them to a party, and they'd come prepared. Lanny had told Laurel to remember she was a writer, and Jim introduced Larel around as Mary Morrow who wrote anti Nazi novels.
"All Washington went by what was called protocol. New statesmen, new officials, new diplomats came, and their rank was predetermined. Every hostess had to know about this, and there were authorities who would furnish her the “dope” for a fee. There was a story of an ambassador who gave a dinner in honor of Toscanini, and invited so many high-ranking persons that he had to put the maestro at the bottom of the table. There was a story of a hostess who made a dreadful faux pas at an afternoon affair, setting one great lady to pouring tea and a lady of lower rank to pouring coffee. Too late it was explained to her, “Coffee outranks tea.”"
Lanny meanwhile met people he knew from Irma's set, and various other playgrounds; also he knew some of the foreigners, and they gathered around him, someone who could speak their languages, and was rich but wasn't cynical. They wanted to know how America could help their half starving people back home. Jim sat long into the night talking with the couple after having driven them back to the hotel.
They walked around and saw art galleries next day, and Jim came to dinner with a newspaper correspondent. They sat listening to their program on radio, Gerald de Groot having taken place of Billy Burns interviewing Professor Alston. They agreed it sounded good, but the the newspaper man talked at dinner about the lobbying in Washington D.C..
"The town was fairly crawling with lobbyists and lawyers representing every form of wholesale greed, and the most elegant and perfectly legal forms of bribery existed wherever business touched government or government touched business. The American way of life, as it was called, consisted of the hand-in-glove operation of these two forces, and never since the beginning of the world had private interests collected such sums of money from public bodies.
"“You reformers have whole mountain ranges to move,” said this correspondent of a conservative and complacent newspaper."
Colonel Josephus called next morning.
"The War Crimes prosecution formally requested Mr. Budd to let himself be flown to Nürnberg at the government’s expense, and there to give his testimony."
Lanny said ok, and he needed a couple of days to straighten out his affairs. He'd be flown via southern route and Washington would have his papers ready.
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Lanny was flown via Key West, Belém, Cape Verde Islands, Casablanca, Naples, Munich, to Nürnberg. He'd been there attending Parteitag week of extravaganza before the Munich conference.
"The streets of the nine-hundred-year-old city were narrow and crooked, and made an American think of Grimm’s fairy tales read in his childhood; the houses had high-pitched roofs, peaked gables, and innumerable chimney pots; the churches had tall spires and every sort of Gothic exuberance.
"Nineteen centuries had passed since the Emperor Augustus had sent his legions into these dark northern forests and the furor teutonicus had destroyed them. Since then the world had thought that Germany had become a civilized nation. But the Führer had come, and had revived the ancient furor, until the British and Americans had come and destroyed both Führer and furor. Here now was Nürnberg, a pitiful, a ghastly, sight; whole blocks of the medieval houses were nothing but wreckage, most of it burned as well as blasted; skeleton walls sticking up, and here and there a brick chimney with its pot still on top. It was the most completely smashed city the ex-P.A. had seen; the Americans, coming by day, had pinpointed the great factories and the railroad yards, and the British had come by night, doing their area bombing on the inner, walled portion—just what the Germans had done to London and a score of other cities, feeling so sure of victory. Now the sweating, khaki-clad hordes were gone, and from the city of the Parteitag all you saw were a few shivering women and children, hollow-cheeked and hollow-eyed, crawling into the caves they had dug for themselves in the rubble of their former homes."
Lanny was flown via Key West, Belém, Cape Verde Islands, Casablanca, Naples, Munich, to Nürnberg. He'd been there attending Parteitag week of extravaganza before the Munich conference.
"The streets of the nine-hundred-year-old city were narrow and crooked, and made an American think of Grimm’s fairy tales read in his childhood; the houses had high-pitched roofs, peaked gables, and innumerable chimney pots; the churches had tall spires and every sort of Gothic exuberance.
"Nineteen centuries had passed since the Emperor Augustus had sent his legions into these dark northern forests and the furor teutonicus had destroyed them. Since then the world had thought that Germany had become a civilized nation. But the Führer had come, and had revived the ancient furor, until the British and Americans had come and destroyed both Führer and furor. Here now was Nürnberg, a pitiful, a ghastly, sight; whole blocks of the medieval houses were nothing but wreckage, most of it burned as well as blasted; skeleton walls sticking up, and here and there a brick chimney with its pot still on top. It was the most completely smashed city the ex-P.A. had seen; the Americans, coming by day, had pinpointed the great factories and the railroad yards, and the British had come by night, doing their area bombing on the inner, walled portion—just what the Germans had done to London and a score of other cities, feeling so sure of victory. Now the sweating, khaki-clad hordes were gone, and from the city of the Parteitag all you saw were a few shivering women and children, hollow-cheeked and hollow-eyed, crawling into the caves they had dug for themselves in the rubble of their former homes."
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Lanny called Jerry, who drove in to meet him. Lanny reported to U.S. officials, who discussed strategy, and Lanny said he would not lie if Göring's counsel questioned him regarding his possibly saying anything against their case; in which case, the U.S. officials decided, he'd be called as their witness.
They'd arranged simultaneous translation of testimony, whichever language it was given in, into four different languages, and one could pick one's language of choice to hear it. It was recorded by stenographers so correction in translation could be made later.
Göring, Hess, Ribbentrop, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank, Streicher, Funk ("He protested to everybody who came near him that he had never known that among the treasures brought to his vaults were bushels of gold teeth knocked from the mouths of Jewish and Polish victims of the gas chambers."), and Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht occupied the first row, as per hierarchy. Papen was in next row with Wehrmacht generals and admirals, who looked with contempt from their assumption of superiority over everyone else and thought the trial was hypocrisy of victors dance.
Göring was nervous. His first witness, Bodenschatz, testified that Luftwaffe hadn't been ready in 1939, Göring had been trying to negotiate peace with England behind back of Hitler and Ribbentrop. The cross questioning with its thorough exposing of this as defence for Göring was not expected by them.
"That was the way this trial had been going for months. The prosecution had documents by the ton, for the Germans were the most meticulous makers and keepers of records. Every subordinate wanted written instructions as to everything he had to do; that went into his file, and thereafter it was sacred—he had seldom been able to bring himself to the point of burning anything, even when the enemy was in the streets outside the office building. So, when some office drudge would blandly assert that his chief was a man of love and mercy and had never had knowledge of any suffering inflicted upon the innocent, Jackson would produce an interoffice memorandum ordering that no more children should be sent to the crematoria because the labor shortage was acute and it had been found that children made very docile workers. “How about that, Herr Dreckschnautze?”"
During the adjournment for weekend Lanny and Jerry walked in country, where there was no destruction and peasants were prospering by selling to allies at high prices. Some women still had silk stockings from Paris sent by their men and other luxury goods exchanged for food during war, or acquired in other ways. Some young men defiantly told them that things were better under Hitler and his only fault was losing the war. Others tried to curry favour with Americans, saying that nazi swine should be drawn and quartered, every one.
The prison psychologist Dr Gilbert was interested in meeting Lanny and they compared notes.
" .... not merely the witness, General Lahousen, but also his chief, the head of the Abwehr, Admiral Canaris, had been in the officers’ conspiracy against the Regierung. Canaris, a man of Greek descent, hated and dreaded by all Allied agents, had been secretly suppressing information against the men he was supposed to destroy. He had been aware of widespread officer plots against the Führer!
"Lahousen, on the witness stand, told how this conspiracy had been formed before the war, in an effort to prevent that war. He put into the record that Göring, Keitel, and Jodl had planned the bombarding of Warsaw and the extermination of the Polish intelligentsia, nobility, clergy, and Jews. Himmler, the arch-villain who had come so near to getting Lanny in his net, had actually got Polish uniforms, dressed up Polish concentration-camp inmates in them, and had them shot in front of the Gleiwitz radio station, in order to justify the charge that the Poles had committed “aggression” on this station.
"Under cross-examination this highly placed witness told how, during the Russian campaign, orders had been given for the mass murder of Communists and Jews—this involving execution of both prisoners of war and civilians. After the escape of the French General Giraud from a German fortress, General Keitel had issued an order, at Hitler’s wish, that Giraud should be assassinated; but Canaris and Lahousen had managed to sabotage this order. And so on and on! Ribbentrop gave his attorney some questions to be asked of this witness, but the attorney said it was no use. “He only throws them back in our faces with more damaging information.”
"It was in Dr. Gilbert’s diary that Lanny read about Ohlendorf, a Nazi who had been jailed and had turned against the gang. He had been chief of the SD, the Security Service, and he told how Himmler, on behalf of the Führer, had given him orders for mass murder, and how he had been given command of an action group for the extermination of ninety thousand Jews. He went into the grisly details of the wholesale shooting of men and the gas-wagon extermination of women and children. While Ohlendorf testified Göring fumed, “Ach, there goes another one selling his soul to the enemy! What does the swine expect to gain by it? He’ll hang anyway.”
"It was during cross-examination of this witness that Speer, one of the accused, took occasion to reveal that near the end of the war he had attempted to have Hitler assassinated and Himmler delivered to the enemy to be punished for his crimes. This was a bombshell to the rest of the group, and during the intermission Göring rushed to Speer, demanding to know how he dared to disrupt their “united front.” Speer had been Reichsminister for Armaments and Munitions and had been responsible for foreign slave labor. Near the end he had had the courage to tell Hitler that the war was lost, and the revelation he now made was an effort to save his life—which it did. Göring’s uncontrolled fury was one of the factors which had brought about the decision to keep the defendants in solitary and to divide them into groups at the lunch hour.
"A curious phenomenon, the dominating will of this man, and the power he exerted over the others, even in jail. In Dr. Gilbert’s diary Lanny read about Hermann’s boyhood, about which he had previously known nothing. The Nummer Zwei’s earliest recollection was of bashing his mother in the face with his two fists at the age of three."
Meanwhile Winston Churchill spoke in Missouri, introduced by Truman, about dangers from communists and Soviet Russia, and need for U.S. and Britain to present a united front to the iron curtain from Stettin to Trieste. Russian reaction was to call him a warmonger trying to sabotage UNO.
Göring spoke in his defence for three days, describing his career.
"He had set up concentration camps in Prussia to intern Communists."
Next he defended Röhm Blood Purge.
"Her Dicke sought to justify the anti-Semitic laws on the basis of the hostility of the Jews to the Nazi program and to all good things German. Some of his fellow defendants in the prisoners’ dock hung their heads, for they thought this was bad tactics; Dr. Funk, the pudgy little coward, had tears running down his cheeks. Göring went on to tell how the regime had abolished unemployment—failing to mention how easy it is to put everybody at work if you don’t mind printing unlimited paper money and are manufacturing not for a market but for war. He praised the annexation of Austria and claimed a great share of the credit."
Next he justified destruction of Warsaw, Rotterdam, Coventry. Before his cross examination defence put a Swedish engineer, Dahlerus, on stand, who had been a go between for Göring trying to get Britain to agree to Hitler's demands on Poland in 1939, and among the English active in the affair had been the Wickthorpe set. Facts emerged as Dahlerus was cross questioned by the British counsel, witness admitting the insincerity of the peace effort, and Göring had warned him about Ribbentrop trying to kill him.
"Dahlerus stated the impression he had got out of the whole matter: that the Führer was abnormal, that Göring was in a crazy state of intoxication, and that Ribbentrop was a would-be murderer. Göring had no serious intention of avoiding war but was merely trying to get Britain to give way and acquiesce in the rape of Poland. There wasn’t much comfort for the fat man in that testimony, and there was despair among his fellow defendants."
Lanny had wondered about offering himself as defence witness.
"They had put this Swedish engineer on the stand when they knew that he had written a book and told his whole, story—and Göring had read that book in his cell!"
So Lanny decided he owed Göring no loyalty, and it was better for the world including German people that nazis were exposed, and went to American counsel saying he was willing to do as they said. He was sent to the defence counsel and told the same story he'd been telling nazis and their side. So the defence had him on the stand and he told that story.
And then the American counsel began, and brought out the whole story - from Lanny having been presidential agent to the treatment of Robin family and Solomon Hellstein and more.
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"These top Nazis had lived at the apex of human civilization, and they had done the most to hurl it back into chaos and night."
The prosecution had come upon documentary evidence, films and photographs and meticulously kept records, of concentration camps, and shown them at the trial.
"They had put up a screen and proceeded to show the horrors of the concentration camps and the extermination factories—human bodies, almost skeletons, stacked in great piles, and shoved about by bulldozers; frozen corpses in the freight cars; prisoners being, shot wholesale on the edge of trenches.
"And then later, more movies, this time furnished by the Russians, whose sufferings had been the worst of all. The acres of corpses of prisoners left to starve in the stockades; the torture instruments, the mutilated bodies, the raped women and children, the guillotines and baskets of heads, the bodies hanging from lamp posts, the crematoria and gas chambers, the bales of women’s hair, and other sights too horrid to be written about. Some had averted their eyes and taken off their headphones; some had wept, some had fallen ill and had had to be drugged in order to sleep. Dr. Gilbert’s diary recorded Göring as complaining that the Kino had spoiled his show for that day."
Lanny called Jerry, who drove in to meet him. Lanny reported to U.S. officials, who discussed strategy, and Lanny said he would not lie if Göring's counsel questioned him regarding his possibly saying anything against their case; in which case, the U.S. officials decided, he'd be called as their witness.
They'd arranged simultaneous translation of testimony, whichever language it was given in, into four different languages, and one could pick one's language of choice to hear it. It was recorded by stenographers so correction in translation could be made later.
Göring, Hess, Ribbentrop, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank, Streicher, Funk ("He protested to everybody who came near him that he had never known that among the treasures brought to his vaults were bushels of gold teeth knocked from the mouths of Jewish and Polish victims of the gas chambers."), and Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht occupied the first row, as per hierarchy. Papen was in next row with Wehrmacht generals and admirals, who looked with contempt from their assumption of superiority over everyone else and thought the trial was hypocrisy of victors dance.
Göring was nervous. His first witness, Bodenschatz, testified that Luftwaffe hadn't been ready in 1939, Göring had been trying to negotiate peace with England behind back of Hitler and Ribbentrop. The cross questioning with its thorough exposing of this as defence for Göring was not expected by them.
"That was the way this trial had been going for months. The prosecution had documents by the ton, for the Germans were the most meticulous makers and keepers of records. Every subordinate wanted written instructions as to everything he had to do; that went into his file, and thereafter it was sacred—he had seldom been able to bring himself to the point of burning anything, even when the enemy was in the streets outside the office building. So, when some office drudge would blandly assert that his chief was a man of love and mercy and had never had knowledge of any suffering inflicted upon the innocent, Jackson would produce an interoffice memorandum ordering that no more children should be sent to the crematoria because the labor shortage was acute and it had been found that children made very docile workers. “How about that, Herr Dreckschnautze?”"
During the adjournment for weekend Lanny and Jerry walked in country, where there was no destruction and peasants were prospering by selling to allies at high prices. Some women still had silk stockings from Paris sent by their men and other luxury goods exchanged for food during war, or acquired in other ways. Some young men defiantly told them that things were better under Hitler and his only fault was losing the war. Others tried to curry favour with Americans, saying that nazi swine should be drawn and quartered, every one.
The prison psychologist Dr Gilbert was interested in meeting Lanny and they compared notes.
" .... not merely the witness, General Lahousen, but also his chief, the head of the Abwehr, Admiral Canaris, had been in the officers’ conspiracy against the Regierung. Canaris, a man of Greek descent, hated and dreaded by all Allied agents, had been secretly suppressing information against the men he was supposed to destroy. He had been aware of widespread officer plots against the Führer!
"Lahousen, on the witness stand, told how this conspiracy had been formed before the war, in an effort to prevent that war. He put into the record that Göring, Keitel, and Jodl had planned the bombarding of Warsaw and the extermination of the Polish intelligentsia, nobility, clergy, and Jews. Himmler, the arch-villain who had come so near to getting Lanny in his net, had actually got Polish uniforms, dressed up Polish concentration-camp inmates in them, and had them shot in front of the Gleiwitz radio station, in order to justify the charge that the Poles had committed “aggression” on this station.
"Under cross-examination this highly placed witness told how, during the Russian campaign, orders had been given for the mass murder of Communists and Jews—this involving execution of both prisoners of war and civilians. After the escape of the French General Giraud from a German fortress, General Keitel had issued an order, at Hitler’s wish, that Giraud should be assassinated; but Canaris and Lahousen had managed to sabotage this order. And so on and on! Ribbentrop gave his attorney some questions to be asked of this witness, but the attorney said it was no use. “He only throws them back in our faces with more damaging information.”
"It was in Dr. Gilbert’s diary that Lanny read about Ohlendorf, a Nazi who had been jailed and had turned against the gang. He had been chief of the SD, the Security Service, and he told how Himmler, on behalf of the Führer, had given him orders for mass murder, and how he had been given command of an action group for the extermination of ninety thousand Jews. He went into the grisly details of the wholesale shooting of men and the gas-wagon extermination of women and children. While Ohlendorf testified Göring fumed, “Ach, there goes another one selling his soul to the enemy! What does the swine expect to gain by it? He’ll hang anyway.”
"It was during cross-examination of this witness that Speer, one of the accused, took occasion to reveal that near the end of the war he had attempted to have Hitler assassinated and Himmler delivered to the enemy to be punished for his crimes. This was a bombshell to the rest of the group, and during the intermission Göring rushed to Speer, demanding to know how he dared to disrupt their “united front.” Speer had been Reichsminister for Armaments and Munitions and had been responsible for foreign slave labor. Near the end he had had the courage to tell Hitler that the war was lost, and the revelation he now made was an effort to save his life—which it did. Göring’s uncontrolled fury was one of the factors which had brought about the decision to keep the defendants in solitary and to divide them into groups at the lunch hour.
"A curious phenomenon, the dominating will of this man, and the power he exerted over the others, even in jail. In Dr. Gilbert’s diary Lanny read about Hermann’s boyhood, about which he had previously known nothing. The Nummer Zwei’s earliest recollection was of bashing his mother in the face with his two fists at the age of three."
Meanwhile Winston Churchill spoke in Missouri, introduced by Truman, about dangers from communists and Soviet Russia, and need for U.S. and Britain to present a united front to the iron curtain from Stettin to Trieste. Russian reaction was to call him a warmonger trying to sabotage UNO.
Göring spoke in his defence for three days, describing his career.
"He had set up concentration camps in Prussia to intern Communists."
Next he defended Röhm Blood Purge.
"Her Dicke sought to justify the anti-Semitic laws on the basis of the hostility of the Jews to the Nazi program and to all good things German. Some of his fellow defendants in the prisoners’ dock hung their heads, for they thought this was bad tactics; Dr. Funk, the pudgy little coward, had tears running down his cheeks. Göring went on to tell how the regime had abolished unemployment—failing to mention how easy it is to put everybody at work if you don’t mind printing unlimited paper money and are manufacturing not for a market but for war. He praised the annexation of Austria and claimed a great share of the credit."
Next he justified destruction of Warsaw, Rotterdam, Coventry. Before his cross examination defence put a Swedish engineer, Dahlerus, on stand, who had been a go between for Göring trying to get Britain to agree to Hitler's demands on Poland in 1939, and among the English active in the affair had been the Wickthorpe set. Facts emerged as Dahlerus was cross questioned by the British counsel, witness admitting the insincerity of the peace effort, and Göring had warned him about Ribbentrop trying to kill him.
"Dahlerus stated the impression he had got out of the whole matter: that the Führer was abnormal, that Göring was in a crazy state of intoxication, and that Ribbentrop was a would-be murderer. Göring had no serious intention of avoiding war but was merely trying to get Britain to give way and acquiesce in the rape of Poland. There wasn’t much comfort for the fat man in that testimony, and there was despair among his fellow defendants."
Lanny had wondered about offering himself as defence witness.
"They had put this Swedish engineer on the stand when they knew that he had written a book and told his whole, story—and Göring had read that book in his cell!"
So Lanny decided he owed Göring no loyalty, and it was better for the world including German people that nazis were exposed, and went to American counsel saying he was willing to do as they said. He was sent to the defence counsel and told the same story he'd been telling nazis and their side. So the defence had him on the stand and he told that story.
And then the American counsel began, and brought out the whole story - from Lanny having been presidential agent to the treatment of Robin family and Solomon Hellstein and more.
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"These top Nazis had lived at the apex of human civilization, and they had done the most to hurl it back into chaos and night."
The prosecution had come upon documentary evidence, films and photographs and meticulously kept records, of concentration camps, and shown them at the trial.
"They had put up a screen and proceeded to show the horrors of the concentration camps and the extermination factories—human bodies, almost skeletons, stacked in great piles, and shoved about by bulldozers; frozen corpses in the freight cars; prisoners being, shot wholesale on the edge of trenches.
"And then later, more movies, this time furnished by the Russians, whose sufferings had been the worst of all. The acres of corpses of prisoners left to starve in the stockades; the torture instruments, the mutilated bodies, the raped women and children, the guillotines and baskets of heads, the bodies hanging from lamp posts, the crematoria and gas chambers, the bales of women’s hair, and other sights too horrid to be written about. Some had averted their eyes and taken off their headphones; some had wept, some had fallen ill and had had to be drugged in order to sleep. Dr. Gilbert’s diary recorded Göring as complaining that the Kino had spoiled his show for that day."
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Monck had written from Berlin, he was worried; and Lanny decided to go, in the process discovering that he was a celebrity on his own now. Berlin had been hugely destroyed, he discovered.
"They dug everywhere, and whenever they came upon something of value, be it only a broken doorknob, they would take it to the black market and exchange it for three American cigarettes or a quarter of a pound of bootleg coffee. To that had come these proud, tough Berliners, who had been so full of sophistication, thinking themselves several notches above the rest of Germany. They had marched so gaily into Hitler’s Third Reich, accepting Unser Hermann’s assurance that no enemy bomb would ever fall on German soil.
"Lanny had been coming to this city since boyhood. He had been impressed by its splendor and had seen only the good side of the German people, their kindness and hospitality, their cleanness and love of order. The officers in their bright uniforms had been picturesque, and he had been amused by their mustaches, twisted up at the ends in imitation of their Kaiser. World War I had taught him what lay behind that façade, and from that time on he had feared Germany and the German dream which had arrived in the world too late. The Weimar Republic had filled him with naïve hopes; he had longed so for a Socialist world, and he had discovered to his grief that the victorious Allied world didn’t want anything of the sort, and for that matter neither did the Germans. Apparently the tough, grim Bolsheviks were the only kind of reformers who knew how to survive in such a world.
"Berlin had been divided into four sectors. The Russians had the largest, to the east; it contained most of the industries, and they had been busily carting off the machinery. They had plenty of justification, since the Germans had looted and wrecked the greater part of Russia and all of Poland; but much of the machinery was rusting because they had no place to store it and lacked the skill to put it to use. The Americans had the southwestern part, mostly residential, and the part which had been least destroyed. The British had the west-central, full of lakes and woods, and villas where they could be quite comfortable. The French had the smallest part, to the northwest; that was fair, since they had done by far the smallest part of the fighting.
"They all wanted to keep Germany down and make sure that she would never again try to conquer Europe; they faced the embarrassing fact that the essentials of modern industry, steel and coal and chemicals, including synthetic oil, are also the essentials of war, and plants can be quickly converted.
"The Allies were up against the situation which had troubled old Clemenceau, the tiger of France; there were just twenty million too many Germans!
"The Russians all wanted to make them into Marxist-Leninist Stalinists. Some British wanted to make them into Clement-Attlee Socialists and others into Winston-Churchill Tories. Some Americans wanted to make them into New Deal Democrats, and others into McKinley Republicans. The French, so far as Lanny was able to ascertain, wanted to make them into Frenchmen, at least those who lived anywhere near the River Rhine, and let the devil take the rest."
Monck had had hopes at fall of nazis, but now he wasn't sure, American program of denazification was good on paper but not working in practice.
"Yes, the individual may have been a Nazi; but then most Germans had been Nazis, or had had to pretend to be. What was needed right now was efficiency, and this individual had had experience and was willing to do what he was told."
Russians And communists weren't better.
"Russians, what they wanted was to shoot the Socialist leaders and throw their followers into concentration camps. They were doing that in their own zone of Germany; they had got up a so-called “Socialist Unity Party,” to be run by the Communists, and if the Socialist leaders joined that they were all right, but if they didn’t, they disappeared and nobody knew what had become of them. Kidnapings across the line were common, and Monck said that he would never go anywhere near the line at night. It was quite like the old Nazi days."
Meanwhile American boys in forces wanted to go home, and theywere holding meetings with that slogan.
"“We wanna go home,” and this movement was spreading to India, Korea, Japan, Italy, and France."
Here it's unclear if Upton Sinclair is forgetting India was invaded and occupied by Britain without any justification as in case of occupation of Germany by American forces, or is he simply being so racist he doesn't realise it, as in another instance before in this volume where he refers to natives of his land as Indians, which is fraudulent and incorrect in every way except by holding racism as superseding humanity.
"Russia was still refusing to carry out her agreement that Dairen and Port Arthur were to be free ports. Russia was backing Yugoslavia’s demand for Trieste. Russia was demanding a trusteeship over Tripolitania in North Africa. Russia was refusing to take her troops out of Northern Iran, and when Iran appealed to the Security Council of the United Nations, Russia denied the right of the UN to consider the matter. When the UN acted, Gromyko, the Russian representative, took a walk. A sensation throughout the world, caused by this young man with the dead-pan face. Was he going to stay out? He didn’t say. Was Russia going to withdraw from the UN? Russia didn’t say."
Monck wanted to know if Americans were up to it, and Lanny explained that while while Americans wanted to live and prosper in peace leaving rest of the world to do so, they would not be cowed down by squeezing out tactics used by someone and would face them down.
"“You must understand,” said Monck, “it’s a matter of importance to me and mine, not to mention my comrades and my party. If we stick here and try to help you Americans, and then you back down and leave us, it would be certain death for me and probably for my family. You can’t imagine how the Communists hate us, or the frenzy they will be in if they see their plans being balked. They are absolutely certain that they are going to be able to take Germany and make it into a Communist satellite. They have been training a hundred thousand German prisoners in Russia—men who have been indoctrinated and have become Communists, or have pretended to. You know about General Paulus, their commander.”
"“The Russians are bringing them into Eastern Germany now, and a number of them have deserted and come over to our side of the line. They have dreadful stories to tell of the millions who have died in slave camps. They themselves are well fed, better than they will be on our side, but they prefer freedom.”
"“Those I have talked to are in a state of bewilderment and don’t know whom to trust. Nobody ever loved an occupation army, but after they have been here a while they know that they prefer Americans and American ways. All Germans, you know, look upon the Russians as a barbarous people who are dirty and don’t know how to use a bathroom."
Monck said U.S. needed to be ready to wage a propaganda war. Lanny had visited Monck's home for dinner, his family back from Argentina, and they'd stayed up late,talking, so Monck didn't let him go back. In the morning the two walked over to Moabit to meet Seidl. They were thrilled, and Lanny had brought a package of provisions for them too. Seidl gave Lanny his watch back, protected by him hidden from nazis, and Lanny said they should sell it and divide the proceeds with Anna Pfister's family; she'd died at Buchenwald.
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Lanny visited Bob Murphy who was now political adviser to AMG in Berlin.
"General Clay, the American commander, had only a few thousand troops in Berlin, while the Russians had an army just across the street from him. Moreover, the Russians had all the territory surrounding Berlin, and the Americans had only a narrow corridor through which to come and go."
"There were six and a half million displaced persons in Germany, and most of them couldn’t be sent back to their homes because their political coloration was wrong and they would be thrown into jail or shipped to a slave-labor camp. That applied all the way from the Baltic states to the Balkans, and to tens of thousands of Russians. There was nothing to do with them but keep them in refugee camps, which could be nothing but the former German Lagern."
"He pointed out that America had got much the worst of the Germany partition; we had got the scenery, and there was no tourist trade."
Lanny pointed out that in U.S. sector a great part of the land had belonged to aristocracy who did nothing with it, why not put DPs to use producing on those? Bob looked uncomfortable, he'd always known Lanny was pink.
Lanny discovered he was in a position to become a social lion, his story and photographs had appeared in newspapers and everyone wanted to meet him.
"There was a world relief organization, UNRRA—United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration—and there were complaints about its operations in Germany. Its head was a British general who lived in a ducal palace a long way from the wretched DPs whom he was supposed to be aiding. He was a charming, fashionable gentleman and would give you a royal good time if you went to see him; but you wouldn’t hear much about the millions of victims of the war—Jews and Poles and such like. British officers looked out for the British Empire, as of old, and were wholly unsatisfactory to ardent young idealists who had got jobs because they were recommended by Professor Frankfurter."
Lanny wanted to know how nazis saw him and what they knew.
"Lanny had himself transported to Number 1 Wasserkafersteig, headquarters of the Berlin Document Center, Office of U. S. Military Government for Germany."
He was led to a long table and given the document files, after his credentials were checked.
"The Gestapo had been watching Lanny from the first time that Göring had sent for him, in April of 1933. Lanny had known that they would be bound to do this and had guided himself accordingly."
Gestapo had interviewed everybody who'd met him in Germany and some in France, and they had reports from U.S. too, but hadn't found out about him being married to Mary Morrow; they'd gone in overdrive in 1943, but the only break they'd had was when Oskar Herzenberg was tortured and told them that Lanny was aware of the conspiracy. Marceline had never told even after torture.
Lanny turned to files on Laurel, and found all her manuscripts she thought lost. They had heard of Elvirita Jones and inquired about her in psychic circles everywhere, but hadn't connected her to Lanny!
Lanny visited Bob Murphy who was now political adviser to AMG in Berlin.
"General Clay, the American commander, had only a few thousand troops in Berlin, while the Russians had an army just across the street from him. Moreover, the Russians had all the territory surrounding Berlin, and the Americans had only a narrow corridor through which to come and go."
"There were six and a half million displaced persons in Germany, and most of them couldn’t be sent back to their homes because their political coloration was wrong and they would be thrown into jail or shipped to a slave-labor camp. That applied all the way from the Baltic states to the Balkans, and to tens of thousands of Russians. There was nothing to do with them but keep them in refugee camps, which could be nothing but the former German Lagern."
"He pointed out that America had got much the worst of the Germany partition; we had got the scenery, and there was no tourist trade."
Lanny pointed out that in U.S. sector a great part of the land had belonged to aristocracy who did nothing with it, why not put DPs to use producing on those? Bob looked uncomfortable, he'd always known Lanny was pink.
Lanny discovered he was in a position to become a social lion, his story and photographs had appeared in newspapers and everyone wanted to meet him.
"There was a world relief organization, UNRRA—United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration—and there were complaints about its operations in Germany. Its head was a British general who lived in a ducal palace a long way from the wretched DPs whom he was supposed to be aiding. He was a charming, fashionable gentleman and would give you a royal good time if you went to see him; but you wouldn’t hear much about the millions of victims of the war—Jews and Poles and such like. British officers looked out for the British Empire, as of old, and were wholly unsatisfactory to ardent young idealists who had got jobs because they were recommended by Professor Frankfurter."
Lanny wanted to know how nazis saw him and what they knew.
"Lanny had himself transported to Number 1 Wasserkafersteig, headquarters of the Berlin Document Center, Office of U. S. Military Government for Germany."
He was led to a long table and given the document files, after his credentials were checked.
"The Gestapo had been watching Lanny from the first time that Göring had sent for him, in April of 1933. Lanny had known that they would be bound to do this and had guided himself accordingly."
Gestapo had interviewed everybody who'd met him in Germany and some in France, and they had reports from U.S. too, but hadn't found out about him being married to Mary Morrow; they'd gone in overdrive in 1943, but the only break they'd had was when Oskar Herzenberg was tortured and told them that Lanny was aware of the conspiracy. Marceline had never told even after torture.
Lanny turned to files on Laurel, and found all her manuscripts she thought lost. They had heard of Elvirita Jones and inquired about her in psychic circles everywhere, but hadn't connected her to Lanny!
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Lanny was driven to British sector and they flew him to London, from where he called Irma to arrange to see Frances, and Irma invited him to the castle.
Lanny's story was all over London newspapers too after his having testified at Nürnberg, and some had mentioned about him being the ex-husband of Countess of Wickthorpe. The collapse of Nazism had been too complete for Irma and Ceddy to admit their attitude, but that hadn't changed their hearts or minds.
"The presidential agent had been deceiving not merely Hitler and Göring, but also Irma and Ceddy and all their friends; he had been a snake in the grass, slithering into their historic home, and no doubt laughing in his heart at them.
"They knew it, and their friends must know it, yet there wasn’t a thing they could do about it."
He took Frances for a walk, and she wanted to spend summer at Newcastle, and said Irma was afraid Frances would fall in love with an American and marry him.
"He didn’t need to question either mother or daughter; he could understand that Irma wouldn’t think any American good enough for Frances. What could you do with money in America? In England you could marry into a great family and have real distinction for the rest of your days. Irma and Ceddy would have been canvassing the dukedoms to pick out the most eligible heir; and if the man had been living with chorus girls for ten or twenty years that wouldn’t trouble them in the least. The thing was to have entree to the Court.
"There had been no way to keep Frances from knowing the part her father had played in Nürnberg, and there was no way to keep her from being excited over the idea of a presidential agent. She plied him with questions about what he had done and then about what he was going to do. When he told her about the Peace Program she was thrilled; and little by little he realized that that truce which had been declared with Irma when they had parted company—on the platform of a railroad station in Austria in the year 1937—that truce was about to come to an end. Frances Barnes Budd had come of age mentally and was getting ready to make her own choices."
He couldn't help being thrilled about Frances choosing him, wanting to visit Newcastle and then his home with Laurel in Edgemere, and wanting to hear his program. He'd brought some recordings for BBC, which she could hear. If Irma could have refused her she would, but Frances was almost grown up and almost as tall as her, and if she made a match Irma didn't approve of, Irma would have to cut her off with a few thousand a year, although her millions were now safely out in Canada as a foundation without the taxes paid in U.S., and war had enriched her far more than ever before, what with her investment in Budd-Erling and so on.
Lanny visited Alfy in town and attended a parliamentary session, Alfy now being an MP; later they went to BBC.
"They took Lanny’s platters and promised to consider them for presentation to the British people; when Alfy, decorated flying officer and heir to a baronetcy, reminded them that Mr. Budd of Budd-Erling was that presidential agent who had just come back from testifying at Nürnberg, the BBC interrupted its printed schedule and invited him to tell his story to a British audience the following evening. So it came about that Lanny Budd’s debut as a radio performer in his own name took place in England, and his little daughter in Wickthorpe Castle, Buckinghamshire, was so proud of him that it made her mother and her grandmother two very unhappy great ladies."
Lanny called Laurel to tell her, and then called Irma to to have Frances visit him in town; Irma couldn't say no, and Scrubbie was there, someone whose family was known to hers, whose home was close to hers, and who himself was a war hero telling enthusiastically about his war exploits. The two couldn't take eyes off one another, and later Lanny gave him his blessings if he could win her. Scrubbie was most grateful, and would call on her; he wanted to join Peace program and wanted to come over, so he'd meet Frances in Edgemere and visit in Newcastle. Irma might not get a title for Frances, but younger sons counted.
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Laurel had arranged it so press was waiting when Lanny landed in Washington. He was now celebrity, Edgemere was proud of his having helped in Nürnberg, and that week's radio program was doubled featuring him. They had to get more staff to deal with another flood of mail, and discussed expansion because they were doing well.
Lanny was interviewed by Gerald de Groot who'd done it while Lanny was in Europe, and at the end announced that they were expanding the broadcast hence to half an hour every week, with first half a story told by Lanny about his life's adventures, and rest an interview of someone else. The flood of mail became a torrent, they had to hire more staff, expand offices, and so did their printer. Nina arranged for nationwide broadcast.
Lanny talked next week about his meeting Kurt onwards to death of Freddi Robin, and his vowing war on Nazism and fascism, upto his meeting FDR. Professor Alston was on next to talk about that last part. Later Professor Alston talked with them about how U.N. was on rocks due to communists.
"Molotov was the one who was capable of looking straight into your eyes and telling you things which he not merely knew were not true, but which he knew that you knew were not true. A bitter lesson you had to learn, soon or late, that truth had no meaning to any Communist; the only question that concerned him was the advancement of his cause."
Professor Alston suggested Lanny meet the new president, and offered to go tell them about FDR planning to send him to talk to Stalin.
Laurel had arranged it so press was waiting when Lanny landed in Washington. He was now celebrity, Edgemere was proud of his having helped in Nürnberg, and that week's radio program was doubled featuring him. They had to get more staff to deal with another flood of mail, and discussed expansion because they were doing well.
Lanny was interviewed by Gerald de Groot who'd done it while Lanny was in Europe, and at the end announced that they were expanding the broadcast hence to half an hour every week, with first half a story told by Lanny about his life's adventures, and rest an interview of someone else. The flood of mail became a torrent, they had to hire more staff, expand offices, and so did their printer. Nina arranged for nationwide broadcast.
Lanny talked next week about his meeting Kurt onwards to death of Freddi Robin, and his vowing war on Nazism and fascism, upto his meeting FDR. Professor Alston was on next to talk about that last part. Later Professor Alston talked with them about how U.N. was on rocks due to communists.
"Molotov was the one who was capable of looking straight into your eyes and telling you things which he not merely knew were not true, but which he knew that you knew were not true. A bitter lesson you had to learn, soon or late, that truth had no meaning to any Communist; the only question that concerned him was the advancement of his cause."
Professor Alston suggested Lanny meet the new president, and offered to go tell them about FDR planning to send him to talk to Stalin.
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Nina And Laurel had conducted seances, since war was over, and this time Madame Zyszynski said there was a handsome gentleman who said call him Governor, and wanted to talk with Lanny; Nina ran to get him, and Lanny came fast. The conversation was just as if he were there; FDR said Lanny shouldn't have returned the money, and when asked how he knew, said he had secret agents; when Lanny asked if he could return, for said he was going to be busy haunting Molotov. They discussed Russia, and FDR said he'd had no choice at Yalta. Speaking of future he said there would be a man of the people, for the people, and the people will know him.
Next broadcast had Lanny speak about Trudi, followed by Professor Rhine who spoke about his work at the Duke university in parapsychology, and summed up by pointing out that materialism limits humanity to physical characteristics, while expanding from material to consciousness transcends boundaries of all divisions of humanity.
Professor Alston called to say he'd seen the President who was very interested in meeting Lanny, and Professor Alston had told him to hear them on Thursday. This time they had Professor Goudsmit, who told about their work at Alsos, about Lanny capturing Lenard only to return him, about capturing Heisenberg at Urfeld where they had to flee from capturing six hundred SS, and said that Heisenberg who was back in Germany had revised his story and claimed that Germany was almost there, they knew how to make atomic bomb, only lack of technical facilities had defeated them; and of course German physicists knew the difference between an atomic pile and a bomb, and they had never thought British or American physicists could do it.
Nina And Laurel had conducted seances, since war was over, and this time Madame Zyszynski said there was a handsome gentleman who said call him Governor, and wanted to talk with Lanny; Nina ran to get him, and Lanny came fast. The conversation was just as if he were there; FDR said Lanny shouldn't have returned the money, and when asked how he knew, said he had secret agents; when Lanny asked if he could return, for said he was going to be busy haunting Molotov. They discussed Russia, and FDR said he'd had no choice at Yalta. Speaking of future he said there would be a man of the people, for the people, and the people will know him.
Next broadcast had Lanny speak about Trudi, followed by Professor Rhine who spoke about his work at the Duke university in parapsychology, and summed up by pointing out that materialism limits humanity to physical characteristics, while expanding from material to consciousness transcends boundaries of all divisions of humanity.
Professor Alston called to say he'd seen the President who was very interested in meeting Lanny, and Professor Alston had told him to hear them on Thursday. This time they had Professor Goudsmit, who told about their work at Alsos, about Lanny capturing Lenard only to return him, about capturing Heisenberg at Urfeld where they had to flee from capturing six hundred SS, and said that Heisenberg who was back in Germany had revised his story and claimed that Germany was almost there, they knew how to make atomic bomb, only lack of technical facilities had defeated them; and of course German physicists knew the difference between an atomic pile and a bomb, and they had never thought British or American physicists could do it.
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Call from Washington came inviting Lanny for a dinner, and when Lanny asked about a hotel room, he was told he'd be an overnight guest at the White House. Laurel went along for the drive, and Lanny had her booked at the Mayflower. They saw the art treasures in the vaults of the National Gallery before Lanny went to meet the President at dinner, with his family. It was a very simple American family sit down for a very simple American dinner, and they wanted to know all about him. He invited the daughter Margaret, who promised to be a regular listener to his program, to come perform, and she accepted gladly. Afterwards they talked in the oval room, his study, and Lanny was grilled for three to four hours; the President was determined to learn and do what his predecessor had intended.
They talked about Europe, Stalin, and the President asked Lanny to go talk to Stalin as FDR had done. Lanny left after breakfast next day, with name of who he'd contact as he'd done Baker, and registered himself and Laurel at Mayflower. They conducted Lanny's part of the Thursday broadcast from Washington, and later it was John Haynes Holmes who spoke about what Gandhi had to teach the self confident Americans.
Next morning they had a call from the Russian embassy. Lanny had sent a personal telegram to Stalin, at Harry Truman's suggestion, reminding him of his repeated invitation, and asking if Lanny could visit now; now the ambassador, Mr Novikov, wanted to see him. He had received instructions to issue a visa to Lanny and ask what route he'd prefer travelling; Lanny chose northern route via London and Stockholm, and he was told he would be taken care of from Stockholm onwards by the Russian ambassador in Stockholm.
Lanny phoned the Secretary in White House and was instructed to go to State department, and his passport was done in record time; he got it stamped at the Russian embassy, and a letter from the President was delivered to him at his hotel. He'd be flown by American commercial airline to London, by British commercial airline to Stockholm and taken care of thence by Russian embassy.
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In England he had one day, so he called Irma asking her to send Frances to him in London, and called Scrubbie. The young couple had been meeting, and were thrilled with going to U.S..
Here one recalls how the author had branded Irma bordering anti-Semite, for being worried bout her daughter being brought up in intimate setting with the then little Johannes, as the son of Freddi Robin had been named in the first few volumes. The author changed his name to Freddi in later volumes 9 and 10, and has Lanny neatly circumvent such an outcome of having Frances live with his household in Edgemere where Freddi is working for their enterprise, by having Scrubbie the son of Rick - an English aristocrat and a friend from boyhood until middle age - already in life of Frances.
In England he had one day, so he called Irma asking her to send Frances to him in London, and called Scrubbie. The young couple had been meeting, and were thrilled with going to U.S..
Here one recalls how the author had branded Irma bordering anti-Semite, for being worried bout her daughter being brought up in intimate setting with the then little Johannes, as the son of Freddi Robin had been named in the first few volumes. The author changed his name to Freddi in later volumes 9 and 10, and has Lanny neatly circumvent such an outcome of having Frances live with his household in Edgemere where Freddi is working for their enterprise, by having Scrubbie the son of Rick - an English aristocrat and a friend from boyhood until middle age - already in life of Frances.
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Lanny travelled as planned, and met Stalin the next morning in the same apartment as before. Lanny presented the letter from President Truman, and told him about his having been a presidential agent working with FDR. He told Stalin about his last visit with FDR and the mission entrusted, and now President Harry Truman, having heard of it, extending the same.
Thereafter they spoke of general intentions of avoiding war, specifics of American politics and economics, and Lanny explained the scenariohe saw enrolling, both ways - with perception of a Russian threat, or absence thereof. Stalin asked for his remedy.
Disarmament and freeze on atomic weapons, with a reconstruction of war affected lands based on democratic elections and co-operative industrial models, was what Lanny proposed. Stalin had cake and wine brought in, and asked if Lanny wished for anything before saying farewell. Lanny told him about Marceline, and asked if her uncle Jesse Blackless could go with Lanny. Stalin said he'd died of pneumonia a year ago. Lanny was shocked, not knowing whether to believe it.
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Lanny arrived at London in time to call both Laurel and Irma, three seats were reserved on the next flight and Irma couldn't protest much. He attended a celebration of 90th birthday of George Bernard Shaw, and managed to meet him, reminding him of Dalcroze and telling him how Lanny had seen him.
Irma was displeased and didn't come to see her daughter off, Ceddy brought her, and Lanny had told Scrubbie to keep out of sight. He called Laurel from Washington to tell her to call Robbie, and got busy arranging his reporting to the President. He met him late at night in the oval office, and told him everything said by Stalin. The President asked for his impression, and Lanny said it amounted to the maxim about praying but keeping your powder dry; he thought idealism of early years was now turned to Russian imperialism.
Laurel drove to Washington to join them for the night, and they set off in the morning for Edgemere. He told about what he could, and Frances was thrilled with everything. When they arrived Rick and Nina were happy to see their son safe, and would embrace the girl whose heart they could see; Irma and Ceddy would have to learn to like it.
Frances visited Newcastle and decided she wanted to join the Edgemere team after all. Baby Lanny was five, and Laurel was expecting.
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Lanny arrived at London in time to call both Laurel and Irma, three seats were reserved on the next flight and Irma couldn't protest much. He attended a celebration of 90th birthday of George Bernard Shaw, and managed to meet him, reminding him of Dalcroze and telling him how Lanny had seen him.
Irma was displeased and didn't come to see her daughter off, Ceddy brought her, and Lanny had told Scrubbie to keep out of sight. He called Laurel from Washington to tell her to call Robbie, and got busy arranging his reporting to the President. He met him late at night in the oval office, and told him everything said by Stalin. The President asked for his impression, and Lanny said it amounted to the maxim about praying but keeping your powder dry; he thought idealism of early years was now turned to Russian imperialism.
Laurel drove to Washington to join them for the night, and they set off in the morning for Edgemere. He told about what he could, and Frances was thrilled with everything. When they arrived Rick and Nina were happy to see their son safe, and would embrace the girl whose heart they could see; Irma and Ceddy would have to learn to like it.
Frances visited Newcastle and decided she wanted to join the Edgemere team after all. Baby Lanny was five, and Laurel was expecting.
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