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PARTISAN IliVIEW
raised their right arms. Hitler himself stepped out of the tiny box of an
elevator. He took the salute in his usual fashion, his palm bent womanish–
ly backward, as if submi tting to the invisible shock waves hurled toward
him by the upright limbs. Even from across the room I was struck by the
contrast between the Fuhrer's face, which was animated, the muscles
twitching, the mouth chewing on the lips; and the eyes, never once blink–
ing, the whites reddened, as if caught in a flashlamp's glare.
Goering stepped from the crowd at the table.
"Mein Fuhrer,
may I be
the first to congratulate you on our victory. No one can doubt that it rep–
resents the turning point of the war."
"What?" said Hitler, looking from his air chief to the Minister of
Propaganda. "Have we released the news from Kiev to the public?"
"No need to worry about our American guests," Goebbels respond–
ed. "Tomorrow our triumph will be the headline in
The New York Times ."
Hitler: "And the day after tomorrow, I promise you, those headlines
will be even bigger. We have swept past Kiev to surround an army of four
hundred and fifty thousand men. As we speak they are in the process of
surrender. The battle for the Crimea has been won."
Goering: "Not just the Crimea. On this day we have saved the civi–
lization of the West."
Hitler turned. He looked directly past us, or through us, as if we did
not exist. Yet it was plain that we were the subject of his next words. "We
have present here two American Jews. I hope they appreciate how extra–
ordinary this is.
It
has been allowed only at the request of Mr. Hearst and
of Herr Lindbergh. Those are farsighted men. They understand that our
victory today has been won not only for Germany but also for the United
States."
Goering beamed. His chest puffed out. "I have today spoken by tele–
phone to Lindbergh. In the opinion of my colleague of the air it has now
been demonstrated that the armies of the Reich, supported by the
Luftwaffe, cannot be overcome - I will put his words into exact English:
by any conceivable combination
of
forces.
Of course he means by that that the
chance of war between our great nations has grown inconceivably
remote."
"For such a figure," added Hitler, "I will meet with these two Jews. I
do not hide the fact that I admire Herr Lindbergh as much as any man in
the world. Any man! His was the single most courageous act of our times.
I declare here, before all myoid fellow fighters: it was from him I learned
the lesson of boldness. Yes, and of acting, when conditions called for it,
entirely alone. There is much he and I have in common. Who else, in all
the world, has known such terrible loneliness at a moment of crisis?"
Goering: "But our dear Fuhrer knows he will never be alone. His old-
