Upton Sinclair - Dragons’s teeth

They talked about Kurt and his music, which was pure "Aryan," so the Führer declared; nothing meretricious, no corrupt foreign influences; life in France for so many years had apparently not affected the composer in the slightest. Lanny explained that Kurt had kept almost entirely to himself, and had seldom gone out unless one dragged him. He told about his life at Bienvenu, and the Führer agreed that it was the ideal way for an artist. "It is the sort of life I would have chosen; but, alas, I was born under a different star." Lanny had heard that he believed in astrology, and hoped he wouldn’t get onto that subject.

What the Führer of all the Nazis planned was for this elegant and extremely wealthy young foreigner to go out to the world as a convert to the National Socialist ideas. To that end he laid himself out to be charming, for which he had no small endowment. He had evidently inquired as to Lanny’s point of view, for everything he said was subtly directed to meeting that. Lanny was a Socialist, and Hitler, too, was a Socialist, the only true, practical kind of Socialist. Out of the chaos of competitive capitalism a new order was about to arise; an order that would endure, because it would be founded upon real understanding and guided by scientists. Not the evil, degenerate Socialism of the Marxists, which repudiated all that was most precious in human beings; not a Socialism poisoned with the delusion of internationalism, but one founded upon recognition of the great racial qualities which alone made such a task conceivable.

Patiently and kindly the Führer explained that his ideas of race were not German in the narrow sense. Lanny, too, was an "Aryan," and so were the cultured classes in America; theirs was a truly "Aryan" civilization, and so was the British. "I want nothing in the world so much as understanding and peace between my country and Britain, and I think there has been no tragedy in modern times so great as the war they fought. Why can we not understand one another and get together in friendship for our common task? The world is big enough, and it is full of mongrel tribes whom we dare not permit to gain power, because they are incapable of making any intelligent use of it."

Hitler talked for a while about these mongrels. He felt quite safe in telling a young Franco-American what he thought about the Japanese, a sort of hairless yellow monkeys. Then he came to the Russians, who were by nature lazy, incompetent, and bloodthirsty, and had fallen into the hands of gutter-rats and degenerates. He talked about the French, and was careful of what he said; he wanted no enmity between France and Germany; they could make a treaty of peace that would last for a thousand years, if only the French would give up their imbecile idea of encircling Germany and keeping her ringed with foes. "It is the Polish alliance and the Little Entente which keep enmity between our peoples; for we do not intend to let those peoples go on ruling Germans, and we have an iron determination to right the wrongs which were committed at Versailles. You must know something about that, Mr. Budd, for you have been to Stubendorf, and doubtless have seen with your own eyes what it means for Germans to be governed by Poles."

Lanny answered: "I was one of many Americans at the Peace Conference who pleaded against that mistake."

So the Führer warmed to his visitor. "The shallow-minded call my attitude imperialism; but that is an abuse of language. It is not imperialism to recognize the plain evidence of history that certain peoples have the capacity to build a culture while others are lacking in it entirely. It is not imperialism to say that a vigorous and great-souled people like the Germans shall not be surrounded and penned in by jealous and greedy rivals. It is not imperialism to say that these little children shall not suffer all their lives the deprivations which they have suffered so far."

The speaker was running his hand over the closely cropped blond head of the little boy. "This Bübchen was born in the year of the great shame, that wicked Versailles Diktat. You can see that he is thin and undersized, because of the starvation blockade. But I have told him that his children will be as sturdy as his father was, because I intend to deliver the Fatherland from the possibility of blockades—and I shall not worry if my enemies call me an imperialist. I have written that every man becomes an imperialist when he begets a child, for he obligates himself to see to it that that child has the means of life provided."

Lanny, a Socialist not untainted with internationalism, could have thought of many things to answer; but he had no desire to spoil this most amiable of interviews. So long as a tiger was willing to purr, Lanny was pleased to study tigers. He might have been influenced by the many gracious words which had been spoken to him, if it had not been for having read Mein Kampf. How could the author of that book imagine that he could claim, for example, to have no enmity against France? Or had he changed his mind in five years? Apparently not, for he had formed a publishing-house which was selling his bible to all the loyal followers of the National Socialist German Workingmen’s Party, and at the price of twelve marks per copy somebody was making a fortune.

Lanny thought: "I am taking a lot of a busy man’s time." But he knew that when you are calling on royalty you do not leave until you are dismissed; and perhaps it would be the same here. The children had been sent away, it being their suppertime; but still the Führer went on talking. Heinrich Jung sat leaning forward with an aspect of strained attention, and there was nothing for Lanny to do but follow his example.

The Führer retold the wrongs which had been done to his country; and as he went on he became more and more aroused, his voice swelled and he became the orator. Lanny remembered having read somewhere of Queen Victoria’s complaining about her audiences with Gladstone: "He treats me as if I were a public meeting." Lanny found it somewhat embarrassing to be shouted at from a distance of six feet. He thought: "Good Lord, with this much energy the man could address all Germany!" But apparently Adolf Hitler had enough energy for all Germany and for a foreign visitor also; it was for him to decide how much to expend, and for the visitor to sit and gaze at him like a fascinated rabbit at a hissing snake.

Lanny had seen this same thing happen at several meetings. The Führer took fire from his own phrases; he was moved to action by his own eloquence. Now, now was the moment to overthrow these enemies of the Fatherland, to punish them for their crimes. Heads will roll in the sand! The orator forgot all about being sweet and reasonable for the benefit of a member of two of these enemy nations. Perhaps he thought that Lanny, having heard the whole story of Versailles, of reparations and starvation blockade and Ruhr invasion and Polish alliance and all the rest, must now be completely a convert. Away with the pretense that the Führer of the Nazis did not hate the French for their avarice, the British for their arrogance, the Americans for their upstart pretensions, the Bolsheviks for being bloodthirsty monsters, the Jews for being the spawn of hell. In short, he became that man of frenzy whom Lanny and Rick had first heard in the Burgerbraukeller in Munich seven years ago. Lanny had said: "One must admit that he is sincere," and Rick had replied: "So are most lunatics."

How long this would have continued no one could say. The housekeeper opened the door and said: "Verzeihung, mein Führer. Herr Strasser." Behind her came, without delay, a large man in S.A. uniform. He had large, rather coarse features, a somewhat bulbous nose, a drooping mouth with deep lines at the sides. According to the practice with which Lanny was familiar he should have halted in the doorway, clicked his heels, given the Nazi salute, and said: "Heil Hitler!" Instead he came forward, remarking in a nonchalant way: "Grüß Gott, Adolf." This meant that he was an old friend, and also that he came from Bavaria.