In The Garden Of Beasts Part 6

All three laughed. This mock complicity in the Reichstag fire would remain a joke between Boris and Fritz, repeated often in varying forms to the great delight of Martha's father-even though Fritz, Martha believed, was "almost surely an agent of the secret police."

Fritz returned with vodka. Boris poured himself a large drink and quickly downed it. Martha settled back in the couch. This time Boris sat beside her. He drank a second vodka but showed no obvious sign of its effect.

"From the first moment I saw you-" he began. He hesitated, then said, "Can it be, I wonder?"

She understood what he was trying to say and in fact she too felt a powerful, instant attraction, but she was not inclined to concede it this early in the game. She looked at him, blank.

He grew serious. He launched into a lengthy interrogation. What did she do in Chicago? What were her parents like? What did she want to do in the future?

The exchange had more in common with a newspaper interview than a first-date conversation. Martha found it vexing but answered with patience. For all she knew, this was how all Soviet men behaved. "I had never before met a real real Communist, or a Communist, or a Russian Russian for that matter," she wrote, "so I imagined this must be their way of knowing someone." for that matter," she wrote, "so I imagined this must be their way of knowing someone."

As the conversation wore on, both consulted pocket dictionaries. Boris knew some English, but not much, and conversed mainly in German. Martha knew no Russian, so deployed a mix of German and English.

Though it took a good deal of effort, she told Boris that her parents were both offspring of old southern landowning families, "each as well ancestored as the other, and almost pure British: Scotch-Irish, English, and Welsh."

Boris laughed. "That's not so pure, is it?"

With an unconscious note of pride in her voice, she added that both families had once owned slaves-"Mother's about twelve or so, Father's five or six."

Boris went quiet. His expression shifted abruptly to one of sorrow. "Martha," he said, "surely you are not proud that your ancestors owned the lives of other human beings."

He took her hands and looked at her. Until this moment the fact that her parents' ancestors had owned slaves had always seemed merely an interesting element of their personal history that testified to their deep roots in America. Now, suddenly, she saw it for what it was-a sad chapter to be regretted.

"I didn't mean to boast," she said. "I suppose it sounded like that to you." She apologized and immediately hated herself for it. She was, she conceded, "a combative girl."

"But we do have a long tradition in America," she told him. "We are not newcomers."

Boris found her defensiveness hilarious and laughed with unrestrained delight.

In the next instant, he adopted a look and tone that she recalled as being "solemn in the extreme."

"Congratulations, my n.o.ble, gracious, little Marta! I too am also of ancient lineage, even older than yours. I am a direct descendant of Neanderthal man. And pure? Yes, pure human. pure human."

They collapsed against each other with laughter.

THEY BECAME REGULAR COMPANIONS, though they tried to keep their emerging relationship as discreet as possible. The United States had not yet recognized the Soviet Union (and would not do so until November 16, 1933). To have the daughter of the American amba.s.sador openly consorting with a first secretary of the Soviet emba.s.sy at official functions would have const.i.tuted a breach of protocol that would have put both her father and Boris at risk of criticism from inside and outside their respective governments. She and Boris left diplomatic receptions early, then met for secret meals at such fine restaurants as Horcher's, Pelzer, Habel, and Kempinski. To cut costs a bit, Boris also cultivated the chefs of small, inexpensive restaurants and instructed them on how to prepare foods he liked. After dinner he and Martha would go dancing at Ciro's or at the club on the roof of the Eden Hotel, or to political cabarets such as the Kabarett der Komiker.

Some nights Martha and Boris would join the correspondents gathered at Die Taverne, where Boris was always welcomed. The reporters liked him. The now-exiled Edgar Mowrer had found Boris a refreshing change from other officials in the Soviet emba.s.sy. Boris, he recalled, spoke his mind without slavish adherence to party doctrine and "seemed totally unintimidated by the kind of censorship which seemed to silence other members of the Emba.s.sy."

Like Martha's other suitors, Boris sought to escape n.a.z.i intrusion by taking her on long drives into the countryside. He drove a Ford convertible, which he loved dearly. Agnes Knickerbocker recalled that he "made some ceremony of putting on his fine leather gloves before taking the wheel." He was "an unswerving communist," she wrote, but "he liked the so-called good things in life."

He almost always kept the top down, closing it only on the coldest nights. As his relationship with Martha deepened, he insisted on placing his arm around her as he drove. He seemed to need her touch at all times. He would place her hand on his knee or insert her fingers into his glove. On occasion they took these drives late at night, sometimes staying out until dawn, Martha wrote, "to welcome the rising sun in the black-green forests spangled with autumn gold."

Though his English was limited, he learned and adored the word "darling" and used it every chance he got. He also deployed Russian endearments, which he refused to translate, claiming that to do so would diminish their beauty. In German, he called her "my little girl," or "my sweet child," or "my little one." She mused that he did so partly because of her height, partly because of his overall perception of her character and maturity. "He once said I had a naivete and idealism he could not easily understand," she wrote. She sensed that he found her too "flighty" to even attempt to indoctrinate her in the tenets of communism. This was a period, she acknowledged, when "I must have appeared a most naive and stubborn young American, a vexation to all sensible people I knew."

She found that Boris also took the world lightly, at least outwardly. "At thirty-one," she wrote, "Boris had a childlike gaiety and faith, a mad-cap humor and charm not often found in mature men." Now and then, however, reality intruded on what Martha called their "personal dream-world of dinners and concerts, theaters and joyous festivities." She sensed in him a seam of tension. He was especially dismayed to see how readily the world accepted Hitler's protestations of peace even as he so obviously girded the country for war. The Soviet Union seemed a likely target. Another source of stress was his own emba.s.sy's disapproval of his relationship with Martha. His superiors issued a reprimand. He ignored it.

Martha, meanwhile, experienced pressure of a less official variety. Her father liked Boris, she thought, but he was often reticent in Boris's presence, "even antagonistic at times." She attributed this mainly to his fear that she and Boris might get married.

"My friends and family are disturbed about us," she told Boris. "What can come of it? Only complications, some joy now, and then perhaps long despair."

FOR ONE OF THEIR September dates, Boris and Martha packed a picnic lunch and drove into the countryside. They found a private glade, where they spread their blanket. The air was suffused with the scent of freshly cut gra.s.s. As Boris lay on the blanket, smiling at the sky, Martha plucked a length of wild mint and used it to tickle his face. September dates, Boris and Martha packed a picnic lunch and drove into the countryside. They found a private glade, where they spread their blanket. The air was suffused with the scent of freshly cut gra.s.s. As Boris lay on the blanket, smiling at the sky, Martha plucked a length of wild mint and used it to tickle his face.

He saved it, as she later discovered. He was a romantic, a collector of treasures. Even this early in their relationship he was deeply smitten-and, as it happens, closely watched.

Martha appeared at this point to have no knowledge of what many correspondents suspected: that Boris was no mere first secretary of emba.s.sy, but rather an operative for Soviet intelligence, the NKVD, precursor to the KGB.

CHAPTER 15.

The "Jewish Problem"

As amba.s.sador, Dodd's main point of contact in the German government was Foreign Minister Neurath. Spurred by the Kaltenborn incident, Dodd arranged to meet with Neurath on Thursday morning, September 14, 1933, to make a formal protest, against not just that episode but also the many other attacks on Americans and the regime's apparent unwillingness to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Their conversation took place in Neurath's office in the Foreign Ministry on Wilhelmstra.s.se.

It began amiably enough with a discussion of economic matters, but the atmosphere quickly grew tense as Dodd broached the subject of "SA brutalities" and reviewed for Neurath half a dozen incidents. The most recent had occurred on August 31 in Berlin-the Samuel Bossard incident, in which Bossard was a.s.saulted by members of the Hitler Youth after failing to offer the Hitler salute. A week earlier another American, Harold Dahlquist, had been struck by a Storm Trooper for failing to stop to watch an SA parade. Overall the frequency of such attacks had decreased as compared with the preceding spring, but incidents continued to occur at a steady rate of one or two a month. Dodd warned Neurath that press accounts of these attacks had caused real damage to Germany's reputation in America and noted that this happened despite his own efforts to mute negative coverage by American correspondents. "I may say to you that the emba.s.sy has endeavored successfully on several occasions to prevent unimportant events from being reported and also warned reporters from exaggerating their stories," he told Neurath.

He revealed now that on one occasion his own car had been stopped and searched, apparently by an SA officer, but that he had kept the incident from being publicized "to prevent widespread discussions which as you know would have been inevitable."

Neurath thanked him and said he was aware of Dodd's efforts to temper press coverage of Storm Trooper violence, including the incident that Martha and Bill Jr. had witnessed in Nuremberg. He professed to be very grateful.

Dodd turned to the Kaltenborn episode. He told Neurath that the reaction in the United States could have been far worse if Kaltenborn himself had been inclined to publicize it. "He was generous enough, however, to ask us not to allow any report of the episode to get out, and both Mr. Messersmith and I urged the American press not to mention this story," Dodd said. "It did, however, get out and did Germany incalculable injury."

Neurath, though renowned for his lack of public affect, grew visibly perturbed, a novelty worth recording, as Dodd did in a "strictly confidential" memorandum he composed later that day. Neurath claimed to know Kaltenborn personally and condemned the attack as brutal and without justification.

Dodd watched him. Neurath seemed sincere, but lately the foreign minister had been displaying a penchant for agreeing and then doing nothing.

Dodd warned that if the attacks continued and if the a.s.sailants still evaded punishment, the United States might indeed be forced to "publish a statement which would greatly damage the rating of Germany all over the world."

Neurath's complexion turned a deeper red.

Dodd continued as if lecturing a wayward student: "I cannot see how your officials can allow such behavior or how they fail to see that it is one of the most serious things affecting our relations."

Neurath claimed that during the preceding week he had raised the issue directly with Goring and Hitler. Both, he said, had a.s.sured him that they would use their influence to prevent further attacks. Neurath vowed to do likewise.

Dodd pressed on, now venturing into even more charged territory: the Jewish "problem," as Dodd and Neurath both termed it.

Neurath asked Dodd whether the United States "did not have a Jewish problem" of its own.

"You know, of course," Dodd said, "that we have had difficulty now and then in the United States with Jews who had gotten too much of a hold on certain departments of intellectual and business life." He added that some of his peers in Washington had told him confidentially that "they appreciated the difficulties of the Germans in this respect but that they did not for a moment agree with the method of solving the problem which so often ran into utter ruthlessness."

Dodd described his encounter with Fritz Haber, the chemist.

"Yes," Neurath said, "I know Haber and recognize him as one of the greatest chemists in all Europe." Neurath agreed that Germany's treatment of Jews was wrongheaded and said his ministry was urging a more humane approach. He claimed to see signs of change. Just that week, he said, he had gone to the races at Baden-Baden and three prominent Jews had sat with him on the platform along with other government officials, "and there were no unfriendly expressions."

Dodd said, "You cannot expect world opinion of your conduct to moderate so long as eminent leaders like Hitler and Goebbels announce from platforms, as in Nuremberg, that all Jews must be wiped off the earth."

Dodd rose to leave. He turned to Neurath. "Shall we have a war?" he asked.

Again Neurath flushed: "Never!"

At the door, Dodd said, "You must realize that Germany would be ruined by another war."

Dodd left the building, "a little concerned that I had been so frank and critical."

THE VERY NEXT DAY, the American consul in Stuttgart, Germany, sent a "strictly confidential" communique to Berlin in which he reported that the Mauser Company, in his jurisdiction, had sharply increased its production of arms. The consul wrote, "No doubt can be entertained any longer that large scale preparation for a renewal of aggression against other countries is being planned in Germany."

Soon afterward the same consul reported that German police had begun close surveillance of highways, routinely stopping travelers and subjecting them, their cars, and their baggage to detailed search.

On one notorious occasion the government ordered a nationwide halt of all traffic between noon and 12:40 so that squads of police could search all trains, trucks, and cars then in transit. The official explanation, quoted by German newspapers, was that the police were hunting for weapons, foreign propaganda, and evidence of communist resistance. Cynical Berliners embraced a different theory then making the rounds: that what the police really hoped to find, and confiscate, were copies of Swiss and Austrian newspapers carrying allegations that Hitler himself might have Jewish ancestry.

CHAPTER 16.

A Secret Request The attacks against Americans, his protests, the unpredictability of Hitler and his deputies, and the need to tread with so much delicacy in the face of official behavior that anywhere else might draw time in prison-all of it wore Dodd down. He was plagued by headaches and stomach troubles. In a letter to a friend he described his amba.s.sadorship as "this disagreeable and difficult business."

On top of it all came the quotidian troubles that even amba.s.sadors had to cope with.

In mid-September the Dodds became aware of a good deal of noise coming from the fourth floor of their house on Tiergartenstra.s.se, which supposedly was occupied only by Panofsky and his mother. With no advance notice to Dodd, a team of carpenters arrived and, starting at seven o'clock each day, began hammering and sawing and otherwise raising a clamor, and continued doing so for two weeks. On September 18, Panofsky wrote a brief note to Dodd: "Herewith I am informing you that at the beginning of the coming month my wife and my children will return from their stay in the countryside back to Berlin. I am convinced that the comfort of your excellency and of Mrs. Dodd will not be impaired, as it is my aspiration to make your stay in my house as comfortable as possible."

Panofsky moved his wife and children into the fourth floor, along with several servants.

Dodd was shocked. He composed a letter to Panofsky, which he then edited heavily, crossing out and modifying every other line, clearly aware that this was more than a routine landlord-tenant matter. Panofsky was bringing his family back to Berlin because Dodd's presence ensured their safety. Dodd's first draft hinted that he might now have to move his own family and chided Panofsky for not having disclosed his plans in July. Had he done so, Dodd wrote, "we should not [have] been in such an embarra.s.sing position."

Dodd's final draft was softer. "We are very happy indeed to hear that you are reunited with your family," he wrote, in German. "Our only concern would be that your children won't be able to use their own home as freely as they would like. We bought our house in Chicago so that our children could experience the advantages of the outdoors. It would sadden me to have the feeling that we might hinder this ent.i.tled freedom and bodily movement of your children. If we had known about your plans in July, we would not have been in this tight spot right now."

The Dodds, like abused tenants everywhere, resolved at first to be patient and to hope that the new din of children and servants would subside.

It did not. The clatter of comings and goings and the chance appearances of small children caused awkward moments, especially when the Dodds entertained diplomats and senior Reich officials, the latter already disposed to belittle Dodd's frugal habits-his plain suits, the walks to work, the old Chevrolet. And now the unexpected arrival of an entire household of Jews.

"There was too much noise and disturbance, especially since the duties of my office required frequent entertainments," Dodd wrote in a memorandum. "I think anyone would have said it was an act of bad faith."

Dodd consulted a lawyer.

His landlord troubles and the mounting demands of his post made it increasingly difficult for Dodd to find time to work on his Old South Old South. He was able to write only for brief intervals in the evening and on weekends. He struggled to acquire books and doc.u.ments that would have been simple to locate in America.

The thing that weighed on him most, however, was the irrationality of the world in which he now found himself. To some extent he was a prisoner of his own training. As a historian, he had come to view the world as the product of historical forces and the decisions of more or less rational people, and he expected the men around him to behave in a civil and coherent manner. But Hitler's government was neither civil nor coherent, and the nation lurched from one inexplicable moment to another.

Even the language used by Hitler and party officials was weirdly inverted. The term "fanatical" became a positive trait. Suddenly it connoted what philologist Victor Klemperer, a Jewish resident of Berlin, described as a "happy mix of courage and fervent devotion." n.a.z.i-controlled newspapers reported an endless succession of "fanatical vows" and "fanatical declarations" and "fanatical beliefs," all good things. Goring was described as a "fanatical animal lover." Fanatischer Tierfreund Fanatischer Tierfreund.

Certain very old words were coming into darkly robust modern use, Klemperer found. ubermensch: ubermensch: superman. superman. Untermensch: Untermensch: sub-human, meaning "Jew." Wholly new words were emerging as well, among them sub-human, meaning "Jew." Wholly new words were emerging as well, among them Strafexpedition Strafexpedition-"punitive expedition"-the term Storm Troopers applied to their forays into Jewish and communist neighborhoods.

Klemperer detected a certain "hysteria of language" in the new flood of decrees, alarms, and intimidation-"This perpetual threatening with the death penalty!"-and in strange, inexplicable episodes of paranoid excess, like the recent nationwide search. In all this Klemperer saw a deliberate effort to generate a kind of daily suspense, "copied from American cinema and thrillers," that helped keep people in line. He also gauged it to be a manifestation of insecurity among those in power. In late July 1933 Klemperer saw a newsreel in which Hitler, with fists clenched and face contorted, shrieked, "On 30 January they"-and here Klemperer presumed he meant the Jews-"laughed at me-that smile will be wiped off their faces!" Klemperer was struck by the fact that although Hitler was trying to convey omnipotence, he appeared to be in a wild, uncontrolled rage, which paradoxically had the effect of undermining his boasts that the new Reich would last a thousand years and that all his enemies would be annihilated. Klemperer wondered, Do you talk with such blind rage "if you are so sure of this endurance and this annihilation"?

He left the theater that day "with what almost amounted to a glimmer of hope."

IN THE WORLD OUTSIDE Dodd's windows, however, the shadows steadily deepened. Another attack occurred against an American, a representative of the Woolworth dime-store chain named Roland Velz, who was a.s.saulted in Dusseldorf on Sunday, October 8, 1933, as he and his wife strolled along one of the city's main streets. Like so many victims before them, they had committed the sin of failing to acknowledge an SA parade. An incensed Storm Trooper struck Velz twice, hard, in the face, and moved on. When Velz tried to get a policeman to arrest the man, the officer declined. Velz then complained to a police lieutenant standing nearby, but he also refused to act. Instead, the officer provided a brief lesson on how and when to salute. Dodd's windows, however, the shadows steadily deepened. Another attack occurred against an American, a representative of the Woolworth dime-store chain named Roland Velz, who was a.s.saulted in Dusseldorf on Sunday, October 8, 1933, as he and his wife strolled along one of the city's main streets. Like so many victims before them, they had committed the sin of failing to acknowledge an SA parade. An incensed Storm Trooper struck Velz twice, hard, in the face, and moved on. When Velz tried to get a policeman to arrest the man, the officer declined. Velz then complained to a police lieutenant standing nearby, but he also refused to act. Instead, the officer provided a brief lesson on how and when to salute.

Dodd sent two notes of protest to the foreign office in which he demanded immediate action to arrest the attacker. He received no reply. Once again Dodd weighed the idea of asking the State Department to "announce to the world that Americans are not safe in Germany and that travelers had best not go there," but he ultimately demurred.

Persecution of Jews continued in ever more subtle and wideranging form as the process of Gleichschaltung Gleichschaltung advanced. In September the government established the Reich Chamber of Culture, under the control of Goebbels, to bring musicians, actors, painters, writers, reporters, and filmmakers into ideological and, especially, racial alignment. In early October the government enacted the Editorial Law, which banned Jews from employment by newspapers and publishers and was to take effect on January 1, 1934. No realm was too petty: The Ministry of Posts ruled that henceforth when trying to spell a word over the telephone a caller could no longer say "D as in David," because "David" was a Jewish name. The caller had to use "Dora." "Samuel" became "Siegfried." And so forth. "There has been nothing in social history more implacable, more heartless and more devastating than the present policy in Germany against the Jews," Consul General Messersmith told Undersecretary Phillips in a long letter dated September 29, 1933. He wrote, "It is definitely the aim of the Government, no matter what it may say to the outside or in Germany, to eliminate the Jews from German life." advanced. In September the government established the Reich Chamber of Culture, under the control of Goebbels, to bring musicians, actors, painters, writers, reporters, and filmmakers into ideological and, especially, racial alignment. In early October the government enacted the Editorial Law, which banned Jews from employment by newspapers and publishers and was to take effect on January 1, 1934. No realm was too petty: The Ministry of Posts ruled that henceforth when trying to spell a word over the telephone a caller could no longer say "D as in David," because "David" was a Jewish name. The caller had to use "Dora." "Samuel" became "Siegfried." And so forth. "There has been nothing in social history more implacable, more heartless and more devastating than the present policy in Germany against the Jews," Consul General Messersmith told Undersecretary Phillips in a long letter dated September 29, 1933. He wrote, "It is definitely the aim of the Government, no matter what it may say to the outside or in Germany, to eliminate the Jews from German life."

For a time Messersmith had been convinced that Germany's economic crisis would unseat Hitler. No longer. He saw now that Hitler, Goring, and Goebbels were firmly in power. They "know practically nothing concerning the outside world," he wrote. "They know only that in Germany they can do as they will. They feel their power within the country and are to that extent drunk with it."

Messersmith proposed that one solution might be "forcible intervention from the outside." But he warned that such an action would have to come soon. "If there were intervention by other powers now, probably about half of the population would still look upon it as deliverance," he wrote. "If it is delayed too long, such intervention might meet a practically united Germany."

One fact was certain, Messersmith believed: Germany now posed a real and grave threat to the world. He called it "the sore spot which may disturb our peace for years to come."

DODD BEGAN TO EXHIBIT the first signs of discouragement and a deep weariness. the first signs of discouragement and a deep weariness.

"There is nothing here that seems to offer much promise," he wrote to his friend Colonel Edward M. House, "and I am, between us again, not a little doubtful of the wisdom of my having intimated last spring that I might be of service in Germany. I have one volume of The Old South The Old South ready or nearly ready for publication. There are to be three more. I have worked twenty years on the subject and dislike to run too great a risk of never finishing it." He closed: "Now I am here, sixty-four years old, and engaged ten to fifteen hours a day! Getting nowhere. Yet, if I resigned, that fact would complicate matters." To his friend Jane Addams, the reformer who founded Hull House in Chicago, he wrote, "It defeats my history work and I am far from sure I was right in my choice last June." ready or nearly ready for publication. There are to be three more. I have worked twenty years on the subject and dislike to run too great a risk of never finishing it." He closed: "Now I am here, sixty-four years old, and engaged ten to fifteen hours a day! Getting nowhere. Yet, if I resigned, that fact would complicate matters." To his friend Jane Addams, the reformer who founded Hull House in Chicago, he wrote, "It defeats my history work and I am far from sure I was right in my choice last June."

On October 4, 1933, barely three months into his stay, Dodd sent Secretary Hull a letter marked "confidential and for you alone." Citing the dampness of Berlin's autumn and winter climate and his lack of a vacation since March, Dodd requested permission to take a lengthy leave early in the coming year so that he could spend time on his farm and do some teaching in Chicago. He hoped to depart Berlin at the end of February and return three months later.

He asked Hull to keep his request secret. "Please do not refer to others if you have doubts yourself."

Hull granted Dodd's leave request, suggesting that at this time Washington did not share Messersmith's a.s.sessment of Germany as a serious and growing threat. The diaries of Undersecretary Phillips and Western European affairs chief Moffat make clear that the State Department's main concern about Germany remained its huge debt to American creditors.

CHAPTER 17.

Lucifer's Run With the approach of autumn, the challenge for Martha of juggling the suitors in her life became a bit less daunting, albeit for a disturbing reason. Diels disappeared.

One night in early October, Diels was working late at his office at Prinz-Albrecht-Stra.s.se 8 when, around midnight, he received a telephone call from his wife, Hilde, who sounded deeply distressed. As he recounted in a later memoir, Lucifer Ante Portas-Lucifer at the Gate Lucifer Ante Portas-Lucifer at the Gate-his wife told him that "a horde" of armed men in black uniforms had broken into their apartment, locked her in a bedroom, and then conducted an aggressive search, collecting diaries, letters, and various other files that Diels kept at home. Diels raced to his apartment and managed to piece together enough information to identify the intruders as a squad of SS under the command of one Captain Herbert Packebusch. Packebusch was only thirty-one years old, Diels wrote, but already had a "harshness and callousness written deep into his face." Diels called him "the very prototype and image of the later concentration-camp commandants."

Although the brazen nature of Packebusch's raid surprised Diels, he understood the forces at work behind it. The regime seethed with conflict and conspiracy. Diels stood primarily in Goring's camp, with Goring holding all police power in Berlin and the surrounding territory of Prussia, the largest of the German states. But Heinrich Himmler, in charge of the SS, was rapidly gaining control over secret police agencies throughout the rest of Germany. Goring and Himmler loathed each other and competed for influence.

Diels acted quickly. He called a friend in charge of the Tiergarten station of the Berlin police and marshaled a force of uniformed officers armed with machine guns and hand grenades. He led them to an SS stronghold on Potsdamer Stra.s.se and directed the men to surround the building. The SS guarding the door were unaware of what had taken place and helpfully led Diels and a contingent of police to Packebusch's office.

The surprise was total. As Diels entered he saw Packebusch at his desk in shirtsleeves, the black jacket of his uniform hanging on an adjacent wall, along with his belt and holstered pistol. "He sat there, brooding over the papers on his desk like a scholar working into the night," Diels wrote. Diels was outraged. "They were my papers he was working on, and defacing, as I soon discovered, with inept annotations." Diels found that Packebusch even saw evil in the way Diels and his wife had decorated their apartment. In one note Packebusch had scrawled the phrase "furnishing style a la Stresemann," a reference to the late Gustav Stresemann, a Weimar-era opponent of Hitler.