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everyday life. Men who preached that matter and force were the bases of life, the sole

reality, were tempted to apply this dogma in their own lives; when they got a little power

they thought about keeping it, and forgot their solidarity with the humble toilers. People had

to believe in moral force, they had to let love count in the world, they had to be willing to

make sacrifices of their own comfort, their own jobs and salaries, yes, even their lives, if need

be. It was lack of that living spirit of brotherhood and solidarity which had made it possible for

Otto Braun, Social-Democratic Premier of the Prussian state, and Karl Severing, Minister of

the Interior, to bow to the threats of monocled aristocrats, and slink off to their villas without

making the least effort to rouse the people to defend their republic and the liberties it

guaranteed them.

Lanny thought: "Here, at last, is a German who understands what freedom means!"

VI

On a Sunday, the last day of July, more than thirty-seven million citizens of the German

Republic, both men and women, went to the polls and registered their choice for deputies to

represent them in the Reichstag. As compared with the elections of two years previ ously, the

Socialists lost some six hundred thousand votes, the Communists gained as many, while the

Nazis increased their vote from six and a half million to fourteen million. They elected two

hundred and thirty deputies out of a total of six hundred and eight-outnumbering the

Socialists and Communists, even if combined, which they wouldn't. So from then on it became

impossible for anyone to govern Germany without Adolf Hitler's consent.

There began a long series of intrigues and pulling of wires behind the scenes. Johannes

would report events to Lanny, and also to Lanny's father, who had come over for a

conference with his associate and went for a short cruise on the Bessie Budd. The politicians

of the right, who had polled less than five per cent of the vote, nevertheless hung on to power,

trying to persuade Hitler to come into their cabinet, so that they might flatter him and smooth

him down as had been done with MacDonald in England. They would offer him this post and

that; they would try to win his followers away from him—and Adi would summon the

waverers to his presence and scream at them hysterically. When he couldn't get his way he

would threaten suicide, and his followers never knew whether he meant it or not.

A great event in Berlin life when the haughty old Field Marshal consented to receive the

"Bohemian corporal." Hitler was driven to the Wilhelmstrasse, with crowds cheering him on

the way. He had lunch with von Papen, the Chancellor whose post he was demanding, and

when he was escorted into the presence of Hindenburg he was so nervous that he stumbled

over a rug; he started one of his orations, just like Gladstone before Queen Victoria, and had to

be stopped by his old commander. Hindenburg told him that he would not turn over the

chancellorship to a man whose followers practiced terrorism and systematic violations of the

law; he thought the vice-chancellorship was enough for such a man. But Hitler refused it,

demanding full power. The aged Junker stormed, but the ex-corporal had been brought up on

that, and all he would reply was: "Opposition to the last ditch." Said Hindenburg: "Ich will

meine Ruhe haben!"

There began a new wave of terrorism; attacks upon Reds of all shades by the Nazi

Stormtroopers in and out of uniform. Irma heard about it and began begging Lanny to cease

his visits among these people; she tried to enlist Robbie's help, and when that failed she

wanted to leave Berlin. What was this obscure tropism which drove her husband to the

companionship of persons who at the least wanted to get his money from him, and frequently

were conspiring to involve him in dangerous intrigues? What had they ever done for him?

What could he possibly owe them?

Lanny insisted that he had to hear all sides. He invited Emil Meissner to lunch—not in the

Robin home, for Emil wouldn't come there. Kurt's oldest brother was now a colonel, and Lanny

wanted to know what a Prussian officer thought about the political dead-lock. Emil said it was

deplorable, and agreed with Lanny that the Nazis were wholly unfitted to govern Germany.

He said that if von Papen had been a really strong man he would never have permitted that

election to be held; if the Field Marshal had been the man of the old days he would have taken

the reins in his hands and governed the country until the economic crisis had passed and the

people could settle into a normal state of mind.

"But wouldn't that mean the end of the Republic?" asked Lanny.

"Republics come and go, but nations endure," said Oberst Meissner.

VII

Heinrich Jung called up, bursting with pride over the triumph of his party. He offered to tell

Lanny the inside story, and Lanny said: "But I am consorting with your enemies." The other

laughed and replied: "Then you can tell me the inside story!" He seemed to take the view that

Lanny, an American, was above the battle. Was it that a young Nazi craved the admiration of a

foreigner? Was there in his secret heart some pleasure in free discussion, the ex pression of

unbiased opinion which he did not get from his party press? Or was it that Lanny was so rich,

and looked like a figure out of a Hollywood movie?

The Jung family had been increased again. "More Junkers," said Lanny, with what seemed a

pun to him. Heinrich's salary had been increased and he had moved into a larger home. He

had invited Hugo Behr, and the three of them sat for a couple of hours sipping light beer and

settling the destiny of Germany and its neighbors. Lanny was interested to observe that there

were disagreements among Nazi intellectuals, as elsewhere; the two names of Hitler's party

covered widely different and inconsistent points of view. Heinrich was the National and Hugo

was the Socialist, and while they agreed in workingclass consciousness and the program of

socialization; whereas Heinrich, son of one of Graf Stubendorf's employees, had the mentality of

a Prussian state servant to whom Ordnung und Zucht were the breath of being.

Lanny thought there was drama in this, and that it might pay an English playwright to

come to Berlin and study what was going on. He had suggested the idea to Rick, who hadn't

thought the Nazi movement important enough; but maybe the recent vote would change his

mind! Anyhow, Lanny was interested to listen to two young zealots, setting out to make the

world over in the image of their inspired leader; it pleased him to take a mental crow bar and

insert it in the crack between their minds and make it wider and deeper. Just how deep

would it go before they became aware of it themselves?

Lanny couldn't tell them what he knew. He couldn't say to Hugo: "Your Führer is in the

thick of negotiations with Thyssen, and Krupp von Bohlen, and Karl von Siemens, and others

of the greediest industrialists of your country. He is making fresh promises of conservatism

and legality. He will do anything to get power, and anything to keep it. You and your friends

are just so many pawns that he moves here and there and will sacrifice when his game requires

it." No, for they would ask: "How do you know this?" And he couldn't reply: "Fritz Thyssen

told my father yesterday." They would assume that he had got the stories from Johannes

Robin, a Jew, which would mean to them two things: first, that the stories were lies, and