Whenever the Fuehrer was in Munich and had some time on his hands, he would arrive at the Carlton for coffee after his presumably vegetarian lunch. His arrival was signalled by a quickly gathering crowd outside and the shouts of ‘Heil Hitler’. I would get up as rapidly and as inconspicuously as possible and disappear into the washroom. The other guests would rise upon Hitler’s entry and would stand, facing his route of progress, with their arms raised until he had sat down. His party was usually small, perhaps four to six people and would invariably include his adjutant, Brückner, with whom I sometimes played tennis.
Once Hitler had sat down at his table in the left corner of the second of the Carlton’s two rooms, I would return to my seat. This I usually managed to choose in such a way that I could also pretend to miss his departure which was always over very quickly since he left the place with fast long strides before anyone had time to get up and ‘Heil’ him. Thus, during my three years of visiting the Carlton, unlike all the other guests, I never once gave the Hitler salute as the Fuehrer went by.
Whenever necessary, we were also alerted by a marvellous waitress named Rita who had become quite famous for threatening Julius Streicher, the infamous Jew-baiter, with expulsion from the Carlton when he attempted to unwrap some home-made cake. ‘This’ she explained ‘is a high-class tearoom and if you wish to act like a labourer you should eat elsewhere’. Streicher, blushingly, re-wrapped his cake and was not seen at the Carlton again.
The group around Heinz Ickrath sailed very close to the political wind in June 1934. Munich Police President Schneidhuber was, as I have mentioned, shot dead in the course of the frantic actions surrounding the executions of Röhm, Strasser[1] and others. Schneidhuber was a close friend of the Carlton group and whilst they did not attend his funeral they did make a collection on behalf of his widow which produced a staggering amount of money and some raised eyebrows in high quarters – I helped collect the money but was not then identified with the action. That occurred only much later.
My other group of friends was quite different, they were much more mixed, younger and more flamboyant. Included in this group was: Herbert Engelhardt, who was vaguely involved in selling used cars; Herbert Hemmeter, the son of the famous distilling family who because of his stature and features was known as the ‘garden dwarf’; Fritz Schoettele, briefly the Bavarian downhill ski champion; and Fredy Goldstern who until his flight from impending concentration camp detention was my best friend. There was also Fredy’s sister Alice, a very gifted sculptor.
At six feet tall however the outstanding figure in this group, in more ways than one, was an American music student named Gilbert Roe, who had come to Munich for six weeks to study piano under a famous teacher and stayed six years until he had his brush with the authorities over exporting cars, bought with Sperrmarks, (blocked marks – see Chapter 8, Note 1), which he had planned to sell in Switzerland for hard, Swiss Francs. Gilbert had an annual income of something like $18,000, which was a fortune in those days, which made him the only member of our ‘club’ who always had liquid funds.
We often met at the Regina Hotel where the barman, Rosenow, reigned supreme. He was also an infallible message centre, counsellor on any subject from sex to travel, occasional banker and, as we discovered much later, informant for the Gestapo (secret police).
Two of Fredy Goldstern’s brothers hurriedly left Germany but Fredy and Alice kept hanging on – Fredy because he was a ranking tennis player, and Alice because she was too absorbed in her work and her love for a Dr Otto Walter. The siblings were also trying to persuade their aging parents to liquidate their substantial property in Munich and get ready to go. This situation prevailed in many Jewish families. They found it hard to see the writing on the wall and they paid the terrible price of death for their inertia which, so often, was due to their love for Germany – their home, which they did not want to leave.
One morning, I found the Goldstern family in turmoil. Fredy had been summoned to police headquarters and the Rumanian Consul had warned him to get out at once. The whole family was in a pitiful state of indecision and I felt totally sure of impending disaster.
I cannot remember the arguments I used, but within no time Fredy and I were heading for Freilassing and the Austrian border in a second-hand two-litre BMW which I had planned to sell later that morning. I do remember that we left Munich eleven minutes after the Orient Express, which stopped at Freilassing for passport control, and I drove at an insane speed to get to the border in time for Fredy to catch the train. There were then, of course, no speed limits or controls and as we roared across the bridge over the railway before Freilassing station, the Orient Express rolled in underneath. Fredy ran, brandishing his passport, and they let him get aboard. I never saw him again, but I believe he went to Bucharest under the Communists, where he was probably unhappy, but alive.
His parents were murdered.
Alice left Germany when Otto Walter went to the USA with his new visa. (Some years later I loaned her my flat in Dolphin Square when I went into the army and she was tragically killed there in one of the first German air raids on London).
However, whilst it may have been underway, the Nazi terror machine needed breaking-in. The police, the civil service and all official organs of the country had to be converted to Hitler’s frightful reign. This took time, as I was fortunate to discover, but when it had been done there was ruthless, murderous efficiency everywhere – total extermination of the Jews, total destruction of the opponents of the Nazi Regime, total preparation for war – and all of it carried out with total devotion by all those who could make their contribution, totally convinced that they would be victorious and would never be taken to task.
For all sorts of reasons, the warnings continued to be ignored, because to fully understand and interpret them was emotionally and intellectually beyond most of us; or was too uncomfortable, as in my case. That, certainly, was my frame of mind when I handed the BMW to its new owner that same day and went back to having a wonderful time.
6. HALCYON DAYS
PART OF THE ENCHANTMENT OF THE TIMES was, thanks to Gilbert Roe’s Dollars, the ease with which my friends and I could travel abroad, particularly to Grand Prix races, which we often did together with a variety of lady friends.
One of those eventful trips, to the Monte Carlo Grand Prix, is well worth mentioning. On route we suffered a puncture and found the spare was also flat. It was getting dark and we were somewhere in the mountains, miles from any town and garage and there was no traffic. However, there was an impressive, chateau-like building up a dirt road, so off we went, hoping it would be inhabited and hospitable. I knocked on the huge wooden door of the courtyard and, after some minutes, the door opened, slightly. We must have looked reasonably respectable because an old man, the epitome of the proverbial family retainer, decided to admit us.
We explained our predicament and he departed to consult a higher authority. This appeared shortly in the person of the Grand Seigneur, a man probably in his eighties who radiated courtesy and benevolence. He explained that the telephone did not function this late in the evening, ‘But we must of course be his guests for dinner and stay the night’. With the token assistance of the family retainer, we returned to our car for some over-night things and were then shown, four of us, to separate bedchambers each complete with a four-poster bed, picture galleries of ancestors, washstands, chamber pots and tasselled ropes for ringing the bell. I threw open the shutters and had a breath-taking view of the mountains. The sun had already set and I felt quite elated by the beauty of the moment and the good fortune we were having in finding this experience, which, it turned out later, was to be unique and never-to-be-forgotten.
1
Gregor Strasser was another prominent Nazi official and politician who was also murdered during the Night of the Long Knives in 1934 (see note 2 to Chapter 4).