The Sleepwalkers by Paul Grossman Page B

because of his incisive political analyses but because his last name was Hohenzollern. Same as that ofthe deposed royal family, of which he was some kind of cousin. Deposed or not, the name opened any door in Germany.
    Willi reached for the phone.
    “For God’s sakes where have you been?” Fritz was thrilled as always to hear from him. Willi had saved his life not once but several times in the war. Fritz would do anything for him. “I have the most marvelous woman I want you to meet. Smart as a whip—”
    “Fritz, listen: I need an interview with von Schleicher. Urgent.”
    “Von Schleicher. Tall order. But if it’s really urgent—”
    The whole thing was set up by the time Willi had returned from the men’s room.
    “No one gets things done like you.
You
ought to be appointed chancellor, Fritz.”
    “Never mind that. We’ve got to meet up for coffee. I must tell you about this wonderful woman, Willi. Before some swine grabs her up.”
    At von Schleicher’s chambers in the Ministry of War, the general’s desk was an enormous gilded affair, perhaps two-thirds the size of Hindenburg’s, Willi calculated. In Germany, everything was ranked according to status, from your desk to the entrance you walked through each morning. Unfortunately his own rank, he couldn’t help but feel, was slipping the longer he went on.
    The minister looked more incredulous by the moment. An SA general? Medical experiments? Willi felt sweat dripping down his back. The man was shrewd, he knew. Able to play both sides of a coin. Where would he come down?
    At last the general tore off his monocle. “The army will support you!” His blue eyes crackled with what seemed a thousand hatching schemes. “If this Meckel proves guilty of the crimes you suspect, the entire nation would be scandalized. Exactly the excuse I’ve been looking for, Kraus. Very good. Very good.”
    Von Schleicher appeared to see it all before him. “These Nazi swine must be stopped with the only thing they understand:force! Roehm and his henchmen have been dreaming for months of doing away with me and co-opting the army. This will enable me to move first. I’ll crush them. Annihilate them. Grind them into horse fodder.”
    It seemed a bit extreme to Willi, except in the context of German political discourse, in which bloody solutions had become as commonly discussed these days as the weather. But he felt an enormous weight lift from his midsection. With von Schleicher and the army on his side he stood a chance at taking down this sick SA surgeon. Until he heard the minister say he would contact Ernst Roehm at once. And the weight returned.
    “Herr General, I was hoping to keep this between the army and the police. Why bring in the SA führer?”
    “Because Ernst Roehm happens to be a buddy of mine. A little queer, but a solid soldier. A man with whom I can do business.”
    “You just finished telling me you want to crush him. Annihilate him. Grind him up for horse fodder.”
    Von Schleicher looked at Willi as if he were a little boy. “Herr Inspektor, what does one thing have to do with the other?”
    Thus went the forked-tongued, double-dealing, backstabbing, two-faced world of politics in the Wilhelm Strasse. Exactly the way the World War had begun, Willi grimly recalled.
    Von Schleicher picked up the phone and vehemently clicked the receiver for the operator. The SA leader was unavailable. “Never mind.” He hung up. “I’ll take care of it. Roehm will work with us on this, I assure you.”
    “Superb.” Willi barely made it sound as if he meant it.
    Before he rose to leave, he did something entirely against his principles.
    “Herr General—” He kept flashing onto his father-in-law’s desperate face the other day at Café Strauss. And his sons. “Might I take a moment to inquire of you, quite confidentially of course, what you foresee in terms of the next leadership at the Reichs Chancellery?”
    Von Schleicher was silent. Willi feared he’d