Upton Sinclair - Dragons’s teeth

The young Nazi didn’t answer, but the furrows on his brow made it plain that he was facing a moral crisis. "I really don’t know what to say, Lanny. They tell me he’s frightfully irritable just now, and it’s very easy to make him angry."

"I should think he ought to feel happy after that wonderful speech, and the praise it is bound to get from the outside world. I should think he’d be more than anxious to avoid having anything spoil the effect of such a carefully planned move."

"Du lieber Gott!" exclaimed the other. "I ought to have the advice of somebody who knows the state of his mind."

Lanny thought: "The bureaucrat meets an emergency, and has no orders!" Aloud he said: "Be careful whom you trust."

"Of course. That’s the worst of the difficulty. In political affairs you cannot trust anybody. I have heard the Führer say it himself." Heinrich wrinkled his brows some more, and finally remarked: "It seems to me it’s a question of the effect on the outside world, so it might properly come before our Reichsminister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda."

"Do you know him?"

"I know his wife very well. She used to work in Berlin party headquarters. Would you let me take you to her?"

"Certainly, if you are sure it’s the wise step. As it is a matter of politics, you ought to consider the situation between Dr. Goebbels and Dr. Ley. If they are friends, Goebbels might try to hush it up, and perhaps keep us from seeing the Führer."

"Gott im Himmel!" exclaimed Heinrich. "Nobody in the world can keep track of all the quarrels and jealousies and intrigues. It is dreadful."

"I know," replied Lanny. "I used to hear you and Kurt talk about it in the old days."

"It is a thousand times worse now, because there are so many more jobs. I suppose it is the same everywhere in politics. That is why I have kept out of it so carefully."

"It has caught up with you now," said Lanny; but to himself. Aloud he remarked: "We have to start somewhere, so let us see what Frau Goebbels will advise."

Heinrich Jung went to the telephone and called the home of Reichsminister Doktor Joseph Goebbels. When he got the Frau Reichsminister he called her "Magda," and asked if she had ever heard of Lanny Budd and Irma Barnes. Apparently she hadn’t, for he proceeded to tell her the essential facts, which were how much money Irma had and how many guns Lanny’s father had made; also that they had visited at Schloss Stubendorf and that Lanny had once had tea with the Führer. Now they had a matter of importance to the party about which they wished Magda’s counsel. "We are at the Adlon," said Heinrich. "Ja, so schnell wie moglich. Auf wiedersehen " .

Lanny called for his car, and while he drove to the Reichstagplatz, Heinrich told them about the beauty, the charm, the warmth of heart of the lady they were soon to meet. One point which should be in their favor, she had been the adopted child of a Jewish family. She had been married to Herr Quandt, one of the richest men in Germany, much older than herself; she had divorced him and now had a comfortable alimony—while the man who paid it stayed in a concentration camp! She had become a convert to National Socialism and had gone to work for the party; a short time ago she had become the bride of Dr. Goebbels, with Hitler as best man, a great event in the Nazi world. Now she was "Frau Reichsminister," and ran a sort of salon—for it appeared that men cannot get along without feminine influence, even while they preach the doctrine of Küche, Kinder, Kirche to the masses.

"People accuse Magda of being ambitious," explained the young official. "But she has brains and ability, and naturally she likes to use them for the good of the cause."

"She will have a chance to do it tonight," replied Lanny.

They were escorted to the fashionable apartment where the lovely Frau Quandt had once lived with the elderly manufacturer. The "Frau Reichsminister" appeared in a cerise evening gown and a double string of pearls that matched Irma’s; both strings were genuine, but each lady would have been interested to bite the other’s to make sure. Magda had wavy fair hair, a sweet, almost childish face, and rather melancholy eyes with the beginning of dark rings about them. Lanny knew that she was married to one of the ugliest men in Germany; he could believe that she had needed the spur of ambition, and wondered if she was getting the satisfaction she craved.

It was growing late, and the visitors came to the point quickly. Knowing that the Minister of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda was a bitter anti-Semite, Lanny said: "Whatever one’s ideas may be, it is a fact that Hansi Robin is a musician of the first rank. The concert which he gave with the Paris Symphony this spring brought him a tremendous ovation. He has given similar concerts in London and in all the great cities of the United States, and that means that thousands of people will be ready to come to his defense. And the same thing is true about the business men who know his father. From the purely practical point of view, Frau Reichsminister, that is bad for your Regierung. I cannot see what you can possibly gain from the incarceration of Johannes Robin that can equal the loss of prestige you will suffer in foreign lands."

"I agree with you," said the woman, promptly. "It is one of those irrational things which happen. You must admit, Mr. Budd, that our revolution has been accomplished with less violence than any in previous history; but there have been cases of needless hardship which my husband has learned about, and he has used his influence to correct them. He is, of course, a very hard-pressed man just now, and it is my duty as a wife to shield him from cares rather than to press new ones upon him. But this is a special case, as you say, and I will bring it to his attention. What did you say was the name of the party organization which is responsible?"

"Die Reichsbetriebszellenabteilung."

"I believe that has been taken into Dr. Ley’s Arbeitsfront. Do you know Robert Ley?"

"I have not the honor."

"He is one of the men who came into our party from the air service. Many of our most capable leaders are former airmen: Gregor Strasser—"

"I have met him," said Lanny.

"Hermann Goring, Rudolph Hess—quite a long list. Airmen learn to act, and not to have feelings. Dr. Ley, like my husband, is a Rheinlander, and I don’t know if you realize how it is in the steel country—"

"My father is a steel man, Frau Reichsminister."

"Ach, so! Then you can realize what labor is in the Ruhr. The Reds held it as their domain; it was no longer a part of Germany, but of Russia. Robert Ley got his training by raiding their meetings and throwing the speaker off the platform. Many a time he would have the shirt torn off his back, but he would make the speech. After ten years of that sort of fighting he is not always a polite person."

"I have heard stories about him."

"Now he is head of our Arbeitsfront, and has broken the Marxist unions and jailed the leaders who have been exploiting our German workers and tearing the Fatherland to pieces with class war. That is a great personal triumph for Dr. Ley, and perhaps he is a little too exultant over it—he has what you Americans call a swelled head.'" The Frau Reichsminister smiled, and Lanny smiled in return.

"I suppose he saw a rich Jew getting out of the country in a private yacht, obtained by methods which have made the Jews so hated in our country; and perhaps it occurred to him that he would like to have that yacht for the hospitalization of National Socialist party workers who have been beaten and shot by Communist gangsters."

"Na also, Frau Reichsminister!" said Lanny, laughing. "Heinrich assured me that if I came to you I would get the truth about the situation. Let the Arbeitsfront take the yacht and give me my brother-in-law’s father, and we will call it a deal. Wir werden es als ein gutes Geschaft betrachten."