The Spinoza Problem (24 page)

Quickly reading Alfred’s article, Hitler looked up and declared, “They are twins.”

“Yes, they’re so similar that I’ll withdraw my article,” Alfred replied.

“No, I insist not. Publish both. They’ll have greater impact if they’re both published in the same issue.”

As Hitler assumed more executive power in the party, he decreed that all party speakers submit their speeches to him before delivery. He later excused Alfred from that step—it was unnecessary, he said, because their talks were so similar. But Alfred noticed some differences. For one thing, Hitler, despite his limited formal education and the huge gaps in his knowledge, had extraordinary self-confidence. Over and over again Hitler used words like “unshakeable,” implying total certainty of his convictions and total commitment to never, under any circumstance, changing a single aspect of his convictions. Alfred marveled as he listened to Herr Hitler. Where did that certainty come from? Alfred would have sold his soul for such confidence and cringed with disgust as he observed himself forever looking about for wisps of agreement and approval.

There was another difference too. Whereas Alfred often spoke of the necessity of “removing” Jews from Europe, or “resettling” or “relocating” or “evicting” the Jews, Hitler used different language. He spoke of “exterminating”
or “eradicating” Jews, even of hanging all Jews from lampposts. But surely that was a matter of rhetoric, of knowing how to galvanize audiences.

As the months passed, Alfred realized that he had underestimated Hitler. This was a man of significant intelligence, an autodidact who voraciously scanned books, retained information, and had a keen appreciation of art and Wagner’s music. Even so, without a systematic university education, his knowledge base was uneven and contained yawning chasms of ignorance. Alfred did his best to address them, but the task was challenging. Hitler’s pride was such that Alfred could never explicitly tell him what to read. Instead he learned to tutor indirectly, for he had noted that whenever he spoke of, say, Schiller, a few days later Hitler could discourse at length and with unshakable certainty about Schiller’s dramatic works.

 

 

 

O
ne spring morning that year, Dietrich Eckart approached the door of Alfred’s office, peered for a few moments through the glass panel at his protégé busily editing a story, and then, shaking his head, tapped on the glass and beckoned Alfred to follow him into his office. Inside he pointed to a chair.

“I have something to tell you—for Christ’s sake, Alfred, stop looking so worried. You’re doing fine. I’m completely satisfied with your diligence. If anything I’d suggest a little
less
diligence, a few more beers, and a lot more schmoozing. Too much work is not always a virtue. But that’s for another time. Listen, you’re growing valuable to our party, and I want to accelerate your development. Would you agree that editors who publish what they know about are advantaged?”

“Of course.” Alfred strained to keep a smile on his face but was uneasy about what was coming. Eckart was entirely unpredictable.

“Have you visited much of Europe?”

“Very little.”

“How can you write about our enemies without seeing them with your own eyes? A good warrior must stop sometimes to sharpen his weapons. Not true?”

“Without question,” Alfred agreed warily.

“Then go pack your bags. Your flight to Paris leaves in three hours.”

“Paris? Flight? Three hours?”

“Yes. Dimitri Popoff, one of the party’s major Russian donors, has an important business meeting there. He is flying today with two associates and has agreed to raise funds from the White Russian community there. He’s flying in one of the new Junker F 13s, which has room for four passengers. I had planned to accompany him, but a few inconvenient chest pains yesterday have made that impossible. My doctor and my wife forbid me to go. I want you to go in my place.”

“I’m sorry about your illness, Herr Eckart. But if the doctor is advising rest, I shouldn’t leave you alone with the next two editions—”

“The doctor said nothing about rest. He is simply being cautious because he knows too little about the effects of flying on this kind of condition. The editions are mostly written. I’ll take care of them. Go to Paris.”

“What would you like me to do there?”

“I want you to accompany Herr Popoff as he meets with potential donors. If he wishes, you will make some presentations to donors yourself. It’s time for you to learn how to talk to the rich. After that you are to travel home slowly by train. Take a whole week or ten days. Be a free man. Travel wherever you want and simply observe. See how our enemies feast off the Versailles Treaty. Take notes. Everything you observe will be useful to the paper. By the way, Herr Popoff has also agreed to supply you with ample French francs. You’ll need them. The deutschmark is nearly worthless abroad, thanks to inflation. It’s nearly worthless here!”

“A loaf of bread costs more every day,” Alfred agreed.

“Exactly. And I’m writing a piece right now for the next issue about why we must once again increase the price of the paper.”

On takeoff, Alfred gripped the arms of his seat and stared out the window as Munich grew smaller by the second. Tickled by Alfred’s fright, Herr Popoff, his gold teeth gleaming, yelled over the roar of the engines, “First time flying?” Alfred nodded and looked out the window, grateful that the noise made further conversation with Herr Popoff and the other two passengers impossible. He thought of Eckart’s comment about schmoozing . . . why
was
he so bad at easy conversation? Why so secretive? Why didn’t he tell Eckart that he had once traveled to Switzerland with his aunt and that a few years ago, just before the outbreak of the war, he and his fiancée, Hilda, had visited Paris. Perhaps he simply wished to blot out his Baltic past and to be born again as a German citizen in the Fatherland. No, no, no—he knew it ran deeper.
Opening himself had always been threatening. That was precisely why his two beer-hall conversations with Friedrich had been so extraordinary and so liberating. He tried to delve deeper into himself but, as always, lost his way.
I have to change . . . I’ll go to visit Friedrich again.

The following day Herr Popoff relied on Alfred to discuss the party’s platform and to explain why the party was the only one capable of stopping the Judeo-Bolshevists. A banker wearing a dazzling diamond ring on his little finger said to Alfred, “I understand your official party name is now the National Socialist German Workers party—the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei?”

“Yes.”

“Why such a lumpish and confusing name? ‘National’ implies ‘right,’ ‘socialist’ left, ‘German’ right, and ‘worker’ left! It’s impossible. How can your party be everything at once?”

“That’s exactly what Hitler wants, to be everything to all people—except Jews and Bolshevists of course. We have a long-range plan. Our first task is to enter Parliament in great numbers over the next few years.”

“Parliament? You believe the ignorant masses can rule?”

“No. But first we must achieve power. Our parliamentary democracy is fatally weakened by incursions from the Bolshevists, and I promise you we will ultimately do away with this parliamentary system altogether. Hitler has used these very words with me many times. And he has made the party goals very clear with his new platform. I’ve brought copies of the new twenty-five-point program.”

At the end of their visits, Herr Popoff presented Alfred with a bulging envelope of French francs. “Good work, Herr Rosenberg. These francs should see you through your European travels. Your presentations were excellent, just as Herr Eckart assured me they would be. And in such fine Russian. Beautiful Russian. Everyone was favorably impressed.”

 

 

 

A
free week ahead of him! What a pleasure simply to wander wherever he wished. Eckart was right—he
had
been working too hard. As he strolled through the streets of Paris, Alfred contrasted the gaiety and opulence everywhere with the bleakness of Berlin and the poverty and agitation of
Munich. Paris showed few scars of war, its citizens seemed well-fed, restaurants were jammed, and yet France, along with England and Belgium, continued to suck Germany’s life blood with draconian reparations demands. Alfred decided to spend two days in Paris—the galleries and art dealers beckoned—and then take the train north to Belgium and finally to Holland—Spinoza country. From there he would take the long train ride home via Berlin, where he would drop in on Friedrich.

In Belgium, Alfred found Brussels not to his liking and detested the sight of the Belgian legislative building, where Germany’s enemies never ceased formulating new methods of pillaging the Fatherland. The following day he visited the German military cemetery at Ypres, where the Germans had suffered such horrendous losses in the world war and where Hitler had served so courageously. And then north to Amsterdam.

Alfred had no idea what he sought. He only knew that the Spinoza problem buzzed away in the back of his mind. He remained intrigued by the Jew Spinoza.
No
, he said to himself, not intrigued; be honest—you admire him—just as Goethe did. Alfred had never returned his library copy of Spinoza’s
Theological-Political Treatise
and often read a few paragraphs of it in bed at night. He was a poor sleeper; for some inexplicable reason he grew anxious as soon as he got into bed, and he seemed to fight sleep. That was something else to talk about with Friedrich.

On the train he opened the
Treatise
to the page he had fallen asleep on the night before. Once again he was impressed by how intrepid Spinoza was by daring to question religious authority in the seventeenth century. Look at how he pointed out inconsistencies in the scriptures and the absurdity of considering a document to be of divine origin when it was riddled with human errors. He was especially tickled by passages in which Spinoza thumbed his nose at priests and rabbis who felt they had a privileged vision into God’s meaning.

And look how Spinoza, with a flick of his wrist, dispatched Jewish mystical zealots: “I have read and known kabbalistic triflers, whose insanity provokes in me unceasing astonishment.”

What a paradox! A Jew both courageous and wise. How would Houston Stewart Chamberlain respond to the Spinoza problem? Why not visit him in Bayreuth and ask him about the Spinoza problem? Yes, I will do that—and I will ask Hitler to accompany me. After all, aren’t the two of us his intellectual heirs? Most likely, Chamberlain will conclude that Spinoza was not Jewish. And he would be right—how could Spinoza be a Jew? All that around-the-clock religious indoctrination, and still he rejected the Jewish God and the Jewish people. Spinoza had soul wisdom—he must have non-Jewish blood in him.

But thus far in his genealogical research he had found only that Spinoza’s father, Michael D’Espinoza, had possibly come from Spain and immigrated to Portugal and then to Amsterdam in the early seventeenth century. Still, his investigations had yielded unexpected, interesting results. Just a week ago he had discovered that Queen Isabella, in the fifteenth century, proclaimed bloodstain laws (
limpiezas de sangre
) that prevented converted Jews from holding influential positions in the government and the military. She was wise enough to understand that the Jewish malignancy did not emanate from religious ideation—
it was in the blood itself.
And she put it into law! Hats off to Queen Isabella! He now revised his opinion of her. Previously, he had always connected her only with the discovery of America—that cesspool of racial mixing.

Amsterdam seemed more congenial than Brussels, perhaps because of Dutch neutrality in the world war. Joining a half-day tourist group but keeping to himself, Alfred cruised Amsterdam’s canals and stopped to visit sites of interest. The last stop was at Jodenbreestraat, to visit the Great Sephardic Synagogue, which was hideous and enormous, seating two thousand and exhibiting Jewish mongrelization at its worst—such an amalgamation of Grecian pillars, arched Christian windows, and Moorish wooden carvings. Alfred imagined Spinoza standing before the central platform as he was cursed and damned by ignorant rabbis and then probably walking out secretly jubilant at his liberation. But he had to erase this image only a few minutes later when he learned from his guidebook that Spinoza had never set foot in this synagogue. It was built in 1675, about twenty years after Spinoza’s excommunication, which, Alfred knew, would have prevented him from entering any synagogue or, indeed, conversing with any Jew.

Across the street was a large Ashkenazi synagogue, darker, sturdier, and less pretentious. About a block from both synagogues was the site of Spinoza’s
birth. The house had been demolished long ago and replaced by the massive Moses and Aaron Catholic Church. Alfred could hardly wait to tell Hitler about this. It was an example of what both felt so keenly—that Judaism and Christianity were two sides of the same coin. Alfred smiled as he recalled Hitler’s apt phrase—that amazing man had such a way with words: “Judaism, Catholicism, Protestantism—what difference does it make?
They are all part of the same religious swindle
.”

The following morning he boarded a steam tram to Rijnsburg, the site of the Spinoza Museum. Though it was only a two-hour journey, the long, hard wooden benches seating six made it seem far longer. The stop closest to the small village of Rijnsburg was three kilometers from his destination, which he reached by horse-drawn cart. The museum was a small brick house with the address “29” and two plaques on the outside wall.