"Oh, Lanny, you should come to see it!" wrote Heinrich Jung, ecstatically. "It will be something the like of which has not been seen in the world before. All our youth forces will assemble in the Lustgarten in the morning and President Hindenburg himself will address us. In the afternoon there will be costume parades of every craft and trade, even every great factory in Germany. All will gather in the Tempelhof Airfield, and the decorations will exceed anything you could imagine. The rich are paying for them by buying tickets so as to sit near the Führer. Of course He will speak, and afterwards there will be fireworks like a battle—three hundred meters of silver rain! I beg you and your wife to come as my guests—you will always be glad that you witnessed these historic scenes. . . . P.S. I am sending you some literature about our wonderful new labor program. You cannot have any doubts after this."
Lanny wrote, acknowledging the letter and expressing his regrets. It cost nothing to keep in touch with this ardent young official, and the literature he sent might some day be useful to Rick. Lanny was quite sure that he wouldn’t care to enter Germany so long as Adolf Hitler remained its Chancellor.
III
The celebration came off, with all the splendor which Heinrich had promised. Everything was the biggest and most elaborate ever known, and even the hardboiled foreign correspondents were awestricken; they sent out word that something new was being born into the world. On the enormous airfield three hundred thousand persons had assembled by noon, to sit on the ground and await ceremonies which did not begin until eight in the evening. By that time there were a million or a million and a half in the crowd, believed to be the greatest number ever gathered in one place. Hitler and Hindenburg drove side by side, the first time that had happened. They passed along Friedrichstrasse, packed to the curb with shouting masses, and hung with streamers reading: "For German Socialism," and "Honor the Worker." In front of the speaker’s platform stood the new Chancellor, looking over a vast sea of faces. He stood under the spotlight, giving the Nazi salute over and over, and when at last he spoke, the amplifiers carried his voice to every part of the airfield, and wireless and cables carried it over the world.
The new Chancellor’s message was that "the German people must learn to know one another again." The divisions within Germany had been invented "by human madness," and could be remedied "by human wisdom." Hitler ordained that from now on the First of May should be a day of universal giving of hands, and that its motto was to be: "Honor work and have respect for the worker." He told the Germans what they wanted most of all to hear: "You are not a second-rate nation, but are strong if you wish to be strong." He became devout, and prayed: "O Lord, help Thou our fight for liberty!"
Nothing could have been more eloquent, nothing nobler. Did Adi wink to his journalist and say: "Well, Juppchen, we got away with it," or some German equivalent for that slang? At any rate, on the following morning the labor unions of Germany, representing four million workers and having annual incomes of nearly two hundred million marks, were wiped out at one single stroke. The agents of the job were so-called "action committees" of the Shop-Cell Organization, the Nazi group which had carried on their propaganda in the unions. Armed gangs appeared at the headquarters of all the unions, arrested officials and threw them into concentration camps. Their funds were confiscated, their newspapers suppressed, their editors jailed, their banks closed; and there was no resistance. The Socialists had insisted upon waiting until the Nazis did something "illegal"; and here it was.
"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.
IV
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."