Chapter 16

Wolf stayed with the Bechsteins two more weeks, letting Frau Bechstein fawn all over him. She bought him new clothes, introduced him to more well-heeled Berliners, and by the end of the stay, referred to him as Wolfshen. Whenever the opportunity arose she sang the praises of her daughter, Lotte, in the hopes that, when the girl became of age, Wolf would become interested in her.

Emil was another matter. Technically, he was Wolf’s chauffeur. Of course, he was so much more. But to the Bechsteins he was a servant and therefore not allowed to lodge in the same house with their privileged guest.

“Can I stay with you?” Emil asked when we left the Bechsteins that night.

“There’s an alternative you might prefer.”

“I get it,” he laughed. “You two like to run around naked. I’m okay with that. I promise I won’t get in the way. I like to watch.”

“That wouldn’t bother me,” Marta said with a wink, “but Friedrich does have a better idea.”

“I have a room at Pension Schmidt. I’ll move in with Marta. I’ve made arrangements for you to stay there with the owner, Kitty Schmidt.”

“Pension Schmidt? Your room? Sounds like an old age home? Is that where you’re a bouncer? What do you do? Prevent the old biddies from escaping?”

“Emil, everyone needs protecting. I do admit the clientele there comes in all sizes and ages. There should be one to your liking.”

Marta kept up the ruse. “But be careful. The staff is quite demanding,”

“Mein Gott! I can’t bear to be around old people.”

Marta patted his cheek. “No need to frown, Emil. The place offers many attractions. You will be well taken care of . . . and made very happy there.”

Emil scowled. “I don’t see how . . . and it’s not funny . . . sending me to an old age home. I’ll be miserable.”

When we stopped convulsing, I said, “That is the last thing you’ll be. The Pension is a high-class brothel. Kitty is the madam. I have my own room there. It’s yours for as long as you need it.”

“You told me that you had a job similar to the last one. You never said anything about a whorehouse.”

“The jobs are fundamentally the same. Like at the Nightingale, I make certain patrons don’t get out of hand. I keep things quiet and in check, and everyone is happy.”

Emil’s eyes widened. “This is putting the fox in the hen house.”

“Exactly,” Marta and I said in unison.

*

Ten days later, Wolf received an emergency call. In his absence the Executive Council scheduled a joint meeting at the Hofbräuhaus with a völkisch group from Augsburg, to discuss moving party headquarters to Berlin. This violated two of Hitler’s cardinal rules: no merging with other groups and the party must stay in Munich. Wolf’s deliberate six-week absence to teach the party a lesson had blown up in his face: the Executive Council intended to do both.

Wolf asked Lotte to deliver a note to her parents that thanked them for their hospitality but pressing matters called him away. I remained in Berlin, knowing that I might be called back to Munich any day.

5 a.m., July 18, 1921

The phone above the desk rang. As I sprang out of bed, Marta reached out. “Friedrich, come back to bed. It can’t be important,” she mumbled in a sleep-filled voice.

A call at that hour could only mean trouble. It was Emil. “Get back on the first train in the morning. Fly if you have the money.”

“Slow down, Emil. Is Wolf injured? What’s wrong?”

“Wolf tendered his resignation to the party. He gave them eight days to respond to his demands. If they don’t capitulate, his resignation becomes final.”

“Emil, there’s no way Adolf Hitler would quit the party. He is the party.”

“Friedrich, the Boss is dead serious. If they don’t agree to his demands, he’s out!”

“What demands?”

“He wants dictatorial powers. No more voters or voting, only one vote: his.”

“Wolf’s bluffing,” I said.

“The Boss doesn’t bluff when it comes to his career and the party. He lives and dies for it. He’s the one with the vision. None of the others have it.”

“The others know that. How can they let him go?”

“He miscalculated leaving Munich for so long. I told him so at the time, but he wouldn’t listen. When we got back he went crazy, smacking the table and chairs with his whip. You should have heard him scream, ‘We stay in Munich!’ Froth dripped from the corners of his mouth. I have never seen him this way.”

“Answer me this: would they even consider giving him total control?”

“He’s not giving them a choice. ‘Take it or leave it,’ he told them. He must be made dictator. You should have been there, Friedrich. It was the Boss’s finest moment. For the first time, I saw him as a leader who could accomplish all that he has promised.”

“Did they cave?”

“That’s the damnedest thing: they didn’t. At least not yet. Tomorrow is the eighth day. He needs you here in case there’s trouble. More than that, he trusts you. And he misses you, Friedrich. You two have a special bond. He is different with you.”

Marta overheard enough from my end of the conversation to know I would be leaving for Munich later that morning, and that nothing she could say would stop me.

“At least come back to bed. We still have these few hours together.”

*

I met Emil at party headquarters. We hugged. “How did you get here so fast?”

“I convinced a pilot who works for Allgemeine Elektrizitats Gesellschaft to fly me here. Didn’t cost anything.”

“How did you manage that?”

“I have information that would interest his wife.”

“Extortion is a benefit I never considered working in a brothel.” He patted me on the back. “Excellent thinking. Come. He’s waiting at a café around the corner.”

We found Wolf sitting alone, drumming his fingers on the tabletop, in complete equanimity. He nodded and frowned. “The Executive Council just sent a runner.”

“And?” we said simultaneously.

At first Wolf said nothing. He hunched his shoulders, raised his brows, and shook his head as if all were lost, only to break out in a broad grin. “They accepted my demands.”

“All of them? Including the Führerprinzip?” Emil asked.

Wolf nodded. “Some kicked, some shouted, and others cried about making me a dictator. But more were pleased that I would have full control than not. The council voted ‘yes.’ Now it is up to the membership-at-large to approve. The vote is scheduled for July 29.”

“They have to support you, Wolf,” I said. “They have no other choice.”

“I wish that were true. I’ve learned that there is always another choice, even if you don’t see one.” Then he grabbed me with both hands. “Friedrichen, stay here in Munich. Knowing you’re here gives me strength.”

Emil looked as surprised as I felt at Wolf’s public demonstration of affection. “This is where I belong, Wolf. With you and the party. I’ll stay.”

Friday, July 29, 1921

The room was rife with excitement as nearly six hundred party members filed into the hall. Röhm, Hess, Emil, and I stood against the wall.

Wolf stood next to Hermann Esser, who read a to-the-point announcement:

In recognition of your exceptional knowledge, your unusual sacrifice and honorable accomplishments for the growth of the movement, and your unusual oratorical abilities, we grant you dictatorial powers.

There was a beat of silence, and then the room turned raucous with cheers. Those who did not approve remained stone-faced, knowing they would be outvoted.

Wolf raised both arms for quiet. “I stand before you to prevent this organization from being turned into a tea party. We do not wish to unite with other organizations. On the contrary, like-minded groups must merge into ours so we can maintain absolute leadership.” Then he threw down the gauntlet. “Anyone who cannot accept this can leave now.”

Emil, Röhm, and I scanned across the faces; no one moved.

Wolf continued. “Our movement came from Munich and will stay in Munich.” The crowd cheered. “I make these demands not because I am power-hungry, but because recent events have convinced me that without iron leadership the party will fail. If we cease to be what we are supposed to be—a National Socialist German Workers’ Party—we will vote ourselves out of existence!”

The vote was 543 yes to 1 against. Abstentions were not counted.

That day, my friend—whom I called Wolf—was elected der Führer of the NSDAP. Years later, I came to understand that by this vote to end democracy in our party, democracy took the first step to its inexorable death in all of Germany.

*

The newly elected Führer gathered his inner circle: Hess, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Emil, Röhm, me, plus one or two others. “Now that we have control of the party, steps must be initiated to broaden our base.”

“Adolf, may I make some recommendations?” Everyone turned to Rosenberg. Before he could elaborate, Wolf jumped up. He glared at Rosenberg and then cast his penetrating stare at the rest of us.

“I am your Führer,” he said in a measured voice. “That is how all of you will address me both here and in public.”

Rosenberg bowed his head. “Yes, mein Führer.”

Wolf sat down. “Now tell me your idea.”

“Publicity—good or bad—is the only path to broad recognition. Our newspaper will cover everything we do, but we need the other papers to cover us as well. We cannot be thin-skinned regarding what they will say about us.” Wolf started to comment. “There’s more, mein Führer. When the Brownshirts disrupt communist meetings, it must be done so that everyone knows we did it. This means we give the press advance notice to assure they will be there.”

Wolf agreed. “Whatever you print, include the phrase I will use to start every speech: Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer . . . One People, One State, One Leader.”

Hermann Esser was put in charge of propaganda. We plastered the city. Everywhere people in Munich turned, they encountered signs and articles announcing NSDAP activity.

September 14, 1921

Otto Ballerstedt—who championed the Weimar’s socialist programs—infuriated Wolf. He was the only public speaker Wolf feared in a one-to-one contest both for his oratory ability and desire to form a separate Danubian Federation comprised of Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. This was in stark contrast to Wolf, who dreamed of uniting the old Austrian-Hungary Empire into a unified German nation. When we learned that Ballerstedt was to speak to the Bavarian League at the Löwenbräukeller, Wolf vowed to silence him.

Our men mingled among the crowd waiting to hear Ballerstedt in the Löwenbräukeller. Some parked themselves on seats near the front.

No sooner had Ballerstedt uttered his greeting, than one of our men hopped onto a chair and shouted, “The misfortunes of Bavaria have been brought about by the Jews. Give Hitler the floor.”

Ballerstedt refused to budge from the stage. One of his people turned off the lights in an effort to settle everyone down. I decked him with a right hook and flicked the lights back on. A melee broke out. Hermann Esser and—to our shock—Wolf, jumped onto the stage and pummeled Ballerstedt senseless with folding chairs. Ballerstedt had to be carried out while the hall degenerated into a free-for-all.

After the police restored order, the police chief asked Wolf, “Why did you do it, Herr Hitler? I have no choice but to arrest you.”

Hitler stood unperturbed. “We did what we had to do. Ballerstedt won’t talk anymore.” Then the police booked Wolf and Esser.

*

Soon after the Ballerstedt melee, Wolf introduced me to an army buddy. “This is Herr Max Amann. Max was my sergeant in the List Regiment.”

The fact that Wolf didn’t flinch when Max wrapped his arm around him indicated their closeness.

“Imagine my surprise when I saw Max walking down the street,” Wolf said.

“I was more surprised when I learned you wanted me to join a party you headed.”

Wolf smiled. “But you refused!”

Amann turned to me. “You have to understand, Friedrich, I’m a lawyer. My practice is going well. But Adolf would not take no for an answer.”

Amann was the first person I met who knew Wolf before Pasewalk. “What stories can you tell me about him back then?”

Amann hesitated. He didn’t want to say anything that might offend Wolf.

“It’s all right, Max, you can say anything to Friedrich. He will be surprised at how different I was then.”

“Different is an understatement. Adolf was boring. He was the quietest soldier in the regiment. He hardly talked. When he did, he spouted obscure historical facts or described the minutest details about famous architectural structures that no one cared about.” He tapped Hitler’s shoulder. “This is a new Wolf.”

Emboldened by Amann’s candor, I asked, “Herr Amann. We all know about Wolf’s heroism during the war. He received Two Iron Crosses. That he was a corporal makes it all the more unusual. Why was he never promoted beyond corporal?”

Rather than erupt, Wolf smiled and let Max explain.

“Wolf’s name came up for a promotion more than once. I put him forward myself. Every time I did, the ranking officer turned him down out of hand. He said, ‘Corporal Hitler? Corporal Hitler? The man has no leadership ability. He will never amount to anything.’”

Wolf led the conversation away from any possibility of Pasewalk. “It was Friedrich’s doing. He gave me the confidence to achieve my potential. I owe it all to him.” He slapped me on the back. Then he added, “Max is the party’s new business manager. He will also be in charge of both our party newspaper and our publishing arm: the Völkischer Beobachter and Eher Verlag.”

Max Amann was a small, rough-hewn, muscular man. But to judge Max Amann on his physical characteristics was misleading. We made profits from the moment Max joined the party. His abilities never ceased to amaze me.

*

The more time I spent with Wolf, the more Wolf’s venom towards the Jews troubled me. Why did he make hating them a central theme of our party? More than a few times, I resolved to raise this issue, but backed off each time.

By early November, this inner conflict overwhelmed me. I was unwilling to accept Max Klinghofer, Dr. Joseph, Dr. Kroner at Pasewalk, or any other Jew, as my enemy. I needed to confront Hitler—once and for all—about his fixation on the “Jewish question.”

We arranged to meet at Wolf’s apartment at 41 Thierschstrasse, which was a stone’s throw from party headquarters at the tavern. The building was old; the steps to his room warped. Wolf’s lone room on the second floor amounted to a jail cell, less than three meters wide by five meters long. The bed was oversized. Pushed against the wall, the headboard still blocked half of the only window in the room. Two threadbare rugs covered parts of the worn linoleum. On the opposite wall, there was a crude bookshelf filled with books on a variety of subjects. There was a hot plate on the ledge. A small table and single chair filled the rest of the room. The toilet was in the hall.

“How can you live here?” I once asked.

“I don’t need more.”

“You’re the leader of the party.”

“It’s about appearances, Friedrich. I can’t be seen living in luxury. Besides, I still have the other room when needed.”

The other room. From the time we opened headquarters in the Sterneckerbräu Tavern, the party paid for a room that Wolf used for his many assignations. Only Emil, Max Amann, Hermann Esser, and I knew about it.

I found the door ajar that day. Wolf waved me in. He sat on the bed, I on the chair.

“Thank you for seeing me, mein Führer.”

“You don’t have to call me that here, Friedrich. When we’re alone, you can still call me Wolf. And use du. Röhm, Emil, and you are the only ones who can refer to me that way. In public, of course, we must be formal.”

I muttered, “Of course.”

“You have the look of a man on a distasteful mission.”

I had practiced how best to begin. “I am troubled by one of the points in our party’s program.”

“If you doubt some part of the platform, ignore it. Restoring the Fatherland to its greatness is all that matters.” But he could see that I was not satisfied. “What makes you so uncomfortable?”

“The Jews.” No longer blasé, he grew rigid. The blood drained from Wolf’s face. He remained silent as I continued. “I hear what you and the others say about the Jews. You know that I don’t have a memory. I don’t know their history. Why should I hate them?”

Wolf stared at me without responding. I didn’t expect him to make this easy, and he didn’t.

“I’ve been told that you had friends, or at least acquaintances, that were Jews. There was the Jew who sold your watercolor postcards in Vienna. And I remember how you admired the doctor who cared for your mother, Dr. Bloch.”

Hearing Dr. Bloch’s name, Wolf’s eyes widened but he remained silent.

“I asked Max Amann about his time with you in the army. He told me you never said anything about Jews during the war. Even at Pasewalk, you never spoke ill of the Jews until you were well into your treatments with Dr. Forster. I was there every day with you. What changed?”

There, I said it. I got out what had been bottled up for so long. I was prepared for the consequences, but not the venom he spewed.

“Friedrich, I don’t want to talk about Pasewalk or Forster ever again! The man might as well be dead . . . because that’s how insignificant he is to me.” The veins in his temple pulsed. He smashed the wall behind the bed with an open hand and then stamped his foot. “I never want to hear his name again. Is that understood?”

“I promise. Never again.”

Wolf filled a glass with water from a white-enameled pitcher. I watched during the unnerving seconds that he poured, sipped, and then repeated the process. Finally, he spoke in a calmer voice, “Because it’s you, you deserve an answer. I don’t care what others think or say. Let me be clear: my beliefs toward the Jews have nothing to do with Pasewalk.”

“But you changed there.”

“What I did there was to find a better way to articulate what I long believed.”

“What about Dr. Bloch?”

“There are always exceptions. What you need to understand, Friedrich, is that the Jews consider blood more important than their beliefs. That makes them a race. They are tribal. They identify by blood more than by the countries that house and feed them. Jews are for other Jews, and for no one else.”

His calm evaporated. Cords in his neck bulged. His voice ratcheted higher. “These so-called ‘nice Jews’ you speak of, have caused the destruction of Germany. Because of them, there are thousands of orphans and fatherless families. Millions of workers that cannot find jobs. They idled our factories. Their greed has caused runaway inflation. They do all of this through their control of the banks, the newspapers, and the arts. The Jews are a virus, Friedrich. A disease that needs to be eradicated.”

“I hear everything you said, but I have not seen the bad in the Jews . . . not in the ones I know. Is that a problem for you? Do you want me to leave the party?”

He did not reply immediately. “Friedrich,” he sighed, “you don’t have to agree with everything I say or do. The same is true for me about your opinions. What is important is that we stand on the same side for Germany.”

Relief washed over me.

Then he said, “You are the brother I wish I had.” Wolf put his hand on my arm. “Stay in the party. Stay with me. You can think whatever you want. I only ask you to keep your own counsel. Do not make trouble. Nothing more.”

I walked away from his apartment struck by his genuine hatred for Jews. He could have softened his stance in private but didn’t. This enmity toward Jews could only be described as an emotional cancer, in no way a platform to attract votes.

I considered walking away from Wolf and Munich that day. But what were my choices? Find a position somewhere? I had no skill or trade. Return to Berlin to be a bouncer in a whorehouse? I knew Kitty would hire me back, but did I want to return to that? Or, I could remain in the party and work for the betterment of my country, accepting everything in the platform except that about the Jews. Whether out of friendship or a desire to be part of the movement, or simply because it was the easier path, I decided to continue to walk with Wolf. What was critical for me was the belief that I could do so without surrendering my integrity.

*

By the end of 1921 I had been in Munich nearly five months. At the outset, my funds were sufficient to rent an apartment. Once Wolf took command, the party assumed that expense. Overwhelmed by work, time slipped away . . . as did my relationship with Marta.

At first, we spoke twice a week on the telephone. Then once a week. As Wolf increased his speaking schedule—sometimes he would give five speeches in one night—contact with Marta lessened. Finally, she brought matters to a head during one of our infrequent calls.

“When are you coming to see me, Friedrich?”

“You know how busy we are. It’s impossible to get away.”

“No one is so busy that he can’t find a few days. Even the chancellor finds time to holiday.”

“Violence follows Wolf wherever he speaks. I need to be here to protect him.”

“No one’s indispensable, Friedrich. He’s got Emil and the others.” Her voice cracked. “Why don’t you say it? You don’t love me anymore.”

I could have assuaged her feelings by telling her that it wasn’t true, that I did love her and that I would rush to Berlin as soon as the opportunity arose. I could have said those things . . . but I didn’t.

“Have you met someone else?” she asked, now sobbing.

“I haven’t been with anyone since I left you.”

“Then what is it Friedrich? Don’t you want to be with me?”

There was much I missed about Marta . . . but not enough to change course. I mumbled that I would call more often, but the calls grew scarcer . . . until there were none.