window. Through the mist he could make out the orderly rows of barrack-huts and hear the whistles of steam- engines.
Liss wasn't usually envious of Eichmann. He himself enjoyed an important position without excessive responsibilities. He was considered one of the most intelligent men in the Gestapo. Himmler himself liked to chat with him.
Important dignitaries usually avoided pulling their rank with him. He was used to being treated with respect – and not only within the Gestapo. The presence of the Gestapo could be felt everywhere – in universities, in the signature of the director of a children's nursing-home, in auditions for young opera-singers, in the jury's choice of pictures for the spring exhibition, in the list of candidates for elections to the Reichstag. It was the axis around which life turned. It was thanks to the Gestapo that the Party was always right, that its philosophy triumphed over any other philosophy, its logic – or lack of logic – over any other logic. Yes, this was the magic wand. If it were dropped, a great orator would be transformed into a mere windbag, a renowned scientist would be exposed as a common plagiarist. The magic wand must never be dropped.
As he looked at Eichmann, Liss, for the first time in his life, felt a twinge of envy.
A few minutes before his departure, Eichmann said thoughtfully: 'We're from the same town, Liss.'
They started to reel off the names of familiar streets, restaurants and cinemas.
'There are, of course, places I never visited,' said Eichmann, naming a club that wouldn't have admitted the son of an artisan.
Liss changed the subject. 'Can you give me some idea – just a rough estimate – of the number of Jews we're talking about?'
He knew this was the million-dollar question, a question that perhaps only three men in the world, other than Himmler and the Fuhrer, could answer. But it was the right moment – after Eichmann's reminiscences about his difficult youth during the period of democracy and cosmopolitanism – for Liss to admit his ignorance, to ask about what he didn't know.
Eichmann answered his question.
Eichmann shrugged his shoulders.
They remained silent for some time.
'I very much regret that we didn't meet during our years as students,' said Liss, 'during our years of apprenticeship – as Goethe put it.'
'You needn't. I studied out in the provinces,' said Eichmann, 'not in Berlin.'
After a pause he went on: 'It's the first time, my friend, that I've pronounced that figure out loud. If we include Berchtesgaden, the Reichskanzler and the office of our Fiihrer, it may have been pronounced seven or eight times.'
'I understand,' said Liss. 'It won't be printed in tomorrow's newspapers.'
'That's precisely what I mean,' said Eichmann.
He looked at Liss mockingly. Liss suddenly had a disturbing feeling he was talking to someone more intelligent than himself.
'Apart from the fact that the quiet little town where we were born is so full of greenery,' Eichmann continued, 'I had another reason for naming that figure. I would like it to unite us in our future collaboration.'
'Thank you,' said Liss. 'It's a very serious matter. I need to think about it.'
'Of course. This proposal doesn't come only from me,' said Eichmann, pointing towards the ceiling. 'If you join me in this task and Hitler loses, then we'll hang for it together.'
'A charming prospect!' said Liss. 'I need to give it some thought.'
'Just imagine! In two years' time, we'll be sitting at a comfortable table in this same office and saying: 'In twenty months we've solved a problem that humanity failed to solve in the course of twenty centuries.''
They said their farewells. Liss watched the limousine disappear.
He had some ideas of his own about personal relations within the State. Life in a National Socialist State couldn't just be allowed to develop freely; every step had to be directed. And to control and organize factories and armies, reading circles, people's summer holidays, their maternal feelings, how they breathe and sing – to control all this you need leaders. Life no longer has the right to grow freely like grass, to rise and fall like the sea. In Liss's view, there were four main categories of leaders.
The first were the simple, undivided natures, usually people without particular intelligence or finesse. These people were full of slogans and formulae from newspapers and magazines, of quotations from Hitler's speeches, Goebbels's articles and the books of Franck and Rosenberg. Without solid ground under their feet, they were lost. They seldom reflected on the connections between different phenomena and they were easily moved to intolerance and cruelty. They took everything seriously: philosophy, National Socialist science and its obscure revelations, the new music, the achievements of the new theatre, the campaign for the elections to the Reichstag. Like schoolchildren, they got together in little groups to mug up
The second category were the intelligent cynics, the people who knew of the existence of the magic wand. In the company of friends they trusted, they were ready to laugh at most things – the ignorance of newly appointed lecturers and professors, the stupidity and the lax morals of Leiters and Gauleiters. The only things they never laughed at were grand ideals and the Fuhrer himself. These men usually drank a lot and lived more expansively. They were to be met with most frequently on the higher rungs of the Party hierarchy; the lower rungs were usually occupied by men of the first category.
The men of the third category held sway at the very top of the hierarchy. There was only room for nine or ten of them, and they admitted perhaps another fifteen or twenty to their gatherings. Here were no dogmas. Here everything could be discussed freely. Here were no ideals, nothing but serenity, mathematics and the pitilessness of these great masters.
It sometimes seemed that all the activities of the country were centred around them, around their well- being.
Liss had also noticed that the appearance of more limited minds in the higher echelons always heralded some sinister turn of events. The controllers of the social mechanism elevated the dogmatists only in order to entrust them with especially bloody tasks. These simpletons became temporarily intoxicated with power, but on the completion of their tasks they usually disappeared; sometimes they shared the fate of their victims. The serene masters then remained in control undisturbed.
The simpletons, the men of the first category, were endowed with one exceptionally valuable quality: they came from the people. Not only were they able to cite the classics of National Socialism, but they did so in the language of the people. At workers' meetings, they were able to make people laugh; their coarseness made them seem like workers or peasants themselves.
The fourth category were the executives, people who were indifferent to dogma, ideas and philosophy and equally lacking in analytic ability. National Socialism paid them and they served it. Their only real passion was for dinner-services, suits, country houses, jewels, furniture, cars and refrigerators. They were less fond of money as they never fully believed in its solidity.
Liss was drawn to the true leaders, the men of the third category. He dreamed of their company and their intimacy. It was in that kingdom of elegant logic, of irony and intelligence, that he felt most fully himself.
But at some terrifying height, above even these leaders, above the stratosphere, was yet another world, the obscure, incomprehensible and terrifyingly alogical world of Adolf Hitler himself.
What Liss found most terrifying about Adolf Hitler was that he seemed to be made up of an inconceivable fusion of opposites. He was the master of masters, he was the great mechanic, his mathematical cruelty was more refined than that of all his closest lieutenants taken together. And at the same time, he was possessed by a dogmatic frenzy, a blindly fanatical faith, a bullish illogicality that Liss had only met with at the very lowest, almost subterranean levels of the Party. The high priest, the creator of the magic wand, was also one of the faithful, a mindless, frenzied follower.
Watching Eichmann's car disappear, Liss felt at once afraid of him and attracted to him. Until now, such a confusion of feelings had only been evoked in him by the Fuhrer himself.
