Upton Sinclair - Dragons’s teeth

"You don’t really mean all that, Hugo!" Lanny was much distressed.

"Haven’t you heard about our vacation?"

"I only entered Germany yesterday."

"All the S.A. have been ordered to take a vacation during the month of July. They say we’ve been overworked and have earned a rest. That sounds fine; but we’re not permitted to wear our uniforms, or to carry our arms. And what are they going to do while we’re disarmed? What are we going to find when we come back?"

"That looks serious, I admit."

"It seems to me the meaning is plain. We, the rank and file, have done our job and they’re through with us. We have all been hoping to be taken into the Reichswehr; but no, we’re not good enough for that. Those officers are Junkers, they’re real gentlemen, while we’re common trash; we’re too many, two million of us, and they can’t afford to feed us or to train us, so we have to be turned off—and go to begging on the streets, perhaps."

"You know, Hugo, Germany is supposed to have only a hundred thousand in its regular army. Mayn’t it be that the Führer doesn’t feel strong enough to challenge France, and Britain on that issue?"

"What was our revolution for, but to set us free from their control? And how can we ever become strong, if we reject the services of the very men who have made National Socialism? We put these leaders in power—and now they’re getting themselves expensive villas and big motor-cars, and they’re afraid to let us of the rank and file even wear our uniforms! They talk of disbanding us, because the Reich can’t afford our magnificent salaries of forty-two pfennigs a day."

"Is that what you get?"

"That is what the rank and file get. What is that in your money?"

"About ten cents."

"Does that sound so very extravagant?"

"The men in our American army get about ten times that. Of course both groups get food and lodgings free."

"Pretty poor food for the S.A.; and besides, there are all the levies, which take half what anybody earns. Our lads were made to expect so much, but now all the talk is that the Reich is so poor. The propaganda line has changed; Herr Doktor Goebbels travels over the land denouncing the Kritikaster and the Miessmacher and the Nörgler and the Besserwisser—" Hugo gave a long list of the depraved groups who dared to suggest that the Nazi Regierung was anything short of perfect. "In the old days we were told there would be plenty, because we were going to take the machinery away from the Schieber and set it to work for the benefit of the common folk. But now the peasants have been made into serfs, and the workingman who asks for higher pay or tries to change his job is treated as a criminal. Prices are going up and wages falling, and what are the people to do?"

"Somebody ought to point these things out to the Führer," suggested Lanny.

"Nobody can get near the Führer. Göring has taken charge of his mind—Göring, the aristocrat, the friend of the princes and the Junker landlords and the gentlemen of the steel Kartell. They are piling up bigger fortunes than ever; I’m told that Göring is doing the same—and sending the money abroad where it will be safe."

"I’ve heard talk about that in Paris and London," admitted Lanny; "and on pretty good authority. The money people know what’s going on."

They were high up in the foothills, close to the Austrian border. Auf die Berge will ich steigen, wo die dunkeln Tannen ragen! The air was crystal clear and delightfully cool, but it wasn’t for the air that Lanny had come, nor yet on account of Heine’s Harzreise. They sat on an outdoor platform of a little inn looking up a valley to a mountain that was Austria; Lanny saw that the slopes about him were not too precipitous, nor the stream in the valley too deep. He remarked to his companion: "There’s probably a lot of illegal traffic over these mountain paths."

"Not so much as you might think," was the reply. "You don’t see the sentries, but they’re watching, and they shoot first and ask questions afterward."

"But they can’t do much shooting on a stormy night."

"They know where the paths are, and they guard them pretty closely. But I’ve no doubt some of the mountaineers take bribes and share with them. The Jews are running money out of Germany by every device they can think of. They want to bleed the country to death."

That didn’t sound so promising; but Lanny had to take a chance somewhere. When they were back in the car, safe from prying ears, he said: "You know, Hugo, you’re so irritated with the Jews, and yet, when I hear you talk about the ideals of National Socialism, it sounds exactly like the talk of my friend Freddi Robin whom I’ve told you about."

"I don’t deny that there are good Jews; many of them, no doubt; and certainly they have plenty of brains."

"Freddi is one of the finest characters I have ever known. He is sensitive, delicate, considerate, and I’m sure he never had a vice. He was giving all his time and thought to the cause of social justice, exactly as you believe in it and have explained it today."

"Is he still in Dachau?"

"I want to talk to you about him, Hugo. It’s so important to me; I can’t have any peace of mind while the situation stands as it is, and neither can anybody who knows Freddi. I’d like to take you into my confidence, and have your word that you won’t mention it to anybody else, except by agreement with me."

"I don’t think it’ll be possible to get me to take an interest in the affairs of any Jew, Lanny. I don’t even care to know about him, unless I can have your word that you won’t tell anybody that you have told me."

"You certainly can have that, Hugo. I have never mentioned your name to anyone except my wife, and this time I didn’t even tell her that I was planning to meet you. I’ve told everybody I was coming for the purpose of buying some pictures from Baron von Zinszollern."

On that basis the young Aryan athlete consented to risk having his mind sullied, and Lanny told him he had positive information that Freddi was being tortured in Dachau. Lanny intimated that this news had come to him from high Nazi sources; Hugo accepted this, knowing well that the rich American had such contacts. Lanny drew a horrifying picture, using the details which Göring had furnished him; Hugo, a fundamentally decent fellow, said it was a shame, and what did they expect to accomplish by such proceedings? Lanny answered that some of the big Nazis had learned that Lanny’s wife had a great deal of money, and were hoping to get a chunk of it—money they could hide in New York, and have in case they ever had to take a plane and get out of Germany. Irma had been on the verge of paying; but Lanny’s English friend, Rick, had said No, those men were betraying the Socialist movement of the world, and nobody should furnish them with funds. It had occurred to Lanny that he would rather pay money to some of the honest men in the movement, those who took seriously the second half of the party’s name, and would really try to promote the interests of the common man.

In short, if Hugo Behr would spend his vacation helping to get Freddi out of Dachau, Lanny would pay him five thousand marks at the outset, and if he succeeded would pay him another five thousand, in any form and any manner he might desire. Hugo might use the money for the movement he was building, and thus his conscience would be clear. Lanny would be glad to put up whatever additional sums Hugo might find it necessary to expend in order to interest some of the proletarian S.A. men in Dachau in bringing about the escape of a comrade who had the misfortune to have been born a Jew. They, too, might use the money to save National Socialism.