The Duchess Who Wouldn't Sit Down (2 page)

CHAPTER I

HOW TO PUT YOUR GUESTS AT EASE

If such a little piece of meat white and mild, lies in kraut, that is a
picture of Venus in the roses.

Ludwig Uhland,
A Pork-Soup Song

In 1938, the German Oberkommando der Wehrmacht published a remarkable document titled
Speisenzusammenstellung unter Mitverwedung von Edelsoja Mit Kochanweisungen
(Formulation of menus including pure soya, with recipes). It was an official German army recipe book based on recent scientific
research into the value of soybeans as a viable substitute for meat. Soy was a much more efficient supplier of protein than
pea meal, the principal protein supplement during the Franco-Prussian and First World Wars. The year 1918 had been a time
of traumatic hunger and near starvation for Germany; clearly, in preparing for the coming war, the Oberkommando was taking
no chances this time. By 1938, the hoarding of soy flour was already well underway.

What is remarkable about the recipe book is its optimism. If you didn't know that it was a military publication, you might
easily mistake it for a cookbook written for the traditional German hausfrau of a prosperous provincial town. Its hundreds
of unmistakably German dishes are ample, rich in protein and fat, and seasoned with some delicacy and sophistication. They
include Cassel spareribs, sauerbraten, roast veal, smoked short ribs, corned beef brisket, roast mutton, roast venison, pork
chops, beef roulade, pork pepperpot, veal goulash, venison stew, kidney stew, pickled tripe, hopple-popple, lung hash, goat
sausage, Königsberg meatballs in caper sauce, blood sausage, fish dumplings in dill sauce and thirty hot soups - all supplemented
with rather than replaced by soy - along with fifteen sweet soups, two dozen sauces and gravies, twenty salads, and a variety
of tempting desserts. How many, if any, of these actually made their way into Wehrmacht bellies I do not know, and in any
case no soldier in any army, conscript or volunteer, qualifies as a guest. Still, if he was offered even one meal in ten from
the
Speisenzusammenstellung
unter Mitverwedung,
he must have felt right at home and well primed for action, not to mention patriotic. He certainly couldn't count on being
fed half so well in Poland.

The first object of any host must be to put his guests at their ease. From the moment they step through the door, they should
want to be precisely where they are and nowhere else. If they are not relaxed, comfortable, and suggestible, all a host's
other hard work cooking, making seating assignments, or rearranging the guest room will have been futile. This may seem like
a perfectly obvious point, but it is one that is neither automatic nor easy.

There's always an edge of trepidation and discomfort in standing on a threshold, no matter how intimate the host and the guest
may believe themselves to be. The guest is entrusting herself to the host's benevolence, but we all understand instinctively
that few of us even know what is in our own best interests, let alone those of a disparate group of others. In
The Rituals of Dinner,
Margaret Visser goes so far as to suggest that, ultimately, table manners evolved as a way of reassuring the guest that he
would not be eaten, or at least murdered, by the host. I'm not sure that she intends for us to take this literally, but there
is no doubt that, as she says, "hosts are, at least ritually and temporally, more powerful than guests." This is true for
guests at a meal where the host dispenses the food, and even more so for overnight guests, who are at their most vulnerable
asleep in a strange bed. We know this to be so but dismiss our ancient instincts. We are animals, but we hardly ever listen
to, or even hear, what our animal natures are telling us about our immediate environment. Eating and crossing territorial
boundaries are fraught with dangers and anxieties that even we civilized beasts continue to sense and respond to, although
we may be only dimly conscious of them.

Unable to grasp what these instinctive feelings are saying, we translate our heightened awareness of danger into an emotional
idiom that we are more familiar with. What kind of mood is the host in? Has he had another fight with his wife? Does their
apartment still stink of wet dog? What will they be serving? Who else is coming? Who will I be asked to sit next to? How is
my breath? Am I going to make a fool of myself? Even if the host is our oldest friend in the world, at least one of these
questions or something similar will be in the back of our minds as we ring the doorbell. We may not even be aware of it, but
we are edgy and waiting to be relieved of our natural anxieties.

The host must have a firm grasp of this issue and address it robustly from the outset. There is scant margin for error - if
the guests' anxieties cannot be assuaged in the first three minutes after their arrival, it is unlikely that anything the
host may do thereafter will fully succeed in dispelling them. This, too, is perfectly natural. We arrive expecting to be made
to feel welcome, safe, and among the like-minded. When this does not happen immediately - and, as it were, organically - we
cannot help but sense that something is subtly amiss. For the rest of our stay, no matter what happens, we will be on our
guard, perhaps only subliminally, anticipating trouble. It's the difference between the emotional status of a predator who
has killed his prey and owns it, and that of a scavenger who finds his meal laid out for him by an unknown benefactor who
may return at any moment to claim it. In other words, the host's first task is to make the guest forget that she is a guest,
a scavenger. Forget about fancy cooking and radish-carving; forget about rare burgundies and the perfectly caramelized tarte
Tatin; forget about Frette sheets and Ralph Lauren hand towels. These assets collectively may make for a decent meal or country
weekend, but it is the ability to put guests at their ease that distinguishes a good host from a great one.

Every host has his or her own way of making this happen. There is no right way, and I would never presume to offer advice.
In any case, there is a multibillion-dollar industry of magazines, television channels, and pundits ever willing to take your
money for their so-called expertise if you insist on believing that such knowledge can be bought. It is, of course, an alchemical
equation, dependent as much on instinct as on skill and experience. I am not even sure that it is something that can be taught.
Any idiot can master the rules of poker in five minutes; consistent success requires a keen eye for weakness, an exquisite
grasp of human nature, and the ruthless will to exploit them to your own advantage. The same is true of hospitality. Your
guests
must
be made to bend to your will or else you are lost.

The psychologists, chefs, and generals of the German Ober­kommando had a fine understanding of the guest mentality. How pleased
they must have been, in that fall of 1938, to stand in the mess hall doorway and watch their strapping lads tuck into their
Konigsberg meatballs in caper sauce, as lusty and boisterous as if they were back home at mother's kitchen table. What a grand
party the next few years were going to be! How golden was the autumn sun on the vast fields of ripening soy in East Prussia
and the Ukraine! Those Nazi caterers had every reason to be pleased with themselves - they had learned at the feet of the
greatest master of them all.

In 1922, thirty-three year-old Adolf Hitler went hiking with his friend Dietrich Eckart in the Obersalzburg, a region of bucolic
pastures and Alpine peaks in southern Bavaria. On a steep slope above the town of Berchtesgaden, he was enchanted by a modest
cottage, the Haus Wachenfeld, built in 1916. Hitler never forgot the discovery. Upon his release from Landsberg Prison in
1924, he returned to Berchtesgaden and rented a nearby chalet, a peaceful refuge in which to finish the second volume of
Mein
Kampf. In
1928, drawing on financing that remains murky to this day, he purchased Haus Wachenfeld and brought in his stepsister, Angela
Raubal, and her daughter Geli to tend to the household. For the next seventeen years, it was to remain his favorite home,
a cherished retreat, the place to which he planned to retire after he had completed his monumental mission. It was also his
favored venue for personal and official hospitality, invitations to which were coveted and eagerly sought by the Nazi elite,
members of the international diplomatic corps, and journalists.

By 1933, the chalet had been extensively rebuilt and renamed Berghof - "mountain court." Surrounding farms were annexed, either
by purchase or coercion, to ensure Hitler's privacy. Eventually, Rudolf Hess fenced the compound to keep the growing hordes
of Hitler's idolizers at arm's length. It ultimately incorporated some ten square kilometers, including homes for the Gdrings
and the Goebbelses, SS barracks, the luxurious Platter-hof hotel, civil service offices, and a vast underground network of
bunkers outfitted with inlaid floors, wainscoting, bathrooms, kitchens, and kennels. The Eagle's Nest, a teahouse built for
the fiihrer by Martin Bormann on the fifty-five-hundred-foot Kehlstein, was accessible only by a tortuous five-mile road lined
with machine-gun nests, leading through a 170-yard tunnel to a two-hundred-foot elevator shaft blasted into the stone and
fitted with hidden poison-gas nozzles. The entire compound was protected against air raids by giant smoke machines that could
shroud it in dense fog at a moment's notice. It was to this place, his country home, that Hitler yearned to flee whenever
the pressures of Berlin grew too burdensome.

The Berghof itself was designed as an official residence. Its most famous feature was the imposing conference hall, with its
hardwood coffering and an enormous picture window that could be lowered into the floor at the flick of a switch to turn the
great room into a covered veranda. The hall was provided with Biedermeier and baroque furnishings, Persian carpets, and an
ornate Bechstein piano and decorated with paintings and tapestries, one of which concealed a large movie screen. There was
a well-appointed dining room, paneled in cembra pine, with a table that sat twenty-four and a more intimate breakfast nook.
There was Hitler's personal library, from which guests were free to borrow. There was a lovely winter garden enclosed in glass
and terraces with sweeping views. The basement held a bowling alley. Upstairs was Hitler's private study, equipped with electric
alarms on every door and canisters of tear gas that the fuhrer could release at the press of a button. Sleeping quarters were
available for members of the household and guests. Hitler's modest bedroom connected to Eva Braun's via a bathroom that was
hidden from view to maintain decorum. Every guest room had a copy of
Mein Kampf
and French pornographic books at the bedside.

Very few aspirants ever made it through the gates of the Berghof complex. Wealthy industrialists and well-connected party
officials might be lucky enough to rank a stay at the pricey Platterhof - originally conceived as a low-cost "people's hotel"
for ordinaiy Germans seeking the thrill of proximity with their führer - but only the most exalted elite ever enjoyed access
to the Berghof proper, let alone a room for the night. Still, there was no mistaking the fact that, once in, you were a private
guest in Hitler's home, and Hitler prided himself on his hospitality. An invitation to the Berghof was the ultimate billet-doux
in the Third Reich.

Many readers may find it distasteful that a writer should undertake an assessment of Hitler based solely on his abilities
as a private host. And yet, because we all have a tendency to give what we most want to receive, a person is likely to be
at his most self-revealing when he is acting as a host. Our gifts are models of our own desires. It is not that, in slaving
away all day on an immaculate chicken potpie or authentic cassoulet, I am telling my guests that I expect them to work just
as hard when I come to their house. It is not that, in bringing strangers together who will go on to form lasting friendships,
I am expressing unspoken disappointment in the friends I already have. Nor, in opening my doors to foreign travelers, am I
signaling my intention of descending upon them one day in an unbridled orgy of reciprocation. What I
am
offering is a privileged peek into my psyche. I am saying: "This is my vision of a perfect world. This magnificent chicken
potpie, this charming Ivy League professor, these fragrant sheets of Egyptian cotton - all produced for your pleasure without
any apparent effort on my part - are the shibboleths of my desire. I have worked so hard for so long; the things I want, the
respect that is my due, the love I crave should fall to me now without toil. I deserve to be a guest in my own life." An observant
guest can learn an awful lot about her host from what he offers.

This is especially true of Hitler because, although consumed at all times with affairs of state, even while at the Berghof,
he prided himself on being a gracious and attentive host, offering his guests what he believed they wanted while controlling
every aspect of their stay under his roof. The extension of hospitality was for Hitler, as it is for us all, an unparalleled
opportunity to model Utopia, the world as it would be if we were in full control of our environment and company. What you
can never learn about Hitler the politician, Hitler the military strategist, Hitler the genocidal monster, you can be sure
to learn about Hitler the affable host.

Guests at the Berghof lived according to the host's schedule. They tiptoed around the house while the fuhrer slept in, often
until noon. They bided their time until lunch while he worked in camera with his military and political advisers. Hitler would
then appear, leading his guests in procession to the dining room, where the table had been set with Rosenthal porcelain (or
solid silver for important guests) and the place settings meticulously inspected by the host himself. After lunch, Hitler
led a walking party to the teahouse - not the Eagle's Nest but one just up the hill through the woods - where tea and cakes
were served. If the fuhrer happened to doze off there, the guests would rush outside for a smoke. After his official nap back
at the Berghof, Hitler returned to work, leaving the guests to their own devices. Supper was at eight; the ladies wore evening
dresses, the men wore uniforms, and the SS waiters wore white jackets. After supper, he worked again, often until midnight,
but the guests were now required to wait for him in the conference hall. When their leader finally joined them, they might
settle in for a late-night movie, following which they could expect him to indulge in lengthy monologues on a variety of subjects,
some extending to several hours. Hitler drank hot chocolate with whipped cream while his guests took coffee or brandy. Those
who could slipped away to the terrace for a smoke, but they were called back when their absence was noticed. Some time around
four or five in the morning the fuhrer finally wore himself down and went off to bed, leaving the guests free to smoke and
drink at their leisure.