Henry Fischer - The Secret Memoirs of Bertha Krupp

And to a certain class of persons he points out that science is but the handmaiden of wholesale murder, and that they must employ their God-given inventive genius, all their brains, all their time, to devise new ways and means for killing as many men, women and children as there are in the world outside of the German Empire. And they do.

And to a woman he says: "You were born to suffer. Give me your husband; I want him for the fighting." And she forthwith tells her man to make one more for the shambles.

And to the golden-haired girl he says: "A truce to your vanity, off with your locks, that I may buy more rifles; and your lover I want, too. His manly breast will make an excellent scabbard for a French or Russian lance."

And the golden-haired one raves that she is thrice happy to be allowed to sacrifice her beauty and the idol of her dreams for the War Lord.

"I want your fathers," he says to a playground full of children, "and your uncles and big brothers and cousins." And the little ones cry: "Hurrah! Long live the Emperor!"

"Would ye live for ever?" he queries of men between fifty and sixty-five. "To the barracks with you, even if you are but good for cannon fodder."

Someone tells him of a bunch of boys playing marbles in an alley; not one of them has finished his education. The War Lord examines them critically and sniffs. "You are big enough to stop a bullet somehow," he allows, and they are led to slaughter.

The All Highest looks upon the earth and boasts of his winged legions of man-killers. He declaims that Englishmen and Frenchmen and Italians and Belgians have turned out to fight God's Anointed; but adds with a sly smile they left their women at home and their brood, that he may out-Herod Herod. In his mind he feels the earth trembling under the heavy tread of his armed millions and the weight of his artillery.

This Dancing Dervish of universal slaughter, this man given over to murder-lust is the object of veneration not only of those whom he addresses in person, because of their mistaken sense of duty and patriotism; a whole nation, seventy millions strong, acclaim him Saviour – Messiah of the Fatherland's destinies.

One can understand individual sacrifice, but seventy millions of people, every mother's son and daughter, turning beasts of prey! It baffles psychological speculation. Everywhere the "Evangelium of German superdom," as the War Lord sees it, is loud.

Small wonder Bertha, born of man-killer stock and suckled on the breasts of militarism, which nourished her kith and kin and their hundreds of thousands of dependents, believes unconditionally in the doctrines pronounced by her godfather, to her the God-head of power infinite, omniscience incarnate!

Hence the implied rebuke to Franz: "German interests first." After that she returned to the nursery – her Belgian doll.

Frau Krupp looked significantly at Franz. "You were going to say —

"My orders are to experiment with the War Lord's new formula for steel on those guns for Liége."

Franz buried his head in his hands, elbows planted on knees, leaning forward heavily, while the Baroness sat looking at him, her nimble mind weighing the pros and cons. At last she reached out a hand and touched the young man's shoulder.

"Franz," she said solemnly.

The young man's head shot up and he stared at Frau Krupp as if she was a ghost. Answering the question in her eyes, he almost shouted, "Never!" holding up his right hand as if under oath.

The Baroness placed his hand on Bertha's head. "Swear that you will stand by this child."

"I swear, with all my heart, so help me, God," pronounced Franz, with severe emphasis.

A peculiar look came into the Baroness's eyes, half satisfied, half cunning, as with a sort of imperious finality she said: "It is well." Then, turning to the child: "Bertha, run along now and tell them to serve in the small dining-room in five minutes."

"Make it ten, Mamma, so I can put on my new negligée ."

"All right, ten; but hurry," agreed Frau Krupp, looking at the pendule.

When the curtain had fallen behind Bertha the Baroness turned a white, severe face upon Franz. Then, abandoning all pretence of loyalty to the Grand War Lord, she told the terrible secrets long locked in her bosom, secrets imparted by her late husband or gathered from his lips during long, sleepless nights while he tossed on his pillow.

"It's the Frankenstein we have to fight," she said, "the pitiless, heartless, soul-less Evil One, intent upon setting the world afire through my child's inheritance. The plotting has been going on ever since the crowned monster was enthroned. Almost the first communication he made to Frederick, as head of the Empire, was: 'Now we must bend all energies to get ready. And when we are, I will set my foot upon the neck of the universe, Charlemagne redivivus!'

"Previous to that, Frederick and myself had agreed gradually to drop cannon- and ammunition-making. The Krupps were to create, instead of facilitating destruction. No longer was Essen to be a place upon which a merciful God looked with abhorrence. Engines of death had made us rich and powerful; henceforth the coined results of war were to be employed to make waste land arable, to drain morasses, to dig canals, to prosecute every peaceful endeavour promising to enhance the German people's chances of happiness and prosperity. The old saw of turning swords into ploughshares was to be enacted by the firm that had made war thrice deadly. Then the tempter came. 'I rely upon you, Frederick! You are the Fatherland's only hope, for Germany can achieve its destinies only through blood and iron.'

"'One more supreme effort, Frederick, then the War Lord will turn husbandman, making you manager-general of his great farm stretching from the Arctic Circle to the Mediterranean, from the Atlantic to Siberia.'

"As you know, the War Lord is an insinuating talker," continued Frau Krupp, "and his autocratic manner, enhanced by occasional flurries of condescension and persuading Frederick to join in his social relaxations. Ah!" she cried, striking the table with her hand, "it was these that forged the bullet which killed my husband!"

There was a shrill tone of rage and defiance in the last words. Then emotion mastered Frau Krupp's strength. She tottered, swayed, and would have fallen had not Franz caught her. He knew what she had suffered through her husband's intimacy with the War Lord and his cronies, and shuddered.

"Mother," he said unconsciously, as her head touched his breast. The Baroness let it rest there a moment; here was a tower of strength, of reserve force.

"Alas!" she continued, after a tense silence, "in the long run they ensnared Frederick. He succumbed to their ensnaring wiles as a foolish man might to the flatteries of a flirt. My counsel was no longer sought; the promises he had made – which I had exacted in happier days – were forgotten or denied. The very ploughs and ploughshares we were manufacturing then were thrown into the melting-pot for guns."

She picked up a book lying on the mantel. "'Vital Statistics of the German Empire,'" she read aloud; "'Steady Increase of Population.'" She flung the volume on the hearth. "Multiply like the Biblical sands; it only means that Essen works the harder to put you under the sod."

Frau Krupp dropped her voice and went on in a whisper: "Do you understand now what your threatened retirement would mean? It would mean that, excepting France and Great Britain, the whole of the world, all the smaller nations, would be practically at the War Lord's mercy, because their guns wouldn't shoot, their swords and lances wouldn't pierce.

"Such is the goal he has been striving for, the goal he wants to attain through my little girl. 'Have them all inadequately armed, and it will be a walk-over for German arms,' he calculates."