Garden of Beasts

his shirt then began to mount the telescopic sight onto the rifle.
    •   •   •
    “What do you think, Rudy?”
    But Reinhard Ernst did not expect his grandson toanswer. The boy was staring with smiling awe over the expanse of the Olympic stadium. They were in the long press facility on the south side of the building, above the Leader’s reviewing stand. Ernst held him up so that he could look through the window. Rudy was virtually dancing with excitement.
    “Ah, who is this?” a voice asked.
    Ernst turned to see Adolf Hitler and two of his SS guards enter the room.
    “My Leader.”
    Hitler walked forward and smiled at the boy.
    Ernst said, “This is Rudy, my son’s boy.”
    A faint look of sympathy on the Leader’s face told Ernst that he was thinking of Mark’s death in the war maneuvers accident. Ernst was momentarily surprised that the man remembered but realized that he should not have been; Hitler’s mind was as expansive as the Olympic field, frighteningly quick, and it retained everything he wished to retain.
    “Say hello to our Leader, Rudy. Salute as I taught you.”
    The boy gave a smart National Socialist salute and Hitler laughed in delight and tousled Rudy’s hair. The Leader stepped closer to the window and pointed out some of the features of the stadium, talking in an enthusiastic voice. Hitler asked the boy about his studies and what subjects he liked, which sports he enjoyed.
    More voices in the hallway. The two rivals Goebbels and Göring arrived together. What a drive that must have been, thought Ernst, smiling to himself.
    After his defeat at the Chancellory that morning Göring remained desultory. Ernst could see it clearly, despite the smile. What a difference between the two most powerful men in Germany. . . . Hitler’s tantrums, admittedlyextreme, were rarely about personal matters; if his favorite chocolate was not available or he knocked his shin on a table he would shrug the matter off without anger. And as to reversals on issues of state, yes, he had a temper that could terrify his closest of friends, but once the problem was solved he was on to other matters. Göring, on the other hand, was like a greedy child. Anything that went against his wishes would infuriate him and fester until he found suitable revenge.
    Hitler was explaining to the boy what sporting events would be played in which areas of the stadium. Ernst was amused to see that beneath his broad smile Göring was growing all the more angry that the Leader was paying such attention to his rival’s grandson.
    Over the next ten minutes other officials began arriving: Von Blomberg, the state defense minister, and Hjalmar Schacht, head of the state bank, with whom Ernst had developed a complicated system of financing rearmament projects using untraceable funds known as “Mefo bills.” Schacht’s middle name was Horace Greeley, after the American, and Ernst would joke with the brilliant economist about having cowboy roots. Here too were Himmler, block-faced Rudolf Hess and serpent-eyed Reinhard Heydrich, who greeted Ernst in a distracted way, which was how he greeted everyone.
    The photographer meticulously set up his Leica and other equipment so that he could get both the subject in the foreground and the stadium in the back, yet the lights would not flare in the windows. Ernst had developed an interest in photography. He himself owned several Leicas and he’d planned to buy Rudy a Kodak, which was imported from America and easier to use than the German precision cameras. The colonel had recordedsome of the trips he and his family had taken. Paris and Budapest in particular had been well documented, as had a hiking sojourn in the Black Forest and a boat trip down the Danube.
    “Good, good,” the photographer now called. “We can begin.”
    Hitler first insisted on taking a picture with Rudy and lifted the boy onto his knee, laughing and chatting with him like a good uncle. After this the planned pictures began.
    Though he was pleased that Rudy was enjoying himself, Ernst was growing impatient. He found publicity absurd. Moreover, it was a bad tactical error—as was the whole idea of holding the Olympics in Germany, for that matter. There were far too many aspects of the rearmament that should have been kept secret. How could a foreign visitor not see that this was a military nation and becoming more so every day?
    The flashes went off, as the celebrities of the Third Empire looked cheerful or