‘On the night of February 27, 1933-it is here in my Notes-the German Reichstag building in Berlin went up in flames, and out of the ashes rose the Third Reich. On that night the thorn was plucked, for on that night Carl von Ossietzky, among others, was arrested once more and imprisoned as an enemy of the state. For the first time, there were those who realized that a voice of sanity had been stilled. As Ossietzky suffered torture in the Sonnenburg concentration camp, the German League for the Rights of Man sent his name to Oslo as a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize. But he was “the little man”, and my colleagues ignored him. The following year, news of Ossietzky’s suffering and martyrdom circled the globe, and suddenly the Nobel Peace Committee found itself inundated with official nominations of his name. Romain Rolland nominated him. Albert Einstein nominated him. Thomas Mann nominated him. Jane Addams nominated him. The National Assembly of Switzerland nominated him. The Labour Party of Norway nominated him. I could go on for hours with the nominations that poured into Oslo. No longer could “the little man” be ignored.
‘Now, Miss Wiley, you will see the difficulties that confront a Nobel Prize committee. On the one hand, the intellects of the world were urging the Norwegians to honour and reward a man who had defied the leader of the nation that was Norway’s greatest threat to existence. On the other hand, the Nobel judges were being reminded of the possible outcome of such an award. Inside Norway itself, Knut Hamsun, who had become a Fascist, was writing against Ossietzky, and Vidkun Quisling was calling “the little man” a traitor, in print. The League of Patriots in Norway were demanding that Hitler or Mussolini, not the detestable Ossietzky, receive the 1935 Peace Prize. And outside Norway, the pressure was as strong, stronger. Goebbels was cursing Ossietzky as Jew and Communist, although he was neither a Jew nor a Communist. Hitler’s Schwarzes Korps was warning the Nobel judges that a vote for Ossietzky “would be a slap in the face of the German people.” Göring who knew the Nobel family through his first wife-the Swedish Baroness Karin Fock, who died of tuberculosis in 1932-put himself in touch with the Nobel heirs, and they allegedly advised the Nobel Peace Committee to turn down the Ossietzky nomination.
‘Try to imagine, if you can, the state of mind of each of the five judges on the Nobel Peace Committee. One of the judges was Dr. Halvdan Koht, Foreign Minister of Norway. Another judge was Johan Ludwig Mowinckel, who had been Prime Minister of Norway and was the leader of the Left. Both were powerful men who favoured Ossietzky, but both were practical politicians who knew that if they made Ossietzky a laureate, they were insulting Hitler and inviting him to break off diplomatic relations with their country. In its voting session, the five committee-men debated themselves hoarse. At last, the decision was made. It could not be Ossietzky. The survival of Norway came first. There was talk of giving the prize to Toméš Masaryk, of Czechoslovakia, but even this seemed unsafe. At last, to squirm out of the trouble, the committee determined to give the prize to Prince Carl, of Sweden, for some Red Cross activities of his a decade and a half earlier. But before the vote, it was found that Prince Carl was ineligible, since his nomination had reached Oslo two days after the final deadline. And so the committee threw up its collective hands, and told the world there would be no Peace Prize in 1935-as there is none this year-because there was a war in Africa, and the time was “inappropriate”.’
Throughout this recital, Sue Wiley and Craig had not moved from their places. Jacobsson stared at them meditatively.
‘You wonder about Ossietzky himself, perhaps?’ he went on. ‘Ossietzky was now in the Papenburg concentration camp. The Nazi tortures had ceased, but they did not matter. He was dying of tuberculosis. Had he died at once, the controversy would have been solved, and the world and ourselves the worse off for it. But he did not die yet. He was of indomitable spirit. He lived on, and so, quickly, it was the year 1936, and once more the Nobel Peace Committee was faced with his nomination. Again, it seemed that everyone outside Germany was presenting his name, and you will be happy to know that the names of United States citizens were among the foremost who nominated him. The Nobel Committee polled itself. Two were against Ossietzky, two were for him, and one judge was undecided. Then, overnight, the two who were against Ossietzky because of their political positions-Dr. Koht and Johan Mowinckel-resigned from the committee, and were replaced by substitute judges with no diplomatic entanglements. The day of November 23, 1936, as Germany shouted its threats, the final vote was taken. Yes, Miss Wiley, Carl von Ossietzky was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 1935.
‘Our judges had shown their courage, and now the last act of courage was in the hands of the frail Ossietzky. What would he do? Because of his notoriety, Goebbels had moved him from the concentration camp to the West End Hospital in Berlin. There Göring called on him, stood over him, commanded him to turn down our prize. Ossietzky would not give Göring his answer, but he gave us and our colleagues in Oslo his answer. He smuggled out a cable thanking us and accepting the Nobel Peace award. Hitler’s newspapers ranted, but Ossietzky was defiant to the end. When foreign correspondents, in the presence of the Gestapo, questioned him, he told them that he was proud and reminded them that the armaments race was “insanity”. From his bed, he received a Nobel delegation which congratulated him. His prize of $39,303 he never saw. He signed a power of attorney to have a man in Oslo, who represented a lawyer in Berlin, accept his money for him. It was transferred to a Berlin bank. It was embezzled. It did not matter to Ossietzky. He had won the greater prize. Because of “the little man”, Hitler banned the Nobel awards from Germany and invented his own National State Prizes for the two leading Aryan scientists and a leading Aryan author. But still, Hitler was not satisfied. In 1940, when he marched into Norway and conquered that country, he arrested the entire Nobel committee. It did not matter, because by then the entire free world had been awakened and was fighting, and preparing to fight, for peace. By then, also, Ossietzky had been dead for two and a half years. But I like to think that he has never died.’
Jacobsson paused, and gently closed his green ledger.
‘We have had more famous laureates who have won our Nobel Peace Prize,’ he said. ‘So many more famous names. Jean Henri Dunant. Elihu Root. Woodrow Wilson. Fridtjof Nansen. Aristide Briand. Cordell Hull. Ralph Bunche. Albert Schweitzer. General George Marshall. Philip Noel-Baker. Yes, famous names. But I suspect that of them all, Carl von Ossietzky was the greatest. And because of him, this one moment in our history, our Nobel committees and judges knew greatness, too.’
Jacobsson smiled an indulgent, wrinkled smile.
‘Do spell his name correctly, Miss Wiley, please,’ he said.
She sat moved, but unmoving, features suffused by an embarrassment she could not understand and pen frozen to her fingers. Behind her, Craig stood where he had been standing from the beginning, cold pipe in his hand, touched and shaken at his deepest core.
Sue Wiley swallowed, and it could be heard, and then she emitted one word. ‘Whew,’ she said.
‘If there are any questions-’ Jacobsson began.
But then came the knocking at the door, and Jacobsson freed himself from his chair and opened the door, and it was Mrs. Steen once more. She whispered to him, and he turned to his two guests.
‘I am wanted downstairs a moment,’ he apologized. ‘Always, before the final Ceremony, there are the invitation anglers. Please relax here as long as you-’