Mila 18 - Leon Uris [73]
It certainly appears they are going to start draining Jewish wealth systematically, throw the leaders and intellectuals into concentration camps. No one doubts but that the Germans will strike again. Like Pharaoh and Rome, they will need slave labor. I believe the three and a half million Jews in Poland are marked for this.
Ervin thinks Swiss News will be closed any day. Among the new arrivals is a Nazi named Horst von Epp, who will run the Department of Propaganda and Press. It is only a matter of time until Chris de Monti’s credentials are checked.
ALEXANDER BRANDEL
Horst von Epp joined the influx of Nazi officials to Warsaw in the winter of 1939. Completely unlike most of his fellow Nazis, he was a sophisticated man with continental charm and a sparkling sense of humor. He did not wear any of the several choices of uniforms but had tailor-made clothing in the latest fashions and bemoaned the fact that war with England caused him to lose his Bond Street clothier.
The scion of a wealthy family of former nobility, he had little in common with fellow Nazis. He found their violent methods personally distasteful, had little regard for their mentality, and thought all the nonsense of super-men theories, geopolitics, land to live and joy through labor completely ridiculous.
He was far more at home in Paris, on the Riviera, or in New York than in Munich (but he adored Berlin). Yet he was a devoted Nazi and promoted the very principles he abhorred. Denied most of his family holdings by mismanagement and overspending, he was shrewd enough to recognize the irresistible and unstoppable surge of Nazism in the early thirties and simply drifted into the stream. He had few ideals and convictions to deter him from the pursuit of his own pleasures. He wanted the most for the least exertion of effort. He knew the bumbling mentality of most of the early Nazis would call for men like him to think for them.
He was a good-looking man in his early forties, a first-rate libertine who was never faithful to his wife for more than a month or so, and he was a genuine snob, intellectually superior to the majority of his confederates.
Horst von Epp grated the nerves of men like Rudolph Schreiker. He made them feel insignificant, and no Nazi should be made to feel that way. Many would have loved to get rid of Von Epp, but those in power realized he was needed for his particular talents and therefore worth the annoyance he caused.
The German propaganda instrument had effects which had never been duplicated. They knew the basic premise that if a lie was repeated often enough even those who knew it was a lie would soon regard it as truth. Then there were half truths based on masterful distortions of facts. Horst von Epp had helped engineer for Josef Goebbels one of the most brilliant propaganda coups of any age during the Spanish civil war, which was no civil war at all. He was able to clutter the true issues so neatly that the world soon came to believe that the Loyalist government was a Communist government and therefore the Spanish war was a war against communism.
While the Propaganda Ministry poured out fantastic distortions, it became Horst von Epp’s job to water down the vitriol. In Berlin, clever and unsatisfied newsmen from the outside world always stood ready to pounce on the validity of the Propaganda Ministry’s statements and charges. It was impossible to evict all of the journalists who questioned them and still keep world opinion in check.
Horst stilled the troubled waters. He became the pal of the newspapermen. He was always the swell guy, despite the fact that he was a Nazi. The Nazis were never known for being personality boys, so Horst’s personal charm was a luxurious departure from the Nazi bureaucrats. He became the front man who shielded the curious from the inner circle. Horst von Epp could fix anything for a journalist, from a speeding citation