The covenant - James A. Michener [533]
'But what can you do this time?' they asked.
'I give you my solemn promise that Jan Christian Smuts will not dare call for mobilization. No one would report.'
'The police?'
'They'll fight for Germany.' Recklessly he promised everything, implying that he spoke for all segments of the population. If he did not convince them of his interpretations of South African politics, he did persuade them to invest a modest amount in a potential subversion of that government. They granted the funds on the sensible basis of disrupting the English power at all points, provided the cost proved not too high; they never expected the southern tip of Africa to become a German enclave, but they could reasonably hope for enough disruption to impede the war effort.
With these assurances, Piet Krause, who spoke miserable German, went to Nuremberg for one of the frenzied rallies of mid-1939, when the leadership knew that war was inevitable, though the people did not. The stadium was filled with ecstatic young men who would shortly die in Greece and Italy and Russia and the North Atlantic and in the skies above England. He heard eleven preliminary speeches, pounding into him the need to exterminate Jews and cleanse the bloodstream. He appreciated the enormous appeal of the word Volk and decided to increase its use in South Africa. But when the lesser orators were finished, Herr Goebbels appeared, and after him, Adolf Hitler, the man who would save the world.
Piet Krause stood enthralled as Hitler unfolded his plan for regeneration, and each word he said applied to conditions in South Africa, so far as Piet was concerned. He was hypnotized by Hitler's force, his clear logic; and when the wild cheering died, he still stood there, trying to determine how best he could assist this man in bringing the same kind of order and enthusiasm to South Africa.
That night, in his Nuremberg room, he drafted the blood oath which he would administer to all who later joined him in his enterprise:
In the presence of Almighty God and on the sacred blood of the Volk, I swear that my higher authority will find me obediently faithful and eager to obey in secret any command given me. I shall fight constantly for the victory of National Socialism, because I know that democracy has become like an old shoe which must be thrown away.
If I advance, follow me!
If I retreat, shoot me!
If I die, avenge me!
So help me God!
When he reached home in midsummer, 1939, his wife could see that he had undergone some thunderclap experience, for he was not the man she had known before. When he confided the responsibilities that had been placed upon him, she knew that she must assume responsibility for the family, since he would be preoccupied with a score of duties. He started with the police, talking quietly against the local custom of conscripting the whole force into the armed services: 'Don't let them make you go to war. If Jan Christian Smuts wants you to fight his battles in England, don't permit it. This time England must lose, and when that happens, you and men like you will be in command.'
He was also active with young Afrikaners: 'Do not allow the government to force you into uniform. And for the love of God, don't volunteer. When the Germans recapture South-West Africa, there'll be a place for you in a real army.'
He asked certain trusted clergymen to preach against participation in this impending war, and he did effective work among the unions. He talked with schoolteachers, advising them what to say to their pupils, and when war did come, in September of that year, Smuts found himself unable to order conscription, or to move policemen bodily into the armed forces, or to argue young men into volunteering. In fact, when Smuts sought to take his country into the conflict on the side of England, he was strongly opposed by those who insisted that it remain neutral. At the final moment South Africa joined the Allies by a vote of only 80-67.
'He is taking us onto the wrong side,' the principal members of the Broederbond cried in