52
WITH EXPRESSIVE BLUE EYES, blond hair curling under her sequined hat, and a floral jacket and white skirt, the slim-hipped Eva Braun was the perfect picture of a high-class hostess.
But more than anything, Thomas Bauer was struck by her youth.
He knew that she was twenty-two, but she did not look even that old.
“Fr?ulein Braun.” Bauer stood at a respectful distance, hands clasped behind his back, stooped slightly in a bow.
She set down the glass of champagne she was finishing. She looked Bauer over and seemed to approve.
“My name is Berger,” he told her. “I am a correspondent for Photoplay magazine.”
“Photoplay!” She clapped her hands together. “I just adore that magazine. The cover featuring Gloria Swanson? I’ve kept that issue for years! She’s—well, she’s so enchanting, isn’t she?”
“Yes, yes,” said Bauer.
“You’ve just missed the Führer.”
Osteria Bavaria was Hitler’s favorite restaurant—hence why Bauer had chosen to work at that particular establishment. But he had avoided the Führer today.
“I did not come to meet him, Fr?ulein Braun. I came to see you.”
“Me?” Braun lit up, her rosy cheeks coloring further, her bloodshot eyes widening. She set down the bottle of champagne; she’d been about to pour herself another glass. It was clearly not her first—or second—of the day.
“Yes, you,” said Bauer. “I would like to interview you. I would like to photograph you. The powerful woman behind the powerful man.”
Braun considered that idea, seeming to savor it, her tongue peeking out between her deep-red lips.
“We were thinking of shooting at Prinzregentenplatz,” said Bauer.
“Oh,” she said, her eyes cast downward. “I don’t spend much time there. How about the chalet in Berchtesgaden? It’s a humble cottage, but the views of the Bavarian Alps are breathtaking!”
No. That won’t work.
“My publisher insists on Prinzregentenplatz,” said Bauer.
Bauer left the Osteria Bavaria, wrapping his scarf tight, and walked two blocks to the tram.
He took it to a stop on Adalbertstra?e and got off.
On the way to his destination he was approached by no fewer than a dozen homeless people; he always tried to carry some coins with him to hand out but constantly reminded himself that every mark he gave to someone else was one that didn’t provide for his family.
He soon reached the beer hall off Georgenstra?e.
It was a tavern his father had once frequented and was still popular with the men who worked the quarries.
The carved wooden sign outside for Maximilian Haus hung sideways from a single nail, but everyone knew the place.
Bauer had walked these sticky linoleum floors since he was eight years old, when his father and his crewmates would hoist their steins and sing “Ein Prosit der Gemütlichkeit” until they were falling off their chairs, leaving Bauer to prop his father up to get him on the tram home.
He reached the door to the private hall at the rear and knocked on it. The man who answered was Fritz Gerlich, Bauer’s erstwhile partner in crime, who had also managed to avoid incarceration for his role in the Brown House burglary for much the same reason Bauer did.
“Almost didn’t recognize you with the beard and bald head,” Gerlich said.
“That’s the whole point, Fritzie.”
Inside the private room, eight other men were gathered around a circular table, each of them with a stein of foamy ale and papers in front of them.
They looked like ordinary men, dressed in ordinary clothes.
They ranged in age from thirty-one to seventy-four.
They had ordinary jobs—shoemaker, barber, student, salesman, musician, shopkeeper, and two university professors.
A collection of men Bauer and Gerlich had brought together covertly, subtly, and very, very carefully over the last few months.
What they had in common were two things: Firstly, they desperately loved their country, all—save Gerlich, who had been medically disqualified—having bravely fought for the Imperial Army in the war. And secondly, they would be damned if everything they fought for was taken away by Adolf Hitler.
Ten men who had come together through various friendships, calling themselves the ZP, for die zehn Patrioten or Ten Patriots.
Bauer took the vacant chair and sat down. “I’m in,” he said. “We’re meeting at his flat in Prinzregentenplatz next week. We’ll only get one chance to do this.”
“I’ll have the flat by then,” said the barber, a Polish immigrant named Rolf who’d served in a reserve field artillery regiment in the war.
“The tech will be no problem.” This from Erich von der Haas, a medical student who’d served as a signals-intelligence officer for Abwehr, Germany’s spy agency. Von der Haas was a mousy sort, with wiry hair, glasses thicker than Gerlich’s, and a tiny frame—five foot four at most.
“That’s great, Bauer,” said Gerlich. “But I have even better news. My sources tell me that the president refuses to appoint Hitler. Tomorrow, he’s announcing that General von Schleicher will be the new chancellor.”
As if he’d been holding his breath for the last three weeks since the parliamentary elections, Bauer exhaled in relief.
At least there was still some sanity left in the country.
President von Hindenburg was a frail octogenarian, but he was moderate and reasonable and, most important, he embraced democracy.
Kurt von Schleicher was a political chameleon, but he detested the Nazis, and Hitler in particular.
Germany didn’t need flawless politicians or a perfect government. They just needed a democracy.
“That’s the best news of all,” said Bauer. “That gives us more time. But we can’t slow down now. Because we know Hitler won’t.”