Winter of the World

‘An hour ago,’ the policeman said. ‘We’ve got one of them that did it – a man with nothing on but his trousers! He used his clothes to start the fire.’

‘You should put up a rope cordon,’ Walter said with authority. ‘Keep people at a safe distance.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said the policeman, and went off.

Lloyd slipped away from the others and moved nearer to the building. The firemen were bringing the blaze under control: there was less flame and more smoke. He walked past the fire engines and approached a window. It did not seem very dangerous, and anyway his curiosity overcame his sense of self-preservation – as usual.

When he peered through a window he saw that the destruction was severe: walls and ceilings had collapsed into piles of rubble. As well as firemen he saw civilians in coats – presumably Reichstag officials – moving around in the debris, assessing the damage. Lloyd went to the entrance and climbed the steps.

Two black Mercedes cars roared up just as the police were erecting their cordon. Lloyd looked on with interest. Out of the second car jumped a man in a light-coloured trench coat and a floppy black hat. He had a narrow moustache under his nose. Lloyd realized that he was looking at the new Chancellor, Adolf Hitler.

Behind Hitler followed a taller man in the black uniform of the Schutzstaffel, the SS, his personal bodyguard. Limping after them came the Jew-hating propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels. Lloyd recognized them from newspaper photographs. He was so fascinated to see them close up that he forgot to be horrified.

Hitler ran up the steps two at a time, heading directly towards Lloyd. On impulse, Lloyd pushed open the big door and held it wide for the Chancellor. With a nod to him, Hitler walked in, and his entourage followed.

Lloyd joined them. No one spoke to him. Hitler’s people seemed to assume he was one of the Reichstag staff, and vice versa.

There was a foul smell of wet ashes. Hitler and his party stepped over charred beams and hosepipes, treading in mucky puddles. In the entrance hall stood Hermann Göring, a camel-hair coat covering his huge belly, his hat turned up in front, Potsdam-fashion. This was the man who was packing the police force with Nazis, Lloyd thought, recalling the conversation in the restaurant.

As soon as Göring saw Hitler he shouted: ‘This is the beginning of the Communist uprising! Now they’ll strike out! There’s not a minute to waste!’

Lloyd felt weirdly as if he were in the audience at the theatre, and these powerful men were being played by actors.

Hitler was even more histrionic than Göring. ‘There will be no mercy now!’ he shrieked. He sounded as if he was addressing a stadium. ‘Anyone who stands in our way will be butchered.’ He trembled as he worked himself up into a fury. ‘Every Communist functionary will be shot where he is found. The Communist deputies to the Reichstag must be hanged this very night.’ He looked as if he would burst.

But there was something artificial about it all. Hitler’s hatred seemed real, but the outburst was also a performance, put on for the benefit of those around him, his own people and others. He was an actor, feeling a genuine emotion but amplifying it for the audience. And it was working, Lloyd saw: everyone within earshot was staring, mesmerized.

Göring said: ‘My Führer, this is my chief of political police, Rudolf Diels.’ He indicated a slim, dark-haired man at his side. ‘He has already arrested one of the perpetrators.’

Diels was not hysterical. Calmly he said: ‘Marinus van der Lubbe, a Dutch construction worker.’

‘And a Communist!’ Göring said triumphantly.

Diels said: ‘Expelled from the Dutch Communist Party for starting fires.’

‘I knew it!’ said Hitler.

Lloyd saw that Hitler was determined to blame the Communists, regardless of the facts.

Diels said deferentially: ‘From my first interrogation of the man, I have to say that it is clear that he is a lunatic, working alone.’

‘Nonsense!’ Hitler cried. ‘This was planned long in advance. But they miscalculated! They don’t understand that the people are on our side.’

Göring turned to Diels. ‘The police are on an emergency footing from this moment,’ he said. ‘We have lists of Communists – Reichstag deputies, local government elected representatives, Communist Party organizers and activists. Arrest them all – tonight! Firearms should be used ruthlessly. Interrogate them without mercy.’

‘Yes, Minister,’ said Diels.

Lloyd realized that Walter had been right to worry. This was the pretext the Nazis had been looking for. They were not going to listen to anyone who said that the fire had been started by a lone madman. They wanted a Communist plot so that they could announce a crackdown.

Göring looked down with distaste at the muck on his shoes. ‘My official residence is only a minute away, but it is fortunately unaffected by the fire, my Führer,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we should adjourn there?’

‘Yes. We have much to discuss.’