Murder on the Short List

The Munich Posture

Adolf Hitler stared across the restaurant.

Camilla, blonde, eighteen and English, succeeded in saying without moving her lips, “He’s looking, he’s looking, he’s looking!”

“For a waiter, not you, dear,” Dorothy Rigby remarked. Rigby was, at this formative stage in her life, less flagrantly sexy than her friend Camilla. Rigby’s appeal was subversive and ultimately more devastating. Here in Munich, in September, 1938, the girls were at the Countess Schnabel’s Finishing School. Rigby’s lightly permed brown hair was cut in a modest style approved by the Countess, so that a small expanse of neck showed above the collar of one’s white lawn blouse.

It was Camilla who had dragged her into the Osteria Bavaria. Their table was chosen for the unimpeded view it afforded of the Führer and his party, or rather, the view it afforded the Führer of Camilla. Flamboyant Camilla with her blue Nordic eyes, her cupid’s-bow pout and her bosom plumped up with all the silk stockings she owned. She was resolved to enslave the most powerful man in Europe. It wasn’t impossible. It had been done by Unity Mitford, the Oxfordshire girl turned Rhine-maiden, who had staunchly occupied this same chair in Hitler’s favourite restaurant through the winter of 1935 until she had been called to his table. From that time Unity had been included on the guest lists for Hitler’s mountain retreat at Obersalzberg, and for the Nuremburg rallies, the Bayreuth Festival and the Olympic Games.

Until this moment, Camilla had unaccountably failed to emulate Miss Mitford, though she was just as dedicated, just as blonde and, by her own assessment, prettier.

Until this moment.

“Oh, my hat! He’s talking to his Adjutant. He’s pointing to this table. To me!”

“Calm down, Cami.”

Camilla gripped the edge of the tablecloth. “God, this is it! The adjutant is coming over.”

Undeniably he was. Young, clean-shaven, cool as a brimming Bierglas, he saluted and announced, “Ladies, the Führer has commanded me to present his compliments...”

“So gracious!” piped up Camilla in her best German.

“... and states that he would prefer to finish his lunch without being stared at.” Another click of the heels, an about-turn, and that was that.

“I’m dead,” said Camilla after a stunned silence. “How absolutely ghastly! Let’s leave at once.”

“Certainly not,” said Rigby. “He wants to be ignored, so we’ll ignore him. More coffee?”

“Is that wise?”

They remained at their table until Hitler rose to leave. For a moment he glared in their direction, his blue eyes glittering. Then he slapped his glove against the sleeve of his raincoat and marched out.

“Odious little fart,” said Rigby.

“I hope Mr Chamberlain spits in his eye,” said Camilla.

“He’ll have Mr Chamberlain on toast.”

Outside, in Schellingstrasse, heels clicked and the young adjutant saluted again. “Excuse me, ladies. I have another message to convey from the Führer.”

“We don’t wish to hear it,” said Rigby. “Come on, Camilla. We’re not standing here to be insulted.”

Camilla was rooted to the pavement. “A message from him?”

“This is difficult. The message is for the dark-haired young lady.”

“Me?” said Rigby.

Camilla gave a sudden sob and covered her eyes.

“The Führer will dine at Boettner’s this evening. He has arranged for you to join his party. Fräulein, er...”

“I am not one of your Fräuleins. I am Miss Rigby.”

“From England?” The adjutant frowned and reddened.

Rigby said off-handedly. “Actually I was born in Madras. India, you know. I expect he thought I was a starry-eyed little Nazi wench. Will you be there?”

He stared back. “I beg your pardon?”

“I said, will you be there?”

“As it happens, no.”

“A night off?”

“Well, yes.”

“How convenient. You can tell Herr Hitler that when you found out the young lady’s dusky origins you did what any quick-witted officer of the Reich would have done — arranged to take her to dinner yourself, thus saving your Führer from sullying his snow-white principles.”

His eyes widened. First they registered shock, then curiosity, then capitulation.

His name was Manfred, he told her in the candlelight at Walterspiel that evening. “It’s strange,” he said. “I took you for an English girl.”

“Oh, I am by blood. Daddy served in India with the Army.”

He frowned. “Then why did you decline the Führer’s invitation — such an honour?”

“I didn’t care for the way it was communicated, as if I was biddable, to put it mildly.”

“But I think your friend was biddable.”

She laughed. “Still is. She’s stopped talking to me. She can’t understand why she was overlooked. Frankly, neither can I. Camilla has the fair hair and blue eyes, and much more.”

He leaned forward confidentially. “With respect, Miss Rigby, I think you misunderstood the Führer’s motives. He is not in want of female companionship. There is a lady at Obersalzberg.”

“Eva Braun?”

“Ah. You are well informed.”

“Then why did he ask me to dinner?”

Manfred took a sip of wine. “Some years ago there was a girl, his stepniece actually, who died. He was very devoted to her, more than an uncle should be. No, I mean nothing improper. Like a father. She was eighteen when she came to Munich. He took her about, to picnics, the opera, paid for singing lessons, rented a room for her.”

“What was her name?”

“Angela Raubal, known to him as Geli. She looked remarkably like you. The dark hair, the cheekbones, the whole shape of your face, your beautiful hazel eyes. This, I think, is why he wanted to meet you.”

“I see. And you say she died?”

“Shot herself with the Führer’s own gun.” He paused. “No one knows why. I think perhaps it was best that he did not meet you. But please understand that it was not because you are English. The Führer and Mr Chamberlain are much in agreement, wanting to keep the peace in Europe.”

“Neville Chamberlain does, without a doubt,” said Rigby with a quick, ironic smile.

“So does the Führer.”

“Yes — if the other powers allow him to march into Czechoslovakia.”

He frowned. “You speak of international politics — a young girl?”

Rigby decided to take the remark as a compliment. She was a great reader of newspapers. She’d often been told that comments on international affairs came oddly from a girl of her age, but she wasn’t perturbed. Crisply she analysed the crisis over Germany’s claims to the Sudeten regions of Czechoslovakia and the dangerous effects of Hitler’s Lebensraum policy. Manfred used the stock German argument that something had to be done about the crushing restrictions imposed at Versailles after the Great War.

“It won’t wash,” commented Rigby. “It’s transparently clear that Czechoslovakia is next on your Führer’s list. God help us all.”

He gave the grin of someone with inside information. “But it will not lead to war.”

She said, “You’re very close to him, aren’t you?”

He nodded.

“He thinks he has the measure of our Prime Minister, doesn’t he?”

He gave a shrug that didn’t deny it.

Patriotically casting about for something in the Prime Minister’s favour, she said, “You tell him that Neville Chamberlain may be almost seventy, but he forgets nothing. His memory is phenomenal.”

“Is that important?”

She said, “Hitler relies on people having short memories, doesn’t he?”

He said, “I think it is time we talked of something else. Shall we walk in the Englischer Garten?”

There they followed the twists of the stream among the willows until almost midnight. They sat on a bench, listening to the trickle of the water, and she allowed him to kiss her.

She murmured, “What would the Führer say about this?”

He laughed softly. “What happens tonight is nobody’s business but yours and mine.”

Resting her face against his shoulder, she said, “Manfred, if I were very bold and made a suggestion, would you do something to please me — something really daring?”

“What is it?”

“It’s a practical joke. I need your help to make it work. It will be enormous fun.”

He said, “If you wish.” Then, bleakly, “I thought for a moment you were going to suggest something else.”

She smiled and nestled closer. “That’s not for me to suggest.”

It was a measure of the priorities at the Countess Schnabel’s Finishing School that the Countess herself took the deportment class. “Upright in body is upright in mind,” she repeatedly informed the seventeen young ladies in her care. “Perfect posture is perfectly obtainable. Cross the room once more, Camilla, if you please. Ooh! Grotesk! Don’t rotate the hips so.”

The lesson ended at noon. The Countess clapped her hands. “Before you leave, I give you a thrilling announcement. Tomorrow the school is to be honoured by a visitor, a visitor so important that I am not yet at liberty to mention his name. No finishing school in Munich has ever been so favoured. Suffice to say that you will all be perfectly groomed, immaculately dressed and silent unless spoken to.”

Camilla told Rigby sourly that it was obvious who the V.I.P. was. “And I can’t bear to face him when it’s perfectly clear that he’s coming to ogle you. I shall report sick.”

So when the Countess swept into the gym at ten next morning and triumphantly announced the Führer, only sixteen girls were present to say, “Heil Hitler,” and salute.

Rigby had no eyes for the strutting figure in the black mackintosh with his Chaplin moustache. She gazed steadily at Manfred, standing a pace to the rear, feet astride and arms folded, wearing his brown uniform with the swastika arm-band. He appeared twice as handsome this morning. He had more than proved his daring. This stunt was incredibly reckless and he had engineered it himself, simply because she had asked him.

She rather thought she had fallen in love.

“Dorothy, I hope you are paying attention,” said the Countess.

The timetable had been adjusted. Deportment again. A chance for the Countess to make an impression. For twenty minutes the class went through its paces, breathing, balancing and walking gracefully, all without a noticeable hitch. Then the Countess turned, curtsied, and asked if the Führer would gracefully consent to present the posture medal to the girl with best deportment, and certificates to the others.

It was a pleasing little ceremony. Of course, the Countess nominated her favourite for the medal, an obnoxious girl called Dagmar who was one of the Hitler Youth, but everyone else stepped forward in turn for a certificate.

His handshake was damp and flabby, Rigby noted as she collected hers.

At Manfred’s suggestion, the certificates had been typed that morning in the school office. They read simply: Presented by the Führer for Good Posture.

And now the Countess was asked whether every girl in the school had received a certificate. She had to explain that one of the girls was unfortunately in the sick-bay. The Führer insisted on going upstairs to meet Camilla.

Rigby almost purred, things were going so well.

The official party moved out.

Frustratingly she couldn’t contrive to witness the scene upstairs. But she imagined it vividly: Camilla saucer-eyed as the Führer entered and approached the bedside; speechless when he asked if she was the young lady he had seen in the Osteria Bavaria; and flabbergasted when he grasped her hand, leaned close and whispered that he wouldn’t mind climbing into bed with her.

Rigby shook with silent laughter.

Then her daydream was shattered by gunfire.

Panic.

Girls screamed.

Rigby dashed to the staircase. On the landing she met Portland, the fellow in the black mackintosh who had posed as Hitler. He was a limpet-like admirer she had dragooned into this performance after he’d followed her to Munich. His Hitler impersonation had been a highlight of the Chelsea Arts Ball.

“What happened?”

Portland was ashen. He peeled off the moustache. “She must be barmy, that friend of yours. She drew a gun before I said a damned thing. She tried to blow my brains out.”

“Oh, God! Are you all right?”

“I shoved the gun aside, but she put a bullet into your German friend.”

“Manfred! No!”

All caution abandoned, Rigby rushed up the remaining stairs and into the sick-bay, into mayhem. Camilla, sobbing hysterically, her nightdress spattered with blood, knelt by the motionless body of Manfred. The Countess was at the medical chest, grabbing boxes and bottles and throwing them down as if they’d been put there to thwart her.

Rigby went to Manfred and turned his face. It was deathly white.

“She shot him!” wailed the Countess. “She meant to shoot the Führer, wicked girl, but the Adjutant got in the way. I don’t know what will happen to us all.”

“Is he dead?”

“Passed out. The bullet went through his foot. Did you pass the Führer on the stairs?”

“No,” said Rigby truthfully.

The Countess handed her a bottle. “Smelling salts. Do your best. I’m going to find the Führer.”

“That isn’t possible, ma’am.”

In the next five minutes, everyone became wiser. Rigby confessed to the practical joke that had misfired — literally. The Countess made a great show of being scandalised but couldn’t suppress her relief that there had not, after all, been an assassination attempt on the Führer in her school. It wasn’t for want of trying, Camilla rashly told them. Far from hero-worshipping Hitler, she had planned cold-bloodedly to rid the world of him. The vigil in the Osteria Bavaria had been her attempt to entrap him.

“Enemy of the Reich!” cried the countess. “She-devil! You are expelled from my school!”

“Then I shall go to the newspapers.”

“On second thoughts, I see it as my duty to reform you.”

Then Manfred opened his eyes and groaned. “Help me to stand, please. I must leave at once.”

“Out of the question,” the Countess told him. “I’m going to put you to bed.”

He said with desperation, “I report to the Führer at noon. It is the four-power conference with Chamberlain, Mussolini and Daladier. I’m on duty.”

“With a shot foot? Don’t be idiotic!”

He propped himself on an elbow, moved the leg, grimaced with pain and immediately passed out again, giving the countess the opportunity to make good her promise. With Rigby’s and Camilla’s help she lifted him on to the bed, then instructed them to look the other way while she stripped him of his uniform. The doctor who usually attended the school arrived to dress the wound. He injected Manfred with morphine. Nobody told the doctor who Manfred was: by a process of nods and shrugs he formed the impression that Manfred was on the staff of the school and had shot himself by accident while investigating a noise in the cellar.

“Rats,” said the doctor, with a knowing look.

The rest of the morning was torment for Rigby as she speculated what would happen to Manfred. Soon enough his absence would be noticed — absence without leave. What explanation could he give? He was going to be on crutches for weeks. Hitler, a man utterly devoid of humour, would take it as treason. Manfred would be lucky to escape with his life.

Her own fate, as the instigator of the stunt, paled into insignificance. So, it must be admitted, did Camilla’s, as the would-be assassin of the Führer.

That afternoon Rigby missed the German lesson, saying she had a toothache, and slipped upstairs to the sick-bay. She found Manfred semiconscious, too drugged to move, but capable of recognising her. He smiled. She stroked his forehead. How much made sense to him was difficult to judge.

“I’ve thought about this for hours and something drastic has to be done, my darling. I’m going to speak to your Führer. He expressed a wish to meet me, and now he will. I shall make a personal appeal to him. He’s got to be told that this was just a practical joke got up by some high-spirited girls who tricked you into taking part. You were injured heroically trying to put a stop to it. All I want from you is the pass you carry, or something to get me into Hitler’s flat. I must see him alone. It’s no use with all those aides around him. How will I gain entry? Is there a password?”

Manfred gazed at her blankly.

She went to the wardrobe and searched his uniform. In an inside pocket was a wallet containing various identification documents.

Munich buzzed with stories about the Conference. Hitler had pushed Europe to the brink of war over the Sudeten question. Germany was set to occupy the disputed territories on October 1st and it was now September 29th. Chamberlain had flown in that morning from London for his third meeting with Hitler in a fortnight. Daladier, the French premier, was already installed at the Four Seasons Hotel. And Hitler had gone by train to the German-Italian border to escort his ally, Mussolini, to Munich. The talks at the Führerbau had started soon after lunch and were likely to last until late.

About six-twenty p.m., a taxi drew up at the building in Prinz Regenten Platz where Hitler had his private apartment. Rigby, dressed in a black pillbox hat with a veil, a bottle-green jacket with velvet revers and a black skirt, got out and approached the guard. She gave the Nazi salute.

“I am here on the personal instructions of the Führer. I am to go up and wait for him.”

“Your identification, Fräulein?”

“Examine this. It is the pass of his Adjutant, Oberleutnant Reger.”

“Do you have some identification of your own?”

“This is sufficient. My presence here is highly confidential. Mention it to nobody. Nobody. Do you understand?”

Her voice carried authority. He saluted, stepped aside and swung back the iron gate of the lift.

At the door of number sixteen, she repeated the performance for the benefit of Hitler’s housekeeper. She got a long look before she was admitted to a modestly proportioned flat furnished with ornate dark wood furniture and insipid oil paintings. She sat in a chintz-covered armchair and listened to the clock for a time.

About seven p.m., the housekeeper returned and said she was going out to her sister’s. “Are you sure the Führer wished you to wait?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then it is better, I think, if you sit in my apartment. There is a connecting door.”

So Rigby transferred. The adjoining flat was more agreeable; for one thing, it had a kitchen where she was able to make coffee for herself. After two hours she made a second cup and there came a time when she had made four. She had resolved not to leave without speaking to Hitler, but the possibility now arose that he had gone elsewhere to sleep, because it was past two a.m. Apparently the housekeeper wasn’t coming back either. In the next hour or so Rigby twice dozed until her head lolled uncomfortably. She got up to look for somewhere to stretch out.

She didn’t care to be found in the housekeeper’s bedroom. If there was a guest room she would use that. She tried a door opposite the bathroom and found it locked, but the key was in place. She turned it and reached for the light switch. How charming, she thought, and what a surprise! Pastel colours. White, modern furniture. All very feminine. A single bed with the sheets turned back as if for airing. A pale yellow night-dress tossed across the pillows. A pierrette’s carnival costume with black pompoms hanging from the white wardrobe. Dance programmes and invitation cards ranged along the mantelpiece. Rigby picked one up. The date of the dance was September, 1931.

1931?

She looked at the other cards. All were dated 1931 — seven years ago.

She crossed to the bed and picked up the nightdress. It smelt musty. Horrible. She’d heard of this morbid custom before. When some loved one died, their room was preserved exactly as they left it. On Queen Victoria’s orders, Prince Albert’s room at Windsor had been left intact for forty years after his death. Rigby had just walked into a shrine.

Feeling the gooseflesh rise, she turned to leave. Something else caught her eye, a photograph in a silver frame on the dressing-table. Out of some intuition she picked it up. A young girl was pictured beside Hitler. He had his hand on her shoulder. Rigby stared at the picture. The girl could have been herself. The face was her own. The photo-frame slipped from her fingers and hit the floor, shattering the glass.

She gave a cry, not merely from shock. Footsteps were coming fast along the corridor, the heavy tread of a man. She spun around to face the open door. Hitler stood there in his braces, an older, more strained Hitler than the photograph had shown.

For once he looked unguarded, vulnerable, not in command. He said in a whisper, “Geli?”

Rigby shook her head.

He stepped towards her, hands outstretched as if to discover whether she was flesh and blood. His eyes glistened moistly.

She shrank from him.

Suddenly words gushed from her. “I’m not your Geli. I shouldn’t be here, I admit. I’m English. My name is Dorothy Rigby and I came to see you to explain about your Adjutant—”

Terrifyingly, he became the Führer again, shouting her down with his tirade. “You have no right in here! Nobody is allowed in here. You’ve smashed her picture, defiled her memory, mocked me, the Führer. What are you, a spy, a witch, a streetwalker? You’ll be punished. How did you get here? Who let you in?”

She said, “You asked to meet me. You spotted me in the Osteria Bavaria.” And it sounded appallingly lame.

He grabbed her arm. “Out of this room! Out! I spend fifteen hours settling the future of Germany, of Europe, dealing with old men and popinjays, and I come home to this. I shall call the Gestapo.”

Rigby shouted back, “If you do, my friend from the finishing-school — remember her with the blonde hair? — will go to the British Ambassador and tell him you importuned me. You — the Reich Chancellor — importuned a foreign schoolgirl in a restaurant. Pick up that telephone, Herr Hitler, and your reputation is scarred for ever.”

He let go of her and flapped his hand. “Ach — this is nonsense. Be off with you. I’m too tired to take this up.”

It was a crucial moment. Manfred’s fate was still paramount in Rigby’s plans. “I refuse to leave until you’ve listened to what I have to say.”

Hitler marched away towards his own apartment, but she followed him, talking fast, making sure that he heard her much-rehearsed, much doctored version of the practical joke she had played on Camilla, in which Manfred was blameless because he had answered a summons supposedly from his Führer, and been shot in the foot, heroically trying to prevent an assassination.

Hitler spun around and faced her. “How can you prove one word of this horse-shit?”

She felt the blood drain from her head. How could she prove the story. He was calling it horse-shit, but he wouldn’t have asked the question unless he gave it some credence.

With a flair that would serve her well in years to come, Rigby picked her handbag off the chintz armchair she had first sat in, took out her posture certificate and handed it to Hitler.

He stared at it for longer than he needed to read it. Finally he handed it back and said in a hard, tight voice, “Go back to my housekeeper’s quarters. Tonight you will remain there.”

Rigby obeyed. She heard the key turn in the lock behind her. She didn’t need telling that every exit would be locked. She pushed two armchairs together, climbed into them and curled up, praying she had done the right thing for Manfred.

“Last night you said you were English.”

She opened her eyes to Hitler, in uniform, leaning over the back of the armchair. It was daylight. In the background were the voices of others in the flat.

“Yes.”

“You speak good German also.”

“I like languages.”

“This morning I am to receive your Prime Minister on a private visit before he returns to England. You will assist my regular translator, Dr Schmidt. Tidy yourself.”

Rigby collected her wits. “I see. You want to pass me off as your interpreter.”

“Do as I say.”

She saw presently that the two apartments throbbed with activity. Aides, secretaries and domestic staff had been hastily summoned after word had come through from Neville Chamberlain that he wanted one more session with Hitler. Clearly, Rigby’s presence in the place wanted some explaining, so a job had been found for her.

When the British delegation arrived, Rigby was in the room, at Schmidt’s elbow. She knew nothing of the agreement signed the previous night, so it shocked her to glean from what Chamberlain was saying that Hitler had run rings around the English and the French. Czechoslovakia now had ten days to hand over the Sudetenland to Germany. In the cold light of morning Chamberlain was looking for something to save his face when he got back to England.

That face, which Rigby had never seen except in photographs, looked strained and anxious. The Prime Minister expressed the wish that the Czechs would not be “mad enough” to reject the agreement. He said he hoped it would not be necessary for Germany to bomb Prague; in fact, he had hopes of an international agreement to ban bomber aircraft.

Hitler listened impassively to the translation. Finally, when it was clear that no more progress was possible, Chamberlain took two sheets of paper from his pocket and asked if Hitler would be willing to sign a statement on the future of Anglo-German relations.

“What is it?” asked Hitler. He passed it to Rigby. “You can translate.”

She asked if she could have a moment to draft an accurate version in German. She took it to the writing-table, the famous “piece of paper” that Chamberlain was to proclaim as the evidence of “peace for our time”.

When Rigby’s translation was ready, Hitler gave it a glance. “Yes, I’ll sign.”

Chamberlain stepped forward to add his signature below Hitler’s. Rigby blotted each copy of the document. She handed Hitler his, and then turned her back on him. This was her opportunity. Dexterously she made a substitution and handed Chamberlain a note she had jotted on the reverse of her posture certificate: SOS. Essential I return with you to England with a man who has vital information.

To his credit, Chamberlain gave it a glance and placed it smoothly in his pocket. He shook hands with Hitler. Then he turned to Rigby and said, “And how charming to meet you once more, my dear. Perhaps the Führer will allow me to drive you home if your duties are over.”

“They are,” said Rigby.

The British had come in two cars, and Rigby travelled in the second. It made a detour to the finishing school. On the advice of one of the diplomatic staff she didn’t go in. It was possible that the Gestapo were inside. But her heart pounded when a figure presently emerged on crutches and limped towards the waiting car.

Only it wasn’t Manfred.

It was Camilla, disguised as a man. She sank beside Rigby, slammed the door and said to the driver, “Start up, for God’s sake! The Gestapo are on their way.” To Rigby she said, “Manfred’s safe.”

“What happened? Where is he?”

“Rigby — I’m sorry to tell you this. His wife collected him.”

“His wife? Manfred is married?” The world caved in on Rigby.

“I know. It was a complete shock. There were two young children. Absolute sweeties. He doesn’t deserve them. She arrived in a car twenty minutes ago. One of Manfred’s colleagues had tipped her off that Hitler had ordered a raid on the school. I think they’ll make it to the border. I dressed up like this in case the place is being watched. To put them off, you see.”

Rigby was numb.

Even when the plane took off she felt no sense of relief at escaping. She would never trust a man again.

Fifty years on, that flight home is still a void in her memory. She does have some recollection of the landing at Croydon, when Chamberlain stepped off the plane to make his famous announcement to the press. In some of the photographs Rigby can be seen in the background, standing beside Camilla, who is wearing a trilby. She remembers the moment of horror when Chamberlain produced his famous piece of paper and waved it triumphantly. She recalls opening her handbag and checking that it still contained the agreement Hitler had signed.

Chamberlain was holding up a piece of paper with the words Presented by the Führer for Good Posture.

How was it, then, that shortly after, he appeared to read out the text of the agreement? As Rigby had observed, you could say one thing for Neville Chamberlain — his memory was phenomenal.