The Vengeance of Rome

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.