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“I was looking forward to some sea air.”
“Drop by the hotel sometime, and I’ll have the chef fix you a nice plate of Bismarck herrings. I swear, you’ll think you were on Rügen Island.”
“All right, Bernie. But you owe me.”
“Sure I do. And, believe me, I’m glad about that. I’m not sure our friendship could take the strain if it was you who owed me. Call me when you hear something.”
MOST OF THE TIME THE ADLON ran like a big state Mercedes-a Swabian colossus with handcrafted coachwork, hand-stitched leather, and six outsized Continental AGs. I can’t claim that any of this was attributable to me, but I took my duties-which were largely routine-seriously enough. I had a maxim of my own: Ru
The events diary was a different story, however. Corporate hospitality given at the Adlon was frequently lavish, often alcoholic, and sometimes things got a bit out of hand. On that particular day there were two groups of businessmen that were booked in. Representatives of the German Labor Front were meeting all day in the Beethoven Room; and, in the evening-by a coincidence that was not lost on me after my visit to the Ministry of the Interior-the members of the German Olympic Organizing Committee, including Hans von Tschammer und Osten and SS colonel Breitmeyer, were to convene for drinks and di
Of the two, I was expecting trouble only from DAF-the Labor Front, which was the Nazi organization that had taken over Germany ’s trade-union movement. This was led by Dr. Robert Ley, a former chemist who was given to bouts of heavy drinking and womanizing, especially when the taxpayer was picking up the bill. Prostitutes were frequently invited into the Adlon as the guests of Labor Front regional leaders, and the sight and sound of heavy men making love to whores in the lavatories was not uncommon. Their light brown tunics and red armbands made them easy to spot, which made me think that Nazi officials and pheasants had something in common. You didn’t have to know anything about them personally to want to shoot one.
As things turned out, Ley didn’t show, and the DAF delegates behaved themselves more or less impeccably, with only one of them being sick on the carpet. I ought to have been pleased by that, I suppose. As a hotel worker I was a member of the Labor Front myself. I wasn’t exactly sure what I got for my fifty pfe
“There’s trouble in Raphael,” he said, breathlessly.
As we swiftly walked through the hotel-no member of the staff was ever permitted to run in the Adlon-I tried to get Behlert to paint a picture of exactly who all these men were and what their meeting had been about. Some of the names on the Olympic Organizing Committee were not the sort of men you went up against without first reading the life of Metternich. But Behlert’s picture came out as poorly painted as von Menzel’s copy of a Raphael mural that had given the function room its name.
“I believe there may have been one or two members of the organizing committee who were present earlier on in the evening,” he said, mopping his brow with a napkin-sized handkerchief. Perhaps it was a napkin. “Funk from Propaganda, Conti from the Ministry of the Interior, Hans von Tschammer und Osten, the sports leader. But now it’s mostly businessmen from all over Germany. And Max Reles.”
“Reles?”
“He’s the host.”
“Well, that’s all right,” I said. “For a moment there, I thought one of them might try to give us some trouble.”
As we neared the Raphael Room we heard shouts. Then the double doors were flung open and two men stormed out. You can call me a Bolshevik if you like, but from the size of their stomachs I knew they were German businessmen. One of them had a black bow tie that had been twisted halfway around what was laughably called his neck. Above his neck was a face as red as the little paper Nazi flags that were pi
Behlert followed me through the doors and, as my eyes caught those of Max Reles, I heard him say something about Laurel and Hardy before his tough face opened into a smile and his thick body took on an apologetic, placating, almost diplomatic aspect that would hardly have disgraced Prince Metternich himself.
“It was all a big misunderstanding,” he said. “Wouldn’t you agree, gentlemen?”
But for the fact that his hair was messed up and there was some blood on his mouth, I might have believed him.
Reles looked around the di
“You see?” Reles lifted his big hands in the air, as if I’d pointed a gun at him, and for some reason I got the feeling that if I had, he’d hardly have reacted differently. He’d have kept his nerve under the drill of a drunken dentist. “Storm in a teacup.” It didn’t sound right in German and, snapping his thick, stubby fingers, he added, “I mean, a storm in a water glass. Right?”
Behlert nodded eagerly. “Yes, that’s right, Herr Reles,” he said. “And may I say, your German is excellent.”
Reles looked uncharacteristically sheepish. “Well, it’s a hell of a language to speak well,” he said. “Considering it must have been invented to let trains know when it’s time to leave a station.”
Behlert smiled unctuously.
“All the same,” I said, picking one of several broken wineglasses off the tablecloth, “it does look like there was a storm. A Bohemian one, I think. This stuff is fifty pfe
“Naturally I’ll pay for any breakages.” Reles pointed at me and gri
There’s nothing that looks as pleased with itself as a German businessman with a cigar.
“Oh, there’s no question of that, Herr Reles,” Behlert said, and looked at me critically as if I had mud on my shoes, or something worse. “Gunther. If Herr Reles says it was an accident, then there’s no need to take this any further.”
“He didn’t say it was an accident. He said it was a misunderstanding. Which is how a mistake often falls just short of being a crime.”
“Is that out of this week’s Berlin Police Gazette?” Reles found a cigar and lit up.
“Maybe it ought to be. Then again, if it was, I might still be a Berlin policeman.”