The Vengeance of Rome

THIRTY-NINE

The first Winnetou film was released that September simultaneously in Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Frankfurt and Munich at the main UfA luxury Kinos, which had superb sound systems in place. Backed by all the publicity Hugenberg’s papers could give it, Winnetou: The Red Gentleman was an instant success with the German public, who made heroes and heroines of us all. We appeared everywhere in the Hugenberg publications and in other magazines, too. The Elastolin firm did a series of models of our characters. Even Ol’ Shine got his own figurine complete with banjo and cooking pots. Elastolin were the very best at producing tiny likenesses. Eventually they would produce figurines of the NSDAP hierarchy and troops.

We were feted. Kitty was pleased to be seen on my arm wherever we went in fashionable Munich. People mistook her for a film star and indeed I did get her a test. She proved to be a poor candidate. Zoyea also begged me to put her in a film, but her father said she was too young. He did not want her corrupted by such things. I fully understood. Mrs Cornelius became an instant sex symbol, a rival to Lilian Harvey. Unfortunately, the May firm were dismayed at Ingram’s minor changes and claimed they worked against the true meaning of the books, which was of course outrageous nonsense. The result was that while the first three films appeared contractually as ‘Winnetou’ films, by the time we came to plan the next three (Doctor Hugenberg’s budgeting cut many unnecessary costs) we had been forced to change our characters to Hawkeye and Cochise of the Fenimore Cooper tales. The two still defended a sacred land, but it was now further to the North-West, allowing us to make better use of local terrain, though in 1933 we were once again filming scenes around Split.

Our team spirit remained high. We had become rather adept at our parts, and only the schedules themselves exhausted us. The work was rather enjoyable. The stories did not vary a great deal from film to film, but the same good values were hammered home.

Mrs Cornelius, separated from her lover, spent a great deal of her time in Mr Mix’s undemanding company. She did not wish her name to be linked with mine or Reid’s, and I must say I could not blame her. Reid had made himself available to every village maiden between Split and Zagreb, not to mention his many mistresses in Germany. As a matter of pride he never spent more than one night with any girl.

Doctor Hugenberg decided to save money by making a permanent set, so by now Hawkeye and his bride had built a homestead and were thinking of having children. The stories revolved more around the ranch than the Indian village and the wilderness, allowing us to work within the tighter budget Doctor Hugenberg had given us. We found an attractive exotic Jewess, Myra Friedmann, to play the Indian maiden to whom the Apache prince loses his heart.

City slickers from the East were still our enemies, and we defended our territory in a dozen ingenious ways as they became equally inventive in devising ways of stealing our wild paradise. Our philosophy remained faithful to the ideas of Karl May. The public understood who our characters really were. They did not mind what we were called. What was important were the manly virtues of courage, steadfastness, loyalty and honour we represented. No doubt we lit the flame of idealism in many a German boy.

I still have one poster with Reid, Mrs Cornelius and myself dramatically posed against a violent backdrop. ‘Greed, violence and savagery lay the land to waste,’ runs the banner for Apache Gold. We knew all too well what we were defending! With the departure of Chaney, an Austrian character actor played Bowie, and then Seryozha was replaced entirely. He said he was very upset about it, though he was glad to be going. He had grown tired of compromising his artistic principles and would give himself back to the ballet. Sulking, he offered his notice and returned to Berlin.

At last I felt free to move into an apartment of my own in a more fashionable district. The flat in Wurzerstrasse had a good view and was decorated to my own taste. I was photographed in it for publicity articles. The magazines called it ‘Winnetou’s New Ranch’ and other fanciful names.

To my fans I was still ‘Winnetou’; that became my nickname when I made public appearances holding my famous silver rifle. Politicians, of course, now flocked to be photographed in the company of ‘Winnetou’ Peters. We opened drugstores and groceries, municipal works and cinemas, railway stations and road developments all over Germany, Austria and Bohemia. We were on the covers of every kind of magazine from children’s journals to sophisticated picture weeklies. Our appearances were recorded for the newsreels. We were constantly interviewed on the radio. Our off-screen lives were the subjects of ecstatic examination. Doctor Hugenberg was delighted to hint at a relationship between Gloria Cornish and Desmond Reid, since I gathered his wife had discovered some compromising letters. He expressed dismay when Ingram left after the fourth picture claiming that his professionalism had been attacked, but the formula had been thoroughly established, and we had no trouble finding a new and cheaper director in Willi Frisch, though we missed Ingram‘s genial, sardonic company.

The NSDAP came to full power in February 1933 and almost immediately a sense of peace and purpose settled on the land. Doctor Hugenberg had played a crucial part in the NSDAP success, throwing the weight and authority of his Nationalists behind the ‘brown tide’. Mrs Cornelius told me that her Huggy Bear and his friends believed they had control of Hitler. The morning before Hitler took the full reins of power, Hugenberg had held out his fist to her and told her that he had Hitler like that! As a tribute to his authority and integrity he now became Agriculture Minister in the new government and, rather reluctantly, joined the party.

Hugenberg’s elevation gave us even more prestige and him far less time to take a direct interest in the films. He had seen the profits of the first two or three and was perfectly content for us to continue in the same successful vein. He knew we were in safe hands, he said.

Though no admirer of the Führer cult, Desmond Reid was also delighted by the NSDAP’s peaceful path to power. Soon a new, better German order would restore all the nation’s traditional virtues. The Nazis were a no-nonsense party who locked up troublemakers before, not after, they made trouble! We could feel it in the air. All the paradoxes and failures of Weimar were at last being swept away and a firm but fair hand was on the tiller of the ship of state.

Everywhere the new youthful Germany rose like spring sap as the summer approached. We returned from the Bavarian Alps to discover a fresh festive Munich where clean-cut SA youths maintained the role of public militia. They were for and of the people. Counts and carpenters marched side by side, the old order forgotten, as the new one arrived, of egalitarian brotherhood under the guidance of Adolf Hitler, now known only as The Führer.

Strength through joy! From the public billboards young steady eyes regarded the future with confidence and optimism. I was so impressed I decided it might be time to return to my old calling. Having made copies of some of my drawings, I sent them off to Göring at the Air Ministry. Now Germany had a government I could trust, I wanted him to be the first to see what I was capable of. I had a polite note back from a secretary. Göring would be in touch as soon as possible. There was much work to do to save Germany from the quagmire into which she had been allowed to drift. I understood, of course.

When I visited my Italian friends, anxious to see how Zoyea was growing, I found they had mixed feelings about the ‘German Mussolini’. Their experience in the markets had sometimes been unpleasant, and the police had been slower to defend them. Perhaps the Storm Troopers mistook them for Jews, they said reasonably, but to make a living had become difficult without some kind of harassment.

I was sympathetic. I understood that laws had been proposed which would force Jews to identify themselves. This would have the positive effect of showing who was not, in fact, Jewish. Meanwhile, it might be wiser to modify their gypsy image and return to a more evidently Italian role. Perhaps they should concentrate on their icecream business? They appreciated my advice. To reassure them I revealed I held high rank in the Italian fascisti and took orders directly from Il Duce. If there were serious trouble, I would reveal that identity. I also had powerful friends among the Nazi higher ranks, but on that occasion I did not make a great deal of my SA connections, since the Italians saw the SA as their chief enemy.

My attempts to contact journalist friends in Berlin were frustrated. I had even asked Hanfstaengl to see what he could find out about the situation in Rome, but from Mussolini himself I still received no word. It became clear to me that my association with Fiorello and his group had made me permanently persona non grata. Signora Sarfatti had no doubt added to the poison, and Mussolini had done what he sometimes did to others he felt had betrayed him: simply cut them out of his life and his memory. That, sadly, is the price a man of integrity pays for staying loyal to his friends. Signor Frau was deeply impressed by my revelation of Fascist contacts, however, even if I doubted their worth myself. He blessed the Virgin and all his saints for the coincidence of our meeting in the food market.

That afternoon for the first time little Zoyea took tea with me in my new flat in Wurzerstrasse. I had hung framed pictures of myself and fellow stars on the walls, all artfully coloured and looking extremely realistic. The furniture was in the latest modern styles, big and solid and reflecting the values of the crafts guilds of olden times with the same simple beautiful lines. The walls were in neutral tones, the pictures carefully lit. The bedroom was a reproduction of Emil Hoffer’s famous set for The Golden Shadow, and Zoyea instantly recognised the tall posts and heavy draperies. She gasped her delight and hardly dared to enter the room in case she be swallowed whole by the oriental fantasy! It was one of my few indulgences. I had let one of UfA’s top designers prepare the place for me while we were filming, and I was pleased with the result.

With her father’s permission, Zoyea stayed overnight, sleeping in the big bed all on her own while I was engaged with a number of new lady friends and resumed my adventures with Kitty von Ruckstühl. She found it politic, she said, to leave the capital where there was considerable unrest among the demi-monde. Not a few had already been taken into protective custody. Some had been released but would not speak of what had happened to them. They tended to be the ones who now remained silent in any conversation. She said they had done nothing. Many had even been Nazi sympathisers. I could not believe she had the full story. She was speaking from her own subjective perspective with its own special significance. I was not surprised some of Prince Freddy’s unsavoury drug-pushing friends might have been given a warning by the authorities. But I pretended a certain sympathy, if only to keep the social peace.

Still I had not asked Kitty about her half-brother. I intended to raise that subject the evening we met in the Caversham Bar of the Hotel Bavaria in the most fashionable part of Munich. I had grown fond of the place and was well known there. But Kitty did not arrive alone. She brought her ‘gang’ with her. The bar was what Hanfstaengl called his ‘favourite watering hole’, and he, too, was there that night. Putzi had lost much of his earlier cheer. Events had pushed him into the margins, whereas he had expected by now to be at the centre. He still boasted of his friendships with Hearst and many of the other big American newspaper tycoons, but one had the feeling he pumped up his own ego. He was not aggressive enough to enjoy the public meetings, though he faithfully accompanied Hitler on his flying tours of the country. He hated air travel, he said, but Hitler insisted his ‘clown’ go with him everywhere to play him to sleep after a hard day with a crowd.

Hanfstaengl came in with a group of visiting Americans, and they sat down together at a distant table. They did not seem to like Kitty’s friends, who were a rather bizarre party, mostly theatricals from the Franz Lehar touring company and a couple of Prince Freddy’s freaks. At first I thought Major Nye, who entered quietly wearing a soft hat and a raincoat and seated himself in a corner, was there to join Hanfstaengl; but his glance when he recognised me was eloquent, and I said nothing. I was faintly reassured by the English secret agent’s presence in Munich. Mrs Cornelius was always safe when Nye was near.

Excusing myself, I went over to greet Hanfstaengl and be introduced to his slightly distant group of acquaintances. He had been made Foreign Press Attaché but was engaged in some passing rivalry with Goebbels over the best approach to the press. We spoke briefly in German, which the Americans did not understand. Why wasn’t he in Berlin? I asked. Shrugging, Putzi told me he didn’t want any argument. His Mikado had been a disaster, sabotaged, he claimed, by the mockery of Göring and the jealousy of Goebbels, who had quite plainly conspired against him. The Führer had not come to see The Mikado. Only Hess had arrived, which gave one some idea of Hess’s status with the Führer at the moment. Until Hess told him, Hitler had not even realised when it was playing because Himmler and Goebbels had deliberately confused him. When he learned what had happened, it was too late, and Hanfstaengl was chided for being a bad organiser! He had tried to tell Hitler the truth, but the Chief’s mind was on other things and he was too busy to intervene, so for the time being Putzi was home in Munich with his wife and children, who were an increasing comfort to him. He was proud of his boy. He wanted a future for him, he said. He was not wholly happy with the direction the party was taking. He was far too loyal to Hitler to say much to me, but he knew I was sympathetic.

The Americans rose after one drink and asked for taxis to their hotels. Putzi apologised and organised this for them. When he came hack he seemed pleased to join Kitty and myself. He spoke lugubriously to Kitty, trying to explain how the SA had been overzealous in its wish to ‘clean up’ Berlin, but those activities were now being curbed by Stabschef Röhm himself. Privately I knew Röhm was concerned with discipline and saw no need to alienate potential friends. Many of the units were almost self-ruling, and he was having difficulty re-exerting control. The men felt, in turn, that he had betrayed them.

Kitty listened to Putzi without much interest. At that moment I realised I was the holder of an appalling secret, one that could easily kill me now Hitler and his men were undisputed controllers of Germany. Certain people, especially Röhm and Strasser, knew what had occurred on that particular night soon after the death of Geli Raubal. Not only did they know who I was, they knew what I had done. And if Hitler began to wonder who in Germany carried his darkest secrets, he would soon begin to make serious enquiries of his friends, and they might be prepared to sacrifice me to save themselves. I don’t believe Strasser knew my name. My life lay in the hands of my closest Nazi ally, the only man who had a dossier on me! I was grateful that Röhm’s loyalty to his friends was famous. But what if his movements and relationships became known to others? Hearing Kitty’s litany of complaints, I began to wonder if perhaps I might be in serious danger. After all, some of those arrested had been quite as well known to the public as myself.

Even as Hanfstaengl moved away to speak to the Chinese albino in Kitty’s party, I felt a chill. She laid her hand on the back of mine. Her eyes reflected the ice in her glass. Her smile, nonetheless, was rather friendly. We were now alone at that end of the bar. She evidently had something important to say to me. I leaned towards her.

‘Max,’ she said suddenly, ‘did you have my mama murdered?’ Pouting, her head to one side, she became alarmingly birdlike.

My stomach turned over at the very thought. A sharp stabbing pain, like edged metal. ‘How could you consider such a thing? Your mother and I had our differences, but I certainly didn’t hate her enough to kill her!’

‘That wasn’t really what I asked you.’ Her smile slick with misery, she lifted her cocktail in a salute.

‘Your mother fell out of a window. Why would you believe I pushed her?’ I was almost reeling with the horror of the thought. ‘Why, the presumption was that she — that she was depressed. I read in the paper that she had died in London. Believe me, Kitty, I have never been in London. The only acquaintance I have in London is an actor who appeared briefly in one of my films, and he is no more a murderer than I am. Why would you believe I pushed her?’

‘Because it improves the piquancy, I suppose. You know how easily bored I get with the stale plot of life. Anything to put a new twist on it, eh?’

I found it hard to believe she was still so young and had become so cynical. But the world was a very hard place, as Kitty knew. It could be as cruel to jazz babies as to war veterans. The whole idea of death and destruction had become almost modish among certain young Berliners. She told me Prince Freddy had been asking after me. He missed my entertaining company, he said. He had to be content like everyone else with watching me on his screen. Did he have personal copies of my movies? I was flattered. Were they perhaps the films Mr Mix and I had saved in Morocco?

‘One or two. Well, did you? She was getting afraid of you, you know. Someone had threatened her. She was sure the threats came from you. That’s one of the reasons she went to London. She left a box of papers with me in case something happened.’

‘My only concern is for the child,’ I told her. ‘For the little boy. Is he safe?’

‘Oh, yes. Freddie was very kind. Alfred has relatives in Palestine who took him in. Some of those papers mentioned you . . .’

This, of course, alarmed me. I asked casually what she had done with the box. She shrugged her narrow little shoulders. She hadn’t had time to look through it much. Just the usual papers. Mementoes. Memories of former lovers. She had never been that interested in her mother’s private life.

I thought this disingenuous. Since she had shown considerable curiosity when we first spent time together in Corneliusstrasse! I reassured her. My opinion was that her mother had become hysterical, perhaps a little paranoid, and had fixed her attention on me, who intended her no harm at all. If I had wanted her dead, I could have killed her myself when I was in Berlin or have had one of my friends hire somebody. I knew it was still a lot easier to find an assassin in Germany than in England!

Kitty had grown bored with the subject. ‘Let’s go back to this new flat of yours,’ she said. ’It sounds as if you’ve found somewhere comfortable at last.’

We said goodnight to poor Hanfstaengl and the others and collected our coats. In the taxi Kitty agreed that her mother’s hatred of me was probably simply because I had severed my relationship with her, a familiar but nonetheless terrible form of thwarted passion or insane jealousy. I would not have put it past her to have killed herself and then to have let people think I had murdered her!

When we reached my Wurzerstrasse apartment, I opened the heavy oaken door with the odd feeling someone had just left the place. Once again my sixth sense came into play. Had Brodmann found me? Had someone been searching the apartment? Was it Hitler’s people? Mussolini’s?! Was I growing paranoid, inventing enemies for myself? Probably. After all, I was an internationally celebrated film star. In Berlin they might be common currency, but in Munich people would notice if I came to any harm. I saw no real evidence of intrusion and was quickly distracted by Kitty She had grown suddenly passionate.

Almost as soon as we had closed my front door, Kitty was unbuttoning her blue silk wisp of a dress and stepping out of it. She wore a matching camisole and pantolettes with flesh-coloured silk stockings and little blue shoes that matched her dress. With a turquoise torque in her hair, she was irresistible as she trotted swiftly with her purse to the kitchen and prepared herself a syringe. Morphine, she said with a slightly apologetic shrug. Her nerves had been bad lately She thought it was to do with her mother. ‘You know,’ she said, as she inserted the silver needle into her thigh, ‘you always wonder if there was something you could have done. I’m over it now, though. I won’t need this much longer.’

I had always loathed narcotics and feared their habit-forming effect. Unlike the benign stimulant, the narcotics are deadly. Opium, morphine and heroin are all of such high toxicity they immediately alter the nature of the body and make it dependent upon what Prince Freddy called ‘the bloom of paradise’. Of course, anything she told me about ending her use of morphine was self-deception at best. I have known few to stop the habit voluntarily. To say anything to her would have been useless. She might have agreed with me, might have sworn never to stick another needle into her veins, but within a few hours those promises would have been forgotten.

Once I had thought her Prince Freddy’s mistress, then his camouflage. Now I saw that she was his slave. Morphine was never free. All I could do was suggest that she try a little of my ‘cocoa’. She was happy to comply, but clearly the cocaine was merely a side dish. The expression and manner which had puzzled me in the hotel bar were the effects of her morphine use.

I made love to young Kitty with some sadness, much to her eventual impatience. The evening was not very successful for either of us, but she fell asleep in my arms, a whisper of flesh and soft hair, so slender that I hardly realised she was there. Early the next afternoon when we both awoke, she found a tin of cocaine in her little bag and offered some to me. She could get plenty later, she said. She retired to the bathroom with her syringe case.

I was due to make a radio broadcast that day, in which I would say how the values of the pagan Red man were those many of us would do well to examine. It was late October 1933, with the festival behind us and that wonderful sense of unity and purpose everywhere. What a shame she could not enjoy it. Could it be true, as Kitty insisted, that life was more dangerous for the nonconformist in Berlin these days? Yet many of the National Socialists were themselves of a bohemian disposition. Surely they would not turn so readily on their own! Unfortunately I was completely misguided. I had not yet realised how these Nietzscheans who boasted of releasing a healthy, unrepressed beast back into the mainstream of German life, were not merely repressing their own earlier urges, but actually repressing those who reminded them of what they had once celebrated. The Spartan’s love for Sparta had made that city state stronger than any other. The idea of a pure mind in a pure body, of the love of brother for brother, had bonded Sparta into a single steel-hard weapon enabling her steadfastly to resist all threats to her territory. Those were Hitler’s ideals, as well as Röhm’s. Röhm had found Hitler an ignorant, frightened corporal and had given him the inspiration, the rhetoric and the focused anger which brought him to his present pinnacle. Röhm remained the true founder of National Socialism. He, along with Strasser, cared more for his ideals than he cared for power. How was I to know in those glorious first weeks of the revolution that this would prove their undoing in the struggle Hitler was already fomenting between his followers as limitless power fell into their wondering hands?

A day or two after the episode with Kitty, Reid and I were on the Munich sound stage, doing some dialogue scenes for Apache Gold and The Legend of Silverlake which like all the Frisch films were made back to back, thus affording considerable savings. Desmond Reid was no enthusiast for Hitler. A socialist of the nationalist ilk, he was perfectly happy to call himself a Mosleyite. Sir Oswald Mosley, the debonair young star of the Labour Party, disenchanted with that movement’s liberal relativism, had formed his own fascisti. Modelled on Mussolini’s, his party placed stronger emphasis on the Jewish threat, the secret empire of Jewry as he put it. Reid claimed his countryman displayed the usual prudent middle road taken by the United Kingdom since its formation, incorporating the best of the Fascist ideas into their own system.

Reid was critical of Hitler’s control. He was hobbling Röhm. Reid argued that if Röhm was allowed to incorporate his men into the Reichswehr, as he had planned, the SA would achieve full military status and allow Röhm to rejoin the army, which I knew, and Reid guessed, was his dearest wish. He could then consolidate not only his power but his comrade Adolf Hitler’s power.

Reid was right. Although in many ways unconventional, Röhm loved the status and meaning which the regular army gave a soldier in Germany. Though an accomplished pianist with a fine singing voice and a good turn of phrase as his rather odd autobiography attests, he trusted none of his gifts. History has taken him at his word. Because he neither served in the Second World War nor took part in the extermination of prisoners, his story is not disputed. The Nazi calumny remains and is believed by all sides. Röhm claimed to be a brute and, of course, sometimes behaved like one. But I knew the brute was a frustrated spirit longing for reconciliation.

In spite of both Chaney and Seryozha being absent from them, the ‘Western’ films continued to be successful in Germany and achieved some distribution in the British Empire, but the response of American theatre operators was largely negative. For them the real Western was dead. The public was only interested in crooning cowboys from Radio City. We attempted to add music to one of our films, where Mr Mix’s talents on the banjo were utilised for a barn dance scene in which Gloria Cornish joins Desmond Reid in a duet somewhat spoiled by Reid’s inability to remain in key. Apache Love Song was not our most successful picture and the attempt was never made again. My own title number was cut completely. In spite of this setback, which meant the film had to be recalled and the musical scenes removed from it, we continued to produce profitable photoplays for the European market and became particularly popular in Italy where I hoped Il Duce was watching and realising what a mistake he had made in believing my enemies. I cannot help remembering when I hear of the success of the so-called ’Spaghetti Westerns’ how much the Italians owe to our ‘Winnetou’ pictures.

I now had my own car, a little Renault tourer in sporty red and cream. I would drive out to the lakes and mountains at weekends, almost always with a different girl. Sometimes Kitty would come with me. Sometimes she would join whomever I was with. The Bavarian resorts were looking prosperous again. I was able to stay at the best lodges and hotels, with magnificent views of crags and water. I was recognised wherever I went, and no comment was made about my friends, who always had separate rooms. I felt something optimistic and positive in the air which even Kitty had to admit was real. Germany had taken a deep breath, got her house in order and settled down again into familiar life. Poverty lay behind her. Prosperity lay ahead. Now we know it was perhaps a fool’s paradise, but was it Germany’s fault that Hitler broke his promise to her?

While I enjoyed my new lifestyle, I continued to feel uneasy, even guilty, sometimes convinced I was being watched and my apartment being secretly searched while I was away filming. I wrote several notes to Ministerpräsident Göring, mentioning our meetings in Rome, dropping Mrs Cornelius’s name until I realised this was probably not sensible. I heard nothing. I even risked a note to Röhm. I knew it was stupid and expected no response. Doubtless for my sake as well as his own, he had stopped seeing me altogether since I moved to Wurzerstrasse. I was still no further forward in fulfilling my life plan. Certainly the career of a film star was a good one, and there were harder ways to earn a living, but I have always been driven by my genius, my need to bring my dreams to life, enriching the world with a thousand solutions to its problems.

The only high-ranking Nazi I saw apart from poor Putzi was Baldur von Schirach. He remained a good friend, though he, too, was constantly whisking around the country these days. He had made photostats of all my plans, which I still kept in my carpet bag at Corneliusstrasse together with my Cossack pistols. Most of my things remained there hidden in a false wall within a cupboard. Although I had a superb new apartment, I realised I felt safer in that ordinary environment near the food market, so familiar from my youth. I was convinced my treasures would be more secure there. Somehow I had hung on to them through all my ups and downs and was even a little superstitious about the pistols.

I now felt foolish for having trusted Mussolini with so many ideas and leaving him with copies of my designs. Was my decision to trust Göring equally misguided? I have grown tired of the sound of my own voice complaining of the inventions Mussolini either claimed for himself or claimed to have inspired. I was stupid to have left them with him.

Von Schirach had been talking to some of General Petlyura’s old colleagues. They confirmed, of course, that the Violet Ray had worked and would have driven the Reds back were it not for the power failure. Without my even asking he had offered this information to Göring, who might soon be getting in touch with me, he hoped. Meanwhile, I sped about Bavaria’s twisting lanes in my smart roadster with a bevy of neurasthenic jazz babies on my arms and respectful recognition wherever I stopped. Little Zoyea would also accompany us sometimes since she loved riding in motor cars. Occasionally Kitty and I were mistaken for a married couple and Zoyea a daughter by a previous marriage. Often the easiest thing was simply to allow such a harmless deception. When, however, I discovered that Kitty had been tempting Zoyea to try her drugs, I was not amused. Kitty refused to believe that our relationship was innocent. She expressed an attraction for the little Italian dancer and told me she knew what I had planned. After that I did my best to keep them apart.

For some reason The Legend of Silverlake was accepted by the American distributors, which meant that I had even more work. UfA told me I might branch out from my make-up roles and get a starring part as an airship commander in a planned movie called Raid on London. I longed to play a white man again. Doctor Hugenberg was completely absorbed in political life. Mrs Cornelius guessed there was some sort of power struggle between the former Nationalist Monarchists and the NSDAP. Goebbels was greedy for control of UfA, whose media had so successfully helped the Nazis to power. Hugenberg, of course, was resisting him. Meanwhile, in our own little backwater, we continued to show a profit and were never interfered with.

While Mrs Cornelius had an emotional stake in Doctor Hugenberg’s career, the rest of us did not. It scarcely mattered to me who produced our films. They were not politically sensitive and echoed the fundamental idealism of those in power.

In interviews, following the guidelines laid down by the company, I explained how I had been born in Mississippi, attended the University of St Petersburg, Florida, and as a young flyer volunteered for the White cause, fighting Bolsheviks in the air and at the front line, helping significantly in the defence of Kiev until driven back to Odessa where I was forced to take ship in the general exodus. Ever since then I had spent my time fighting Bolshevism. Like so many I found it a relief to know that Germany now had a shield against the East. Like Winnetou’s Apache war-shield, the Nazis defended my homeland from invasion wherever it threatened, from within or without!

My truncated biography said that after some time in Paris working on an aviation project, I returned to America where I was involved in various political and engineering projects of national importance until being lured away by Hollywood, originally as a stunt flyer. Feeling that stardom was shallow, I had spent some time in the Middle East, exploring the wisdom of ancient peoples. For a while I had been forcibly inducted into Islam. For several years I had led the life of a modern hermit, roving the desert with nothing but my animals, my notebooks, a few necessary possessions and only God to talk to. Returning to civilisation, I served with Mussolini before answering the call of the new Germany, of Adolf Hitler, to come and work for them. I was, I admitted, a great admirer of the NSDAP and our leader-guide. I applauded the spirit of optimism I detected everywhere I went. I prayed that America’s descent into decadence would be halted by the rise of similarly strong leaders and by our public absorbing the ideals and aspirations exemplified by the UfA movies, themselves a continuation of the spirit of the great Karl May.

I was, I knew, a real asset to the studio. Children in particular loved me, and I still received many fan letters from the public. I was therefore astonished when, in March 1934, only a few days after we had completed the sound work on Apache Territory, I received a letter at my apartment telling me that my contract as Cochise, the Apache Prince, would not be renewed and that a German national had been picked to play the role in my place! There was no mention of the airship part. Telephone calls to Mrs Cornelius and Desmond Reid informed me that they had not been replaced by German nationals. Reid seemed cool, and I wondered if he had been involved in my replacement. But Mrs Cornelius was outraged. She would talk to Huggy Bear at the first opportunity. The only other member of the regular cast to receive a similar letter had been Myra Friedmann, who had played my romantic lead. And she, of course, was a German!

I was baffled.

When I contacted the studio I was met with embarrassment and obfuscation. It had something to do with the new Nazi laws, I was told. Doctor Hugenberg had been forced to comply. Everyone felt I had made a wonderful Cochise and nobody could ever really replace me. But the reason for my dismissal remained mysterious. Clearly Mrs Cornelius and Reid, being English, were acceptable. Comic darkies were still in fashion, but Spaniards, Americans, Italians and other riff-raff were no longer needed! Myra called me in tears. She had been dismissed, she told me, because she was Jewish. She wanted to come to my flat and commiserate. I said she was welcome as soon as it was convenient. But really, I did not need her weeping on my shoulder. We had never been close friends.

Happily, I had not spent all my money and was not destitute. On the afternoon of the day I received my letter, I was already leaving messages for Schirach. I needed to meet Göring at once and impress him with what I could do for the new Germany. I was afraid I might be deported. I had no wish to return to Italy or, indeed, to France. Neither could I easily go back to America. I realised that I had been leading a dream life. In some ways I had been lured by the temptations of Satan down the wrong path. I think I knew instinctively that this was God’s benign interference as He strove to put me back on my destined road.

I talked this over with Kitty. She was sure the public would soon demand my return. Meanwhile, Prince Freddy had expressed a longing to see me again. I arranged to visit him the following week.

Mrs Cornelius had dinner with me that evening. She was extremely upset. She had not yet discovered the real reason for my dismissal. It was not, she said, as if the part required a Henry Irving. None of the Nazis thought I was Jewish. Many Aryans looked a damned sight more Jewish than I did. The trouble was that she had very little access to Doctor Hugenberg at the moment. “E feels the Nazis ‘ave cheated ‘im, gorn back on their promises an’ that. Well, I coulda told ‘im abart politicians, Ivan. Eh?’ She chuckled reminiscently. I think she still carried a torch for Trotsky.

I now know she had a presentiment. She became serious for a moment. ‘Too much death, Ive. It’s beginnin’ ter get a bit niffy ‘rahnd ‘ere. Maybe this is ther writin’ on ther wall. Time ter be movin’ on . . .’

I trusted her instinct better than I trusted the voice of my own soul. I remembered how she had tried to warn me of the danger I was in when we got to Egypt, how I had ignored her, how she had stayed as long as she could, but eventually had been forced to get away quickly. Happily, Major Nye had made himself of use to her then. In Cairo I had been deceived into a life of total nightmare, the slave of a sadistic trickster who was on the point of killing me when I was miraculously delivered by fate. I still wondered if my friend Kolya had by now charmed his way into the leadership of some hard-riding tribe. Sometimes I regretted our enforced parting and imagined how we might have lived, heroes of a Karl May novel, princes of a vast Saharan nation, away from all the ills and dirty realities of European and American life. At these times my mind wandered romantically back to those wonderful desert nights.

I occupied my time with writing letters to Doctor Goebbels and Ministerpräsident Göring, outlining my plans for a new Germany in which clean white towers would spring up and curving motorways with graceful lines would merge into a gently undulating horizon below a sky in which my gigantic ships plied their peaceful trade. My great flying cities would rise into the sky, free at last from all earthly follies, free to explore the solar system and beyond. My city is called The New Dawn; she cries out like a woman in pleasure. She ascends into a golden sky. She expands in my womb. A star begins to pulse and grow. It is my city. I am free of pain. I am free of despair. I am free of sorrow. Out of Chaos springs Law. My ship is called The Mother, and she will bring joy and curiosity to the universe.

I was growing nervous. I tried Röhm at all his numbers without success. I left messages, but it was dangerous to say too much. I heard nothing from him. He was rushing about all over the country disciplining his SA units. There was some fuss with the Reichswehr, pledges made. Threats and rising tempers, spluttered statements, cold demands. Fundamentally an apolitical person, I was not, of course, able to follow much of this. I scarcely glanced at the news pages. Until now my attention had been entirely on the show-business reports. The public would not forget me. Still another of my films was yet to appear. I reassured myself. It would be at least five months before my substitute was seen for the fraud he was. I had more than enough money to wait them out and would use my time profitably by following my conscience and my dream.

Es gibt eitien Weg zur Freiheit, as they say. By remaining true to myself, I would survive any setback. This was the hour in which I would be tested.

Putzi Hanfstaengl remained a good friend. When he heard of my plight he laughed rather bitterly. ‘We are useful, and then we are no longer useful.’ He sometimes wondered if he should take his family to America. He had painted himself into a corner. If only Hitler would come to his senses.

I thought the man seemed buried underneath his followers, no longer able to act for himself. Hanfstaengl agreed sadly. ‘He flourishes in the public arena but needs his quiet times, his relaxing times, and is not getting them. He has too much to do. When he’s irritable and erratic he turns on his friends, accusing them of every infamy. I am a fool to stay here and not defend myself. Himmler and Goebbels are the only people he listens to. Even Göring is no longer taken seriously.’

Hitler must be listening to Röhm. Hanfstaengl was not sure. He sighed. ‘When Hitler changes his mind it means history changes, you know. He claims any new idea is what he always thought. How he always planned it to happen. You know the type. One day you’re his right-hand man, the next you’re a traitor to the whole cause. I can’t take it as easily as I once could. I know they believe I’m too soft. They make all the tough decisions, and all I have to do is talk about them. It’s true in a way. But I didn’t expect . . .’ He had not expected power. He had based his life theories on disappointment, as had so many people at that time. When things went his way, he became uneasy, even suspicious, a peculiar syndrome I had witnessed many times in my life. I knew the symptoms well having seen them exhibited in a suddenly successful anarchist or a Bolshevik. It was interesting to see Hanfstaengl, a man so solidly opposed to such people, displaying the same psychology. He apologised, lifting his huge hands as if they were weights, then letting them slump to his sides.

Baldur von Schirach also seemed tired, as if the responsibilities of power were proving too much for him. His sister and mother were hardly speaking to him, he told me. He was being asked on all sides to intercede for friends and could not possibly help them all. He saw me for coffee at a hotel. I had hoped he would have a word with Göring, but after hearing the poor boy’s woes, I could not bring myself to add to his burdens.

The day after I saw von Schirach I had an appointment with Prince Freddy and Kitty. I drove to the Mongol’s apartment in my little tourer. I was almost relieved not to be working. I rang the bell and ascended into the strange atmosphere. As I stepped into the lobby, I congratulated myself that I could now enjoy my bohemian friend’s distractions entirely at my own leisure and not have to worry about my looks the next morning!

Wearing a flimsy affair in salmon pink, as always with matching shoes, Kitty greeted me. Her strange, flirtatious manner, as if she was trying to seduce me for the first time, made me uncomfortable, but when Freddy Badehoff-Krasnya came into the room, he beamed, embraced me and put me at my ease. He was smoking one of his marijuana cigarettes, which I refused. Instead, I accepted a phial of cocaine. Kitty poured cocktails. The strangely jagged door with its metallic glitter shone in even sharper definition than before. From somewhere Prince Freddy’s Japanese servant appeared. He drew down a brilliant-white screen, revealing, behind a curtain, a 16mm film projector of superb quality. I admired its ‘streamlined’ casing and smiled, having some inkling that I was about to watch myself as the Masked Buckaroo.

‘Oh, this is going to take you back a bit!’ he promised with a wide smile.

Chairs were drawn up, and we settled into them. Prince Freddy said very little but sat close to me and put his tiny hand on my arm. ‘This will be a particular pleasure for me,’ he said.

I realised at that moment my luck had completely deserted me. All my optimism faded as I watched the images on the screen. Neither the Masked Buckaroo nor the White Ace appeared half focused out of the grey darkness of the past. I had never seen the film before and had no idea where it had been shot. I remember thinking the photography rather poor. Then I recognised the ramshackle scenery. The setting was Egypt.

I rose to go. Prince Freddy’s pressure on my arm refused my desire. His gesture had an authority which made my heart sink. And sure enough, the scenes with Esmé flickered to life. I was originally masked, you will recall, with the animal-heads they had made me wear. But in the rape scene I was no longer masked. I watched my poor, tired, reluctant body. All the physical and emotional pain flooded back. Esmé’s wide, gasping mouth, the penis endlessly thrusting into her treacherous little orifices. She had drawn me into that trap. She had brought me first to infamy, and now she would ruin me! I was shaking with outrage when the film was eventually turned off. As the lights went on I stared directly into Kitty’s crazed and perverted eyes.

Prince Freddy was pealing with cold laughter. ‘My dear, dear chap. We aren’t prudes here, you should know that by now. We simply hadn’t realised you were so talented . . .’

The film was an abomination, I told him. Evidence of the horrible surgery which the Moslems had performed upon me.

‘Of course it is!’ Prince Freddy turned away as Kitty pressed her little, thin body against me and kissed my cheek. I moved to distance myself from her. She followed. I moved again, sure she had been framing this situation for some time, getting a perverse pleasure from it. The morphine had removed everything human from her. She was entirely Prince Mongol’s creature. She let her hand fall and stood there grinning into space like a mechanical doll which had suddenly wound down. Prince Freddy murmured something to her, and she left the room. He relished his complete control of the situation, my knowledge that he could, if he wished, ruin me, even have me put in prison under the new, strict morality laws being issued by the party.

‘What are you going to do with the film?’ I was furious. Had I been armed I would have killed him.

‘Nothing.’ He knew exactly what I was thinking. It enhanced his power. ‘We are friends, dear Max. Friends do not expose one another to needless publicity. I would not betray you to the authorities any more than you would betray me. You know my discretion already.’

I relaxed a little. True, he had little to gain and might well lose his own reputation if he handed the film over to the police. I began to explain how I had been blackmailed into making the film, how I had been a prisoner in Egypt, close to death. But for a fluke I would never have escaped. There were others in Munich, I said, who could vouch for all of this.

He seemed sympathetic, as usual. ‘We are all forced to compromise ourselves at some stage in our lives. We learn humility from such experiences.’

Kitty came back into the room. She was carrying a large, leather-bound scrapbook of the kind used for press cuttings. ‘My inheritance,’ she said. She handed it to Prince Freddy. She made no attempt to explain the book, nor did Prince Freddy. We all understood what it contained. ‘Humility’ Prince Freddy carried the book behind another curtain, leaving me with Kitty. She shrugged. She seemed almost as out of focus as the film we had been watching. I did not need to relearn that particular humiliation, but it appeared I was to have no choice.

At that moment I remember feeling an odd, inner chill, a profound suspicion that Kitty and Prince Freddy had conspired to kill her mother! It is simply not possible for a man of my kind to imagine the levels of infamy such people will go to and what delight they take in trapping others in their webs! For all my experience of the world I remain an innocent. Mrs Cornelius says as much.

I was to pay a price, however, for Prince Freddy’s discretion. The new government was blocking many of his old ways of making a living, therefore he must find new ways. He had had some experience with film-making in the past. He had regular customers, many in the party hierarchy here in Munich. He would let me wear a mask — a good one — and Kitty would be my only female partner. It was not much to pay, he said wide-eyed, for his silence. Another man might have asked far more.

I was in an appalling position. If I refused, he would release the film to the press who would be only too glad of the story. It would be big news across the Continent. If I accepted his offer, I compounded my situation and would be drawn in deeper and deeper. Yet I had no choice. How I wished Ernst Röhm were with me. I knew exactly how he would have responded. Prince Freddy would by now be on the carpet with a broken neck. But as it was, he had me in his power.

We filmed the thing at Prince Freddy’s place in a day and a night. The camera was locked away, the actors paid and Prince Freddy congratulated me on my performance. He was honoured to work with a pro, he said. With deep dread I knew this would not be the only time he would call on me to perform. My hubris had led me to this, just as it had led to my captivity and torment in Egypt. I could not bear to go through all that again. I considered suicide.

Early in the morning after the filming I returned to my apartment. This time it was immediately obvious my rooms had been searched. The intrusion was less expert than before. Was more than one agency taking an interest in me? At least I had trusted my instincts and kept most of my valuable things in Corneliusstrasse. As soon as possible I would make sure they were safe. Who was following me? Had my association with Prince Freddy been noted by the powers that be? Was he also a spy? My stomach turned over at the thought. I went instantly to my store of cocaine and found it untampered with. I took a massive dose, and slowly my confidence returned. My most sensible plan was to register this break-in with the authorities. That way it would be clear I had no fear of them. Then I must get in touch with Göring and solicit his help. Surely Mrs Cornelius could be prevailed upon to help, considering my potential danger? Putzi still to some degree had the Air Marshal’s ear. He would certainly help me. I made myself some coffee, showered and dressed in my best, most conservative clothes, ready to report what I suspected.

Just as I was knotting my tie, I heard a knock at the front door. I hoped it was Mrs Cornelius or even Putzi Hanfstaengl. I had decided to tell them everything, even about Prince Freddy’s blackmail. In my circumstances it was just as well to throw oneself wholly on the mercy of one’s friends.

I opened the door, a word of greeting on my lips. But instead of a friend I found two uniformed policemen saluting me politely. They seemed a little surprised to see me smiling. One had a typical round Bavarian face, nurtured on good beer. The other was taller, an amiable wolf.

‘Thank goodness,’ I said. ‘Just the chaps I want to see.’

A little baffled by my reaction, they asked if I had noticed any intruders in the building. I was immediately relieved. Obviously I had not been singled out. Other residents had reported the same problems.

Yes, I said, I was pretty sure I had been burgled but had no idea what might be missing. Murmuring politely, the policemen came into the apartment, glanced around, and then asked me if I would mind returning with them to make a short statement at the Ettstrasse police headquarters. They were deference itself. They had already taken this liberty with some of my neighbours. It would only be a matter of minutes. They could talk to me here, but the stenographer at the station could take down the details.

I told them there was little more I could offer. I had not noticed anything missing. Was their suspect some sort of pervert who merely enjoyed entering other people’s apartments? They were a trifle insistent. They said how extremely sorry they were. These things had to be reported at the station. Those were the rules. The gesture on my part would simplify their overloaded work schedule. They promised I would be back in time for lunch. Perhaps I could also bring my identification papers, which would be formally needed?

At length I could only acquiesce. I asked for a few moments and went to the bathroom. I splashed some water on my face, took another quick, deep sniff of restorative, put a little extra in my secret pocket, should I need it on the way home, replaced the packet in the usual hole under the sink, found my papers and returned to my living room where the policemen awaited me. I still had no suspicion of what was to come.