Armageddon_ A Novel of Berlin - Leon Uris [40]
There was no answer.
“Is that not correct!”
“It is correct.”
“Your servants and your farmers trade and live in Ludwigsdorf. You go to your church in Ludwigsdorf. It is the traditional family church. What did you think when trainloads of open gondola cars passed through Ludwigsdorf filled with corpses? Well, goddammit, what did you think?”
“All of us knew to close our eyes, our ears, and our mouths if we wanted to stay alive.”
“What did you think about your factory being operated by slave labor for six years? They were marched over the bridge every day in front of the whole goddamned city! What did you think?”
“I was told what to manufacture, what my quota was. I took the labor that was assigned to me.”
“You and Hermann Goering were flyers together in the First World War. Did you or did you not use your personal friendship to obtain contracts for airplane motors and V-2 rockets?”
“As a businessman I am no different from any businessman anywhere in using my contacts ...”
“And taking the Nazi Blood Order Honor.”
“I was not in a position to turn down a Nazi decoration. It would have been suicide for me to refuse.”
“So your brother Kurt was used as the Nazi front for the Von Romstein family and conveniently committed suicide.”
“My brother made the decision on his own. I believe your concept of justice excludes guilt by association.”
“Let’s examine the association. Brother number one, mayor. Brother number two, chancellor. Brother number three, Nazi Gauleiter. Let me ask you, Count. In your capacity as chancellor and benefactor what did you do about the smashing of the windows of Jewish shops, the burning of their synagogues, the stealing of their fortunes, beatings in the streets, murder at Schwabenwald?”
Ludwig stiffened and fumed. The Jews! Always the Jews! What did this idiot know about Jews. Yes, as chancellor I kept them from over-running the staff of the hospital and kept their numbers proper in the Medical College. I guarded against their filthy business ethics. Neither he nor his father nor his father’s father ever had a Jew in Castle Romstein. It was a matter of family honor. There were those few distasteful civic occasions when it was unavoidable to meet a Jew ... but, the Jews did not run the theaters and newspapers and banks as they did in Vienna and Berlin.
“I never condoned,” the count said with slow deliberateness, “Hitler’s program for the Jewish question. We Germans had many Jews of whom we were proud. There must have been a dozen German Jewish Nobel Prize winners. A close examination of my tenure in public life will prove I never went outside the law in the treatment of Jews.”
“You didn’t have to go outside the law. The Nuremberg Laws let you do anything you wished. Is there any crime on the books you can’t excuse or justify, Count?”
“It is well and good for you to hammer questions at me and demand explanations,” Von Romstein burst back in anger, “but I was in no more of a position to rule upon either the legality or the inhumanity of the law than you are of your laws. I am a German citizen and these were the laws and times of my country. Surely, the good Major is aware of the existence of unjust laws against the Negroes in America and surely the Major knows that Negroes are looked upon as subhumans by a large segment of the American people. We Germans did not invent race hatred.”
“We Americans did not invent death factories. That is an exclusive German innovation!”
“If ... if we could perhaps discuss this on a sane level. I can neither explain nor justify with you shouting at me and I should like you to know my position.”
Sean’s anger abated slowly. He told himself to gain control. “Go ahead ...”
“May I sit down?”
Sean nodded. The count asked for permission to smoke. He drew a long puff wondering where to begin. The man opposite him was filled with righteous wrath.
“You must remember, Major