Upton Sinclair - Dragons’s teeth

"What can we do?" wrote Freddi to Lanny, in an unsigned letter written on a typewriter—for such a letter might well have cost him his life. "Our friends hold little meetings in their homes, but they have no arms, and the rank and file are demoralized by the cowardice of their leaders. The rumor is that the co-operatives are to be confiscated also. There is to be a new organization called the German Labor Front, to be directed by Robert Ley, the drunken braggart who ordered these raids. I suppose the papers in Paris will have published his manifesto, in which he says: No, workers, your institutions are sacred and inviolable to us National Socialists. Can anyone imagine such hypocrisy? Have words lost all meaning?

"Do not answer this letter and write us nothing but harmless things, for our mail is pretty certain to be watched. We have to ask our relatives abroad not to attend any political meetings for the present. The reason for this is clear."

An agonizing thing to Hansi and Bess, to have to sit with folded hands while this horror was going on. But the Nazis had made plain that they were going to revive the ancient barbarian custom of punishing innocent members of a family in order to intimidate the guilty ones. A man doesn’t make quite such a good anti-Nazi fighter when he knows that he may be causing his wife and children, his parents, his brothers and sisters, to be thrown into concentration camps and tortured. Hansi had no choice but to cancel engagements he had made to play at concerts for the benefit of refugees.

"Wait at least until the family is out of Germany," pleaded Beauty; and the young Reds asked their consciences: "What then?" Did they have the right to go off on a pleasure yacht while friends and comrades were suffering agonies? On the other hand, what about Papa’s need of rest? The sense of family solidarity is strong among the Jews. "Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." The Lord in His wisdom had seen fit to take away the land, but the commandment still stood, and Hansi thought of his father, who had given him the best of everything in the world, and now would surely get no rest if his oldest son should declare war upon the Nazis. Also, there was the mother, who had lived for her family and hardly had a thought of any other happiness. Was she to be kept in terror from this time on?

"What do you think, Lanny?" asked the son of ancient Judea who wanted to be artist and reformer at the same time. Lanny was moved to reveal to him the scheme which was cooking in his mind for the entrapment of Johannes and the harnessing of his money. Hansi was greatly pleased; this would put his conscience at rest and he could go on with his violin studies. But Bess, the tough-minded one, remarked: "It’ll be just one more liberal magazine."

"You can have a Red section, and put in your comments," replied Lanny, with a grin.

"It would break up the family," declared the granddaughter of the Puritans.

Johannes wrote that he had got passports for his party, and set the date for the yacht to arrive at Calais. Thence they would proceed to Ramsgate, run up to London for a few days, and perhaps visit the Pomeroy-Nielsons—for this was going to be a pleasure trip, with time to do anything that took anybody’s fancy. "We have all earned a vacation," said the letter. Lanny reflected that this might apply to Johannes Robin—but did it apply to Mr. Irma Barnes?

He wrote in answer: "Emily Chattersworth has arrived at Les Forêts, and Hansi is to give her a concert with a very fine program. Why don’t you and the family come at once and have a few days in Paris? We are extremely anxious to see you. The spring Salon is the most interesting I have seen in years. Zoltan is here and will sell you some fine pictures. Zaharoff is at Balincourt, and Madame is out there with him; I will take you and you can have a seance, and perhaps meet once more the spirits of your deceased uncles. There are other pleasures I might suggest, and other reasons I might give why we are so very impatient to see you."

Johannes replied, with a smile between the lines: "Your invitation is appreciated, but please explain to the spirits of my uncles that I still have important matters which must be cleared up. I am rendering services to some influential persons, and this will be to the advantage of all of us." Very cryptic, but Lanny could guess that Johannes was selling something, perhaps parting with control of a great enterprise, and couldn’t let go of a few million marks. The spirits of his uncles would understand this.

"Do not believe everything that the foreign press is publishing about Germany," wrote the master of caution. "Important social changes are taking place here, and the spirit of the people, except for certain small groups, is remarkable." Studying that sentence you could see that its words had been carefully selected, and there were several interpretations to be put upon them. Lanny knew his old friend’s mind, and not a few of his connections. The bankrupted landlords to whom he had loaned money, the grasping steel and coal lords with whom he had allied himself, were still carrying on their struggle for the mastery of Germany; they were working inside the Nazi party, and its factional strife was partly of their making. Lanny made note of the fact that the raids on the labor unions had been made by Robert Ley and his own gangs. Had the "drunken braggart" by any chance "jumped the gun" on his party comrades? If so, one might suspect that the steel hand of Thyssen had been at work behind the scenes. Who could figure how many billions of marks it would mean to the chairman of the Ruhr trust to be rid of the hated unions and safe against strikes from this day forth?

Robbie Budd wrote about this situation, important to him. He said: "There is a bitter fight going on for control of the industry in Germany. There are two groups, both powerful politically. It is Thyssen and Krupp vs. the Otto Wolff group. The latter is part Jewish, and the present set-up is not so good for them. Johannes believes he has friends in both camps, and I hope he is not fooling himself. He is sailing a small ship in a stormy sea."

Robbie also gave another item of news: "Father is failing and I fear you may not find him here when you arrive. It is no definite disease, just the slow breakdown of old age, very sad to witness. It means heavy responsibilities for me; a situation which I prefer not to write about, but will tell you when I see you. Write the old gentleman and assure him of your appreciation of his kindness to you; he tries to keep his hold on all the family as well as on the business. He forgets what I told him yesterday, but remembers clearly what happened long ago. That is hard on me, because I caused him a great deal of unhappiness in those days, whereas of late he had been learning to take me for what I am and make the best of it. I try not to grieve about him, because he has had more out of life than most men, and fate neither lets us live forever nor have our way entirely while we are here."

Adolf Hitler was the man who was having his own way, more than any who had lived in modern times. He was going ahead to get the mastery of everything in Germany, government, institutions, even cultural and social life. Every organization which stood in his way he proceeded to break, one after another, with such speed and ruthlessness that it left the opposition dizzy. The Nationalist party, which had fondly imagined it could control him, found itself helpless. Papen, Vice-Chancellor, was reduced to a figurehead; Goring took his place in control of the Prussian state. Hugenberg had several of his papers suppressed, and when he threatened to resign from the Cabinet, no one appeared to care. One by one the Nationalist members were forced out and Nazis replaced them. Subordinates were arrested, charged with defalcation or what not— the Minister of Information was in position to charge anybody with anything, and it was dangerous to answer.