Chapter 4

And why should they invade a grovelling satellite? Germany might well be the new Byzantium, he liked to say over wine: a stable well-run tyranny, geared to run a thousand years, just as Hitler boasted. Byzantium had lasted almost that long, waxing and waning through the centuries as rivals grew strong or weak, pushing its borders out and shrinking them back much like Germany; but always hanging on, and often triumphing, with its military advantages of tyranny, centrality, and interior lines. A nation's history was formed by its geography, as another villainous tyrant, Napoleon, had long ago pointed out; and autocraty was the form of government most congenial to Europe anyway. As a Jew, Jastrow of course detested Hitler. But as a philosophical historian, he could place him, and even give him good marks for willpower and political skill. He quite disbelieved the atrocity stories; warmedover British propaganda, he said, which he still remembered well from the last war. Natalie, however, was getting scared. Ever since Finland's entry into the war had stopped the freighter from sailing, she had sought another way out. They were still quite free to go. But now she had to deal with the Italian railroads, airlines, and emigration offices. Altogether, they made a soft fuzzy paralyzing snarl. The thought of confinement far from home, of feeding a newborn infant the rations of pinched Italy, began to alarm her as nothing had before. President Roosevelt was intervening more and more openly in the Atlantic; a sudden declaration of war by Hitler'would undoubtedly drag along Mussolini, and she and her uncle would be interned as enemy aliens! The worst stumbling block at this stage was a thing called an exit permit. Formerly it had given her no trouble at all. The yellow card stamped in purple cost a few lire, and could be purchased as soon as one had ship, train, or air tickets to show. But now an application caused hemming, hawing, and mighty searchings of bureaucratic hearts. Once, after several disappointments, Natalie did get hold of two plane seats to Lisbon, and rushed them to the emigration office. An official took the tickets and the passports from her, telling her to come back in four days. On her return, the same stout and amiable official, breathing clouds of garlic, handed the passports back to her with a sigh. The military had requisitioned the two places on the airplane. The e)tit permits were therefore not granted, he said, but in due course the fare money would be refunded. The very next day she heard the first exultant BBC broadcast about the meeting in Newfoundland. The entry of the United States into the war sounded like an accomplished fact. Out of sheer despair she at once concocted a reckless scheme. She would play the card most likely to touch the Italian heart: her pregnancy. She was really having intermittent bleeding. The Americans she knew were sarcastic and skeptical about Roman doctors. They had told her of an obstetrician in Zurich, one Dr. Wundt, the best man outside the Nazi reach in Europe. She decided to request permission from Swiss authorities for a short medical visit: two weeks,ten days, whatever she could get. Pleading her bad condition, she would take her uncle along and so get e)tit permits. Once in Switzerland, they would by book or by crook stay there until they obtained passage to the United States. Aaron Jastrow had a publisher in Zurich, and she knew Bunky Thurston had been transferred there from Lisbon. Once she thought of it, the idea seemed brilliant. To her delight, Aaron after some argument agreed to play his part. He would leave his travelling library, his luggage, and all his work papers at the hotel; everything except the typed book itself, which he would carry in one small valise with his clothing. If challenged, he would say he intended to work on the inky interlineated pages during the brief Zurich visit. If the Italians did not want Jastrow to leave for good-something Natalie now half-suspected-such a casual departure might deceive them. The Atlantic Charter broadcast had given Jastrow, too, a flicker of concern; that was why he consented. The dodge worked like a charm. Natalie booked passage to Zurich and got the exit permits. A week later she and Dr. Jastrow flew to Switzerland. Everything was in order, except that he did not have formal permission from the Swiss, as she did, to stay for ten days. The document issued to him simply stated that he was accompanying an invalid for her safety enroute. When Natalie telephoned Bunky Thurston in Zurich about this, he said they had better leave it on that basis, and not push their luck further. He could take care of Aaron once they arrived. The Zurich terminal was startling with its bustle, its clean glitter, its open shops crammed with splendid clothing, watches, porcelain, and jewelry, its heaped boxes of chocolates, exquisite pastries, and fresh fruits. Natalie ate a big yellow pear as she walked to Thurston's car, uttering little moans of delight. 'Ah, this pear. This pear! My God," she said, "what a filthy thing Fascism is. What a foul idiocy war is! Europe's a rich continent. Why do the bloody fools lay it waste time after time? The Swis are the only smart Europeans." "Yes, the Swiss are smart," Thurston sighed, stroking the enormous mustache, which was as sleek and perfect as ever. The rest of his face had paled and aged as though he were ill. "How's your submariner?" '"Who knows? Dashing around the Pacific. Have you ever witnessed a crazier wedding?" Natalie turned to Jastrow, her eyes all at once gone from dulled suffering to the old bright puckish gleam. "Bunky signed the marriage document. Do you like Zurich better than Lisbon, Bunky?" "I don't like to think of eighty million Germans seething just beyond the Alps. But at least they're nice high Alps.-Here we are, the red Citroen.-The tragic refugee thing goes on here too,Natalie, but less visibly, less acutely. In Lisbon it was just too horrible." Aaron Jastrow said as they drove down the highway, 'Will they -,end our passports to you at the consulate?" "Maybe you'll just pick them up when you go back." 'But we're not going back, darling," Natalie said. "Aaron, give me your handkerchief, my face is all pear juice. I wish I could bathe in pear juice." "It's my only handkerchief," Jastrow said. Thurston pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket and passed it to her. 'What do you mean, you're not going back?" "My uncle and I intend to hop the first train, plane, or goat cart out of here, so long as it heads for the good old USA. I couldn't tell you that over the telephone, Bunky, obviously. But it's the whole point of this trip." "Natalie, it won't work." "Why on earth not?" "Aaron got through Swiss immigration on my parole. I must return him there. He has no transit visa." After a silence Dr. Jastrow said from the back seat, in a low sad voice, "I thought it was going too easily." "Bunky, wild horses can't get me back to Rome," Natalie said cheerfully. 'I won't have my baby there. That's that. You have to figure out some way to clear Aaron, too. He's here now. His passport is good as gold. I know you can solve this." Thurston ran a careful hand over the mustache as he drove. "Well, you've caught me unawares. Give me a little time." "I've got ten days," Natalie said. "There aren't too many ways to travel out of Zurich now," said Thurston. "I'll look into this a bit." He left them outside Dr. Herman Wundt's office, which was in an old four-story house decked with flower-filled window boxes, and took their suitcases off to the hotel. Jastrow dozed in an anteroom while Wundt examined Natalie. After asking a few questions and noting the answers on a card, the bald freckled doctor, a gnome not as tall as her uncle, with big ears and darting little brown eyes, probed, palpated, took specimens, and submitted Natalie to the usual indignities, and a couple of new painful ones with strange implements, all the while smiling and chatting in French. She lay on thetable panting and exhausted under a sheet her face sweating, all her lower body in an ache. The breeze brought a delicious scent of sweet peas from the window boxes. "Very well, take a little rest." She heard him washing his hands. He returned with a notebook and sat beside her. "You're as strong as a horse, and you're carrying that baby perfectly." "I had three bleeding episodes." "Yes. You mentioned that. When was the last one?" "Let's see. A month ago. Maybe a little more." "Well, you can wait around a day or so for the result of the smear, and the urine test, and so forth. I'm almost sure they'll be negative, and Dr. Carona will deliver a fine baby for you. I know him well. He's the best man in Rome." "Dr. Wundt, unless I go back to the States, I'd rather stay and have the baby here. I don't want to return to Rome." "So? Why?" "Because of the war. If the United States becomes involved, I'll find myself on enemy soil with a newborn baby." "You say your husband is an American naval officer, in the Pacific Ocean?" "Yes. "You're too far away from him." Natalie sadly laughed. 'I agree, but that's done now." "What kind of name is that-Henry?" "Oh, I guess it's Scotch. Scotch-English." "And your maiden name is Jastrow, you said? Is that Scotch-English too?" "It's Polish." After a pause, as the little brown eyes stared at her, she added, "Polish-Jewish." "And that gentlemen outside, your uncle? Is he Polish-Jewish?" "He's a famous American writer." "Really? How exciting. Is he a Polish Jew?" "He was born in Poland.""You can get dressed now. Then come into the other room, please." Dr. Wundt sat hunched in a swivel chair in his tiny office, smoking a cigar. The smoke wreathed up over wrinkled yellow diplomas on the walls, and a dusty engraving of the wounded lion of Lucerne. He rested the cigar in an onyx tray, pressed his fingertips together, and put them to his mouth. The brown-patched old face stared blankly at her. 'Mrs. Henry, in the past few years-I have to be frank with youpregnancy has been used and abused to death here to solve passport difficulties. The immigration authorities have become very hard. I am an alien myself, and my license can easily be revoked. Do I make myself clear?" "But I'm having no passport difficulties," Natalie replied calmly. "None at all. Do you think I can safely travel back to the United States? that's all I want to know.The doctor hunched his shoulders, pursed his lips, and cocked his head like a bright dog, his eyes never leaving her. 'By what means of transportation?" "Airplane, I suppose." "What was Dr. Carona's opinion?" 'I didn't ask him. Despite what you say, I don't have much confidence in him. That's why I want to stay here if I can't fly home." The old doctor's eyes sparked and he spread his hands. "And that's precisely where I can't help you. The authorities will demand from me a written certificate that you're unable to travel. Otherwise they won't extend your stay. You're quite able to fly back to Rome. About flying to the United States"-he cocked his head again-'that is bound to be a rough long journey." Natalie kept an unruffled manner. "You mean I might lose the baby?" "Not necessarily, but an expectant mother with a first baby should avoid such a strain. Your pregnancy history already is not one hundred percent." "Then why make me go back to Rome? The milk and the food are abominable. I don't like the doctor there. He mishandled my bleeding." With a cold edge in his voice, the little doctor said, "Mrs. Henry, a flight to Rome is no problem for you, nothing to justify an extension of your stay. I'm very sorry. The authorities will ask me about your health, not about Roman milk or Dr. Carona." He flipped open an appointment book and peered into it. "I will see you tomorrow at a quarter past five, and we will discuss your tests," At dinner with Thurston and her uncle thatnight, Natalie was quite blithe. The buoyant excitement of being out of Rome, and in a city at peace, overbore Wundt's Sourness; and she was cheered by the examination results. She was "strong as a horse," the infant was kicking lustily inside her, and they had escaped from Fascist Italy. The rest would work out, she thought, especially since Thurston seemed in an optimistic mood. She decided not to quiz him, but let him talk when he was ready. Meantime her common ground with him was Leslie Slote. She told droll anecdotes of her wretched Paris flat: the tiny stairwell elevator in which Slote got stuck and slept all one night, her Algerian landlord's efforts to keep her from cooking, the one-eyed homosexual sculptor on the floor above who pestered Slote to pose for him. Aaron Jastrow had not heard these yarns of young love on the Left Bank. What with the richly satisfying dinner, the fine wine, and the view from the open-air terrace restaurant of Zurich ablaze with lights, his spirits also rose. He accepted a cigar from Thurston, though he had a bad cough. "My lord. Havana!" Dr. Jastrow rolled the smoke on his tongue. "This takes me back ten years to the commons room. How gracious and easy and pleasant life seemed! Yet all the time the villain with the mustache was piling up his tanks and his cannon. Ah, me. You're very merry, Natalie." 'I know. The wine, no doubt, and the lights. The lights! Bunky, electric light is the strongest enchantment there is. Live in a blackout for a few months and you'll see! You know what Zurich reminds me of? Luna Park in Coney Island, when I was a little girl. You walked in a blaze of lights, millions and millions of yellow bulbs. The lights were more exciting than the rides and games. Switzerland's amazing, isn't it? A little dry diving bell of freedom in an ocean of horror. What an experience! I'll never forget this." "You can understand why the Swiss have to be very, very careful," Thurston said. "Otherwise they'd be swamped with refugees." Natalie and her uncle sobered at that last word, listening for what he would say next. The consul smoothed his mustache with both palms. "Don't forget there are more than four million Jews caught in Hitler's Europe. And in all of Switzerland there are only four million people. So the Swiss have become almost as sticky about Jews as our own State Department, but with infinitely more reason. They've got sixteen thousand square miles of land, much of it bare rock and snow. We've got three and a half million square miles. Compare population densities, and we're a vast empty wilderness. We're supposed to be the land of the free, the haven of outcasts. The Swiss make no such claim. Who should be taking in the Jews? Yet they are doing it, but carefully, and within limits. Moreover the Swiss depend on the Germans for fuel, for iron, for all trade, in and out. They're in a closed ring. They're free onlyas long as it suits the Nazis. I can't take a high moral tone with the Swiss authorities about you. As an American official, I'm in a hell of a lousy position for moral tone." Jastrow said, "One can see that." "Nothing's been decided in your case, you understand," the consul said. "I've just been making inquiries. A favorable solution is possible. Natalie, could you endure a long train trip?" "I'm not sure. Why?" "The only airline operating from Zurich to Lisbon now is Lufthansa." Natalie felt a pang of alarm, but her tone was matter-of-fact. "I see. What about that Spanish flight?" "You were misinformed. It shut down back in May. Lufthansa flies once a week, starting from Berlin and making every stop in betweenMarseilles, Barcelona, Madrid. It's a rotten flight. I've taken it going the other way. It's usually crowded with hotshots. Do you want to separate from your uncle and try Lufthansa? Your passport doesn't say you're Jewish. You're Mrs. Byron Henry. Even the Germans have some tenderness for pregnant women. But, of course, for twenty hours or so you'd be in Nazi hands." "What's the alternative?" "Train via Lyons, Nimes, and Perpignan, sliding down the French coast, crossing the Pyrenees to Barcelona, and then, heaven help you, clear across Spain and Portugal to Lisbon. Mountains, tunnels, awful roadbeds, and God knows how many breakdowns, delays, and changes, with a long stretch through Vichy France. Maybe three, maybe six days enroute." Natalie said, "I don't think I should risk that." 'I wouldn't mind trying Lufthansa," said Jastrow in a far-off voice, rolling the cigar in his fingers. "I still don't believe, I truly don't, that the Germans would molest me." Thurston shook his head. "Dr. Jastrow, she's the wife of a Gentile naval officer. I think she'd be all right. Don't you go on Lufthansa!" "What I have to decide, then," Natalie said, "is whether I chance Lufthansa alone, or take the train with Aaron." 'You don't have to decide anything yet. I'm telling you some of the things to think about." Natalie and her uncle killed the next day looking in shopwindows, buying clothes, eating cream cakes, drinking real coffee, riding around in cabs, and luxuriating in the rich freedom of Switzerland, only a few hours by air from brown melancholy Rome. Toward evening she saw Dr.
Wundt again. With a sad shrug, he told her that all her tests were negative. 'That's all right. I may be able to stay, anyway," she said. "My consul's looking into it." "Ah, so?" the little doctor's face brightened. "Perfect! Nothing would please me more. Let me book your lying-in right away, Mrs. Henry. The hospitals are crowded." "I'll let you know in a day or two." "Excellent." In the morning she found a white hotel envelope slipped under the door: Hi. Things are cooking. Meet me at the lake front, both of you, four o'clock, at Zurich Pure Boats. Bunky. When they arrived at the dock, the consul had already hired an open boat with an outboard motor, and was sitting in it, waiting. Without a word he helped them in, started the engine, and went puttering off from the shore. About a mile out he killed the motor, and they couldd hear a German waltz thumping brassily over the blue water from the band of an approaching excursion steamer. "Irve got quite a report for you," Thurston said, and Natalie's hart leaped at his happy grin. "I thought we'd better be by ourselves while we talk it out" 'Is it all arranged?" Jastrow said, with an eagerness that struck his niece as childish. Thurston smoothed a palm over his mustache. "Well, we're not in bad shape." The consul's eyes twinkled at Natalie. 'Say, I've been on the telephone and teletype to Rome. Your Byron outdid his Lisbon feat, didn't he? Talking to President Roosevelt about your uncle's passport! What sheer nerve! Sight unseen, nobody in Rome likes him." 'I can imagine." "Yes, but your uncle's file carries a big 'presidential' flag on it now, and that's just fine. Now, Natalie, you're set. I've put you on the waiting list at Lufthansa. The next two flights are booked, but you've got a reservation on the third. Immigration will extend your stay till then." 'But by then I'll be in my eighth month-' Holding up a hand, Thurston said, "Lufthansa is sure you'll get out sooner. Maybe next week. There are always cancellations, and you're high on the list, because of your pregnancy." 'What about Aaron?" "Well, that's a different story." "She's the important one," Jastrow said dramatically, 'and what happens to me couldn't matter less. I've lived my life." "Hold on, hold on." Thurston smiled. 'Good lord, Dr. Jastrow! Everything's all right. You just can't stay on in Switzerland with her. That's out of the question. But you're set, too. Rome's in a big boil about you now.
The ambassador is outraged. He says that if he has to, he'll appoint you to his staff and send you home on a diplomatic priority. You're returning to Rome, but he'll assume responsibility for dealing with the Italians. We have a lot of Italian bigwigs in the States, Dr. Jastrow, and I promise you there will be no more trouble with your exit permit." "You do think that's better for me than taking the train to Lisbon?" Jastrow's question was rhetorical. He sounded pleased and relieved. "I'm quite willing to attempt that." "Great heavens, Dr. Jastrow. I wouldn't do that myself. It's a gruelling schedule, and I'm not even sure the connections are still available. But the main objection is, you'd be leaving Switzerland illegally. You musn't think of that. At all costs, now that you're legal, stay legal." Jastrow turned to his niece. "Well, my dear! Ills sounds like a parting of the ways." Natalie did not reply. Flying in a German airliner, now that it was upon her, loomed as an ugly prospect. Alw, she was nauseous from the rocking of the boat in the wash of the excursion steamer, which was passing close by with passengers idly looking down at them, and the band blasting out "The Blue Danube." With a keen glance at her, Thurston said, "I know you're set against returning to Rome, Natalie. But if you'll reconsider that, the ambassador will make the identical arrangements for you that he's working on for your uncle. That's what I'd recommend to you, myself." "Well, it all takes some mulling over, doesn't it?" Natalie said. "Can we go back? I'm tired." "Of course." Thurston at once yanked the cord on the flywheel, and the motor started up in a cloud of blue fumes. 'We're so grateful to you," Jastrow exclaimed over the noise. "You've done wonders." "That 'presidential' tag is a help," Thurston said, steering across the spreading wake of the steamer, in jolts and bumps that were almost in time with "The Blue Danube." When Natalie came down to breakfast, her uncle was sitting at a window table of the restaurant in strong sunlight, sipping coffee. "Hello there, lazybones," he said. "I've been up for hours. I hope you're hungry. They have the mort exquisite Polish ham this morning. How would they get Polish ham? I suppose the Germans stole it, and they bought it for gold. It's the best in the world."Natalie ordered coffee and a roll. Jastrow bubbled on. "You're not hungry? I was famished. Strange, isn't it, how far one can come in a lifetime! When I lived in Medzice as a boy, I literally would have let myself be burned alive or shot rather than swallow a piece of ham. Those old taboos deprived us of such simple available pleasures." He looked at his niece, who sat pallid, tense, and glum, with hands folded on her bulky stomach. 'You know, one of the prettiest sights on earth is a bowl full of fresh butter in morning sunshine. Look at that butter! Fragile and sweet as flowers. Be sure to try it. And this coffee is so very good! Natalie, my dear, I've slept on it, and I've quite made up my mind about what happens next" "Have you? That's good. So have I." He said, 'I'm going back to Rome. I would try Lufthansa, dear, I'm not afraid of the bogeymen. But I know I might clog your escape. That comes first. You absolutely must go your own way now. That's my decision, and I'm afraid I'm going to be adamant about it. My dear, what are you staring at? Do I have egg on my chin?" 'No, but that's precisely what I intended to tell you I would do." 'is it?" His face lit up in a gentle smile. "Thank heaven. I thought you'd put up a heroic argument for returning with me. No, it's absurd for you to drag yourself back. As for me, I trust the ambassador, and anyway there's no sense thrashing against one's fate. Often fate knows best. I have a place on the afternoon plane to Rome. Going back seems to be as easy as sliding down a greased slope. Only the other direction is hard." Natalie sipped her coffee. Was this a game to cajole from her an offer to go back to Rome? She was, after long experience, wary of her uncle's selfishness, sometimes blatant, sometimes subtle. "Well," she said, 'I suppose it makes sense, if you want to leave via Rome, to get there and line it up, the sooner the better. Are you sure you can manage?" 'If the ambassador himself is intervening, how can I muck it up? I have only one request. Will you take the manuscript? Even if I beat you home, I'd rather you guarded the book. I'll have all the draft notes, you see. There's two chances of preserving The Arch of Constantine instead of one." Now, for the first time, Natalie began to believe her uncle, and to allow herself some warmth toward him. "Well, Aaron, all right. This parting is going to feel very, very strange." "Natalie, I'll be more red-eyed than you. I bear a burden of guilt about you at least as large as that baby you've got there. Some day you'll know the measure of my gratitude." He put hisweak, bony little hand on hers. "You've earned yourself-as our fathers quaintly put it-a large share in the world to come. If only it existed!" So Aaron Jastrow went back docilely to Rome. His niece heard nothing for ten days, ten dreary days in which the comforts and rich food of the Swiss rapidly palled. Even an albatross around one's neck, Natalie began to think, was company of a sort. She was terribly lonely. Bunky Thurston, carrying on a romance with the daughter of a refugee French novelist, had little time for her. The Swiss treated her, as they did all foreigners, with cool paid courtesy, as though the whole country were the grounds of a huge Class A hotel. The sad-eyed Jews in the shops, the streets, the excursion trains and boats, depressed her. A letter came at last, sprinkled with special-delivery stamps and censors'markings. I assume this will be read, but it makes no difference. You and I are in the clear with the Italian authorities! I now have in my possession, Natalie, two air tickets, and properly dated e)tit permits, and Portuguese transit visas, and Pan Am connections, and highest diplomatic prioritn, stickers. The works! They're lying on the desk before me, and I've never seen a more glorious sight. Thurston sparked an explosion in this embassy, my dear. A fine chap. It was high time! The ambassador used all his available channels, including the Vatican-where, as you know, I have many friends. I should have tried long ago myself to throw my weight around, but it seemed so infra dig to plead my literary distinction, such as it is! Now to cases. The date of the tickets is December fifteenth. It's awfally far off, I know, but Pan Am's the bottleneck. No sense going to Lisbon and sitting there for months! And this transportation is sure. Of course it does mean having your baby here, after all. That decision is up to you. I enclose a note from the ambassador's charming and quite bright wife. If you don't want to languish in Zurich, waiting for a chance to ride out with the gallant Huns, her invitation may be welcome. I await your orders. I feel twenty years younger. Are you well? I worry about you day and night. Love Aaron. The ambassador's wife had written in an ornate finishing-school hand in green ink, with little circles over the i's: Dear Natalie: I sent my daughter home three months ago to have her baby. Her room is empty, her husband works in the embassy, and all of us miss her so much! If you can get home from Switzerland, nothing could be better. Otherwise, please consider coming here, where at least you would eat well, and the baby would be born on American "soil," so to speak, among your friends. We would love to have you.
On this same morning, Bunky Thurston telephoned. Lufthansa had come across with an early reservation, as a special courtesy to him: one seat to Lisbon, September 17, four days off. No opening existed on Pan Am, he said, but they had put her high on the long Lisbon waiting list, and she would get any early vacancy. "I'd suggest you go straight to the Lufthansa office on the Bahnhofstrasse, just two blocks down from the hotel, and grab yourself this ticket," Thurston said. "There are various forms to fill out, which I can't do for you, otherwise-" "Wait, Bunky, wait." Natalie was having trouble following him. She had awakened with a sore throat and a fever of over a hundred; she was groggy from the aspirins and depressed by her uncle's letter, which had thrown her into a vortex of indecision. "I have a letter from Aaron. Can you spare a moment?" "Shoot." She read him the letter. "Well! They really got hot, didn't they? Natalie, I can't presume to make your decision. I know what Leslie Slote would say. Byron too." "I know. Play it safe, go straight back to Rome." "Exactly." "You're wrong about Byron. Byron would tell me to get on Lufthansa." "Really? You know him better than I do. Whatever you decide, let me know if there's any way I can help you," Thurston said. "I hear Francoise honking. We're spending a day in the country." Of all things, Natalie did not want to go back to Rome. It was the fixed idea she clung to. Heavily, dizzily, she dressed herself and set out to walk to Lufthansa. She kept swallowing, her throat rasping like sandpaper despite the aspirins. All the airline offices were in the same block. Air France, Pan American, and BOAC were closed and shuttered, the paint of their signs fading. The gilt of Lufthansa's eagle, perched on a wreathed swastika, shone bright in the sun. The swastika made Natalie hesitate outside. Through the window she saw behind a bare counter in a hospitalclean office a tanned blonde girl in an azure and gold uniform, perfectly groomed, laughing with very white teeth. A tanned man in a checked sports jacket was laughing with her. Wall posters showed castles on river bluffs, and girls in Bavarian costume, and fat men drinking beer, and busts of Beethoven and Wagner hovering over a baroque opera house. They saw her looking in at them, stopped laughing, and stared. Shivering a little from the fever, Natalie entered the Lufthansa office. "Grass Gott," said the girl.
"Good afternoon," Natalie said hoarsely. "The American consul, Bunker Thurston, has made a reservation for me to fly to Lisbon on the seventeenth." "Oh? Are you Mrs. Byron Henry?" The girl switched smoothly to clear English. " yes." "Fine. Your passport?" "Do you have the reservation?" "Yes. Let me have your passport, please." The girl held out a manicured, scrubbed hand. Natalie gave her the passport, and the girl handed her a long form printed on coarse green paper. "Fill this out, please." Natalie scanned the lorin. "My goodness. What a lot of questions for an airplane ride." "Wartime security regulations, Mrs. Henry. Both sides, please." The first page asked for a detailed accounting of the passenger's travels in the past year. Natalie turned over the form. The first question at the top of the page was GLAUBUNG (Foi) (Religion)........................................... Vater (Pe) (Father)............................. Mutter (Mgre) (Mother)........................................... A nerve spasm swept her. She wondered why Thurston had not warned her of this risky snag. Here was a quick decision to make! It was simple enough to write in "Methodist"; they had her mother's maiden name in the passport, but "Greengold" wasn't necessarily Jewish. How could they check? Yet, after Aaron's troubles, what lists might she not be on? How could she be sure that the Kenigsberg incident had not been recorded? And what had happened to those Jewish neutrals at Kenigsberg whom the Germans had marched oR As these thoughts raced in her fevered mind, the baby gave a little jolt inside her. The street outside seemed far away and inviting. Natalie's head s,",am and her throat seemed to be choking shut with bits of gravel. She dropped the green form on the counter. The Lufthansa girl was starting to write a ticket, copying data from the passport. Natalie saw her glance in puzzlement at the form, then at the man in the sports jacket, who reached into a pocket and said to Natalie in German, "Do you need a pen?" "Give me my passport, please," she said. The girl's eyebrows arched. "Is something wrong?" Too rattled to think of a deft answer, Natalie blurted, "Americans don't ask people's religion for travel purposes, and don't give their own."The man and the girl exchanged a knowing look. The man said, "if you want to leave that blank, it is up to you. It is quite all right, Mrs. Henry." They both smiled slow queer smiles, the smile of the SS officer in Kenigsberg. "I'll take my passport, please." "I have started to write your ticket," said the girl. "It is very hard to get passage to Lisbon, Mrs. Henry." "My passport." The girl tossed the maroon booklet on the counter, and turned her back. Natalie left. Three doors down, the Swissair office was open. She went in, and booked a flight to Rome the following morning. It was as Aaron Jastrow had said. Going back was as easy as descending a greased slope. (from WORLD EMPIRE LOST) The Geography of Barbarossa In war the event is all, and Germany lost the war. This has obscured her victories in the field. Her enemies never won such victories; they overwhelmed her in the end with numbers, and a cataract of machines. Defeat also, quite naturally, casts doubt on the conduct of the war by the loser. Thus we have wide agreement among military historians, regrettably including noted German generals like Guderian, Manstein, and Warlimont, that our plan for the invasion of Russia was "vague" or "patched-up" or "without a strategic objective." What is accomplished by this historical fouling of our own nest, except self-' exculpation which should be beneath a soldier's dignity? it is bad enough that we lost the war, and world empire, by a heartbreakingly slender margin. There is no reason to describe ourselves, in our greatest notional effort, cls unprofessional dolts into the bargain. Such lickspittle writing, catering to the prejudices of the victors, does honor to nobody and violates history. I myself was detailed to temporary service on the planning staff of General Marcks, which in the fall and winter of 1940 worked out the original war games of the invasion of the Soviet union and then drafted an operational proposal. I was therefore in the picture from the start. It was a bold conception, for the factors of space and time, for the numbers of men and quantities of supplies, and for the grandeur of the political stakes. In detail Barbarossa was almost too complicated to be grasped by any one human intelligence. Yet in overall vision, it was a simple plan. In this lay its merit and its strength. it was firmly rooted in geographic, economic, and military realities. Within the limits of risk inherent in all war, it was sound.
Let the reader spend a moment or two studying the very simplified map I have prepared. Further on, in my operational narrative, there are more than forty situation maps from the archives. Here is the picture of the Barbarossa assault in a nutshell. Map Deleted BO*U Line A was our main effort, or jump-off line in Poland. It was about five hundred miles long, running north and south from the Baltic Sea to the Carpathian Mountains. (There was also a holding action out of Rumania, intended to scifenard the Ploesti oil fields.) Line C was our goal. Almost two thousand miles long, it ran from Archangel, on the White Sea, south to Kazan and then along the Volga to the Caspian Se(3Its farthest objectives were about twelve hundred miles from the starting point. Line B was as for as we got in December 1941. The line runs from Leningrci, on the Gulf of Finlcind, down through Moscow to the Crimea on the Block Sea, i falling just short of Rostov on the Don. It is nearly twelve hundred miles long, and more than six hundred miles from where we started. We were apparently stopped by the Russians, therefore, about halfway. But that is not really so. We were halted at the last moment, in the last ditch. The Attack Concept During the spring of 1941, our intelligence reported that the Red Army was massing in the west, near the line cutting Poland in two. This menacing pileup of armed Slavs threatened to inundate Europe with Bolshevism. It was a main reason for the fuhrer's decision to launch his preventive war, and certainly justified all our earlier planning. This menacing disposition of Stalin's forces nevertheless pleased us, because he was giving up the great Russian advantage of maneuvering space, anci crowding the Red Army within reach of a quick knockout blow. Stalin was superior both in numbers and equipment. Our best information was that we would be marching with about one hundred fifty divisions against perhaps two hundred, with about thirty-two hundred tanks against as many as ten thousand, and with an unknown disadvantage in aircraft. Obviously, then, our hope lay in superior training, leadership, soldiers, and machines, and in the swift decisive exploitation of surpise. After Finland, this seemed a reasonable estimate of the situation. The strategic aim of Barbarossa was to shatter the Soviet state in one colossal summer stroke, and to reduce its fragments to disarmed socialist provinces garrisoned and ruled by Germany, from the Polish border to the Volga. The primitive land east of the Volga, the frozen Siberian deserts and the empty forests beyond the Urals, could then be cordoned off or taken at leisure. From those remote areas no existing bomber could reach Germany, a vital factor to. consider. Operationally, we expected to break through the thick crust at the western border with threehuge simultaneous lightning attacks-two to the north of the marshland, one to the south-and encircle and mop up the broken forces within a couple of weeks. Thus, the main bulk of the Red Army would cease to exist almost at the outset. This we estimated we could do; but we knew that would not be the end. We realized the enemy would maintain heavy reserve forces between the borders and Moscow, and that at some point these forces would dig in. We also knew that the stolid Slav fights best in defense of his fatherland. We therefore expected, and planned for, a second big central campaign during the first part of July, probably in the region behind the Dnieper-Dvina line, to round up and destroy these reserve forces. Finally, we expected that as we penetrated to the line Leningrad-Moscow-Sevastopol, we would encounter a last-ditch surge of Russian resistance (as we did), including a levee en masse of the populatons of the capital and the other big industrial cities lying along this spinal column of the Soviet union. Once we broke that spine, nothing lay beyond, in our judgment, to the Archangel-Volga line which was our goal, except for a gigantic mop-up of a panic-stricken population, with perhaps some minor partisan warfare. This was, of course, a difficult undertaking, a gamble against odds. The battlefield was Soviet Russia itself, a funnel-shaped landmass five hundred miles wide at one end, seventeen hundred miles wide at the other. The northward slope of the funnel lay along the Baltic and the White seas; the southward slope, along the Carpathian Mountains and the Black Sea. Our forces had to fan out into the vast level monotony of the Russian plain, stretching our lines of communication and thinning our front as we went. This we expected, but we were surprised by the primitiveness of the roads and the wildness of the countryside. Here our intelligence was faulty. This was not terrain suited for blitzkrieg. In fact, the very inefficiency and low standards of Communist Russia proved a formidable defensive factor. They had not troubled to build decent highways, and their railroad beds were defective and-deliberately, of course-of a different gauge than ours. TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: In Roon's view, German staff plans for attacks on other countries are always defensive and hypothetical; but the other fellow always does something stupid or evil that triggers off the plan. Historians still debate Stalin's intentions in 1941, but it seems he had no offensive plans. The Soviets were frightened to death of the Germans, and did everything possible, to the last moment, to oppease them and keep them from attacking.-V.H. Cutting the Pie Barbarossa clicked from the start, despite various problems. All along the front, we achieved surprise. This will remain a supreme wonder in the annals of warfare. Guderian records how German artillerymen around Brest-Litovsk, poised to start a barrage on the unsuspecting Bolsheviks before down, watched t the last Russian supply train chug faithfully out of the Soviet union into our sector of Poland. Nothing could show more clearly how Stalin and his henchmen were fooled by the Fuhrer's adroit politics. Western writers now call this a "perfidious attack," as though, at the outset of a struggle to the death, Germany could afford parlor-game niceties.
With this advantage in hand, Barbarossa proceeded according to plan. The Luftwaffe caught the enormous frontline Red air force on the ground and wiped it out in a few hours. In the center and in the north our armored pincers advanced by timetable, with the infantry rolling forward in their support. Six days saw us in Minsk and at the Dvina, bagging nearly half a million prisoners and thousands of guns and tanks. Only in the south did Rundstedt encounter some real resistance. Elsewhere, the Red Army was like a huge thrashing body without a head. Stalin was invisible and silent, paralyzed in the throes of melancholia. Two more weeks, and a second vast armored encirclement had closed around Smolensk, two-thirds of the way along the main Moscow road. In the north we had overrun the Baltic states, turning the Baltic into a German lake, and were rapidly approaching Leningrad through wild terrain. Rundstedt's drive in the south had picked up steam and was nearing Kiev. We had rounded up several hundred thousand more prisoners. The Russians fought bravely and stubbornly in little pockets, but operationally we were no longer encountering the the organized resistance of a national force. According to all reports from the field and the picture developing at Supreme Headquarters, we had once again won a war-Or, more exactly, a grand police action-in three weeks, and were engaged in mop-up: Poland, France, and now the Soviet union. Of course, such a massive advance had taken its toll of men, supplies, and wear and tear on machines. A pause for consolidation ensued, lasting to midAugust. Some writers claim this was a "fatal display of irresolution," but they obviously know nothing of logistics. This pause was part of our original timetable. Far from being irresolute, the Wehrmacht, triumphant from the Baltic to the Black Sea, regrouped and tooled up in a flush of victorious excitement, which can still make the blood tingle in old soldiers who remember, As the staff man familiar with the smallest details of Barbarosso, I was present at the famous conference at the Wolf's Lair Headquarters on July 16, when Hitler, sweeping both hands over his table map, exultantly told Goering, Rosenberg, Bormann, and other high Party brass, "Essentially, the point now is to slice up this gigantic pie for our purposes, in order to be able: First, to dominate it, Second, to administer it, and Third, to explojt "I" I can still see the radiant smile on Hitler's puffy, unhealthy face as he held up fingers to count, and the touch of hectic red that victory had brought to his wan cheeks. After the conference ended, he talked informally of disbanding forty divisions in September, in order to send the men back to the factories. He wanted to reduce tank and gun production, in favor of a swift air and sea building program for the final crushing of England and the end of the war. All this made plain common sense, and not one voice was raised in objection. From the visible facts in the field, the eastern campaign had been won. The Critiques Armchair strategists have the advantage not only of hindsight, but of being irresponsible.
Nobody really cares what they think. The contest is over, and nothing hinges on their opinions. They are just consuming ink and paper, which are cheap. Before the event, however, every decision in war involves the lives of soldiers, perhaps the national existence itself. It is unwise to dismiss out of hand, long afterward, the judgments of the men in the field who had to do the job. But this cauflon is seldom exercised in critiques of Barbarossa. Three fallacious objections to our campaign crop up over and over. They contradict each other, but that does not stop the critics from using one, or two, or all three. it is alleged: First, that our invasion of the Soviet union was doomed to fail, no matter how many military victories were won, because a small patch of Europe like Germany, with eighty million inhabitants, could not hope to hold down vast Russia with close to two hundred millions; Second, that Hitler's narsh treatment of the Russian inhabitants was fatuous, because they would otherwise have welcomed us with open arms and helped to overthrow the hated Communist regime. In this connection, the old story of village women coming to greet the German invaders with flowers, or with bread and salt, is invariably trotted out; Third, that the plan made the classic error of seeking territorial or economic objectives, instead of concentrating on destroying the enemy's armed forces. Very well. To the first point, I reply that a glance at the world map shows that a tiny island like England, peopled by thirty or forty million, could not possibly have ruled South Africa, India, Canada, and Australia, with almost half a billion inhabitants. Nevertheless, for a long time, England did. Moreover, these subject lands were not contiguous, but thousands of miles away, at the end of thread-thin lines of sea communication. The Soviet union, on the other hand, was in land communication with Germany, directly under our guns. These critics forget that the Soviet union in the first instance was the creation of a small extremist party of Bolsheviks, who overthrew the regime and seized control of a population ten thousand times as numerous as themselves, a conglomerate of many nationalities. Or that a small ferocious Mongolian invader, the Golden Horde, actually did rule the Slav masses for more than a century. In short, these critics know nothing of the history of conquest, or the techniques of military administration, especially with modern communications and equipment. Had we conquered the Soviet union, we would have administered it. We did quite well in the provinces we held for years. The second contention of course contradicts the first. if we could not hold down the Russians in any case, what would we have gained by an easy policy toward them? It would only have hastened the day of our overthrow. But this criticism rests on an absurd misconception of the entire nature of the war between Germany and the Soviet union. This was, in the strictest sense, a war to the death, History had come to a turn, There were two strong Industrial powers left on the Eurasian landmass, and only two. They faced each other. They were dedicated to totally different revolutionary ideologies. If Bolshevism were totriumph, Germany as we knew it had to die. If German National Socialism prevailed, there was no room on this heartland for an independent, armed, menacing Bolshevik nation far bigger than the Reich. The Green Folder Much has been made of "The Green Folder," the master policy directive for the economic exploitation of conquered Russia, prepared by Economic Staff East under Goering. At the Nuremberg trials, I established that I had no part in drawing up this administrative plan, since my responsibilities were operational. The proposals of the Green Folder were, without question, draconic. They meant the death by starvation of tens of millions of Russians. Goering admitted as much, and the documents are spread on the record, so denying this is absurd. Nor would there,be either sense or profit in attempting to prove the "morality" of the Green Folder. However, certain observations of a military nature may be in order. The Green Folder scheme rested on a plain eographic fact. The fertile "black belt" region of southern Russia feeds not only itself and its own industries, but the whole industrial complex to the north. Northern Russia has always been a scrubby, impoverished area, where bad weather and bad soil combine to create a permanent deficit of foodstuffs. The Green Folder proposed a drastic levy on the corn, meats, coal, oil, fats, hides, and factory products of the south, for the purposes of maintaining our armies in the field and our strained German folk at home. The plan was to feed the southern Slavs a minimum caloric intake, so that they could keep up production. But Germany's need for so much of Russia's produce would naturally create a food shortage on a large scale. A serious wastage of the northern Russian population had to be accepted as a result. Perhaps our administrative plan for Russia was less "moral" than the Americans' extirpation of the red race and the seizure from them of the richest lands on earth. Perhaps it lacked the religious high-mindedness with which the Spaniards socked Mexico and South America and destroyed the fascinating Inca and Aztec civilizations. And possibly, in some way not very clear to this writer, the British subjugation of India, or the commercial spoliation of China by all the European colonialists plus the United States, were nicer and more moral programs than the proposals in the Green Folder. But the unprejudiced reader must never forget that, in the German world-philosophical view, Russia was our India. We Germans have always lacked the singular Anglo-Saxon gift for cloaking self-interest in pious moral attitudes. We honestly say what we think, and thus invariably shock the tender sensibilities of Western politicians and writers. Adolf Hitler was a world-historical individual; that much is now a settled fact.