In The Presence Of My Enemies

They went up to the platform together, and got there just in time to catch the train to Berlin. Willi grabbed the window seat, then proceeded to unfold his paper and ignore the scenery rolling by. He'd seen it often enough, anyhow. So had Heinrich, who sat down beside him and also buried his nose in the Beobachter. Willi seemed to ignore his troubles with Erika, too, except that every once in a while he would come out with a remark that also left Heinrich wondering how to take it.

The two of them stiffened within thirty seconds of each other. They both pointed to the same article on page three. The headline above it said ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. The byline was Konrad Jahnke, not a name Heinrich had seen before. He soon found out why: the author declared himself to be a doctor from

Breslau, not a reporter at all.

I am sick and tired,he wrote,of inaccuracies that blacken the history of the Reichand the heroic deeds of our ancestors. Why men who were not there to see them now presume to cast judgment is beyond me. We should be grateful for what our ancestors accomplished. Without their heroism, Jewish Communists in Russia and Jewish capitalists in England and the United States would have swallowed up the whole world between them.

"Well, well," Willi said. "Looks like the other shoe just dropped, doesn't it?"

"You might say that," Heinrich replied. "Yes, you just might say that. Someone didn't like Stolle's speech, did he?"

"Not very much," Willi said. They both spoke of the article elliptically and in understatements. That was the best way to play down how frightening it was.

Heinrich read on with a detached, horrified fascination: the sort of fascination he would have given to a really nasty traffic accident on the other side of the road.The whole business of repression has been blown out of proportion in some younger men's heads, Dr. Jahnke declared.It overshadows any objective analysis of the past. Hitler may have made mistakes, but no one else could have readied the Reichfor the great struggle against Bolshevism. Anyone who thinks he can deny this suffers from ideological confusion and has lost his political bearings.

Jahnke wasn't afraid to name the Gauleiter of Berlin, saying,Rolf Stolle, in his arrogance, departs substantially from the accepted principles of National Socialism. And, he went on,other leaders try to make us believe that the country's past was nothing but mistakes and crimes, keeping silent about the greatest achievements of the past and the present. He didn't name Heinz Buckliger, but he came close.

There is an internal process in this country and abroad,the doctor from Breslau thundered,that seeks to falsify the truths of National Socialism. Too many ignore the world-historical mission of the Volkand its role in the National Socialist movement. I, for one, can never forsake my ideals under any pretext.

When Heinrich finished the piece, he let out a small, tuneless whistle. Beside him, Willi nodded heavily, as if he'd just done a good job of summing things up. "Who?" Heinrich said. "Who would have the nerve to publish such a thing?"

"Why, you see for yourself," Willi answered. "He's a doctor from Breslau. That gives him the right to say anything he pleases."

"Quatsch,"Heinrich said, and then several things a great deal more pungent than that. "Do you notice how carefully this was timed? Think it's an accident that it shows up in the Beobachter when Buckliger's out of the country?"

"Just a coincidence," Willi said airily. "What else could it possibly be? They got this letter, and an assistant editor liked it, and so…" He couldn't go on, not with a straight face. He started to snort, and then to giggle. Any junior man who published an inflammatory-to say nothing of reactionary-piece like this without getting it cleared from on high would shortly thereafter wish he'd never been born.

"If you want to talk sense now, let's try it again." Heinrich unconsciously lowered his voice, as people did when they spoke of dangerous things. "Who?"

Willi leaned toward him and whispered in his ear: "Prutzmann." Naming the SS chief was more dangerous, and so he did it more quietly. Still whispering, he went on, "Can't be anybody else. If Prutzmann says to print it, who's going to tell him no? the Fuhrer might make a no stick, but he's not here, like you say. Anybody else? Not a chance. No way in hell."

That made much more sense than Heinrich wished it did. If Lothar Prutzmann disliked reform so much, did it have any hope of sticking? If Prutzmann disliked Heinz Buckliger's policies so much, did Buckliger have any chance of staying Fuhrer for very long? It seemed unlikely, to say the least.