Look Who's Back (32 page)

“Interesting,” I said. “But the Jews are no laughing matter.”

For a moment not a sound was to be heard in the studio.

“Silence on television is a waste of expensive Volk airwaves,” I said. “So in the meantime, let us take a commercial break.”

The lights were dimmed slightly. A few people came and reapplied our make-up. Künast covered her microphone with her hand.

“What you do sails very close to the wind, let me tell you!” she said in a hushed voice.

“Of course I’m very aware of your party’s sensibilities,” I said. “But you cannot deny that you were the one who brought up the Jews.”

She pondered. Then the lights went up again. I waited for the applause to die down, then asked, “Would you mind accompanying me to the map table?”

On the far right of the studio we had reconstructed the old map table from the Wolf’s Lair. I had commissioned a beautiful, large relief map of the world. “Why,” I asked as we strolled over to it, “has your party in recent times been forgoing the experience and knowledge of Fischer, the former minister of war?”

“Joschka Fischer was never minister of defence,” Künast retorted brusquely.

“You’re right,” I agreed. “I never saw him as a minister of defence, either. One can only defend Reich territory, and Kosovo is not an integral part of that. Given how far away it is,
an annexation wouldn’t have made any sense either. Or do you think otherwise?”

“There was no question of annexing Kosovo! It was all about ethnic cleansing … Listen, I’m not going to start talking about the intervention in Kosovo. It was simply that we couldn’t turn a blind eye!”

“No-one understands that better than I do,” I said in all seriousness. “You are absolutely right, there was no alternative. This I remember well from 1941. So what is that Fischer fellow up to at the moment, then?”

I could see her eyes oscillating between Herr Fischer’s current circumstances and a comparative study of Balkan policy over the past seventy years. She opted for the former.

“The most important thing is that the Greens have no concerns about the talent in our ranks. Joschka Fischer was and still is an important figure in the history of the Green movement, but now it’s the turn of others.”

“Like you, for example?”

“Amongst many others, yes.”

We had arrived at the map table. With flags I had marked the places where the “Bundeswehr” was currently deployed.

“May I ask how the Greens would bring the operation in Afghanistan to a victorious conclusion?”

“What do you mean, ‘victorious conclusion’? The military operation there must be brought to a
speedy
conclusion. It’s only leading to more violence …”

“I take the same view – there’s nothing for us to gain in Afghanistan. What is our objective there?”

“Hold on,” she said, “but—”

“Please don’t say you have fresh misgivings about my motives,” I said. “Please don’t tell me
you’re
allowed to withdraw from Afghanistan, whereas I have to stay there!”

“I’m not sure I’m going to say anything,” she said, her eyes darting around the studio. Her gaze came to rest below the map table.

“There’s a briefcase,” Künast said superciliously. “Is that meant to be there?”

“Someone must have forgotten it,” I said absently. “Where is Stauffenberg, by the way?”

The briefcase had been another idea of mine. In fact, the whole incident had come back to me in sharp detail when we visited the Wolf’s Lair. I suggested we could include it as a permanent feature in the programme. That and the visit to the map table. I thought we should hide the briefcase anew for each guest.

“Seeing as we’ve agreed on a withdrawal from Afghanistan,” I said, leaning over the table, “please tell us, to conclude: If the Greens took power in this country, which would be the first state they would annex?”

“The briefcase is ticking,” Künast said, dumbfounded.

That had been Sensenbrink’s idea. He had hit on it moments before I did.

“Don’t be daft,” I said. “Briefcases don’t tick. A briefcase is not an alarm clock. Which state, did you say?”

“Is confetti going to come out of it? Or flour? Or soot?”

“For goodness’ sake, why don’t you take a look?”

“That’s exactly what you want me to do, isn’t it? Come off it, I’m not stupid!”

“Then you will never find out,” I said. “We, on the other hand, have found out many interesting things about your most congenial party. Many thanks for having spent the evening with us – Frau Renate Künast!”

During the applause I glanced backstage, where Sensenbrink and Madame Bellini were standing. They clapped and then stuck out their fists with thumbs pointing upwards.

It felt wonderful.

T
he most important skill I have acquired during my career as a politician is the ability to judge one’s public obligations shrewdly. Essentially I have always despised the dependence on benefactors, and yet for the sake of his country the politician frequently has to compromise. It may be that public handshakes and deference to the cream of society is an attraction for that caste of political artistes who confuse life
in
the public sphere with a life for the public sphere, for the nation, for the small man who scrimps and saves to put bread on his table and clothe his children. And anybody who spends even a quarter of an hour watching the news on his television set will, with grim certainty, see at least half a dozen of those bootlickers, toadying up to some important person or other. Such behaviour has always repelled me, and I myself have only suffered various courtesy visits for the sake of the cause. Pure torture, but I undertook these for the sake of the party, for the German Volk, for the preservation of our race, or for a new Mercedes.

And for the four-hundred-square-metre apartment on Prinz regentenplatz.

And I suppose for the Obersalzberg too.

All these were acquisitions, however, which increased the
appeal of the party and thus the movement, besides that of the Führer. When I think of the flood of visitors to the Obersalzberg, it astonishes me that anybody can maintain that it was a place where I could relax! And then there was Mussolini’s visit – ghastly! The point is, a Führer cannot withdraw from public life, or only intermittently. If his Reich capital is lying in ruins, then he may hole up for a while in his Führerbunker. Otherwise, the Führer belongs to his Volk. Which is why I was delighted to receive the invitation from Munich.

Back in late August a renowned society magazine had written me a letter, in which the editor requested that I pay her publication a visit during the Greater German Volksfest, which had reverted to its original name of “Oktoberfest”. Everybody at Flashlight encouraged me to accept the invitation; for my part I was hesitant at first. I had never been there during the first period of my life, but times had changed and with them the significance of this fortnight-long tradition. As several people reassured me, the Oktoberfest had now become a Volksfest which took place without involving a particularly large proportion of the population. Anybody wishing to sit and partake of food and drink in one of the tents had to reserve a place months, sometimes years in advance, or else reschedule their visit to a time of day when no decent German would ever dream of going there.

Well, no person sound of mind would plan an innocent affair such as a visit to a Volksfest months or years in advance. As a consequence, so I learned, the place teemed in the morning and early afternoon with indecent Germans as well as foreigners and tourists attracted by the aura of the famous
festival. Already by lunchtime these people tried desperately to make an evening of the day. Both Madame Bellini and Sensenbrink warned me against making an appearance too early, as it implied that one was an insignificant, peripheral figure. The evenings were not for the local population either, but for businesses from every branch of industry imaginable. Practically any firm with half a name for itself felt obliged to arrange visits to the “Wiesn” for its clients or the press. Some organs of the press, however, dissatisfied with what was on offer or with the guests present, had taken it upon themselves to tailor a more congenial visit to the “Wiesn”. To my mind this was a terribly smart, indeed positively Goebbels-like course of action.

Some of these gatherings, I was assured, were now as important as the opera balls of old. And this magazine’s soirée was amongst the most important. My acceptance, moreover, turned out to be a particularly effective propaganda coup; in the past I had kept my distance from the festival, and now several tabloid newspapers were able to write on their front pages, “Führer’s First Fest”. The smooth relationship I now enjoyed with these papers, I reflected with no little satisfaction, meant that the need to establish a new
Völkischer Beobachter
was dropping down my list of priorities.

I had arrived in the city around noon and used the time to call in on some much-loved old haunts. I lingered for a while at the Feldherrnhalle, remembering the blood spilled by loyal comrades there; I wandered nostalgically past the Hofbräukeller; then, with some apprehension, I walked to Königsplatz. But how my heart beat for joy when I saw all the
magnificent buildings still standing unscathed: the Propylaea, the Glyptothek, the State Collections of Antiquities! And – this I had scarcely dared to hope – not only were the Führerbau and the N.S.D.A.P. Administrative Building still standing, but they were in use, too! It had not escaped even those opinionated and cocksure democrats that Königsplatz was only complete with the addition of these highly refined constructions. Feeling gay, I continued my stroll through Schwabing; my feet took me as if of their own accord to Schellingstraße, and to an unhopedfor reunion. It would be hard to convey the sheer magnitude of my delight when I spied the sign for the Osteria Italiana, behind which hid none other than my old hangout, the Osteria Bavaria. I would have loved to have gone in and partaken of something small, a glass of mineral water perhaps, but time was marching on and I had to return to my hotel, from where an automobile was to fetch me that evening.

My arrival at the Theresienwiese, site of the Oktoberfest, was sobering. Police had cordoned off the vast site, but they were making no efforts to ensure security or order. Barely had I got out of the automobile than two exceedingly drunken individuals staggered towards me and fell into the back seat.

“Brrralleeiiiinschraaasse!” one of the two slurred, while the other seemed to be dozing already. The chauffeur, a powerful man, expelled the two drinkers at once with the words, “Oi! Out! This isn’t a taxi!” He then accompanied me to the venue. “Sorry about that,” he said. “It’s always like this at the bloody Oktoberfest.”

We walked the short distance across the street to the festival site. It was hard to believe that anybody could have struck upon
the idea of holding a soirée of any social importance in this godforsaken place. Endless lines of drunkards leaned with their heads against temporary fences, urinating through them. Waiting for a number of these characters were women in a similarly precarious state; it was quite evident that they would have liked to do the same, but dared not due to some subconscious residue of decency. Propped against an advertising column, a couple were engaged in an act of courtship. The man’s intention was to thrust his tongue into her mouth, but because she slipped downwards he missed his target and had to make do with her nose. Responding to his intrusiveness, she opened her mouth and poked her tongue aimlessly in the air. The two of them slid, slowly at first, then more rapidly, down the column until they hit the ground. They shrieked with laughter and tried to say something, but a lack of consonants rendered their babble unintelligible. Lying beneath the woman, the man wriggled about, sat up briefly and then silently plunged a hand into her cleavage. Although it was uncertain whether the woman noticed this at all, three Italians, on the other hand, watched with interest and decided to follow events at closer quarters. These ignominious endeavours failed to attract the attention of anybody else, and certainly not that of the police, who were busy picking unconscious bodies, of which there were plenty, from the ground.

In spite of its name, the Theresienwiese – “Theresa’s Meadow” – possesses very little grass; the only patches of green are to be found around the trees which encircle the site. In this respect, nothing had changed since my first time in Munich. As far as I could make out, drunkards – some of them comatose –
occupied almost every one of these patches of grass. Whenever I eyed a vacant spot, I could already see someone reeling towards it. Once at his temporary resting place he would either collapse, throw up, or both. “Is it always like this?” I enquired of the chauffeur.

“Friday’s worse,” he replied calmly. “Bloody Oktoberfest!”

I cannot explain why, but all of a sudden the reason for this human devastation hit me like a bombshell. It must have been down to a decision taken by the N.S.D.A.P. in 1933 to increase further the party’s popularity amongst the Volk: we fixed the price of beer. Since then, other parties had evidently tried to secure their popularity by the same means.

“How typical of these fools,” I blurted out. “Haven’t they raised the price of beer? These days ninety pfennigs for a litre is a joke!”

“What do you mean, ‘ninety pfennigs’?” the chauffeur asked. “It’s nine euros a litre, mate! Ten if you include a tip.”

As I walked past I saw the extraordinary wreckage of beer-corpses. Somehow, despite all their economic mismanagement, these parties must have brought about an unexpected level of prosperity. Well, not having to wage war certainly saves the odd cost. Looking at the state of the Volk here, however, even the most deluded individual would have to admit that in 1942 or 1944, yes, even in the most harrowing nights of bombardment, the Germans were in better shape than on this September evening at the beginning of the third millennium.

Physically, at least.

Shaking my head, I followed the chauffeur, who delivered me to a blonde woman at the entrance to a tent and then
returned to his vehicle. With cables around her head and a microphone in front of her mouth, she said with a broad smile, “Hi there, I’m Tschill – and you are?”