World War 2 Thriller Collection: Winter, The Eagle Has Flown, South by Java Head

Someone invited Frau Wisliceny to dance and, left alone, Peter Winter turned to watch two soldiers who were standing near the bar. One of them was Fritz Esser, of course. There was no way of avoiding recognition of the debt he owed him, but he didn’t have to approve of the fellow’s activities or of the horrid little homosexual who’d come here with him. And Peter thought it appalling that the two men should have arrived in their comic-opera uniforms. Captain Graf was wearing the modified uniform of an army captain. Esser wore a new sort of uniform: brown shirt, breeches, boots, and Sam-Browne-style leather belt and shoulder strap. Both men were members of the uniformed ‘army’ that the notorious Captain Ernst Röhm commanded – under ever-changing titles – as a military arm for Hitler’s National Socialist Party. ‘Storm troopers’, they called themselves.

Peter Winter hated the Nazis almost as much as he hated the communists. He distrusted their cavalier use of words such as ‘freedom’, ‘honour’, ‘bread’ and ‘security’. He believed that only stupid people could define the failings and opportunities of this complex world by means of trite catchall mottos.

Deep down he had always hoped that by some miracle he’d wake up and find himself back in a well-ordered world run from the Imperial Palace by that autocrat Kaiser Wilhelm, who cared nothing for what the Reichstag decreed. But, gradually and grudgingly, he’d come to believe that the new postwar constitution provided a truly democratic framework by means of which Germany would again become the greatest nation in the world.

Despite his distaste for socialism, Peter Winter was that evening one of the very few people in the Winter house – or, indeed, in the whole city – who supported Ebert, the socialist president. Germany must be run by the law; that was why he was studying to be a lawyer. The organized violence of communists and Nazis was a threat to the law, to the stability of German middle-class society, and therefore to everything that Peter held dear.

So Peter Winter found it difficult to conceal his hostility as he walked over to where Captain Graf was talking to Fritz Esser. He hated these men not only for what they were but because of their continuing association with Pauli. He had a sense of foreboding that made him want to protect his younger brother from these unpleasant rascals. At least he’d been able to persuade Pauli to leave Graf’s wretched Freikorps. Had he remained in Munich with them much longer, there was little doubt that Pauli would have become a Nazi stormtrooper and been here tonight in one of these ridiculous uniforms.

‘Not dancing, gentlemen?’ said Peter provocatively. He signalled to the waiter for more champagne for his guests. They knew who he was, of course, Graf had met him before, and Esser had known him from the time he’d pulled him out of the sea off Travemünde.

‘We are talking business,’ said Graf. He had a notebook in his hand, and he was wearing steel-rimmed spectacles to read from it.

‘Come along! This is a celebration. Drink! Dance! Have fun!’

Neither of the two men could decide how to respond to Peter’s friendly words, but both knew they were being mocked. As he turned his head, Graf’s spectacle lenses flashed with the reflections of the grand chandeliers, and his fierce eyes showed anger.

When the servant had poured wine for both men, Esser lifted his glass in salute. ‘Prosit!’ he said and grinned broadly. Peter bowed and took his leave of them.

‘The place is full of Jews,’ Graf told Esser once Peter Winter had gone. ‘And the Winter family have grown rich and fat feasting on the corpses of our comrades.’

‘Our time will come,’ said Esser. He put a thumb into his belt and stood surveying the dancers like a lion tamer.

Captain Graf was looking at the far end of the room, where four young girls in scanty sequined two-piece outfits had suddenly started their dance. Captain Graf didn’t share Esser’s appreciation for half-naked girls, and he turned away with a scowl on his face. ‘Jewish, capitalist filth!’ said Graf.

Esser grunted and continued to watch the floor show. The girls were Pauli Winter’s idea; they’d been specially brought over to the house from a Revue-Bar. Esser recognized the dancers, and the girls knew him. His face was known at every drinking place in Berlin, from the Kempi on Leipziger Strasse to the sleazy little bars on Invalidenstrasse where pimps plied their trade. Esser, unlike Graf, liked girls. He drank his champagne. He had long ago learned that everything of which Captain Graf disapproved was ‘Jewish, capitalist filth’, and until now he had never dared to contradict his boss. But the past year had seen a change in Esser’s loyalties. He’d been close enough to the Nazi Party leadership to know that Graf’s hero – and immediate commander – Röhm was not blindly loyal to Hitler. Soon there must come a confrontation between Röhm’s uniformed SA – Sturmabteilung – and the grey-faced civilians of the Nazi Party leadership, and Esser had decided that, whether Hitler got a prison sentence or not, his future was with ‘Der Chef’. ‘They are damned good dancers,’ said Esser defiantly and applauded the Revue-Bar girls. Captain Graf snorted angrily, stuffed his notebook back in his breast pocket, and strutted off towards the upstairs smoking room and bar.

Pauli Winter saw Graf’s tiff with Esser from the dance floor. Pauli was transformed. No longer in the haircut that he’d had since entering cadet school, which had made his skull into a furry pink billiards ball, his blond hair was long enough to fall forward across his eyes. His new evening suit – from his father’s tailor – fitted close upon his stocky, muscular figure, and many female eyes watched him with interest as he waltzed with one of the Guggenheimer daughters. His student life had revealed a new aspect of Pauli, for he was a sociable young man who enjoyed parties, girls, drinks, and dancing more than lectures and books. On this account his first exam results had been so poor that he’d not yet told his father about them. Sometimes he wondered why he’d let his parents persuade him to go to university, but they had been determined to get him out of the Freikorps. They were hypocrites. They applauded the way the Freikorps fought the communists but deplored Graf and the men who did the fighting.

It was not easy to adapt to the schoolroom again after the violent rough-and-tumble of the Freikorps. But Peter was at the law school, too, and Peter sorted out all the problems in that rather imperious way that he did everything. But even Peter couldn’t help Pauli get better marks. Company Law was not something that interested Pauli very much but, as usual, Pauli wanted to please his parents. He wanted to please everyone: he knew it was a foolish weakness, but he too often agreed to whatever was required of him rather than be subjected to long arguments.

When the dance ended, Pauli applauded the band and thanked Hetti Guggenheimer. She was a pretty girl – dark hair and large brown eyes with lashes that she too readily fluttered at young men. Hetti Guggenheimer was one of Pauli’s fellow first-year students. She was studying medicine and always got top marks. Hetti’s next dance was booked with someone else, but she went through the motions of referring to her card before excusing herself to Pauli. Pauli didn’t mind too much. There were lots of pretty girls here, and he was popular with the girls. Although he’d never grown as tall as his brother, Pauli had the American good looks of the Rensselaer family. His cheekbones set high in a bony skull, large intense eyes, and wide smile had made him look like the sort of actor that Hollywood casts as a cowboy. And, like the archetypal cowboy, he was soft-spoken, easy-tempered, and uncomplaining. Now, taking his leave of Hetti, he went back to where he’d left his beer and looked round the room. He saw Esser and Graf having what was obviously some sort of argument and watched Graf go strutting upstairs angrily. Pauli smoothed his disarrayed hair, tucked in his rumpled shirt, and went over to Esser. ‘Is everything all right, Fritz?’

‘Everything is just fine.’

‘I saw Captain Graf come past me. He looked angry.’

‘You know what he’s like, Pauli. His anger passes.’

‘You usually get along so well with him.’

Esser drunk champagne and Pauli realized that he was thinking about his reply. Finally he said, ‘Things have changed since the old days, Pauli. After you left us to go to school, the battalion became different.’ It was nearly a year since Pauli had left them to start the cramming course he’d taken before the entrance exam. Ten months of living with his parents. It seemed much longer. Much, much longer.

‘Different how?’

‘Too many youngsters. Spiteful kids who never went to the war and want to show how tough they are. And I miss Berlin.’

‘And Graf?’

‘He’s become too pally with Röhm, and I don’t get along with Röhm. He’s too damned ambitious to be a soldier. He plays politics.’ Esser looked round to be sure he wasn’t overheard. ‘I went to the Führer and told him what was happening.’

‘The Führer? Hitler?’

‘I told him that Röhm is looking for an opportunity to take over. With the Führer in prison, Röhm could take control of everything.’

‘Perhaps Röhm will be sentenced to a long prison term, too.’

‘It’s possible. But Röhm has remarkable friends and supporters: in the army, in the Bavarian government, and in the judiciary, too. They all know that sooner or later the Nazis will come to power.’

‘So you believe the Nazis will get into power,’ said Pauli. The idea of that small, cranky organization forming a government seemed unlikely.

‘Good men will be needed then, Pauli. Reliable men like you. When you’ve finished at law school, there will be a good job waiting for you.’

‘With the Nazis?’

‘All the top men are lawyers. I’m even thinking of studying law myself.’

Pauli slapped him on the shoulder. ‘You could do it, Fritz. I would help you.’

He laughed self-consciously. ‘I’d need coaching. I left school when I was fourteen.’

‘We’ll talk about all that next week, when we have lunch. So you are a Nazi?’

‘Yes, I am a secret member. That cunning bastard Röhm tries to keep us brownshirts separated from the Party. Röhm still has dreams of ditching Hitler and restoring the monarchy, but the Führer knows what he’s doing.’

‘I hope you know what you’re doing, Fritz,’ said Pauli. He was flattered that Esser had taken him into his confidence, for these were days when any small disloyalty was enough to get a man murdered.

‘I have a nose for what’s what. I’m not really a soldier; I’m a political person. I always have been,’ said Esser.

‘What will happen next? Your Hitler is certain to get a long prison sentence, isn’t he?’

‘We’ll bide our time,’ said Esser. ‘Adolf Hitler is the man Germany needs; we must wait for him, however long.’

‘For God’s sake, be careful, Fritz. You said Röhm is a ruthless bastard. If he finds out that you’re betraying him…’

‘I know how to handle him. He’s a homosexual, like Graf. There are too many homosexuals around Röhm; that’s one of the things I don’t like about the situation in Munich. I treat them all like spoiled brats. One day the Führer will deal with them. Until then those pansies need me. Röhm is hiding guns for the army – secret dumps all over the country. More than twenty thousand rifles, machine guns … even artillery.’ He grinned. ‘Without my office files they’d never know where anything is to be found.’

‘Alex Horner is here tonight. You should talk to him. One day he’ll end up as chief of the General Staff. There might be a time when an influential friend in the Reichswehr would be useful to you.’ Pauli wanted his friends to be friends with one another. It was something of an obsession with him.

Fritz Esser downed his drink. ‘Thanks, Pauli. But don’t worry about me. I know what I’m doing. Sometime we’ll go out and get drunk and I’ll tell you some stories about the Munich putsch that will make your hair curl. It nearly came off! I marched alongside the Führer. I was in Odeonsplatz when the police opened fire. The Führer was no more than thirty paces from me. He was still wearing his evening suit, with a trenchcoat over it. The man next to him was shot dead; he pulled the Führer down with him. Captain Göring was wounded. Only Ludendorff ignored the gunfire and marched on through the police cordon. It was a wonderful experience, Pauli.’

‘It was a fiasco,’ said Pauli, not unkindly.

‘One day you’ll regret you were not with us. We made history.’

‘Have another drink, Fritz. And then let’s see if we can find Alex. I want to get the two of you together.’

At that moment Pauli’s old friend Leutnant Alex Horner was smoking a cigar in Harald Winter’s study and being quizzed by Winter and old ‘Foxy’ Fischer. The study had never been refurnished since the Winters first moved in. The walls were lined with more or less the same books, and the floor covered with the same richly coloured oriental carpet. The same inlaid mahogany desk occupied one corner, and the only light came from the green-shaded desk lamp. Everything was clean and well cared for, but the footstools, like the polished leather wing armchairs, were scuffed and scarred by carelessly held cigars and the marks from drink glasses. The study, more than any other room in the house, had escaped unchanged over these eventful years, and Harald liked it all just the way it was; even the engraved portrait of Kaiser Wilhelm remained on the wall.