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people astray with false promises. It was a dignified meeting, and Irma felt more comfortable;

there didn't seem to be anything to start a fight about.

On their way home the young people discussed what they had heard. Bess, who used the same

phonograph records as Uncle Jesse, said that the party was old—a grandfather party—so it had the

machinery for getting out the crowds. "But," she added, "those municipal councilors repeating

their formulas make one think of stout, well-fed parrots dressed up in frock-coats."

"The Communists don't have any formulas, of course!" countered Lanny, not without a touch

of malice. These two loved each other, but couldn't discuss politics without fighting.

Bess was referring to officials who had reported on their efforts to increase the city's milk

supply and reduce its price. Lanny had found the Socialists discussing the same subject in New

York; it was no unimportant matter to the women of the poor. "Of course it's dull and prosy,"

he admitted; "not so exciting as calling for the revolution next week—"

"I know," broke in the sister; "but while you're discussing milk prices, the Nazis are getting

arms caches and making their plans to bring about the counter-revolution next week."

"And the reactionary princes conspiring with them, and the great capitalists putting up

money to pay for the arms!" Thus Hansi, stepping onto dangerous ground, since his father was

one of those capitalists. How much longer was that secret going to be kept in the Robin family?

VI

Lanny wanted to hear all sides; he wanted to know what the Nazis were doing and saying, if

only so as to send Rick an account of it. Among his acquaintances in Berlin was Heinrich Jung,

blue-eyed "Aryan" enthusiast from Upper Silesia. Heinrich had spent three years training

himself to succeed his father as head forester of Graf Stubendorf's domain; but now all that

had been set aside, and Heinrich was an official of the National Socialist German Workingmen's

Party, high up in what they called the Hitler Youth. For seven or eight years he had been

mailing propaganda to Lanny Budd in Bienvenu, having never given up hope that a pure-blooded

"Aryan" would feel the pull of his racial ties.

Lanny called him on the telephone, and Heinrich was delighted and begged him to come to

party headquarters. The visitor didn't consider it necessary to mention the fact that he was

staying in the home of one of the most notorious of Jewish Schieber. It wouldn't really have

mattered, for such eccentricities in an American didn't mean what they would have meant in a

German. A German traveler had described America as "the land of unlimited possibilities,"

and rich, successful persons from that fabulous region walked the common earth of Europe as

demigods. Even the Führer himself was in awe of them, having heard the report that they had

not run away from the mighty German army. A bright feather in the cap of a young party

official if he should bring in such a convert to the new religion of blood and soil.

The blue-eyed and fair-haired young Prussian had matured greatly in the three or four years

since Lanny had seen him. He had his private office in the great Nazi building, and was

surrounded by the appurtenances of power: files and charts, a telephone on his desk, and a

buzzer to summon his subordinates. He wore the uniform of the Sturmabteilung, those party

soldiers whose marching and drum-beating were by now among the familiar sights in German

cities: brown shirt and trousers with black stripes, shiny black boots, red armband with the

swastika in black. Handsome, smart, snappy—and keep out of their way, for they mean business.

Die Straße frei Den braunen Bataillonen!

Heinrich stopped only long enough to ask after Lanny's wife and baby, about whom he had

heard from Kurt. Then he began pouring out the story of the miracles which had been achieved

by the N.S.D.A.P.—the initials of the party's German name—since those old days when a student of

forestry had revealed it as a tiny shoot just pushing its head through the wintry soil. "Tall

oaks from little acorns grow!" said Heinrich; having written it as an English copybook exercise

in school.

A ladder was provided and Lanny was taken up to the topmost branches of that ever-

spreading oak tree. The Hitler Youth constituted the branches where the abundant new growth

was burgeoning; for this part of the tree all the rest existed. The future Germany must be

taught to march and to fight, to sing songs of glory, hymns to the new Fatherland it was going

to build. It must be well fed and trained, sound of wind and limb; it must know the Nazi creed,

and swear its oath of loyalty to what was called the Führerprinzip, the faith that the individual

exists for the state, and that the state is guided by one inspired leader. No matter from what

sort of homes the young people came, the Nazis would make them all the same: perfect party

members, obedient because it is a joy to obey, because the future belongs to those who are

strong, confident, and united.

Lanny had seen this principle working in the soul of one sturdy young "Aryan," and now he

discovered him as a machine engaged in turning out thousands of other specimens exactly like

himself. A machine for making machines! On the wall was a map showing where the branch

offices of this youth-machine were situated — and they weren't only in Germany, but in every

city on earth where Germans lived. There were charts and diagrams, for in this land things are

done scientifically, including Hitler propaganda. "Deutscbland Erwache!" said a placard on

Heinrich's wall. The Führer was a great deviser of slogans; he would retire to a secret place and

there ponder and weigh many hundreds which came to his mind, and when he chose one, it

would appear on posters and be shouted at meetings in every hamlet of the land. "Germany,

Awake!"

VII

Lanny was touched by the pride with which the young official revealed and explained the

complex organization he had helped to build; its various departments and subdivisions, each

having an official endowed with one of those elaborate titles which Germans so dearly love. The

head of the great machine was, of course, the one and only Adolf, Partei- und oberster S.A.

Führer, Vorsitzender der N.S.D.A.P. Under him were adjutants and Secretariat and Chief of

Staff, the Reichsjugendführer (who was Heinrich's superior) and his Staff Director, the

Subdirectors of half a dozen different staffs, the Business Manager, the Secretary, the

Presidium, the Reich Directorate.

Also there was a Political Organization, or rather two, P.O. 1 and P.O. 2—they had two of

everything, except of the Führer. It made you dizzy merely to hear about all these obligations and

responsibilities: the Foreign Division, Economic Policy Division, Race and Culture Division,

Internal Political Division, Legal Division, Engineering-Technical Division, Labor Service

Division; the Reich Propaganda Leaders Number 1 and Number 2, the Leaders of the Reich

Inspection 1 and 2; the Investigation and Adjustment Committee—what a whopper of a title had

been assigned to them: Untersuchungs und Schlichtungsausschuss, or USCHLA! But don't smile

over it, for Heinrich Jung explains that the party is preparing to take over the destinies of the

Fatherland, to say nothing of many decadent nations of Europe and elsewhere, and all this

machinery and even more will be needed; the Gymnastics and Sports Committee, the Bureau