22.

WHAT HAPPENED?

 

 

I didn't know what happened. Sometimes in my dreams I dream that I heard the shots, but I couldn't have heard them. I was sound asleep, half a mile away. I do remember - I think I do remember - that as I went downstairs to take the telephone call I heard the loud distinctive klaxons of the Berlin police cars.

I didn't know what happened, and neither did most of the people who wrote the hundreds of thousands or millions of words that were published during the uproar of the next weeks, so I think the best way to tell this part is to hear three very different witnesses.

Ernst von Salomon was sentenced to five years in prison for his part in what happened that morning. A veteran of the Freikorps, same age as Kaspar Keith, he eventually became a writer, and in 1930 he published Die Geächteten, which means "The Outlaws." He called it a novel.

He tells us that on Saturday the 24th of June, 1922, about half-past ten in the morning, a big car was parked in a side street off the Koenigsallee, in Grunewald. One man, Fischer, stood on watch at the corner of the Koenigsallee. Techow was fastening the hood. He reported to their leader, Kern, that the oil pump was busted, but it would do for a short, fast ride.

Von Salomon writes that Kern remained cool and unconcerned. . "If we're caught, just blame it all on me" Kern said cheerfully, putting on a big leather driving coat,.then carefully lifting a submachine gun out of the trunk and sliding it between the seats.

"God, it makes so little difference what you say. Say what the people will understand, the people who believe what they read in the papers. As far as I'm concerned, you can tell them he was one of the Elders of Zion, or any other nonsense you can think of.... They're never going to understand what motivated us anyway. But don't let them catch you. Soon, every man will be needed."
Kern pulled a leather flying cap over his head. Encircled by the tight brown frame, his face looked bold and open. to the much-younger von Salomon. " Kern leaned closer, grabbed my arm and said quietly: 'You can't imagine how glad I am that it's all behind me.' "
Now they saw a small maroon automobile coming slowly up the Koenigsallee..
"It's him! "
Fischer raced back from the corner and climbed into the back of the car, beside Kern. Techow, behind the wheel., started the engine. The car began to move. As it roared around the corner, Kern looked back at von Salomon once more. "His face looked bold and open."

A new house was being built on the. Koenigsallee. One of the bricklayers gave this account to reporters from the Vossische Zeitung:

About 10:45 two cars came up the Koenigsallee from the direction of Hundekehle. The first carried a single, older gentleman in the back seat. We could see him clearly because the top was down. The second car was bigger, a high-powered six-seater open convertible. There are always lots of cars in the Koenigsallee, but we all noticed this one because of the fancy leather outfits these men
were wearing the driver in front, two others in the back. They wore long leather driving coats and leather caps that covered everything but their faces...
When the smaller car slowed down for the S-curve, the larger car began to pass, forcing the smaller one all the way over to our side of the street. The gentleman in the back seat turned to see if there would be a crash. At that moment, one of the men in the leather coats put a machine pistol to his shoulder, leaned forward, and fired a burst directly at the gentleman in the smaller car. He was so close that he really didn't need to aim. I could see his face as he was shooting. It was a healthy open face - the sort of face we call an officer's face.... Then the other man in leather stood up and threw a hand grenade into the smaller car, the big car pulled away, turned the corner, and disappeared down the Wallotstrasse.
In the meantime, the chauffeur of the little car had brought it to a stop, shouting "Help! Help!" The gentleman in the back was slumped down, covered with blood - and then the grenade exploded, throwing him into the air.... I don't know why the whole car was not destroyed.... A young girl ran over from the trolley stop, climbed into the back of the car and tried to help, but the gentleman was unconscious - if he wasn't dead already. The chauffeur turned the car around and drove to the police station, which is only thirty yards back down the Koenigsallee....


When Christoph telephoned, he had just heard the news from Helena. Rathenau's butler had called; he wanted her to tell Rathenau's mother before somebody else did, and Helena had rushed off to do this in person. Christoph asked me to meet him at Helena's apartment as soon as I could get there. Then he hung up.

What about Kaspar? No Amytal in over twenty-four hours. Might he just get up and disappear?

I looked in. Meier had brought a glass of milk and a roll. "You awake, Kaspar?"

His eyes were open and he nodded, but he didn't focus on me. Should I tell him? Yes, I should tell him, but I was afraid to, so I didn't. He still seemed to be thoroughly under the influence of the drug, and after a week in bed his muscles would not get him very far. I told the Meiers where I was going, and walked down to Roseneck to catch the trolley into town.

People were pouring into the streets. The traffic clogged. Nobody knew exactly what had happened, or where, and people shouted every sort of rumor at each other: a bomb had gone off in Rathenau's car; a bomb had gone off in the Reichstag; Wirth and Rathenau were both dead; the Reichswehr had declared martial law...

Men were climbing up on tables of the sidewalk cafes, making speeches to the crowds that formed around them. The Republic is in mortal danger. This is another Putsch from the Right. The workers must stand together again. Flags in the streets and flags in the windows.

Somewhere along the Kurfürstendamm I got out of the trolley and walked the rest of the way, through streets that became hot and increasingly crowded with worried, confused-looking people who didn't seem to know what to do but wanted to do something. That is what I saw.

Ernst von Salomon writes that he wandered through the mobs, seething with hatred, wanting to shoot somebody President Ebert, Chancellor Wirth-- but no worthy target appeared."

Years later, as I read those words, I could only think of Kaspar Keith, just waking from his amobarbital dreams while von Salomon and maybe Tillessen and who knows how many others were skulking through the crowded streets, grinding their teeth, looking for other worthy targets....

Helena's maid told me that she had not returned, but Christoph was out on the balcony, hands in his pockets, staring down at the marching columns now forming on both sides of the canal.

"We can get rid of the Amytal," he said, without turning around. "We had enough after all."

I told him I had already done that. I didn't tell him when. "What did Helena say when she called you?" I asked.

"She said: 'You can let your brother out now. The deed is done.' "

"Christoph ... this business with Kaspar -"

He turned. "Peter, I want to express my deepest gratitude for what you have done -"

"Thank you, but I want to make my point: They got Rathenau. Who's next? Wirth? Ebert? You can't keep Kaspar under supervision forever. We kept him out of this one - maybe - but we can't do it again. He's a grown man. There's no way you can control his life."

Christoph nodded. We remained on the balcony silently watching the turmoil until a taxi nudged its way through the crowds and stopped directly below. Bobby von Waldstein climbed out and held the door for Helena, who was dressed entirely in black; even as she glanced up at us we could not see her face, because she was wearing a veil.

We were at the door of the apartment as they came up the stairs. Helena walked into Christoph's arms without a word, and through the veil I could see that her eyes were closed as she leaned against him. Bobby walked past me into the apartment, also without a word, and without looking at me. The maid and I stood there, not knowing what else to do.

After a moment Helena stepped back, removed her hat and her veil, handed them to the maid, and walked into the living room touching her hair. "I have to wash my face. Peter, will you make me one of your martinis, please."

"How was Frau Rathenau?" asked Christoph.

"A pillar of ice. 'My son gave his life for his Fatherland,' was all that she would say."

"Did you have to tell her?"

"No, two police commanders were already there, then the police president, then Chancellor Wirth came with police on motorcycles - The house was full of people, his sister came, there was no use my staying so I left, and as my taxi passed the spot in the Koenigsallee where it happened, there was Bobby in the crowd."

"What was Bobby doing there?" asked Christoph as he followed her out of the room.

The maid brought the gin and the vermouth and a pitcher of ice, and I walked over to the balcony, where Bobby was looking down at the marching people.

"Bobby, may I fix you a drink too?"

He turned and glared at me. I hardly recognized him. "Am I to understand that you knew this was going to happen?"

"Bobby, everybody in Germany knew it was going to happen."

"But you had specific information? Names?"

"We reported them, Bobby. Didn't Helena tell you? We went to see Dr. von Winterfeldt, and he called the Minister -"

"When was this?"

"Yesterday."

"Yesterday?"

"That was the first time we had names.... I mean that was the first time we could see Winterfeldt, but even he said there wasn't enough to arrest anybody -"

"You knew something Sunday night, a week ago, when I drove you to Nikolassee!"

Jesus Christ, I thought, feeling a cramp around my heart. If he doesn't believe us, who will?

The telephone rang and the maid went to answer it. We heard her knocking.

"Herr Oberleutnant? Herr Meier, bitte?"

Christoph took the call in Helena's dressing room. I couldn't hear what he was saying, but a moment later he appeared.

"That was Meier. The police were just at our house. They took Kaspar to the Alexanderplatz."

I spent the next few days in and out of central police headquarters, so Count Kessler must complete this part of the story.

Count Harry Kessler was a rich, cosmopolitan patron of the arts, diplomat, diarist, possibly the illegitimate son of Kaiser Wilhelm I ... an aristocrat with liberal political leanings, a sensitive observer who went everywhere and knew everyone of importance. He was a close friend of Walther Rathenau, whose biography he published in 1928.

That same afternoon, the Reichstag met at three o'clock. Kessler says that Helfferich's appearance was greeted with shouts of "Murderer! Murderer!" Helfferich then disappeared, and later Chancellor Wirth spoke:

"Ever since we first began to serve this new state under the flag of the Republic, millions have been spent in pouring a deadly poison into the body of our people. From Königsberg to Constance the campaign of murder has menaced this country of ours, to whose service we have devoted all our powers of body and mind. In return we are told that what we are doing is a crime against the German people, and that we deserve to be brought to justice [
(Cries of "No! HeIfferich!" from the Left.)
"And then people are surprised when mere deluded boys resort to murder."
On Sunday, there was a special session of the Reichstag, and Wirth gave another speech, blaming the Nationalists. "When a statesman of the rank of Dr. Helfferich speaks here as he did, what must be the effect on the brains of youth who have combined in secretor semi-secret Chauvinist, Nationalist, Antisemitic and Monarchist organizations? It is evident that the result is a sort of 'Feme' . . . The real enemies of our country are those who instill this poison into our people. We know where we have to seek them. The Enemy stands on the Right!" he exclaimed, pointing at the empty benches of the Nationalists, only a few of whom had dared retain their seats, sitting there ill at ease and pale as death, while three- quarters of the House rose and faced them. The effect was tremendous.. . ."
Count Kessler was there. He wrote: "Not since the assassination of Abraham Lincoln has the death of a statesman so shaken a whole nation."
The labor unions declared a national holiday. Huge processions marched in every German city, over a million in Berlin. ... Never before had a German citizen been so honored. The response which had been denied to Rathenau's life and thought was now accorded to his death.


Count Kessler died in 1937, an exile in France. His diaries were published in 1971. The entry for Tuesday, 27 June 1922, describes Rathenau's funeral:

.The ceremony was held in the Chamber of the Reichstag. The coffin lay in state, mounted behind the speaker's rostrum and under a large black canopy suspended from the ceiling". . .. The galleries, like the Chamber itself, were packed. There was not one empty seat, not even among the Nationalists. The focal point was the coffin, draped with a huge flag in the national colors. At its foot there lay two immense wreaths of red and white flowers, to right and left of the colors.
Kessler describes how Chancellor Wirth escorted Rathenau's mother to the Imperial Box, where she sat in the Kaiser's chair. "The face behind the veil might have been carved in stone."
The Egmont Overture was played. More speeches were made. Siegfried's Funeral March was played. Kessler writes that the effect was overwhelming. Many around him cried.
The coffin was carried down the steps outside the Reichstag, where a company of infantry in helmets and field-gray uniforms presented arms, as the coffin, draped in the national flag, was placed on the hearse.
It was raining. To the sound of drums and marching feet, the cortége.
Kessler closes his report: "Lassalle's dream of passing through the Brandenburger Tor as President of a Republic of Germany was today fulfilled by the Jew Rathenau because of his martyrdom in the service of the German people."


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PROLOGUE - THURSDAY, JUNE 15, 1922
I. HOW I GOT THERE
1. PARIS 1922
2. VERDUN 1916
3. IT'S STEALING MONEY, ISN'T IT
4. WHERE WERE YOU IN 1919?
5. RELIABLE TROOPS
6. AN ISLAND
7. BISMARCK FOUND THEM USEFUL
8. INTRODUCTIONS
9. THE LITTLE HOUSE
10. INDIAN CROSSES
11. ANOTHER PART OF TOWN
12. A VIEW OF THE GENDARMENMARKT
13. TWO FOR TEA
14. ON THE TOWN
15. A VIEW OF THE HAVEL
16. REIGEN
II. WHAT HAPPENED
17. THURSDAY, JUNE 15, 1922
18. MONDAY, JUNE 19, 1922
19. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21, 1922
20. FRIDAY, JUNE 23, 1922
21. SATURDAY, JUNE 24, 1922
>22. WHAT HAPPENED?
III. THE WITCHES' SABBATH
23. SILENCE WITH VOICES
24. THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS
25. SAME SONGS, DIFFERENT SINGERS
26. THEY'RE ONLY GOING TO HIRE HIS VOICE
27. INFLATION WORKS IN DIFFERENT WAYS
28. SMALL CHANGE
29. WHY NOT PAINT LILI?
30. COLD WIND IN MAY
31. ROLLING THUNDER
32. WALDSTEIN'S VOICE
33. THE MATTER OF A DOWRY
34. A RUSSIAN WORD AND A GERMAN WORD
35. THE MARCH ON BERLIN
36. A PIG LOSES MONEY ALL THE TIME
37. THE ARTISTS' BALL
IV. STRIKE TWELVE ZEROs
38. AMYTAL DREAMS
39. LETTERS
40. PROFESSOR JAFFA'S PROGNOSIS
41. THE OTHER SUBJECT
42. ROLLING HOME