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“If that man weren’t a hateful fascist, yes. This business about stripping Jews of citizenship and removing them from society? Outlawing their marriages to German citizens? Classifying them by the number of Jewish grandparents?”

Göring was annoyed that the news in Der Gerade Weg had reached the president. Hitler had directed the SA to forcefully confiscate as many copies of the special edition as possible, and the Nazis had filed a lawsuit to shut the paper down.

Pro-Nazi newspapers printed editorials—penned by Joseph Goebbels—accusing the “radical Communists” of propagating these “craven lies” and rhetorically asking, “Will the Communists stop at nothing to deprive the National Socialists of their rightful place at the table?”

“Lies, Mr. President,” Göring said now. “All lies from a rag of a newspaper in Munich looking to make a name for itself. And surely the KPD is behind this,” he added, referring to the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, or the Communist Party of Germany. “Why, the Communists will stop at nothing to slow our progress in the Reichstag. Mr. President, the Führer has personally assured me that he has no such plans.”

The president took another drink of water. He was not one to easily cave, but he knew that he was boxed in. Göring was just trying to make the pill go down more easily.

“You trust von Papen,” Göring said to the president. “He will be vice-chancellor. He will curb any excesses, though I doubt it will be necessary. And you trust me, Mr. President.”

The president looked over Göring. “I trust you, yes.”

“Then please trust me now,” he said. “You will not be sorry.”

63

January 29, 1933

Geiger residence

Neuhausen

THOMAS BAUER’S FATHER-IN-LAW, SELIG Geiger, feigned embarrassment and winked at his grandkids as his wife, Marina, set down the apple cake adorned with thirteen burning candles (each representing five years) to celebrate his sixty-fifth birthday.

Maxine and Ridley, sitting on their parents’ laps, burst into applause as their opa blew out the candles after they sang “Zum Geburtstag viel Glück” to him. They took their slices of cake into the living room, with its eighteenth-century chandelier and fireplace of imported marble. The room was adorned with magnificent Romantic landscape paintings, including Constable’s The Hay Wain and, most notably, above the fireplace mantel, Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich. Bauer always suspected, though he’d never dare say, that his father-in-law saw himself in the man depicted in that piece, standing atop a high rock, looking over the valleys and mountains below shrouded in a misty fog. Selig viewed himself as a titan, a captain of industry, often forgetting that he was born into privilege, was schooled abroad, and inherited the Geiger Department Store from his father.

“What is this?” Selig asked, a tumbler of brandy in his hand, reaching out with his toe to tap a large wrapped box on the Italian coffee table.

“It’s called a present, Papa.” Amalie smiled. “What do you think it is?”

“From you? Honey, I told you—” He turned to his wife, Marina. “I thought you told her not to buy me anything.”

“It’s just a little something.”

“I just want you to be—no offense, Tom,” he said, glancing at Bauer. “Shouldn’t you be conserving your money?”

Bauer forced a smile while Amalie, sitting beside him on the couch, put a hand on his knee. I love my wife, he reminded himself. I love my wife.

“We’re getting by just fine.”

Selig looked Bauer squarely in the eye, then blinked away. “Well, I’m sorry, but it doesn’t seem like you’re getting by just fine.”

“Selig, if you have something to say to me, say it.” Bauer leaned forward on the couch.

“Ridley! Maxine! Let’s go downstairs and play with Helmut. I hear him barking.” His mother-in-law gathered the kids, taking them by the hand. “This is a birthday party,” she hissed at her husband on their way out of the room.

“Papa, you’ve had too much to drink,” said Amalie. “And you’re overstepping.”

“Oh, sure, I get it.” Selig ran his hand through his silver hair. “You think I only care about money, right? I’m just some shallow, materialistic ass? Well, let me tell you something.” He directed a finger at Bauer. “I don’t care what a man does for a living, as long as it means something and provides for his family. But you? Almost getting thrown in prison for breaking into that Nazi building? Scrubbing dishes in a basement and chasing pickpockets around the streets of Munich?”

“Papa, enough—”

“But oh, wait, that’s not all.” Selig got to his feet. “In your free time, you chase after a man who you think got away with murder. Nobody else does, but you do. And you justify it by claiming that he’s going to single-handedly destroy our country.”

“Selig.” Bauer stood as well. “I may not be earning a lot of money, but I’m doing something a lot more important for my family, something money can’t buy. You of all people should recognize the threat—”

“Me of all people?” He put a hand on his chest. “Why, because I’m Jewish? You think I’ve never experienced anti-Semitism? I’ve experienced it my whole damn life. My first year in boarding school, I had to change rooms because the other students didn’t want to live with a Jew. I hire extra security at the store to keep away nighttime vandals. What exactly is so different about Hitler? He’s nothing but a blowhard politician making promises he’ll never keep. He’ll come and go like the rest of them. The difference between you and me, Tom, is that I don’t obsess about it. I deal with it. I handle it. You—you’re stuck in the mud. You can’t let him go. And I wouldn’t care, except you’re taking my daughter and grandchildren down with you!”