To the Moon and Back
by
Ellen Dudley.
This excerpt, “The Hitler Interview” from the love story titled “To the Moon and Back”, written by by Ellen Dudley, was edited by William Stephen Taylor.
From the author: An American female journalist did interview Hitler, I don’t know her name or if she was freelance or worked for the associated press. All the facts are true as I did research for this excerpt and I hope you enjoy it.
The Hitler Interview.
The 1936 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XI Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event that was held in 1936 in Berlin, Germany. Hitler saw the Games as an opportunity to promote his government and ideals of racial supremacy, and the official Nazi party paper, the Völkischer Beobachter (The People’s Observer) wrote in the strongest terms that Jews and Black people should not be allowed to participate in the Games. However, when threatened with a boycott of the Games by other nations, he relented and allowed Black people and Jews to participate, and added one token participant to the German team — a German woman, Helene Mayer, who had a Jewish father. For two weeks in August 1936, Adolf Hitler’s Nazi dictatorship camouflaged its racist, militaristic character while hosting the Summer Olympics. The Nazi party removed signs stating “Jews not wanted” and similar slogans from the city’s main tourist attractions minimizing its anti-Semitic agenda and plans for territorial expansion, the regime exploited the Games to impress many foreign spectators and journalists with an image of a peaceful, tolerant Germany. Having rejected a proposed boycott of the 1936 Olympics, the United States and other western democracies missed the opportunity to take a stand that contemporary observers claimed might have restrained Hitler and bolstered international resistance to Nazi tyranny. After the Olympics, Germany’s expansionism and the persecution of Jews and other “enemies of the state” accelerated, culminating in World War II and the Holocaust.
Berlin Olympics 1936.
Inside the Olympic stadium, a group of athletes watched as one of their team members swung her discus around, and then let fly.
The young men and women looked on as the disc flew through the air down the field. They watched it land, and craned their necks, trying to discern the distant markings.
The woman discus thrower joined them, and they waited for the announcement. The results resounded out from the tannoy, and the spectators in the Olympic stadium roared.
From her seat in the stadium, Mary Boshell-Davies looked up at Germany’s new leader, in his dress uniform. “I wonder if I can get an interview with him? Now that would be something.”
“He looks quite impressive does he not?”
She looked at Brian Davies, sitting next to her, her husband of two years, her constant companion and photographer. “Pompous though, and I wouldn’t mind interviewing him.”
“You are not serious are you? Do you actually believe he would condescend to a woman interviewing him?”
“I am now.”
He shook his head, smiling. “Women!”
She peered across the field. “Hey look, there’s Jesse Owens.”
Berlin.
That same evening, Mary walked with Brian through the city; it had changed since they were here last. The slogans aimed at Jews had vanished. Several shops on one street boarded up, no longer displayed the Star of David. The words, “Caution, Jews” daubed earlier on apartment block walls had disappeared too, together with the official signs.
Brian pulled a face. “They may be fooling the rest of the world, Mary, but they are not fooling me.”
Mary looked at him and asked, “Your Aunt in England wrote you, didn’t she?”
He nodded and replied somewhat bitterly, “Several of her friends had relatives here. They left for England, their property confiscated after they were beaten and robbed, and thrown out onto the street by those Meshugge, with just the clothes on their backs. Luckily, they made it to Paris, then to England, and their case was not an isolated one.” He looked at her and asked her rhetorically, “You are going to interview him are you not, the corporal, the actor, the loud-mouthed Herr Schicklgruber?”
She nodded, a little nervous at the thought. “I believe so. I called and asked and some dame, she said I should call by tomorrow mornin’ just before ten, and she sounded positive. I haven’t the faintest idea what I shall ask him though.” She took a deep breath and said, “He will probably give me the same spiel he does on the radio. Well whatever happens we leave for home afterwards.”
He shivered suddenly and said, “Maybe it is because of my Jewish upbringing, but I feel people are already walking over my grave, and I feel too that mine is not the only one.”
The interview.
Mary tried to control her heart as it hammered against her ribcage.
She took a deep breath through her nose, and the sound seemed to fill the room. She sat still, the silence deafening her. She looked around the room and its contents. Every single piece of furniture was an antique, including the high-backed armchair she sat in. She craned her neck as she examined the ceiling, in the centre hung a massive chandelier, then she concentrated her gaze on the décor, the dozens of huge oil paintings and she saw him, staring back at her sternly, from his portrait.
She stiffened in her chair as an army officer, in his dress uniform, appeared at the other end of the room, closing one of the tall double doors behind him. After inspecting the two soldiers standing there on guard duty, in their parade uniforms, he approached her, marching instead of walking across the highly polished wooden floor, his booted footsteps echoing around the high-walled room.
He halted before her and bowed. He spoke softly, in perfect English, “Madame Boshell, good morning, I am Major Hilden, the Fuhrer’s interpreter; he would like to know which newspaper you represent?”
She cleared her throat with a cough, and answered in German, “Good morning, Major, I am doing research for the Associated Press while covering the Olympics, I represent all of the New York newspapers, and my reports will be distributed to all the major cities in each state, you see, I’m a freelance reporter. Is there any objection to that?”
He said aloud, in German, “My apologies, you can speak German, which is wonderful, the Fuhrer will be delighted.” He paused and looked around the room, before continuing in a quieter tone, “No, on the contrary, you are most welcome. The Fuhrer will see you now.” He stepped to one side, “Please follow me.”
He marched off with Elizabeth hurrying to catch up with him.
As he opened the ornately designed door, she took a deep breath with the words echoing inside her head, “This is it kid, the man himself.” and stepped forward.
She found herself in a room decorated in the same ostentatious manner as the one she had just left, and the first thing she noticed was the smell, like rotting cabbage. Her shoes sank into the thick carpet as she stood there, with a million butterflies squirming inside her stomach. She clutched her handbag tightly and looked around her, and her gaze stopped at the window on her right.
There he was, not ten meters away, peering outwards, dressed in a grey uniform jacket, bare of insignia, with dark trousers and black shoes. He seemed preoccupied and she wondered if she should say something, but what should she, what could she say, as her escort stood stiffly to attention next to her, silent and immobile.
The man at the window interrupted her mental meandering by turning around, and in doing so, he looked straight at her, stooping slightly, and then he smiled.
All her anxiety faded away with that one smile, and she gasped as he spoke, “Good morning, please be seated, a lady should never stand when seating is available.”
He looked at the interpreter and the uniformed figure next to her came alive, startling her as he said, “Mein Fuhrer, Madame Boshell speaks perfect German.”
At this, the other raised an eyebrow, smiled once more and nodded, and then he watched as the Major guided her to a set of armchairs and sat her down. After he departed, her host came and took his place in the chair next to her.
‘Oh, my God, that stink; it’s him, damned halitosis.’ She managed a weak smile and said, “Good morning, Herr Hitler.”
She looked at him. The moustache suited him close up, he was clean shaven and his hair was neatly brushed. The scent of his mild cologne reached her as he leaned on his armrest and said to her, “And now, Mary Boshell, tell me all about yourself.”
Bending down to her handbag at her feet, she took a deep breath and reached inside, she flicked the top off her perfume and sprayed the fingers of her right hand, and she rose with her pencil and notebook in her other hand, saying, “For my notes.”
***
She left the building, scribbling in her notebook. She found Brian kicking his heels across the road. She hurried over and ran into his arms, her cheeks aglow.
They kissed, and then walked together along the pavement, arm in arm. “How did it go then, what is he like, what did he say?”
She stopped, released her hold, and faced him. “Why didn’t somebody tell me he had bad breath, I almost threw up in there. I managed not to as I had perfume on my fingers and kept my hand near to my face most of the time.”
She regarded his features. “Apart from that, I was anxious at first, he was most polite though, and I found him highly charismatic. Oh God, his breath though, you could have cut through the air, it was so heavy with the odor of rotting flesh.”
“Halitosis?”
“And how!”
He hid a smile as they walked on and asked, “What did you talk about?”
She stopped once more, looked up at the sky for a moment, and then back at him. “Me! He asked about me, where I came from in the States. We talked about my job, my family, and me, for a full hour. Brian, he’s a very compelling person, he wasn’t that ranting, raving person we heard on the radio, he was most pleasant, and to think I went along to interview him, — well, I did in a way.” She stopped and kicked herself mentally — “Oh my God! I am a jerk; I could have taken Brian along. Just think of it, a Jew interviewing Hitler, but then again, he might have vomited as soon as he walked into the room.” Giving a short giggle, she shook her head and continued, “Anyway, he asked what America was like. How things were over there compared to Germany and other lands. He said he hoped one day to visit America and he wasn’t interested in our politics. He loves American movies, one of his favourites is ‘The lives of a Bengal Lancer’ with Gary Cooper, and then he devoted the rest of the interview to me, he probably knows more about me than you do.”
Brian kissed her on the lips. “He might know more about you, my dear Mary, but he does not know you in the way I do.”
He watched her expression and it changed dramatically before she spoke, “Perish the thought,” and she shivered involuntary.
Her gaze drifted from him as she stared into the distance. “Do you know, Brian, on recollection there was something else about him, there appeared to be something missing, and also something there that shouldn’t have been there.”
He looked at her and waited, “What do you mean?”
She gazed back at him, “I’ll tell you later, right now I’ve a report to write,” then she turned, looked along the street, and yelled, “Taxi!”
Grand Hotel
Seated at a small table, in her hotel room, Mary translated her thoughts and notations into typewritten words.
Brian sat opposite her, his chin resting on his hand, his elbow on the tabletop, gazing at her.
She smiled, without looking up. “Stop that, please,” she said.
“What should I stop?”
“Staring at me.”
“I am not staring,” he said.
She paused and looked at him. “Yes you are, you’re getting cross-eyed.”
He laughed softly, remembering. “We seem to have had this conversation before.”
She carried on typing. “I know that.”
“I asked you to marry me then.”
“And I said okay.”
“What are you writing?”
“Your Mr. Schickelburger’s interview.”
“I call him Schickl — gruber, not — burger.”
“Hold on, I’m almost finished.”
He watched as she pulled out the typed sheet and laid it face down on top of the others. She looked at him. “Why do you call him Schicklgruber, is that his nickname?”
“No, it used to be his father’s name; his mother was Anna Maria Schicklgruber, and her great grandmother was Jewish. Hitler’s father changed his name to Hietler and Adolf altered it to Hitler.” He grinned as her eyebrows rose. “Can you imagine people saying ‘Heil Schicklgruber’?”
She sniggered. “I’d like to see his face if somebody did.”
“There is something else. You have heard that song about Hitler having only one testicle? The truth is Hitler is impotent.”
“You’re joking.”
“I am not, you see, as a youth he bet he could urinate into a goat’s mouth. So he did, the problem was, he came too near and the goat bit the end off his penis.”
“Aw come on,” she said.
“No, it is absolutely true, it was printed in a newspaper.”
She shook her head, smiling widely, “Serves him right.”
“How did it go, you said you would tell me, the interview?”
She picked up the type sheets and read aloud, “It goes like this: ‘I never imagined he would agree to an interview, but he did, and I sat next to the most talked about man in the whole world, and would you believe it, he asked me to tell him all about myself, so I told him’.” She paused then said, “I put down everything I told you.”
“The bad breath too?”
“I don’t think our boss would allow that.”
“Yes, but you said something about him after you left the building, about something missing and something there that should not have been.”
She turned the next sheet over. “I was coming to that, just pin your ears back.” She continued, ‘I asked him how it felt to be the most powerful man in Europe. It was then the real Adolf Hitler came to the fore. His eyes glittered as he said, ‘Magnificent’, he breathed deeply through his nose, as if his power surrounded him and he was savouring it. Then I asked him about the stories we had heard back in the States’ about the harassment of Jews, why he was against Jews of all people, and he told me, ‘That is communist propaganda my dear. You should not believe everything you read in the newspapers. The German armed forces have well over one hundred and fifty thousand Jewish combatants, decorated veterans, and high-ranking officers.’
Brian’s eyebrows rose. “How about that then.”
She continued, “I asked him about the stories we had heard about the internment of Gypsies and other non-Aryans.” She looked him in the eye as she shook her head. “Do you know what he said: ‘If I can send the flower of the German nation into the hell of war without the smallest pity for the spilling of precious German blood, then surely I have the right to remove millions of an inferior race that breeds like vermin.’ ” She paused, and then said, “Then the veil came back as he smiled and said to me, ‘Enough of that, tell me about the film industry, have you ever met Gary Cooper, he is one of my favourites, and I would dearly love to meet Greta Garbo’.
She regarded his features as he smiled at her. “That was it, Brian, he started with his magnetism once more. Well I have to hand it to him; he certainly has a way with words.”
She looked up at him, as he said softly, “Hitler is a psychopath.”
“A what, a psycho’, how do you work that out?”
“From everything you told me, and how he rose to power, remember, I have a degree in psychology.”
“So, tell me.”
He looked her in the eye, “Imagine not having a conscience, no feelings of guilt, no compunction, no feeling of concern for friends or family, let alone strangers. The concept of liability is strange to you. Now add to this the capacity to hide from other people that your psychological makeup is totally dissimilar from theirs. You are free of internal restraints, you do as you want, and your bizarre advantage over the majority of people, kept in line by their own consciences, will stay undiscovered. If you have a talent for exciting people’s hatred and feelings of dispossession, you can bring about the death of a great number of people and you can, as we say in America, — ‘sit back and enjoy the show’. That, my dear Mary, is a psychopath.”
She sat there open-mouthed. “Gee, you are absolutely – Oh, my God, and I was in the same room with him, he could have -.”
He stopped her. “No, you have the wrong idea, he is not the sort to go around secretly murdering people, he is low-grade, of average intellect, no, he would have people doing it for him, his hangers-on, the ones in search of power and riches.” He leaned forward. “Would you say this description fits Hitler: ‘Likeable, charismatic, alert, and intellectual’, how about: ‘Impressive, confidence-inspiring, a great success with the ladies, good at rhetoric, a good actor.’ He thrives on power, Elizabeth; the ability to control people is strong in him, power for him is a drug and he will not give up the habit, ever. As I said, Hitler is a psychopath.”
“Wow!” She said, then she added, “But I wouldn’t put too much emphasis on the intellect, he didn’t seem that astute.”
His eyebrows rose and he asked her, “Are you going to include these, er, extra observations of yours?”
“I don’t think Simon would allow it.”
“I would if I was your editor, but then I have an ulterior motive.”
“Tell me more.”
His eyes glowed and his features softened, he stroked her cheek with his finger and said, “I love you, plain and simple.”
She was a shy school-girl once more as she blushed lightly and lowered her gaze for a moment. “Yeah, me too you Sheik, you and your ‘I am’ and ‘it is’, I’m just crazy about you.”
“What do you think of the situation here, the anti-Semitism?”
“Don’t know what to think,” then she added, “What are you getting so worked up about, Brian, you seem to be obsess-.” She paused, stood up, and walked around the table, he rose to meet her, and they embraced fiercely and she murmured, “Sorry, I’ve known you all these years and I’m your wife and I keep forgetting you’re Jewish.”
“I knew we should have married in a synagogue,” he said, grinning.
“Let’s do it when we are home, maybe then your parents will be happy.”
“You do not have to do it to please my parents.”
“I want to do it to please you,” she said.
“You please me when you look at me, when you touch me, when you speak my name; and when we make love, we…”
“We are in heaven” she finished for him.
***
Thank you for reading, your comments are welcome; be they negative or positive, as every little counts.
Excerpt from “To the Moon and Back” by Ellen Dudley, author of “The Package.” A Tale of the Holocaust. And “The Journey. Another Tale of the Holocaust”