"We think as one with the German people – we have nothing in common with the German Tirpitzes and Falkenhayns, with the German government of political oppression and social enslavement. Nothing for them, everything for the German people. Everything for the international proletariat, for the sake of the German proletariat and downtrodden humanity."
~ Karl Liebknecht, The Main Enemy Is At Home!
The light of the early afternoon spilled into what Gerda presumed was Adolf Hitler’s apartment, leaving his cramped personal study unbearably warm. It was not much help for the toxic cocktail of sleep deprivation and anxiety that was currently being mixed together at breakneck speed in her head. Any immediate thoughts of danger had been overwhelmed by her overbearing stress in regards to the situation.
“We were worried about you”, those who escorted her to this unknown place had reassured her, “we have just heard that Party President Thalmann was able to make it out of the city but there are still many Comrades unaccounted for.” The two dark suited men had been waiting for Gerda and Rosa when they had returned to Berlin, one she recognised as a member of the Red Front, the other she couldn’t place but by both of their faces it was clear they had been through the wars. Both seemed pleased to see her, one even offered a toothy grin in a way that indicated they may have had more teeth until recently. Gerda had decided to play along, no longer sure which faction she was being played by.
“Oh, Comrade Thalmann’s outside Berlin?” Gerda said with what she hoped was a plausible level of surprise she had squeezed Rosa’s arm as if to remind her that she was there and that she was safe. Once again Gerda and Rosa were being driven from their station, like two bourgeois maidens, it was something she decided to never do again if she could help, and looked for a way to get her daughter out of the situation as quickly as possible. Until then she could only wait to see where they were being driven, passively agreeing with the men’s small talk that it was fortunate that there was no Enabling Act as there had been in 1924, otherwise some of their comrades could have been in real danger. She used this opportunity to inquire about dropping her daughter off at her home.
It was with great relief that she got an answer when she knocked on the door of the flat, her friend Christina had judged it safe to return to Berlin and had been nursing a hangover in their shared dwelling. Apparently the weekend had taken precedence to being swept up in any sort of anti-Communist backlash. Christina hadn’t been particularly enthusiastic about the prospect of looking after a young child but Gerda had assured her that she would be back soon. That had been a lie.
From her flat near Karl Liebknecht Haus Gerda had been driven to another dwelling inside Wedding, one of Berlin’s reddest areas, and one still recovering from the raids that had taken place the previous day. She was escorted through the gutted streets to her present location and asked to wait for the General Secretary. She had tried once again to look nonplussed, not even bothering to ask whose home she was now sitting in as if being led into someone else’s study in a strange flat to wait for Adolf Hitler was the most natural thing in the world.
Waiting allowed her mind to wander about what might happen to her by the end of the day, but as the hours ticked by and the sun began to retreat outside her worry was overtaken by boredom. Her eyes wandered around the room, looking for something to read or to at least occupy her thoughts, but it seemed as if the room had been recently cleared, all except a half-written letter addressed to an “Eva”, which she reached for just as she heard someone fumbling with the door before Adolf Hitler entered.
“Comrade Muller.”
“Comrade General Secretary.”
“I am sorry to have kept you waiting, for that I truly do apologise but we are at an impasse and that is why I needed to talk with you urgently, there are so many plans afoot and I sometimes don’t know if there’s anyone I can trust.” Hitler appeared to realise he was rambling, and let out an embarrassed bark of laughter.
Gerda witnessed the man trying to laugh at the absurdity of his own comment, before he looked at her straight in the eyes as he sat down across from her with a slump. Something in what she saw had summoned the intuition she had gleaned from her years of being uncertain who to trust, or perhaps it was even her maternal instinct, but suddenly she could feel this man’s desperation and bizarrely, she felt herself reciprocating it.
“This was never about me, you know.” Hitler mused with a strangely gruff tone. Gerda was more than a little sceptical of that statement but in her capacity to empathise she managed to nod in agreement.
“We give our lives for his cause, something that’s hard to understand to an outsider. Even some of those in our own movement don’t seem to understand the concept of real sacrifice. You and I though, we were on the streets from the very beginning. Am I incorrect in believing that you fought with Liebknecht and Luxemburg?”
Gerda didn’t answer the question, instead asking one of her own.
“Do you mind if I smoke?”
The General Secretary raised his hands disarmingly, as if to suggest she shouldn’t have had to worry about asking in the first place. She took out the packet of Senoussi she had bought at the Hamburg greengrocers and opened it up whilst Hitler admired the Bedouin tribe on the colourful box.
“Can I have one of those?”
Gerda put two of the cigarettes in her mouth and struck a match, lighting them simultaneously before handing one to the General Secretary. He coughed violently shortly after inhaling and she involuntarily put her hand on his shoulder before realising the issue.
The man didn’t smoke.
“I’ve heard that these help to relieve stress,” Hitler remarked, observing the glowing cigarette between his fingers as if it had arrived from another world.
“They can do that...at least for a while.” Gerda said, still trying to humour the man she had spent the night trying to remove from power.
“I fear that I shall need something more substantive for our problems,”
Our problems?
“I thought for a while that I was paranoid but I know that I had good reason to be. There are members of this party that would sooner listen to Moscow than do what’s right for the German worker. These people include the Party President. And I know that they’ve tried to include you as well.”
Hitler’s tone remained neutral but Gerda felt winded all of a sudden, as she met Hitler’s eyes again, expecting to see the crooked snarl she’d seen during his speeches. Instead there was just the same bleak stare.
“In Hamburg last night, there was a meeting, one that implicated me as a mad man, based...at least partially, on the riot that occurred this weekend.”
Gerda opened her mouth to explain but no words came out, as Hitler waved his hand reassuringly, stubbing out the neglected cigarette on the desk between them.
“You were told that I was responsible for the riot, and for that I don’t blame you for going along with Thalmann’s plot. Believe me, if that were true I would have put my own head in the noose. But this is not the case, and I can prove it.”
He turned to the door and announced calmly for a man named “Comrade Mielke” to enter, Gerda noticed him immediately as one of the men who had taken her from the station.
“Could you explain to Comrade Muller what happened on the eve of the riot I supposedly generated?”
“The lead-, excuse me, the General Secretary,” the Red Front man corrected himself with an awkward expression, “was absent from proceedings when the order went out to break-up the fascist rally. The order was instead given by Party President Thalmann. He is our honorary commander after all.”
“Honorary as you say,” Gerda replied to Adolf, preferring to address the organ grinder, “you do realise that the Party President has made the same allegation against you, merely in reverse?”
“I do, I do,” Hitler raised his hands gently in a motion that could have been similar to the one he would have made if Gerda had pointed a gun at him.
“The difference is, I am addressing these concerns to you, rather than to Moscow. And I think you know why.”
Gerda rolled her eyes, her frustration overtaking her discomfort.
“Next you’ll be telling me that Party President Thalmann wishes to form an alliance with the Social Fascists as well.”
“No, the allegation about my wish to form an alliance with the Social Democrats is true Brandler too. Thalmann wants to use it to destroy me, and Moscow may agree with him if they can be convinced. But I feel like the workers of Germany know better as to what’s coming than those in Russia and when the fascist coup is launched. We will need to be united with anything that has real workers behind it, at least
temporarily. We cannot simply die on the streets again in the hope the workers side with us. We need to be able to lead a mass movement from the barricades, even if it means standing with those we despise.”
There was a conviction in the man’s voice that Gerda hadn’t heard him have before without also having that contemptible snarl he was wont to use. She couldn’t help but feel like she was being sold a fantasy all the same.
“The Social Democrats will ally with capital.” She reminded the General Secretary.
“Many of them will, but there are some who will stick with us, and when the others earn their social fascist name, the workers will no longer be bought and sold by their illusions! It will be a difficult road ahead, but if we are to emerge victorious we must take the first step. If Moscow doesn’t allow this we must break with Moscow until they see sense, if Thalmann doesn’t allow this he must be cast out of the party.” Hitler seemed to stop himself before descending into a rant, his voice remained earnest.
“Now, Comrade Muller, do you want incompetence and fascism born out of ideological purity, or do you want to take a chance?”
Gerda was ready to tell him she wanted to leave but in the back of her mind she couldn’t help but feel that there was a certain logic playing out. There was part of her that could think back to the deaths of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, the way the Freikorps had swaggered around Berlin, murdering everyone who opposed them. It was what had made her question everything, that which had made her stick with a party that seemed to have already died at the time.
She also remembered the bursts of fire and tank treads grinding over her comrades as she had tried to defend a barricade with a kitchen knife. The Social Democrats had allied with the Freikorps then, now the fascists would hang them all separately.
In that moment of remembrance, she found herself nodding along with Hitler’s words.
“We do need a chance.”
Hitler was smiling again now, no longer bashfully but with a manner that appeared to Gerda as something closer to hope.
“I cannot express how relieved I am that you agree, but nonetheless events are in motion and we will have to act quickly if we are to get a grasp at that chance we both desire. Moscow’s agents are everywhere, as are those of the German state, and those of the fascist conspiracy who will soon replace them. We may find ourselves placed against all of these opponents at once and for that we’ll need a strong and united communist movement. A party full of people like you.”
“People like me?”
“Yes, you and many others.”
There was now something impish in the General Secretary’s grin.
“After all, I’m not a demagogue.”
---
The painting is
The Beggar of Prachatice by Conrad Felixmuller
