A Night of Long Knives (Hannah Vogel) Read online

  The door was behind Röhm. He leaned close, musky cologne and horse sweat smell reminding me of my father. Officers started the day by riding. I swallowed another wave of nausea.

  “Even if you escape this room, pigeon, how will you find him?” He raised one black eyebrow.

  “The police—”

  He threw back his head and laughed, long and hard. “I own the police. I own the party. Soon I will own the military.”

  “Hitler allows this?”

  “The Corporal does as he’s told,” he answered, heat in his voice.

  I sagged against the carved wooden headboard and sucked in a long, painful breath.

  “Cracked rib?” he asked, without a trace of sympathy. “My soldiers and I can do as we please with you, as long as you can stand at the altar.”

  I had seen enough accounts, always in non-German papers, of the torture of the party’s enemies to know what he could do to me. I had heard of a body recovered with fist-sized hunks of flesh missing. The death certificate listed the cause of death as dysentery.

  A concentration camp had opened at Dachau, just outside of Munich, little more than a year ago. The Nazis had filled it with Socialists, Communists, journalists, and anyone else they disliked. For all I knew, I was there now.

  But this room felt like a hotel. And Theodor Eicke of Himmler’s SS ran Dachau. Röhm would not stay somewhere that Himmler ruled. They were locked in an ongoing rivalry for Hitler’s favor. Röhm had Hitler’s affection, force, and millions of brown-shirted SA men at his disposal. Himmler had a knack for treachery, his highly disciplined SS blackshirts, and the top generals in the German army on his side.

  I bet on Himmler to win in the end. Hitler needed those generals more than he needed his old friend. Röhm would prevail only if he tread lightly. I almost smiled. He never bothered to tread lightly. Still, he had come far, and it would not do for anyone to underestimate him. Look where that had landed me.

  His hard blue eyes appraised me. I lifted my chin and gave him the most nonchalant look I could muster.

  “You will be assigned a detail of men. To watch you when I’m not enjoying the pleasure of your company.”

  “And Anton?”

  “If you wish to live, this afternoon you and I will be married. White dress, photographers, press, and party dignitaries. After a few weeks, if you behave, you shall return to Switzerland. I’ll say you’re ill and need a special cure available there. I don’t need a wife at my side constantly. But you will have watchers, always, in case I need you to come back.”

  I stifled a shudder. “Will Anton attend our wedding?”

  “Anton will attend the National Political Institute for Education in Potsdam. He can come to me in Berlin on weekends.” His voice was confident and sure, the voice that convinced soldiers to leap out of trenches and be cut down like wheat. “They will mold him into a proper soldier for the National Socialist movement.”

  “He is only nine.” My heart thumped against my ribs. Those schools taught brutality. They admitted only children of Nazi-approved racial background, and with perfect hearing and vision. After that at least one fifth of the children either washed out or went home too badly injured to continue. “He cannot board until eleven.”

  “I spoke to the headmaster.” He smiled as if we were having a pleasant morning’s conversation.

  “You have been thorough.” I swung my legs over the side of the bed. My head spun. Effects of chloroform or hopelessness? I closed my eyes.

  “As is my wont.” The chair creaked as he stood. “You will find that I am effective. But not a brute.”

  I raised my head to look at him, skeptical.

  “I reward loyalty and obedience.” He pushed me down on the bed with one hand, palm flat against my breastbone. “The reverse is also true.”

  Pain stabbed from my rib. I could not breathe. Flashes of light dazzled my eyes. I struggled to inhale, but more than that, I struggled to keep fear from my eyes. Never show a dog fear, my father always said. Darkness closed in around the sides of my vision.

  3

  Röhm lifted his hand, and I sucked in a lungful of air, unable to keep from crying out when my lungs pressed against the rib. I bit back a second cry. Let him kill me then, but I would not buckle. As soon as I could lift my head, I glared at him.

  “We’ll get on well, pigeon,” he said.

  I will stab you in your sleep, I thought. “I suppose I must hope that we do,” I answered aloud.

  He gestured to a door set against the wall. “Bathe yourself. Change your clothes. I’ve laid out a dress on the sink and drawn you a bath.”

  “How thoughtful.”

  “I’ve also removed the lock and handle.”

  I rose shakily and stumbled to the bathroom. The floor pitched and moved, like the zeppelin’s.

  I hooked my finger through the hole that had recently held the door handle and lock and opened the bathroom door. Knowing that it would not keep him out should he want to come in, I closed the door and collapsed with my back against the wood, floor tiles cold against the backs of my legs.

  I caught my breath. Röhm felt certain he had me trapped. But there must be a way out. There was always a way out. I turned on the light. The only exit from the bathroom was the door, and a window too tiny for a towel to fit through. Early morning light shone through. I had been unconscious for hours, for the entire night. Anton might be anywhere. I clenched my hands. I would not give in to worry.

  Blood stained the front of my cotton dress. I considered washing it, but did not. Instead I stripped it off, cursing Mouse each time I moved. Remembering Anton’s twig, I searched my pockets. Like Anton, the little twig was gone.

  I folded the dress and placed it on the counter, avoiding the mirror. I could not see myself this way.

  Röhm had arrayed his toiletries with military precision on a table near the sink. I rummaged through his shaving kit, but it contained only a shaving brush and soap. He had secured the razor, to keep me from harming myself, or him. Thorough indeed.

  The water in the massive tub was barely lukewarm. I thought of heating it, but I would not give him the satisfaction of knowing it bothered me. I scrubbed dried blood from my face and hands, and washed my hair. Imprinted in the soap was HANSELBAUER SPA. Bavarian?

  Large and luxurious towels hung by the bathtub. A spa. Was he here for a cure? I hoped his illness was fatal.

  Cleaned up, I took stock of myself in the mirror over the large sink. My nose looked fine. A purple bruise the size and shape of Mouse’s elbow rested below my left breast. I slid my fingers across the bruise to press on each rib. Only one rib cracked, just as he had predicted. He knew his business.

  I ran Röhm’s hairbrush through my wet bobbed hair. Worried lines on my gaunt face marked me as a reluctant bride-to-be. Tears welled up, and I forced them down. The way through this was to remain calm and cool. I would escape and break Anton out of that Nazi boarding school.

  My father would have been proud. I was about to marry a highly decorated officer. Iron Cross First Class, wounded thrice, and an Army captain. The leader of millions of brawling street thugs.

  My father would have been unhappy that Röhm was a known homosexual, more so if he discovered he loved my brother. But as my mother always said, “A perfect man is one you don’t know very well.”

  I drew on the clothes he had laid out. A full complement of undergarments, including stockings and garters, topped by a light summer dress with red flowers. The dress fell modestly to my calves. I bought it in Rio de Janeiro for my much-anticipated reunion with Boris in Switzerland. Instead I would wear it for Ernst Röhm. Unwilling to ask for help no matter how much it hurt, I struggled to button the back.

  After a long drink of tepid water from the tap, I smoothed my dress and opened the bathroom door.

  “I took the liberty of ordering breakfast,” Röhm called.

  “You excel at taking liberties.” I reentered the bedroom.

  “That dress become
s you, pigeon. You look like your brother.” He leered.

  I swept past him without comment. I stuffed my bloodstained dress and underthings into my suitcase, my fingers feeling the zeppelin tickets for the return trip to South America and our fake Swiss passports. Röhm knew those identities. I did not see how we could use them or how I could escape to obtain others. But we had more than a week before the zeppelin’s scheduled return to South America. Perhaps something would change the odds in my favor.

  Unsure what to do, I crossed to the window and drew open the curtains. Sun shone on a silver lake surrounded by pines. It was a beautiful Saturday morning, somewhere.“Where are we?”

  “Your honeymoon chalet.” He moved to stand behind me. He wrapped his arms around my waist. “If we’re lucky, this is where you will conceive another son for me.”

  I froze. His arms tightened against my hips.

  A gunshot echoed nearby. I jumped.

  “Only one of the boys hunting. Potting little brown rabbits before breakfast.”

  It sounded too close to be rabbits. He leaned down, and his breath flowed across the side of my neck. His moustache grazed my skin. I fought a wave of nausea. Another gunshot cracked.

  A knock on the door brought him up short. “Room service with our breakfast. Retire to the bathroom until the server is gone. No need risking your reputation by having you spotted in my bedroom before the ceremony.”

  Or having me try to run past the waiter.

  As I walked toward the bathroom, he reached out and patted my bottom. I gritted my teeth. As soon as I could arrange it, his day of reckoning would come.

  After he closed the bathroom door, I switched off the light, then knelt to look through the hole that had contained the doorknob. He fussily straightened his bathrobe and patted his hair into place. I wondered if he expected the room service waiter to be attractive.

  “Come in. It’s unlocked.”

  The door slammed against the wall. Attractive or not, the waiter would get no tip. I stifled a smile. Röhm drew an angry breath and turned.

  A short man wearing a riding outfit complete with tall boots stormed in, back ramrod straight. Long dark hair flopped across his brow.

  The smile froze on my face. My mouth dropped open, as did Röhm’s.

  The man was Adolf Hitler.

  He strode across the soft carpet brandishing a riding crop. Röhm raised his arm to fend off a blow. I held my breath. The whip did not fall.

  “Röhm!” Fury blazed in Hitler’s red face, but his whip hand trembled. Did even Hitler fear Röhm?

  Röhm dropped his arm and stood at attention. Always the officer. He snapped his right arm into the Hitler salute. “Heil Hitler!”

  “Röhm.” Hitler’s harsh Austrian voice filled the room. “You are under arrest.” He used the familiar you, as if they were intimate friends. I had heard he used it with no one else.

  “On what charge?” Röhm loomed over Hitler.

  “High treason,” Hitler said, and I knew that Röhm was lost. “As you well know.”

  I trembled. The punishment for treason was death. And I knelt in the traitor’s bathroom.

  Two men in black SS uniforms marched in, guns drawn. They glanced wildly around, plainly as terrified as I. The sight of Röhm and Hitler standing nose to nose focused them.

  Those shots had nothing to do with killing brown rabbits, and everything to do with killing brownshirts. The blackshirts must be killing the brown. If Röhm was being arrested, it meant that Himmler had won Hilter’s loyalty, and Röhm had lost.

  Cold sweat ran down my back. Was Anton stashed in the hotel? Did he hear the same gunshots as I, wondering if they came for him? Did they?

  “Dress yourself.” Hitler’s pale blue eyes clashed with Röhm’s.

  He gave Hitler the look that he must have used when he famously marched those sixty-five French prisoners across the front lines with a half-empty revolver and a lung pierced by shrapnel. Hitler faltered. Then an SS man scooped Röhm’s clothes off the stand near the bed and threw them at him.

  He let them fall to the floor. “You have made an error, old friend,” he said quietly to Hitler, using the familiar form of you as well. Their familiarity made the whole scene feel like a lovers’ quarrel. The most dangerous kind.

  “Would that—” Hitler seemed on the verge of saying something else.

  A man and woman, both in silk dressing gowns, burst through the door behind the SS men.

  “I am the doctor for Chief of Staff Röhm,” said the man. “What is happening here?”

  Hitler turned to the doctor, who gasped and gave a crisp Hitler salute. “Heil Hitler!”

  His companion followed suit, pale arm trembling.

  “This is not a pleasant place for you to be today.” Hitler ran the back of his index finger across his stunted moustache. “I suggest you and your wife leave at once.”

  The doctor shot Röhm a look. He closed his eyes and nodded once. The doctor hustled his wife out.

  Hitler shook his head sadly, then followed. The leather of Hitler’s tall boots squeaked as he stepped into the hall.

  The SS boys stood pat, pistols trained on Röhm.

  “May I dress in private?”

  “Plenty of men have seen you naked.” The shorter one sniggered. “Dress here.”

  “When this is over, you will regret those words.”

  The short officer retreated a pace. He glanced at his fellow. They looked like young boys caught smoking in the alley. Then they tightened their grips on their guns and straightened their spines. Neither looked Röhm in the eye again.

  He dressed with the quick efficiency of a man used to changing while under fire in a trench. Never once did his eyes stray to the bathroom. I prayed that they would not. I must stay well away from these events. Closer, another gunshot cracked. Röhm glanced in the direction of the sound, but other than that he gave no sign.

  Röhm pulled on his polished black boots and stood straight to attention. “I am ready, children.”

  4

  The SS men ignored the insult and gestured uneasily with their pistols toward the door. Regal in his rumpled uniform, Röhm marched out with the calm, measured tread I had watched so often in newsreels. His armed guards followed uncertainly. The shorter one jerked the door shut behind them.

  I tiptoed out of the bathroom and back toward the bed, knees shaking. I had to get away before anyone came back. Röhm had lined up his slippers on the right side of the bed, as if he would return by bedtime. I thought of what might have happened in that bed if Hitler had not arrested him. I had been rescued by Hitler himself. Perhaps his only good deed.

  On the night table, in the cut-glass ashtray, rested a set of Mercedes keys. I grabbed them. His automobile would undoubtedly be too flashy a method of escape, but it would be faster than walking.

  My suitcase stood, still closed, next to the wardrobe. My hands shook so much that I dropped the keys twice before managing to put them into the suitcase. I lifted it, gasping at the pain in my side. If I slipped out unnoticed, perhaps no one would link me to Röhm. Hannah Vogel and Anton Röhm were certainly in danger, but if Röhm had not publicized our false names, who would care about Adelheid Zinsli, widowed Swiss reporter, and her son?

  Dizziness threatened to overwhelm me. You can do this, I ordered myself. You must do this. For Anton.

  I swung the door open and poked my head out. Wooden doors lined the walls; burgundy carpeting ran down the empty hall. When I stepped out, the now-dressed doctor and his wife came out of their room next door. Both looked as shocked to see a woman sneaking out of Röhm’s room as they had been to see Hitler. A morning of surprises for everyone. I cursed inwardly. They could link my face to Röhm.

  I gestured for them to walk in front of me and followed down the hall. Hopefully they knew the way out.

  The doctor and his wife headed to the lobby and past the cold fireplace. Heads of dead elk and deer adorned the walls. Under each hung a polished silver plaque listi
ng the hunter and date and location the animal had been killed. I wondered where the SS would display the trophies they bagged today. From far off in the hotel, doors slammed, and another gunshot echoed.

  I had to find Anton.

  I approached the front desk. “Excuse me,” I said. “I have become separated from my son.”

  The concierge looked at me with wide eyes. “Pardon?”

  “My son. His name is Anton. We came here to . . . meet a friend for breakfast.”

  “We do not serve breakfast so early.” His corpulent form turned toward an SS officer standing to my left.

  I held back my impatience and fear. “He is wearing a white singlet and short gray pants.” Another gunshot echoed down the hall, and I flinched. “Have you seen him?”

  “I have seen no children today.”

  “Last night?”

  The SS man on my left cleared his throat.

  “I thought you said that you came for breakfast,” the concierge said. At any other time he would probably have been more suspicious, but the black-uniformed men racing to and fro were enough to distract anyone.

  “Did you see a boy last night?”

  “I have not seen a boy at this hotel for days, Frau . . .” He paused, waiting for my last name.

  I did not give it. “Whom else may I ask?”

  He gestured toward a swinging door that I suspected led to the kitchen. I picked up the suitcase and hurried in.

  A girl in her late teens made coffee with shaking hands. She spilled dark grounds on the counter, the homey smell out of place in this nightmare.

  “They want coffee. And rolls.” She pushed her long blond braids behind broad shoulders. “Hard for the SS to shoot people on an empty stomach.”

  “Have you seen a small boy?” I heard panic in my voice and brought it under control. “My son is nine years old. He has blond hair and is wearing short gray pants and a white singlet. His name is Anton.”