The Hunt

“If you wish, mein Fuhrer.”

“I am curious about something,” Hitler said. “I know you had bad times for a year or two before you became an actor. Why didn’t you join the Sturmabteilung? A good Nazi like you, belonging to the brownshirts would have given you prestige.”

“I couldn’t do that,” Ingersoll answered.

“Why not?”

“It’s a personal matter,” he said with some hesitation.

“One you cannot share with your Fuhrer?”

Ingersoll thought for a moment before answering.

“I didn’t come here to make enemies.”

“It will not go beyond this room, Hans.”

Ingersoll thought about that for a few moments. On the one hand he feared his own prejudice would infuriate Hitler, and yet his instincts told him that Hitler would respond favorably to honesty.

Besides, why was he really here, he wondered? Were these political questions merely curiosity? Or was there some darker motive behind the discussion? Ingersoll flipped the two options over and over in his mind, like spinning a coin. Finally he opted for candor. After all, he was a national idol. His popularity transcended politics or ideology.

“I am afraid my opinions are somewhat. . . snobbish,” he said finally.

“Snobbish?”

“The brownshirts are not my kind of people. I understand their function is necessary but . . . they are loudmouth bullies, boisterous and

“Yes? And?” Hitler’s eyes bored into his but Ingersoll did not look away.

“And then there’s Ernst Rohm. He is . . . there is something about him . . . Rohm is a lover of little boys,” Ingersoll said rather harshly. “A sadist. A drunkard

“You know Rohm?”

“I met him once. Back in ‘25, ‘26, in Berlin. He was making a speech. Cold sober he was incoherent.”

“He was not picked for his oratorical skills—or his good manners, for that matter.”

“Yes, mein Fuhrer, but . .

“Your instincts about Ernst are correct,” Hitler said. “He has failed to give the SA a soul of its own.” Hitler stood up with his back to the fire and shrugged his shoulders. “It has no pride or direction.” He thought for a moment more, then added enigmatically, “These things eventually outlive their purpose.”

He paused again.

“Besides, Rohm has pig eyes,” Hitler said, changing the mood again and chuckling at his own insult.

“I wouldn’t want to spend the evening with Attila the Hun either, but he was very effective.”

“Precisely. I see you understand that even rats can serve a useful purpose. He serves a purpose, a very necessary purpose. But I assure you, he will have no voice in the future of Germany. He is uncouth,” Hitler said abruptly.

“Exactly!”

Ingersoll was obviously a student of politics, his observations were accurate. Die Sturmabteilung, the SA, were Hitler’s personal storm troopers. Ruffians and thugs, most of the brown- shirts had originally been recruited from prisons or from beer halls where they were bouncers. They had become an undisciplined paramilitary force. Marching through the streets, smashing windows, beating up Jews, guarding political meetings and privately engaging in blackmail and extortion, the SA had become dangerously out of control and so Hitler had brought Ernst Rohm, a compatriot from the old Putsch days, back from a diplomatic post in Bolivia to head it. Hitler still needed this private police force of his, but he had his own plan for dealing with them. He had created the SS, the Schutzstaffel, putting one of his closest friends, Heinrich Himmler, in charge. It also had a satellite, the SD, a security service engaged in counterintelligence in Germany and abroad. It was the SD in which Wilhelm Vierhaus played a vague but obviously important role. Hitler’s plan was to build the SS into the most fearful organization in the Nazi party, shifting its power until it was stronger than the SA and then...

But each thing in its time.

“I realize I probably seem like an elitist Ingersoll started to say.

“You are an elitist,” Hitler said matter-of-factly. “There is nothing wrong with that. It’s one reason you are here.”

“I have little in common with Rohm and his brownshirts other than politics. I prefer to support the National Socialist movement in other ways.”

Hitler’s eyes narrowed and he leaned forward slightly.

“Such as?” he asked.

“Financial contributions. Encourage my associates to join the party. Defend your ideas to those who, uh . . . don’t fully understand them.”

“So, you are a good Nazi then?” Hitler asked.

Ingersoll thought for a moment before he answered.