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139 D Chapter Thirty-Nine d danzig Danzig was intact, Danzig was historic, Danzig was beautiful. And I hated it at first sight. “In order to find out about an actress’psyche,I have to see her bedroom,”said the General Manager of the Danzig State Theater, which did not amuse me. His watery, bloodshot eyes, with white eyelashes that reminding me of a fat walrus, were already undressing me. With a chin in triple layers, the colors of his face resembled those of a rainbow: red, pink, and purple. This overripe Romeo with the sagging features of his sixty-some years,plus the swastika emblem in his lapel, was not exactly the answer to any maiden’s prayers, let alone mine.I decided that I did not even need Ovid’s advice; this walrus would definitely not gain entrance to my bedroom or my psyche, not to mention anything else. Once he had grasped the cruel reality, he paid me back by withholding from me all those wonderful parts that I was supposed to play. The worst was that, in spite of being assigned only bit parts, he refused to let me out of the two-year contract. My first hunch had been right; the whole atmosphere in Danzig, including that of the theater, turned out to be very alien. I felt like I was walking around in a brown fog. Never before had I come into close contact with so many Nazis. I shared my dressing room with a couple of old hags, one of whom kept Hitler’s photo on her table; he was going to be a living witness to her glory onstage. After World War I, Danzig had been assigned the truly enviable status of a “Free City.” But the Danzigers did not wish to be free; they demanded their slice of the brown cake, of everything the führer offered his fortunate German nation, including this wonderful war, rationed food, and later almost total destruction by bombs. They got what they desired and what they deserved. After complaining to my agent about my precarious situation, he informed me that the aged Don Juan had been transferred to his present position from a larger German theater for very embarrassing reasons. He had tried to molest a young actress, which not only got him into difficulties with the girl’s outraged father, but also with the authorities. All I had to do was make him an offer he was in no position to reject; if nothing else worked, I should just threaten to snitch on him for attempting to seduce a minor. It worked like a charm. Forcing my entry into the inner sanctum, after receiving a few verbal kicks below the belt, I ignited my rocket.As a result, he swiftly—if ungraciously—released me from my contract, and I returned to Berlin in December 1943.12 Part two 140 Back in Berlin, I found the city well on its way to being reduced to a gigantic heap of rubble. My heart bled at the sight of the city I loved more than any other place in the world, now doomed to destruction. Yet deep down I knew that it was wrong to pray for its preservation ; each destroyed building would bring us an inch closer to victory over the Nazis. Hitler had been correct in his 1933 prediction that, within ten years, Germany would not be recognized anymore. The Germans, elated over the Nazi bombings of Rotterdam and Coventry, accepted the death of thousands of civilians as a justifiable act of defense. But when, to everyone’s shock, the tables turned and German cities were suddenly the target of furious Allied retaliation, and “Anglo-Americans” were branded as inhuman terrorists. The vast majority of Germans chose not to realize a painful but close connection between cause and effect. Soon after my return home, a little dachshund by the name of Schatzi came into my possession. She possessed a mysteriously wonderful gift; almost exactly fifteen minutes before the sound of the air raid siren, Schatzi began to howl, which gave me precious extra minutes to wake the rest of the family, get my things together, and go down to the cellar before the danger began. As the raids became more frequent and more violent, we decided to seek protection with a neighbor who had built himself a little makeshift concrete shelter, close enough to permit us to run across the street in case our house...

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