Winter of the World

The Act offered a dreadful prospect. It would make Hitler a dictator. The repression, intimidation, violence, torture and murder that Germany had seen in the past few weeks would become permanent. It was unthinkable.

But Lloyd could not imagine that any parliament in the world would pass such a law. They would be voting themselves out of power. It was political suicide.

He found the Social Democrats in a small auditorium. Their meeting had already begun. Lloyd hurried Walter to the room, then he was sent for coffee.

Waiting in the queue, he found himself behind a pale, intense-looking young man dressed in funereal black. Lloyd’s German had become more fluent and colloquial, and he now had the confidence to strike up a conversation with a stranger. The man in black was Heinrich von Kessel, he learned. He was doing the same sort of job as Lloyd, working as an unpaid aide to his father, Gottfried von Kessel, a deputy for the Centre Party, which was Catholic.

‘My father knows Walter von Ulrich very well,’ Heinrich said. ‘They were both attachés at the German embassy in London in 1914.’

The world of international politics and diplomacy was quite small, Lloyd reflected.

Heinrich told Lloyd that a return to the Christian faith was the answer to Germany’s problems.

‘I’m not much of a Christian,’ Lloyd said candidly. ‘I hope you don’t mind my saying so. My grandparents are Welsh Bible-punchers, but my mother is indifferent and my stepfather’s Jewish. Occasionally we go to the Calvary Gospel Hall in Aldgate, mainly because the pastor is a Labour Party member.’

Heinrich smiled and said: ‘I’ll pray for you.’

Catholics were not proselytizers, Lloyd remembered. What a contrast to his dogmatic grandparents in Aberowen, who thought that people who did not believe as they did were wilfully blinding themselves to the gospel, and would be condemned to eternal damnation.

When Lloyd re-entered the Social Democratic Party meeting, Walter was speaking. ‘It can’t happen!’ he said. ‘The Enabling Act is a constitutional amendment. Two thirds of the representatives must be present, which would be 432 out of a possible 647. And two thirds of those present must approve.’

Lloyd added up the numbers in his head as he put the tray down on the table. The Nazis had 288 seats, and the Nationalists who were their close allies had 52, making 340 – nearly 100 short. Walter was right. The Act could not be passed. Lloyd was comforted and sat down to listen to the discussion and to improve his German.

But his relief was short-lived. ‘Don’t be so sure,’ said a man with a working-class Berlin accent. ‘The Nazis are caucusing with the Centre Party.’ That was Heinrich’s lot, Lloyd recalled. ‘That could give them another seventy-four,’ the man finished.

Lloyd frowned. Why would the Centre Party support a measure that would take away all its power?

Walter voiced the same thought more bluntly. ‘How could the Catholics be so stupid?’

Lloyd wished he had known about this before he went for coffee – then he could have discussed it with Heinrich. He might have learned something useful. Damn.

The man with the Berlin accent said: ‘In Italy, the Catholics made a deal with Mussolini – a concordat to protect the Church. Why not here?’

Lloyd calculated that the Centre Party’s support would bring the Nazis’ votes up to 414. ‘It’s still not two thirds,’ he said to Walter with relief.

Another young aide heard him and said: ‘But that doesn’t take into account the Reichstag president’s latest announcement.’ The Reichstag president was Hermann Göring, Hitler’s closest associate. Lloyd had not heard about an announcement. Nor had anyone else, it seemed. The deputies went quiet. The aide went on: ‘He has ruled that Communist deputies who are absent because they are in jail don’t count.’

There was an outburst of indignant protest all around the room. Lloyd saw Walter go red in the face. ‘He can’t do that!’ Walter said.

‘It’s completely illegal,’ said the aide. ‘But he has done it.’

Lloyd was dismayed. Surely the law could not be passed by a trick? He did some more arithmetic. The Communists had 81 seats. If they were discounted, the Nazis needed only two thirds of 566, which was 378. Even with the Nationalists they still did not have enough – but if they won the support of the Catholics they could swing it.

Someone said: ‘This is all completely illegal. We should walk out in protest.’

‘No, no!’ said Walter emphatically. ‘They would pass the Act in our absence. We’ve got to talk the Catholics out of it. Wels must speak to Kaas immediately.’ Otto Wels was the leader of the Social Democratic Party; Prelate Ludwig Kaas the head of the Centre Party.

There was a murmur of agreement around the room.

Lloyd took a deep breath and spoke up. ‘Herr von Ulrich, why don’t you take Gottfried von Kessel to lunch? I believe you two worked together in London before the war.’

Walter laughed mirthlessly. ‘That creep!’ he said.