Part Two: Strategic Warfare — Chapter 10 - The Barman of the Ritz

OCTOBER 2, 1940

Göring is roaring drunk in the newly reopened Petit Bar.

He has just sat down at a table where Colonel Speidel, behind his tiny wire-rimmed glasses, is struggling not to look embarrassed. Perhaps the Reichsmarschall is trying to blot out the fact that the Battle of Britain, which he personally masterminded, is faltering, and RAF Spitfires are destroying whole squadrons of the Luftwaffe. More than once, Speidel glances pleadingly towards the bar. Frank shrugs.

What do you expect me to do?

Under normal circumstances, he would have issued a discreet call to order. But there is nothing normal about the times in which they are living. And Georges is not exactly helping matters, as he waits on Göring hand and foot. He has just served the Reichsmarschall another Pink Lady (gin, grenadine, freshly squeezed lemon juice, and egg white, shaken well). The powdered ogre loves them, especially when Georges is a little heavy-handed with the final dash of Calvados.

Frank feels like a prisoner in his own bar with the Great Huntsman as his personal jailer. Surrounded by scores of Luftwaffe officers gazing at him in rapt admiration, Göring is the bloated pinnacle of power and madness.

“Silence, gentlemen!” Göring abruptly growls. “I feel inclined to play a little game.”

Instantly, the bar goes quiet, like a frontline trench before an attack. His eyes glazed, Göring surveys the room, then glances at the bar.

“Ah, Georges, there you are! You shall be my playmate.”

Georges snaps to attention. “At your service, Herr Reichsmarschall.”

“You shall see, this little game can tell you a lot about your adversary. To begin with, I shall take a one-hundred-Reichsmark note from my pocket. Look at it: a shiny new hundred-Reichsmark bill! My question is very simple, Georges: what would you do with this if it were yours? I shall give you a choice: you can stand a round of beers for the fine officers of the Reich gathered here…”

Loud applause from the lower ranks.

“… or,” says Göring, “you may choose just one person in this room and buy him a splendid bottle. What would you choose, my friend?”

Frank shoots his old comrade-in-arms a pointed look.

Don’t walk into the trap, Georges! Stall, hedge, prevaricate. Answer his question with a question…

But Georges has always been a man for braggadocio.

“I don’t need to think twice, Herr Reichsmarschall, I choose the second option.”

Although thus deprived of a free beer, the assembled officers give their master and his new lackey a standing ovation.

Göring only has to show up and the whole bar degenerates into a Roman circus.

“You are a brave man, Georges. Your answer reveals an audacious spirit! A characteristic treasured by National Socialism. And such bravery merits a reward. I shall give you my hundred Reichsmarks. In exchange, my dear Georges, I would like you to tell us which of these esteemed officers you choose. To whom would you like to offer this excellent bottle?”

Georges, still swaggering, turns back to the bar.

“Remind me, Frank, the 1927 Dom Pérignon is priced at a hundred Reichsmarks, isn’t it?”

Frank nods weakly, devastated to see his old friend playing along with Göring’s degrading game.

“Then let us drink to the health of Reichsmarschall Göring!”

The officers break into deafening applause. Frank reluctantly sends Luciano down to the cellar for the champagne.

“Heil Georges!” roars a delighted Göring. “I am deeply indebted to you and, generous as I am, I shall leave you a tip of two hundred Reichsmarks! Heil Hitler!”

“Heil Hitler!” comes the echo from the assembled company.

“Danke schön, Herr Reichsmarschall,” replies Georges, bowing obsequiously.

“Bitte sehr.”

This is what Frank has feared: the Nazis’ most fearsome weapon is the insidious sapping of the soul. The greed he can see in Georges’s eyes is exactly what they strive to inspire.

The Nazis are hell-bent on crushing the French spirit. They are corrupting Paris by appealing to its basest instincts. And Georges has walked straight into the trap. He wants his share of the spoils; who can blame him? But when Frank sees Georges hand one of the hundred-Reichsmark notes to Luciano, he cannot help but intervene.

“Leave the kid out of this, Georges. Keep your money for yourself. Luciano, go back to collecting glasses. Georges, you can pop the champagne cork for the Uberkraut. Mind the bar.”

Luciano nods, but Frank can see the flicker of disappointment in his eyes.

“What the hell’s the matter with you, Georges?” Frank hisses under his breath as Georges comes behind the bar. “Can’t you see this whole thing is a trap?”

“You’re just gutless,” mutters Georges. “I thought you said you wanted to make the best of a difficult situation?”

“I did, but not like this.”

“Just leave me be. I’m simply adopting the tactics of Monsieur Süss. Have you seen him, in those beautiful suits? He looks elegant, he’s charming, and the women are flocking to him. These days, if you’ve got cash, you’re a king. And besides, this way I can send a care package to my mother. Food, warm clothes, new shoes with soles made of real leather instead of wood.”

“Süss is a war profiteer.”

“No, Frank,” Georges growls. “There’s no war. The war is over. The Krauts rule Paris, that’s life now, and we just have to make the best of it. For the past month, I’ve eaten nothing except butter beans and boiled beef.”

His persuasion is going nowhere.

“You do what you like, Georges, but don’t drag the boy into it.”

Georges waves his hand and heads back to Göring’s table.

“Luciano is a big boy, he can make his own decisions.”

Damn the bloody Krauts!

What if Georges is right? Frank’s head is spinning; he feels a trickle of cold sweat run down the back of his neck. As he often does when he finds his spirit faltering, Frank thinks back to a book he was given by an elderly major amid the blood and muck of the trenches in the Argonne. It was the Politician’s Breviary, by Cardinal Mazarin, chief minister to King Louis XIV. At first, Frank was bemused. He could not see how a seventeenth-century collection of political maxims would be relevant today. But as he hunkered in his trench and began to read, he was hypnotized. He clung to the book as though his life depended on it, and in the months that followed he read it ten, twenty times. He can still recite whole passages from memory. But what advice would Cardinal Mazarin give him now, as he faces this dilemma? Frank shuts his eyes and watches as the words dance over his closed lids: “Apply makeup to your heart as you would to your face; simulate and dissimulate; trust no one; think before you act.”

Georges is wrong: the war is not over.