The Secret Memoirs of Bertha Krupp

CHAPTER II

WEAVING THE TOILS ROUND BERTHA KRUPP

"Your Play Days are Over" – The Baroness Speaks Out – In the Grip of the Kaiser – A Room Apart

"The makings of the true German heifer," that astute Frenchman, Hippolyte Taine, would have said of the young girl who was busy in her garden behind Villa Huegel on the 24th of November, 1902. For her blooming youth was full of the promise of maternity – broad shoulders, budding figure, generous hands and feet, plenty of room for brains in a good-sized head. Pretty? An Englishman or American would hardly have accorded her that pleasing descriptive title, but comely and wholesome she was, with her air of intelligence and kindly eyes.

An abominable German custom makes scarecrows out of children at a parent's death. So Bertha Krupp was garbed in severest black, awkwardly put together. Her very petticoats, visible when she bent over her flowers, were of sable crepe; not a bit of white or lace, though it would have been a relief, seeing that the young woman's complexion was not of the best.

"Bertha – Uncle Majesty – " cried a child's voice from outside the house, "wants you," it added, coming nearer.

"To say good-bye?" called Bertha in return. One might have discerned an accent of relief in the tone of her voice.

"Not yet," replied her sister, running up, as she tugged at Bertha's watering-can. "Adjutant von Moltke said something about a con-con – "

"Conference, I suppose," completed the older girl. "Will you never learn to speak, child?"

"Uncle Majesty uses such big words," pleaded little Barbara. "Hurry, sister, he is waiting, and you know how crazy he gets – "

"But what have I got to do with him? Let him speak to Mamma. Tell them I am busy with my flowers."

"Bertha!" cried a high-pitched voice from the direction of the villa.

"Mamma," whispered the younger girl; "hurry up, now, or you will catch it." At the same moment one of the library windows in Villa Huegel opened, disclosing the figure of the War Lord, accoutred as for battle – gold lace, silver scarf, many-coloured ribbons, metal buttons and numerals. His well padded chest heaved under dozens of medals and decorations, his moustachios vied with sky-scrapers. With his bejewelled right hand he beckoned imperiously.

"My child, my goddaughter," he said with terrible emphasis when Bertha entered the room, breathing hard, "once and for all you must understand that your play-days are over; at this moment you enter upon the service of the State." He turned abruptly to Bertha's mother, adding in tones of command: "You will put her into long dresses at once, Baroness. It isn't fitting that the heiress of the Krupp works shows her legs like a peasant girl."

"But I don't want to wear long dresses, Uncle Majesty," pouted Bertha.

The War Lord took no notice of the childish protest, but looked inquiringly at Bertha's mother.

"Surely in matters of dress, at least, the child's wishes should be consulted," said the Baroness half defiantly.

"But I insist," fumed the War Lord.

"And I respectfully submit that your Majesty must not meddle with matters of toilette in my house."

The War Lord pulled a high-backed, eagle-crowned chair of silver-gilt up to the late Cannon King's desk and pushed Bertha into it. It was the fauteuil he had once designated as "sacred to the All Highest person" – meaning himself, of course. As a rule its gold and purple upholstery had a white silk cover, which was removed only when the War Lord visited the great house.

"Cardinal fashion," he said to the astonished child, without taking notice of his hostess's remark. "Cardinals, Bertha, are princes of the Roman Church, and each has a throne in his house. While the See of St. Peter is occupied, the emblem of power is turned to the wall. So, heretofore, this throne of mine was obsolete while I was away from Essen, but since your father, as his testament shows, appointed you his successor under my guardianship, you shall have the right and privilege to sit in my place. A throne for the War Lady while the War Lord is away!"

The bewildered child was slow to avail herself of the grand privilege. Shoulders bent forward, she wriggled to the edge, hardly touching the seat, while her eyes sought her mother's with mute appeal.

However, the War Lord was determined to do all the talking himself. "As I pointed out, under Papa's will, you are sole owner of the Krupp business and mistress here," he declaimed, with a disdainful glance at the child's mother. The Purple-born did not scruple to exult over his victim before her daughter.

Happily, the young girl did not observe his ruthlessness, nor would she have understood her godfather's motive.

"Mistress here," repeated the War Lord; "responsible to no one but God's Anointed."

Bertha, now thoroughly frightened, burst into tears. "Don't cry," ordered the War Lord brusquely. But Frau Krupp jumped to her feet, and, placing herself in front of the child, exclaimed with flaming eyes: "Such language to a little girl and on the day of her father's burial!"

The War Lord saw that he had gone too far. "Come, now," he said soothingly, "I meant your Uncle Majesty, of course. Uncle has always been kind and considerate to his little Bertha, hasn't he?"

He asked the Baroness to be seated, while he patted Bertha's shoulder and hair. "God-daughter," he said softly, "be a brave girl and listen." And, with the child's eyes showing increasing bewilderment every moment, he burst into a panegyric of himself and his sublime mission on earth, such as even his dramatic collaborators, von Wildenbruch and Captain Lauff, had never conceived in their most toadying moments.

He was on the most elaborately intimate terms with God, and every act of his was approved by "his" God beforehand. "His" God had appointed him vicar on earth, instrument of His benevolence and of His wrath.

"My child," he sermonised in accents of fanaticism, "think of the honour, the unheard-of honour in store for you; you, the offspring of humble parents, shall do my bidding as my God directs."

Bertha was stiff with astonishment, but the Baroness moved uneasily in her chair and was about to speak, when the War Lord, who had paused to observe the effect of his words, resumed:

"The Krupp business, your business, my dear Bertha, is unlike any other in the world. All other manufacturers and merchants cater to the material welfare of man, more or less; the Krupp works alone are destined to traffic in human life for God's greater glory and at His behest.

"For fourteen years God has listened to my prayers for peace; for fourteen long years I have beseeched Him, morning, noon and night, in every crisis that arose throughout the world to permit me to keep my sword sheathed – God's sword. But all these years myself and your father, Bertha, have kept our powder dry, never relaxing armed preparedness, doubling it rather, to be ready for God's first bugle-call."

And so the blasphemous vaingloryings went on.

The War Lord strode over to the long wall of the room, dragging his sword over the marble floor and giving his spurs and medals an extra shake. He pushed a button, whereupon an illuminated map of Europe shot into a frame where, a second before, a Watteau shepherdess had impersonated les fêtes galantes du Roi. Drawing the sword, he delineated with its point the Central Empires, the Italian boot-leg, and Turkey's European possessions. Then he double-crossed France, Russia and Great Britain. "The enemy!" he cried. "Enemies of German greatness, of German expansion, of German kultur– therefore, enemies of the God of the Germans and of mine.

"But with your help I will smash them, pound them into a jelly, Bertha."

As if overcome by horror, the child glided from the impromptu throne of the self-appointed Godgeissel(the Lord's scourge) to the rug, and buried her face in her mother's lap.

"Uncle Majesty," she sobbed, "you mean to say that I must help you make war? The Commandment says, 'Thou shalt not kill.'"

"But the Lord also said, 'Vengeance is mine,'" quoted her Uncle Majesty; "and God wreaks His vengeance through me, His elect, His chosen instrument.

"Still, these matters you will understand better as you grow older," he continued. "For the present remember this: under your father's will, I am your chief guardian, and you must obey me in everything. While nominally, even legally, you are sole proprietress of the Krupp works and their numerous dependencies, you hold these properties, as a matter of fact, in trust for me. It follows, my child, that you must leave the direction of the works to your Uncle Majesty and his subordinates, the directors and business managers. Do you agree to that?"

There was something hypnotic in the War Lord's delivery. As the Baroness explained afterwards, he talked like one possessed. Add to this his necromantic manoeuvring, his Machiavellian gestures, his grandly weird eloquence – inherited from an uncle who died in a strait-jacket – small wonder he prevailed upon the grief-stricken child, when, alternately, he threatened, cajoled and flattered.

As a matter of fact, the War Lord's words seemed to have a peculiar appeal to the richest girl in the world, who neither divined nor imagined their sinister purpose. What pierced her comprehension appealed to a youngster's love of independence, of shaking off mother's leading-strings. In the avalanche of phrases that assailed Bertha's ears this stood out: "Your mother doesn't count; you are mistress in your own right." Very well, she would put the promise to the test. "I don't quite understand," said the Cannon King's heiress; rising from her knees, and without looking at her parent, added, "but I leave it all to you, Uncle Majesty – everything."

"Do you hear?" cried the War Lord, addressing Frau Krupp.

"I have heard, and Bertha will go to her room now," replied the Baroness firmly; and though the War Lord made an impatient gesture indicating that he meant the child to remain, she conducted her daughter to the door, kissed her on the forehead, and let her slip out.

When she turned round she saw the War Lord in the Godgeissel chair before the desk, resting his right arm on the blotter, his left hand on the hilt of his sword.

"Any further commands for the mistress of the house?" she queried in no humble tones.

The War Lord, seemingly absorbed in a document he had taken up, replied without looking at his hostess: "Send in Moltke," whereupon the Baroness retreated backward towards the door. She was about to drop a curtsy to signify her leave-taking, when the War Lord cried out: "One thing more, Madame la Baronne. From now on this room is my room, and none but myself or the Krupp heiress has the entrée. My goddaughter may see my representatives here, but no one else – no one."

CHAPTER III

A MOTHER'S REFLECTIONS

The Baroness and Franz – The Power-Drunk War Lord – A Pawn in the Game – The Sweets of Power – Germany Above All – The War Lord's Murder Lust – Fighting the Frankenstein – At the War Lord's Mercy

The Baroness's boudoir in Villa Huegel is a spacious apartment, hung in blue and silver, the colours of her noble house. Everything that riches, mellowed by refinement, could command enhanced its luxurious comfort. In the home of Baroness Krupp are trophies of her visits to foreign shores: cut glass, coins, bronzes and curios of all kinds. Silver-gilt caskets hold royal presents, precious stuffs and monstrous ornaments from German kings and kinglets – articles of jewellery for the most part, too big for a woman of taste. All are crowned and initialled, but few hall-marked. Since a prince is supposed to give away the real thing, why bother about carats? Numerous paintings, English landscapes, French and Italian decorative art and figures. An English grand piano in one corner. Britishers prefer German makes, but the much-travelled Baroness wouldn't tolerate the home product.

She is seated before a spindle-legged table with a crystal top over a velvet-lined drawer, where Madame's royal orders and decorations repose – crosses and stars, quadrupeds and birds of various outré forms and degrees. Pointing to one of them bearing the name of a queen famous for her beauty and misfortunes, she murmured: "How proud I was when he gave it to me! At that time I thought him chivalrous and believed him sincere in his religious professions. Since he intrigues to make my little girl the accomplice of his murderous desires, never more will I wear it."

"Master Franz desires to speak to your ladyship," said a manservant from behind the portières covering the doorway.

"Show him up."

Franz was a distant relative who had lived much in the Krupp household after he finished his studies at the late Frederick Krupp's expense. At this time he was chief electrical engineer of the establishment, destined for still higher honours, for experts held that the mantle of the great Edison had descended upon Franz's broad shoulders. He was like a big brother to the Krupp girls, and looked upon the Baroness as a mother, having never known his own.

Tall and good-looking, Franz, as a rule, dressed like an Englishman of distinction, but to-day he had chafed under the obligation of wearing evening dress for breakfast, lunch and tea, because of the War Lord's presence. Even now his nether garments belonged to the ceremonial variety, but he wore a jacket tightly buttoned over the wide expanse of his shirt-front.

"So it is proposed to make two kinds of steel in future," he whispered, after closing the door and drawing the curtains. "Has that your approval, Frau Krupp?"

The Ironmaster's widow heard only the first part of the sentence; she was too amazed to listen further.

"What is that you say, Franz?"

The young man kissed the Baroness's hand.

"Acting without your leave or consent – I thought so," he said. "I would have staked my life on it that you would permit no such infamy." Seeing the Baroness's questioning eyes focused on his, he explained:

An hour before the War Lord left the Director-General had sent for him – "to explain certain technical details," ran the message. He had to wait a considerable time in the ante-room of the conference chamber before being admitted, and while there could not help overhearing what was going on inside, as the War Lord was arguing in drill-ground accents.

This was the gist of his peroration, defended with consummate sophistry: It was a crime against the Fatherland to supply possible enemies with arms that at one time or another might be used against the War Lord's Majesty. That sort of thing – treason, to call it by its proper name – had been permitted long enough, too long, in fact; and now that the life-long defender of misguided business honesty had been removed by God's Hand – G-o-d-'s H-a-n-d – there must be an end of it. He (the War Lord), ever on guard against the Fatherland's enemies, had instructed his scientists to discover a substitute for hard steel with which to line enemy guns and armour. These substitutes were forthwith to be experimented with, and, if the results were satisfactory, must be employed, instead of the real steel, whenever the War Lord so directs.

"And Frederick hardly cold in his shroud!" gasped the Baroness.

"But you," cried Franz, "you can prevent this fraud, this disgrace! You must, you will, I am sure of it!"

The Baroness had risen and stared vacantly into the fire.

"God punish me if I would hesitate a moment to do as honour dictates, Franz, but Frederick Krupp left his widow bound hand and foot," she replied bitterly.

"You mean to say that you submit to the power-drunk War Lord? Abdicate your sacred trust? Make your children and your workpeople accomplices of fraudulent practices?"

"Haven't you heard about the stipulations which were made in your Uncle Frederick's last will and testament?"

"Not a word," replied Franz.

"I thought Bertha would tell you."

"I was busy all the afternoon, and then came the Director-General's order, which prevented me from saying good night to the children."

"Sit down then and listen," said the Baroness. "As Uncle Frederick often told you, the War Lord has tried for years to obtain control of the Krupp works. In particular he was for ever preaching against the policy of business integrity, the proudest of the Krupp inheritances; but though my husband allowed himself to be dominated by him in many respects, in this, the Krupp honesty, he remained adamant, partly thanks to my advice and strenuous opposition, I dare say. Up to now the Krupps have never played any government false, as you know."

"But, Uncle Frederick dead, the War Lord is moving heaven and earth to flog the firm into submission." There was suppressed rage in the tone of the young man's voice.

"Let me finish," demanded the Baroness. "Convinced that I would refuse to be the tool of his ambition, the War Lord persuaded your Uncle to ignore me as his legitimate successor, and the testament appoints Bertha sole heir and, again ignoring me, the War Lord her guardian and executor."

"Gott!" cried Franz.

The Baroness went on: "His position as supreme overlord of the Krupp business he made perfectly clear to us."

"Us? You mean the heads of the business?"

"I referred to the child and myself. He talked to the directors afterwards." The discrowned Cannon Queen told Franz the story of the Imperial interview. "He is the master," she said in conclusion, "Bertha his pawn, myself nobody."

"And we, the heads of the business, and our workmen, his slaves," added the chief electrician gloomily.

These two people, suddenly confronted by the unexpected – a wife shorn of her rights and wounded in her holiest maternal sentiments; an honest man commandeered to debase his genius and become an accessory to murder most foul – sat for a while in silence, brooding over their misfortune and the disasters threatening mankind as a consequence.

At last the Baroness roused herself. "And what did they want with you at the conference, Franz?"

"I was admitted after the War Lord had left to be closeted with the Director-General," replied the engineer, "and the directors seemed to me extraordinarily perturbed – far more than the master's death warrants among equals. Herr Braun acted as spokesman. He said the War Lord wanted the firm to experiment with a new steel lining for guns intended for foreign countries.

"'Foreign countries! What does that mean?' I asked, as if I had not been an involuntary listener to the War Lord's speech.

"'Majesty's orders – it behoves subjects to obey, not to ask questions,' said Herr Braun, with unusual severity. 'To the point, sir, acting upon the War Lord's orders to entrust the business to expert hands, we have decided to turn over the job to you.'"

Franz stopped short, then burst out: "What am I doing, Frau Krupp? You just told me that you are not the head of the firm, and I am about to reveal matters of the gravest importance confided to my keeping. I made a mistake – I was led away by filial reverence for my benefactor's widow. Pray forget what I have said."

Franz was about to withdraw, when a voice outside called: "Mamma, can I come in?"

"You said good night once. I thought you were in bed and asleep, Bertha."

The door opened, and a hand rustled the portières.

"Are you alone?"

"Only Franz."

"Oh!"

Bertha's blonde head thrust itself through the centre of the curtains, while she paused on the threshold. Then a naked foot in a blue velvet slipper with a golden heel: a vision in floating white rushed in and nestled childishly at the Baroness's feet.

"Howdy, Franz?" said Bertha, drawing her kimono tighter over her bosom. And to her mother: "I couldn't sleep after what Uncle Majesty told us to-night. So I came down. You are not angry, Mamma? Don't scold, Mamma," she added, observing her mother's stern face.

Frau Krupp patted the child's head. "Fate!" she said to Franz. "Voilà, the head of the Krupp firm. Continue."

The engineer bowed. "With your permission, my chief," he said, addressing Bertha.

"Anything you please, you big booby," laughed the child. Then, seriously: "I am your chief, indeed I am. Think of bossing a big chap like you and that arrogant Herr Braun, too!" She motioned Franz to bend down, and whispered in his ear, "Wouldn't it be fun to sack him?"

"No nonsense, child, if you want to stay up," Frau Krupp was very much in earnest, and to Franz she said: "Go on; I am impatient to hear the rest."

"I was telling your mother about some business Herr Braun wants to entrust me with," explained Franz, looking at the child.

"How very interesting," yawned Bertha; "but you can't get me to listen. Ah, there, I see one of Barbara's dolls. I will play with it till you get through; then supper. I didn't eat dinner with Fraulein," she added, looking at her mother, "and there's such a goneness here," touching her abdomen. The greatest force for destruction in the world, yet a child to all intents and purposes!

"Proceed," said the Baroness to Franz.

"With the chief's permission," began Franz formally; then, as if trying to make his disclosure as indefinite as possible: "You heard about the order from King Leopold, secured by the War-Lord's Brussels ambassador?"

The Baroness nodded, and Bertha took her eyes momentarily from her plaything. "Big, big guns," she said, describing a circle in the air by turning the doll's arm and hand round and round; "my apanage, poor Papa said. Glad you reminded me. I must tell Herr Braun about it. All the profits are to go to my children's hospital." She sat the doll astride her knee, bobbing her up and down, then burst out laughing. "See that head-dress, Franz, and her gown and apron – the Belgian colours. Looks like a coincidence, doesn't it?"

Bertha embraced the doll tenderly. "Thank your King for me, Dolly. The more guns he orders, the better for our little children here. German interests first," laughed Bertha, looking up. "Uncle Majesty told me so ever so often."

The "Germany-above-all" spirit, spelling moral and physical ruthlessness, spoke out of the child. The Fatherland first, second and third; perdition for the rest of the world, if Germany's interests be served thereby!

Whether the heiress had an inkling of what the War Lord really intended, it is impossible to decide; neither can there be any positive knowledge as to the attitude she might have assumed if, perchance, she did understand Franz's pregnant words.

Pupil of the War Lord, firmly believing in his preachings, saturated with his theories, and over-awed by his claims of Divine mission, his vapourings were gospel to her, and "Germany-above-all" was one of the commandments, even though it conflicted with all the others.

A monstrous case of folie à deux, "deux" standing for the German nation. Here we have a man decked out in ornate regimentals travelling about his country telling four millions of men: "You must die for Me," and immediately each man says to his wife: "I wonder if there is a special heaven for patriots like your husband?"

And to a certain class of persons he points out that science is but the handmaiden of wholesale murder, and that they must employ their God-given inventive genius, all their brains, all their time, to devise new ways and means for killing as many men, women and children as there are in the world outside of the German Empire. And they do.

And to a woman he says: "You were born to suffer. Give me your husband; I want him for the fighting." And she forthwith tells her man to make one more for the shambles.

And to the golden-haired girl he says: "A truce to your vanity, off with your locks, that I may buy more rifles; and your lover I want, too. His manly breast will make an excellent scabbard for a French or Russian lance."

And the golden-haired one raves that she is thrice happy to be allowed to sacrifice her beauty and the idol of her dreams for the War Lord.

"I want your fathers," he says to a playground full of children, "and your uncles and big brothers and cousins." And the little ones cry: "Hurrah! Long live the Emperor!"

"Would ye live for ever?" he queries of men between fifty and sixty-five. "To the barracks with you, even if you are but good for cannon fodder."