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CONTENTS
Prologue
1 AMSTERDAM—APRIL 1656
2 REVAL, ESTONIA—MAY 3, 1910
3 AMSTERDAM—1656
4 ESTONIA—MAY 10, 1910
5 AMSTERDAM—1656
6 ESTONIA—1910
7 AMSTERDAM—1656
8 REVAL, ESTONIA—1917–1918
9 AMSTERDAM—1656
10 REVAL, ESTONIA—NOVEMBER 1918
11 AMSTERDAM—1656
12 ESTONIA—1918
13 AMSTERDAM—1656
14 MUNICH—1918–1919
15 AMSTERDAM—JULY 1656
16 MUNICH—1919
17 AMSTERDAM—1656
18 MUNICH—1919
19 AMSTERDAM—JULY 27, 1656
20 MUNICH—MARCH 1922
21 AMSTERDAM—JULY 27, 1656
22 BERLIN—1922
23 AMSTERDAM—JULY 27, 1656
24 BERLIN—1922
25 AMSTERDAM—1658
26 BERLIN—MARCH 26, 1923
27 RIJNSBURG—1662
28 FRIEDRICH’S OFFICE, OLIVAER PLATZ 3,
BERLIN—1925
29 RIJNSBURG AND AMSTERDAM—1662
30 BERLIN—1936
31 VOORBURG—DECEMBER 1666
32 BERLIN, THE NETHERLANDS—1939–1945
33 VOORBURG—DECEMBER 1666
Epilogue
29CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
RIJNSBURG AND AMSTERDAM—1662
As Bento trudged toward Amsterdam, he actively turned his thoughts away from the past, away from
nostalgic images of the Rosh Hashanahs shared with his family that had been evoked by the
Ashkenazi Jews observing Tashlich, and turned toward what lay ahead. In about an hour he would see
Simon again, dear generous Simon, his most ardent supporter. It was good that Simon lived near
enough for occasional visits, but it was also good that Simon did not live even closer, since on
several occasions, he had shown signs of wishing to be too close. A scene from Simon’s last visit to
Rijnsburg drifted into his mind.
“Bento,” Simon says, “even though we are close, I still find you elusive. Humor me, my friend, and tell
my exactly how you spend your day. Yesterday, for example.”
“Yesterday was as every day. I started my day by collecting and writing thoughts that my mind had
accrued during the night, and then I turned to my lens grinding for the next four hours.”
“What exactly do you do? Tell me about the process step by step.”
“Better than tell you, I’ll show you. But it will take time.”
“I want nothing more than to share your life.”
“Come into the other room with me.”
In the laboratory Bento points to a large slab of glass. “This is where I start. I picked this up yesterday
from the glass factory just a kilometer from here.” He picks up a hacksaw. “This is sharp but not sharp
enough. I’m wiping it now with oil and diamond grit.” Bento then cuts a circular three-centimeter blank.
“The next step is to grind this blank to the proper curve and angle. First I’ll fix it in place to the
stamper—like this.” Bento applies black pitch with great care to fix the blank in place. “And now to use the
lathe for the rough grinding with feldspar and quartz.” After ten minutes of grinding, Bento places the glass
into a mold on a fast-rotating wooden disc. “And finally we finish by delicate fine grinding. I use a
corundum and tin oxide mixture. I’ll just do the beginning, lest I bore you with the long and tedious
grinding process.”
He turns to Simon. “So now you know how I spend my mornings and also you know where spectacles
come from.”
Simon responds, “As I watch you, Bento, I am of two minds. On the one hand, please know that I
admire greatly your skills and fine technique, yet the other, the grander part of my mind, clamors loudly,
‘Leave this to the artisans. Every community in Europe has its artisans. There are untold hosts of artisans,
but where in the world is there another Bento Spinoza?’ Do what only you can do, Bento. Finish the
philosophical project that all the world awaits. All this din, this dust, this bad air, these odors, all this
precious time consumed. Please, once again I plead, let me free you from the burden of this craft. Let me
provide a lifetime annual stipend—any amount you wish—so you may use all your hours to philosophize. It
is well within my means, and it would give me unimaginable joy to extend this aid to you.”
“Simon, you are a generous man. And know that I love you for your generosity. But my needs are few
and easily attained, and excessive money will distract rather then aid my concentration. What’s more—and
Simon, you may not find this credible, but believe me—lens grinding is good for thinking. Yes, I
concentrate hard on the lathe, the angle and the radius of the glass, the delicate polishing, but while I do
this, my thinking germinates in the background at such a rapid pace that I often finish a lens and discover
that, mirabile dictu, there are new solutions to thorny philosophical arguments ready at hand. I, or at least
the attentive I, do not seem to be needed. It’s not unlike the phenomenon of problems being solved in
dreams, which many ancients have reported. Independent of this, the science of optics fascinates me. At
present, I’m developing an entirely different method of grinding fine telescope lenses that I believe will be a
major advance.”
The conversation had ended with Simon grasping Bento’s hand with both his hands and holding it
overly long while saying, “You shall not escape me. I shall not give up my attempts to facilitate your
work. Please know that my offer shall remain open however long I live.”
That was the moment Bento thought it was good that Simon did not live too near.
In Amsterdam on a bench by the Singel, Simon Joosten de Vries awaited his friend’s visit. The son of
wealthy merchants, Simon lived a few blocks from van den Enden in a substantial four-story house
twice the width of the adjoining houses fronting the canal. Not only did Simon adore Bento, but he
resembled him in appearance—frail, small-boned, with beautiful, delicate facial features and a
carriage of great dignity.
As the sun set and the glowing orange sky turned charcoal gray, Simon paced impatiently in front
of his home and grew increasingly anxious about the whereabouts of his friend. The Trekschuit should
have arrived an hour ago. Suddenly spotting Bento strolling on the Singel two blocks away, Simon
waved his arms, rushed to meet him, and insisted on carrying the heavy shoulder bag containing
notebooks and the newly ground lenses. Once inside the house Simon led his guest to the table set
with rye bread and cheese and a freshly baked spicy oudewijvenkoek (old ladies’ cake), a northern
Dutch aniseed delicacy.
As Simon prepared coffee, he went over plans for the morrow. “The Philosophy Club will meet
here about 1900 hours. I expect twelve members, all of whom will have read the ten pages you mailed
me. I had two copies made and asked them to read it in a day and pass it along to the others. And in
the afternoon I have a gift for you from the Philosophy Club, which I am sure you will not turn down.
I’ve found some interesting volumes at two booksellers—the establishments of Abraham de Wees
and Lubbert Meyndertsz—and will escort you there to select one of your choice from a tasty menu of
Virgil, Hobbes, Euclid, and Cicero.”
Bento did not decline this offer; instead his eyes lit up. “Simon, I thank you. You are too
generous.”
Yes, Bento had one weak spot, and Simon had discovered it. Bento was in love with books—not
only the reading of books but the possession of them. Though he politely and consistently declined
all other gifts, he could never refuse a worthy book, and Simon and many of the other Collegiants
were gradually building him a fine library that had almost filled the large bookcase standing on the
side wall of his living room in Rijnsburg. Sometimes late at night, when unable to sleep, Bento would
go to his bookcases and smile as he gazed at the volumes. Sometimes he would rearrange them,
sometimes for size or for subject or simply alphabetically, and sometimes he would inhale the aroma
of the books or caress them, luxuriating in the heft or the feel of the variegated bindings upon his
palms.
“But before the book shopping,” Simon continued, “there will be a surprise. A visitor! I hope it will
be a welcome one. Here, read this letter that arrived last week.”
Bento opened a letter that had been tightly rolled and bound by twine. The first line was written in
Portuguese, and Bento immediately recognized Franco’s handwriting. “My dear friend, it has been far
too long.” At this point, much to Bento’s surprise, the letter switched to excellent Hebrew. “I have
many things to discuss with you. First among them is that I am now a serious student and a father. I
am wary of writing too much and only hope your friend can arrange a way for us to meet.”
“When did this arrive, Simon?”
“About a week ago. The deliverer was a caricature of furtiveness as he zipped through my door as
soon as I opened it. He immediately handed me the letter and then, after opening the door slightly
and peering carefully up and down the street to make sure he was not seen, quickly slipped out. He
would not leave his name but said you had told him to use me as a contact. I assumed he is the man
who was so helpful after the assassination attempt?”
“Yes, Franco is his name, but even that should be kept secret. He runs a great risk—remember
that the excommunication expressly forbids any Jew from speaking to me. He is my one link to the
past, and you are my one link to him. I want very much to meet with him.”
“Good. I took the liberty of telling him you’d be in Amsterdam today, and his eyes brightened so
much that I suggested that he stop here to see you tomorrow morning.”
“His response?”
“He said that obstacles existed, but he would do all that is humanly possible to get here at some
point before noon.”
“Thank you, Simon.”
The next morning, a loud rap at the door echoed throughout the house. When Simon opened the
door, Franco, wearing a robe with a hood covering his head and much of his face, slipped inside.
Simon led him to Bento, waiting in the front salon facing the canal, and then discreetly left them
alone. Franco beamed as he grabbed Bento’s shoulders with both hands. “Ah, Bento, what a blessing
to see you.”
“And a blessing for me to see you. Take off your cloak and let me look at you, Franco.” Bento
strolled around him. “Well, well, well. You’ve changed: you’ve gained weight; your face is more full,
hearty. But that beard and your black clothes—you look like a Talmudic student. And how dangerous
is it for you to be here? And how is it being married? And being a father? And are you content?”
“So many questions!” Franco laughed. “Which one to answer first? The last one I think. Wouldn’t
your friend Epicurus have considered that the main question? Yes, I am very content. My life has
changed much for the better. And you, Bento? Are you content?”
“I, too, am more content than ever. As Simon may have told you, I live in Rijnsburg, a small, quiet
village, and I live exactly as I wish—alone with few distractions. I think, I write, and no one tries to
stab me. What could be better? But my other questions?”
“My wife and my son are true blessings. She is the soul mate I hoped for—and now evolving into
an educated soul mate. I’ve been teaching her to read Portuguese and Hebrew, and we learn Dutch
together. What else did you ask? Oh, my clothes and my shrubbery?” Franco stroked his beard. “This
may come as a shock, but I am a student at your old school, the Pereira Yeshibah. Rabbi Mortera has
granted me such a generous stipend from the synagogue that I no longer need to work for my uncle
or anyone else.”
“That is rare.”
“I’ve heard the rumor that you were once offered such a stipend. Perhaps by some quirk of fate it
has been redirected to me. Perhaps I am being rewarded for betraying you.”
“What reason did Rabbi Mortera give?”
“When I asked him ‘How am I worthy?’ he surprised me. He said the stipend is his way, the Jewish
community’s way, of honoring my father, whose reputation, and the reputation of his long line of
rabbinical ancestors, is far greater than I had ever imagined. But he also added that I was a promising
student who might one day follow in my father’s steps.”
“And—” Bento took a deep breath. “Your response to the rabbi?”
“Gratitude. Bento Spinoza, you’ve made me thirsty for knowledge and, to the rabbi’s pleasure, I
have plunged into a joyous study of Talmud and Torah.”
“I see. Uh . . . well . . . you’ve accomplished much. The Hebrew in your note is most excellent.”
“Yes, I am pleased with myself, and my joy in learning increases day by day.”
A short silence ensued. They both opened their mouths to speak at the same time and then
stopped. After another brief silence Franco asked, “Bento, you were in much anguish when I last saw
you after the attack. You recovered quickly?”
Bento nodded. “Yes, and in no small part thanks to you. You should know that even now in
Rijnsburg I keep my old slashed overcoat hanging in plain sight. It was excellent counsel.”
“Tell me more of your life.”
“Ah, what to say? I grind glass half my day and think, read, and write the rest of the time. I have
little to tell on the outside. I live entirely in my mind.”
“And that young woman who brought me up to your room? The one who gave you so much pain?”
“She and my friend Dirk are planning to marry.”
A short silence. Franco asked, “And? Tell me more.”
“We remain friends, but she is a devout Catholic and he is converting to Catholicism. I imagine
our friendship will suffer once I publish my views on religion.”
“And your concern about the power of your passions?”
“Ah . . .” Bento hesitated. “Well, since I last saw you, I’ve enjoyed tranquility.”
Again, a silence ensued, finally broken by Franco.
“You notice something different between us today.”
Bento, puzzled, shrugged. “What do you mean?”
“I mean the silences. We never had silences before. There was always far too much to say—we
chattered without stop. There was never an instant of silence.”
Bento nodded.
“My father, blessed be his name,” Franco continued, “always said that when something big is not
talked about, nothing else of importance can be said. Do you agree, Bento?”
“Your father was a wise man. Something big? What do you think?”
“Without a doubt it is related to my appearance and my enthusiasm for my Jewish education. I’m
assuming that this has unsettled you and you don’t know what to say.”
“Yes, there is truth in your words. But . . . uh . . . I’m uncertain what to—”
“Bento, I am unaccustomed to hear you fumble with words. If I may speak for you, I think the
‘something big’ is your disapproval of my course of studies, and yet, at the same time, your heart
cares for me, and you wish to respect my decision and say nothing that will cause me discomfort.”
“Well put, Franco. I couldn’t find the right words. You know you are uncommonly good at this.”
“This?”
“I mean at understanding the nuances of what is said and what is unsaid between people. You
startle me with your acuity.”
Franco bowed his head. “Thank you, Bento. It is a gift from my blessed father. I learned at his
knee.”
Again a silence.
“Please, Bento, try to share your thoughts about our meeting today so far.”
“I’ll try. I agree, something is different today. We’ve changed, and I am uncommonly awkward in
coping with that. You have to help me sort it out.”
“Best just to talk about how we’ve changed. From your perspective, I mean.”
“Before, it was I who was the teacher and you the student who agreed with my views and wanted to
spend his life in exile with me. Now it’s all changed.”
“Because I have entered into a study of Torah and Talmud?”
Bento shook his head. “It is more than study: your words were ‘joyous study.’ And you were
correct in your diagnosis of my heart. I did fear offending you or lessening your joy.”
“You think our ways are parting?”
“Are they not? Surely, now, even if unencumbered by family, would you still choose to go my way
with me?”
Franco hesitated and thought long before answering. “My answer, Bento, is yes and no. I think I
would not go your way in life. Yet, even so, our ways have not parted.”
“How can that be? Explain.”
“I still fully embrace all the critiques of religious superstition you offered in those talks with Jacob
and me. In that I am one with you.”
“Yet now you obtain great joy in your studies of superstitious texts?”
“No, that is not correct. I have joy in the process of studying, not always the content of what I study.
You know, teacher, there is a difference between the two.”
“Please, teacher, explain.” Bento, now much relieved, smiled broadly and reached out to tousle
Franco’s hair.
Franco smiled in return, paused for a moment to enjoy Bento’s touch, and continued. “By
‘process’ I mean that I love to be engaged in intellectual study. I relish the study of Hebrew and take
delight in the whole ancient world opening up to me. My Talmud studies class is far more interesting
than I had imagined. Just the other day we discussed the story of Rabbi Yohanon—”
“Which story about him?”
“The story of his curing another rabbi by giving his hand to him, and then when he himself fell ill,
he was visited by another rabbi, who asked, ‘Are these sufferings acceptable to you?’ And Rabbi
Yohanon responded, ‘No, neither they nor their reward.’ The other rabbi then cured Rabbi Yohanon
by giving him his hand.”
“Yes, I know that story. And in which way did you find this interesting?”
“In our discussion we raised many questions. For example, why didn’t Rabbi Yohanon simply cure
himself?”
“And of course the class discussed the point that the prisoner cannot free himself and that the
reward of suffering lies in the world to come.”
“Yes, I know that is very familiar, perhaps tiresome to you, but for someone like me, such
discussions are exhilarating. Where else would I have the opportunity for such soul-searching
conversations? Some of my class said one thing, others disagreed, others wondered why certain
words were used when another word might have had greater clarity. Our teacher encourages us to
examine every little scrap of information in the text.
“And to take another example,” Franco continued, “last week we discussed a story about a famous
rabbi who lingered near death, suffering great agony, but was kept alive by the prayers of his students
and fellow rabbis. His handmaiden took pity on him and threw a jar from the rooftop that shattered
with such a great din that they were startled and stopped praying. At that very moment, the rabbi
died.”
“Ah, yes—Rabbi Yehudah haNasi. And I am certain you discussed such things as whether the
handmaid did the correct thing or whether she was guilty of homicide and also whether the other
rabbis lacked mercy in keeping him alive and delaying his arrival in the joyous world to come.”
“I can imagine your response to this, Bento. I remember all too well your attitude toward belief in
an afterlife.”
“Exactly. The fundamental premise of a world to come is flawed. Yet your class was not open to
questioning that premise.”
“Yes, I agree, these are limitations. But even so, it is a privilege, a joy, to sit with others for hours
and discuss such weighty matters. And our teacher instructs us how to argue. If a point seems overly
obvious, we are taught to question why the writer even said it—perhaps there was a deeper point
lurking beneath the words. When we are fully satisfied in our understanding, then we are taught to
ferret out the underlying general principle. If some point is irrelevant, then we learn to question why
the author included it. In short, Bento, Talmudic study is teaching me how to think, and I believe that
may have been true for you as well. Maybe it was your Talmud study that honed your mind so
keenly.”
Bento nodded. “I cannot deny there is merit in that, Franco. In retrospect I would have preferred a
less circuitous, more rational route. Euclid, for example, gets right to the point and doesn’t muddy
the waters with enigmatic and often self-contradictory stories.”
“Euclid? The inventor of geometry?”
Bento nodded.
“Euclid is for my next, my worldly education. But, for now, the Talmud is doing the job. For one
thing, I like stories. They add life and depth to the lessons. Everyone loves stories.”
“No, Franco, not everyone! Consider your evidence for that statement. It is an unwarranted
conclusion that I personally know to be false.”
“Ah, you don’t like stories. Not even as a child?”
Bento closed his eyes and recited, “‘When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I
reasoned like a child—’”
Franco interrupted and continued in the same tone. “‘When I became a man, I put childish ways
behind me.’ Paul, Corinthians 1.”
“Astonishing! You are now so quick, Franco, so self-confident. So different from that disheveled,
uneducated young man just off the boat from Portugal.”
“Uneducated in Jewish matters. But don’t forget we conversos had a forced but full Catholic
education. I read every word of the New Testament.”
“I had forgotten that. That means you’ve already started some of your second education. That’s
good. There is much wisdom in both the Old and the New Testament. Especially in Paul. Just a
couple of lines earlier he expresses my exact view toward stories: ‘when the perfect comes, the partial
will be done away.’”
Franco paused, repeating to himself, “‘Partial’? ‘Perfect’?”
“The ‘perfect,’” Bento said, “is the moral truth. The ‘partial’ is the wrapping—in this case the story
that is no longer necessary once the truth is delivered.”
“I’m not sure I accept Paul as a model for living. His life, as it is taught, seems out of balance. So
severe, so fanatic, so joyless, so damning of all worldly pleasures. Bento, you are so hard on yourself.
Why forsake the pleasure of a good story, a pleasure that seems so benign, so universal? What
culture doesn’t have stories?”
“I remember a young man who railed against stories of miracles and prophecies. I remember an
agitated and volatile and rebellious young man who pushed back so hard against Jacob’s orthodoxy. I
remember his reactions to the synagogue service. Though he had no Hebrew, he followed the
Portuguese translation of the Torah and was outraged at the stories in the Torah and referred to the
madness and the nonsense of both the Jewish and the Catholic service. I remember him asking, ‘Why
is the season of miracles over? Why didn’t God perform a miracle and save my father?’ And the same
young man agonized that his father gave up his life for a Torah riddled with superstitious beliefs in
miracles and prophecies.”
“Yes, all that is so. I remember.”
“And so where are those feelings now, Franco? You speak now only of joy in your studies of Torah
and Talmud. And yet you say you still fully embrace my critique of superstition. How can that be?”
“Bento, it’s the same answer—it’s the process of study that gives me joy. I don’t take the content
very seriously. I like the stories, but I don’t take them for historical truth. I attend to the morality, to
the messages in the scriptures about love and charity and kindness and ethical behavior. And I put
the rest out of mind. Plus, there are stories, and there are stories. Some stories of miracles are, as you
say, the enemy of reason. But other stories elicit the student’s attention, and that I find useful in my
studies and in the teaching I am starting to undertake. One thing I know for sure—students will
always be interested in stories, whereas there will never be a long line of students eager to learn about
Euclid and geometry. And, oh, my mentioning my teaching causes me to remember something I’ve
been eager to tell you! I’m starting to teach the elements of Hebrew, and guess who one of my
students is. Be prepared for a shock—your would-be assassin!”
“Oh! My assassin! A shock indeed! You, my assassin’s teacher! What can you tell me?”
“His name is Isaac Ramirez, and your guess about his circumstances was entirely correct. His
family was terrorized by the Inquisition, his parents were killed, and he was maddened with grief. It
was the very fact that his story is so similar to mine that prompted me to volunteer to teach him, and
so far it is working out well. You gave me some strong advice about how I should regard him that I’ve
never forgotten. Do you remember?”
“I remember telling you not to tell the police where he was.”
“Yes, but then you said something else. You said, ‘Take a religious path.’ Remember? That puzzled
me.”
“Perhaps I haven’t been clear. I love religion, but I hate superstition.”
Franco nodded. “Yes, that was how I understood you—that I should show understanding and
compassion and forgiveness. Right?”
Bento nodded.
“So that, too, a moral code of behavior, not only stories of miracles, is in the Torah.”
“Without question that is so, Franco. My favorite Talmud story is the one about a heathen
approaching Rabbi Hillel and offering to convert to Judaism if the rabbi could teach him the entire
Torah while he stood on one foot. Hillel replied, ‘What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.
That is the whole Torah—all the rest is commentary. Go and study it.’”
“You see you do like stories—”
Bento started to respond, but Franco quickly corrected himself: “—or at least one story. Stories can
act as a memory device. For many, more effectively than bare geometry.”
“I see your point, Franco, and I do not doubt that your studies are sharpening your mind. You’re
turning into a formidable debate opponent. It is obvious why Rabbi Mortera selected you. Tonight I
discuss some of my writing with Collegiant members of a philosophy club, and how I wish the world
were such that you could be there. I would attend more to your critique than to that of anyone else.”
“I would be honored to read anything of yours. In what language do you write? My Dutch is
improving.”
“In Latin, alas. Let us hope that will be part of your second education, for I doubt it will ever see a
Dutch translation.”
“I learned the rudiments of Latin in my Catholic training.”
“Aim toward a full Latin education. Rabbi Menasseh and Rabbi Mortera are well trained in Latin
and may permit it, perhaps encourage you.”
“Rabbi Menasseh died last year, and I’m afraid Rabbi Mortera is failing quickly.”
“Ah, sad news. But even so you will find others to encourage you. Perhaps there is a way you could
spend a year in the Venetian Yeshibah. It is important: Latin opens up a whole new—”
Franco stood up suddenly and rushed to the window for a closer look at the retreating figures of
three men who had passed. He turned back. “Sorry, Bento—I thought I saw someone from the
congregation. I am more than a bit nervous at being seen here.”
“Yes, we never got to my question about the risk. Tell me, how great is your risk, Franco?”
Franco bowed his head. “It is very great—so great it is the one thing I cannot share with my wife. I
cannot tell her that I put at risk everything we have struggled to build in this new world. It is a risk I
take only for you, not for anyone else walking this earth. And I shall have to leave soon. I have no
reason to give my wife or my rabbis for my absence. I’ve been scheming that, if I were seen, I could
lie and say that Simon approached me for Hebrew lessons.”
“Yes, I thought of that, too. But don’t use Simon’s name. My connection with him is known, at
least in the Gentile world. Better to give a name of someone else that you could have met here,
perhaps Peter Dyke, a member of the Philosophy Club.”
Franco sighed. “Sad to be entering the land of lies. It is a terrain I have not trod since my betrayal
of you, Bento. But before I leave, please share something of your philosophical progress. Once I learn
Latin, perhaps Simon may make your work available to me. But for now, today, all I will have is your
spoken word. Your thoughts intrigue me. I still puzzle about things you said to Jacob and me.”
Bento raised his chin quizzically.
“The very first time we met you said that God was full, perfect, without insufficiencies, and needed
no glorification from us.”
“Yes, that is my view, and those were my words.”
“And then I remember your next comment to Jacob—and it was a statement that made me love
you. You said, ‘Please allow me to love God in my own fashion.’”
“Yes, and your puzzlement?”
“I know, thanks to you, that God is not a being like us. Nor like any other being. You said
emphatically—and that was the final blow for Jacob—that God was Nature. But tell me, teach me.
How can you be in love with Nature? How can you love something not a being?”
“First, Franco, I use the term ‘Nature’ in a special way. I don’t mean the trees or forests or grass or
ocean or anything that is not manmade. I mean everything that exists: the absolute necessary, perfect
unity. By ‘Nature’ I refer to that which is infinite, unified, perfect, rational, and logical. It is the
immanent cause of all things. And everything that exists, without exception, works according to the
laws of Nature. So when I talk about love of Nature, I don’t mean the love you have for your wife or
child. I’m talking about a different kind of love, an intellectual love. In Latin I refer to it as Amor dei
intellectualis.”
“An intellectual love of God?”
“Yes, the love of the fullest possible understanding of Nature, or God. The apprehension of the
place of each finite thing in its relationship to finite causes. It is the understanding, in so far as it is
possible, of the universal laws of Nature.”
“So when you speak of loving God, what you mean is the understanding of the laws of Nature.”
“Yes, the laws of Nature are only another, more rational name for the eternal decrees of God.”
“So it differs from ordinary human love in that it involves only one person?”
“Exactly. And the loving of something that is unchanging and eternal means that you are not
subject to the loved one’s vagaries of spirit or fickleness or finiteness. It means, too, that we do not
try to complete ourselves in another person.”
“Bento, if I comprehend you aright, it must also mean that we must expect no love in return.”
“Exactly right again. We can expect nothing back. We derive a joyous awe from a glimpse, a
privileged understanding of the vast, infinitely complex scheme of Nature.”
“Another lifetime project?”
“Yes, God or Nature has an infinite number of attributes that will forever elude my full
understanding. But my limited comprehension already yields great awe and joy, at times even ecstatic
joy.”
“A strange religion, if religion it may be called.” Franco stood. “I must leave you still perplexed. But
one last question: I wonder, do you deify Nature or naturalize God?”
“Well-phrased, Franco. I need time, much time to compose my response to that question.”
==
30CHAPTER THIRTY
BERLIN—1936
The Myth of the Twentieth Century—that thing that no one can understand written by a narrow
minded Balt who thinks in a fearfully complicated way.
—Adolf Hitler
Few of the older members of the party are to be found among the readers of Rosenberg’s book. I
have myself merely glanced cursorily at it. It is in any case written in much too abstruse a style,
in my opinion.
—Adolf Hitler
“Sigmund Freud Receives the Goethe Prize”
The Goethe Prize, the greatest scientific (scholarly) and literary prize in Germany, was given to
Freud on August 28, 1930, Goethe’s birthday, in Frankfurt, in the context of great festivities. The
Isrealitische Gemeindezeitung rejoiced with cymbals and trumpets. The monetary award was
10,000 marks. . . It is known that notable scholars have rejected the psychoanalysis of the Jew
Sigmund Freud in its entirety. The great anti-Semite Goethe would turn over in his grave if he
discovered that a Jew had received a prize that carries his name.
—Alfred Rosenberg in Völkischer Beobachter
“Mein Führer, please look at this letter about Reichsleiter Rosenberg from Dr. Gebhardt, the chief
physician at the Hohenlychen Clinic.”
Hitler took the letter from Rudolf Hess’s hand and scanned it, paying particular attention to the
sections Hess had underlined.
I have found it remarkably difficult to make contact with Reichsleiter Rosenberg . . . As a doctor, I
have, above all, the impression that his delayed recovery . . . is in large measure attributable to his
psychic isolation. . . In spite of my, if I may say so, tactful efforts to construct a bridge, these miscarried . .
. due to the way in which the Reichsleiter is spiritually constituted and to his special position in political
life. . . He can only be freed from restraint if he can open his mind to those who are at least entitled to
speak to him on equal terms and out of similar intellectual capacity, so that he can find again the calm
and determination necessary for action and, indeed, for everyday life.
Last week, I inquired whether he had ever fully shared his innermost thoughts with anyone. Quite
unexpectedly, he replied, offering the name of a Friedrich Pfister, a childhood friend in Estonia. I have
since learned that this Friedrich Pfister is now Herr Oberleutnant Pfister, a well-regarded Wehrmacht
physician stationed in Berlin. May I request that he be immediately ordered to assume duties as
Reichsleiter Rosenberg’s physician?
Hitler handed the letter back to Hess. “There is nothing in this letter that surprises us, but take
care no else sees it. And issue the order to transfer Herr Oberleutnant Pfister immediately. Rosenberg
is insufferable. Always has been. We all know that. But he’s loyal, and the party still has use for his
talent.”
The Hohenlychen Clinic, one hundred kilometers north of Berlin, had been established by
Himmler for the care of ailing Nazi leaders and high-ranking SS officers. Alfred had already spent
three months there for an agitated depression in 1935. Now, in 1936, he was experiencing the same
disabling symptoms: fatigue, agitation, and depression. Unable to concentrate on his editorial work at
the Beobachter, he had totally withdrawn into himself for several weeks, rarely speaking to his wife and
daughter.
Once hospitalized, he submitted to Dr. Gebbardt’s physical examinations but persistently refused
to answer questions about his mental state or his personal life. Karl Gebbardt was Himmler’s
personal physician and good friend and also treated the other Nazi leaders (aside from Hitler, who
always kept his personal physician, Theodor Morell, close at hand). Alfred had no doubts that any
words he uttered to Gebbardt would soon enough be broadcast to the whole brood of his Nazi
enemies. For the same reason, Alfred would not speak to a psychiatrist. Stymied and fed up with
sitting in silence facing Alfred’s contemptuous stare, Dr. Gebbardt longed to transfer his irritating
patient to another physician and took great pains in composing his carefully worded letter to Hitler,
who, for reasons no one understood, valued Rosenberg and from time to time inquired about his
condition.
Dr. Gebbardt had no psychological training, nor was he psychologically minded, but he easily
recognized signs of great discord among the leaders—the incessant rivalry, the mutual contempt, the
relentless scheming, the competition for power and Hitler’s approval. They disagreed about
everything, but Gebbardt discovered one thing they held in common: they all hated Alfred Rosenberg.
After spending a few weeks visiting Alfred daily, he now saw why.
Though Alfred may have sensed this, he kept his silence and spent week after week at
Hohenlychen Clinic reading the German and Russian classics and refusing to engage in conversation
with the staff or any of the other Nazi patients. One morning, during his fifth week at the clinic, he felt
extremely agitated and decided to take a short walk in the clinic grounds. When he found he was too
fatigued to tie his own shoes, he cursed and slapped himself hard on each cheek to wake himself up.
He had to do something to stop his slide into irreversible despair.
In his desperation he summoned Friedrich’s face into his mind. Friedrich would have known what
to do. What would he have suggested? No doubt he would have attempted to understand the cause
of this cursed depression. Alfred imagined Friedrich’s words: “When did it all start? Let your mind
run free, and go back to the beginning of your decline. Simply observe all the ideas, all the images
streaming into your mind. Take note of them. Jot them down if you can.”
Alfred tried. He closed his eyes and observed the passing parade in his mind. He drifted back
through time and watched a scene materialize.
It is several years ago, and he is in his VB office, sitting at the desk that Hitler bought for him. He makes
the final edit on the final page of his masterpiece, Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts (The Myth of the
Twentieth Century), lays down his red pencil, grins triumphantly, arranges the seven-hundred-page
manuscript into a tidy stack held in place with two thick rubber bands, and clasps it lovingly to his chest.
Yes, the recall of his finest moment brings, even now, a tear, perhaps two, streaming down his
face. Alfred felt sympathy for that younger self, the young man who knew that the Mythus would
astound the world. Its gestation had been long and laborious—ten years of Sundays plus every other
hour in the week he could free—but worth the price. Yes, yes—he knew he had neglected his wife and
his daughter, but how could that matter, compared to creating a book that would set the world on
fire, a book that would offer a new philosophy of history based on blood and race and soul, a new
appreciation of the Volk, of völkisch art, architecture, literature, and music and, most important of all,
a new groundwork of values for the future Reich.
Alfred reached over to the bed table for his personal copy of the Mythus and flipped randomly
through the pages. Certain passages instantly brought to mind the physical site of his inspiration. It
was when he visited the cathedral of Cologne and was viewing stained-glass crucifixions of Christ and
the hosts of emaciated, weakened martyrs that an inspired idea came to him—the Roman Catholic
Church did not oppose Judaism. Though the church professed to be anti-Jewish, it was in fact the
main channel through which Jewish ideas infected the healthy body of German thought. He read his
own words with great pleasure:
The great Germans lived in conformity with nature and esteemed their fine physiques and manly
beauty. But that has been undermined by Christian antagonism to the flesh and by sentimental
ideas about preserving the lives of defective children and by allowing criminals and those with
hereditary diseases to propagate their defects into the next generation. Thus the contamination of
race purity produces fragmentation of character, loss of the sense of direction and thought, and
inner uncertainty. The German people are not born in sin but born in nobility. . . The Old
Testament as a book of religious instruction must be ended once and for all. With it will end the
unsuccessful attempt of the last one and a half millennia to make us all spiritual Jews. . . The spirit
of fire—the heroic must take the place of the crucifixion.
Yes, he thought, such passages resulted in the Mythus being placed on the Catholic index of
banned books in 1934. But that was no misfortune—that was a godsend that increased sales. Over
three hundred thousand copies sold, and now my Mythus is second only to Mein Kampf, and yet here
I am—emotionally bankrupt.
Alfred put the book away, rested his head on his pillow, and drifted into meditations. My Mythus
has brought me such joy but also such torment! The shithead literary reviewers—every single one of them
used the term unbegreiflich (incomprehensible). Why didn’t I respond to them? Why didn’t I ask them in
public print whether it had ever occurred to them that my writing might be too subtle and complex for
insect brains? Why did I not remind them of the consequences of collisions between average minds and
great works: invariably the inferior attack the superior thinkers. What does the public want? They clamor for
the stupid vulgarity of Julius Streicher. Even Hitler prefers Streicher’s prose. He twists the dagger every time
he reminds me that Streicher’s rag, Der Stürmer, regularly outsells my Beobachter.
And to think that not a single one of the Nazi leaders has read my Mythus! Only Hess had been
forthright and apologetically told me that he had tried hard but could not negotiate the difficult prose. The
others never even mentioned the book to me. Imagine—a huge best seller, and the envious bastards ignore
me. But why should that trouble me? What could I expect from that lot? The problem is Hitler, always
Hitler. The more I think about it, the more certain I am that my decline began the day I heard that
Goebbels had been telling everyone Hitler had thrown down the Mythus after reading just a few pages and
exclaimed, “Who can understand this stuff?” Yes, that was the moment of the deadly wound. In the end it’s
only Hitler’s judgment that matters. But if he didn’t love it, then why did he have it placed in every library
and have it listed as essential reading on the official Nazi Party card? He is even ordering the Hitlerjugend
(Hitler youth) to read it. Why do this and at the same time absolutely refuse to associate himself with my
book?
I can understand his public stance. I know that Catholic support is still vital to his position as Führer,
and, of course, he can’t publicly support a work so blatantly anti-Christian. When we were young, in the
’20s, Hitler agreed wholeheartedly with my antireligious stance. I know he still does. In private he goes
farther than I—how many times have I heard him say he’d hang the priests alongside the rabbis? I
understand his public stance. But why not say something affirmative, anything, to me privately? Why not
once invite me for lunch and a private talk? Hess told me that when the Archbishop of Cologne complained
to Hitler about the Mythus, Hitler replied, “I have no use for the book. Rosenberg knows it. I told him. I do
not want to know about heathen things like the Cult of Wotan and so on.” When the archbishop persisted,
Hitler proclaimed, “Rosenberg is our party dogmatist,” and then chided the archbishop for boosting the
sales of the Mythus by attacking the book so vehemently. And when I offered to resign from the party if my
Mythus caused him embarrassment, he simply brushed the idea aside—again without offering to meet
privately. And yet Hitler meets privately with Himmler all the time, and Himmler is more blatantly and
aggressively anti-Catholic than I am.
I know he must have some respect for me. He offered me one important post after another: diplomatic
assignments in London, then in Norway, then head of the ideological education of the NSDAP and the
German labor front, and all related organizations. Important positions. But why do I only find out about
my appointments by mail? Why not call me into his office, shake my hand, sit down and talk? Am I so
repulsive?
Yes, there’s no doubt: Hitler is the problem. More than anything in the world I want his attention. More
than anything, I dread his vexation. I run the most influential newspaper in Germany; I am in charge of the
spiritual and philosophical education of all Nazis. But am I writing the necessary articles? Giving the
necessary lectures? Planning curricula? Overseeing the education of all young Germans? No, Reichsleiter
Rosenberg is too busy brooding about why he hasn’t received a loving smile or nod or, God forbid, a lunch
invitation from Adolf Hitler!
I disgust myself. This has got to stop!
Alfred arose and walked to the desk in his room. Reaching into his briefcase, he extracted his “No”
folder. (He had two folders, a “Yes” folder containing positive reviews, fan letters, and newspaper
articles and a ‘No’ folder, holding all contrary opinions.) The “Yes” folder was well-worn. Several
times a week Alfred perused complimentary reviews and fan letters that served as a daily tonic—like
taking his morning vitamins. But now the tonic was losing potency. Now all “Yes” comments barely
penetrated, a millimeter at most, and rapidly evaporated. The “No” folder, on the other hand, was
unknown territory—a cavern rarely visited. Today! Today would be the turning point! He would
confront his demons. As Alfred reached into the unvisited folder, he imagined the surprised letters
and articles scurrying for cover. A smile appeared on his lips, the first in many weeks, as he
appreciated his droll sense of humor. He extracted an item randomly—it was time to overcome this
foolishness. A brave man forces himself to read hurtful things every day until they no longer hurt. He
looked at it—a letter from Hitler dated August 24, 1931:
My dear Herr Rosenberg: I am just reading in the Völkischer Beobachter, edition 235/236, page 1, an
article entitled “Does Wirth Intend to Come Over?” The tendency of the article is to prevent a crumbling
away from the present form of government. I myself am traveling all over Germany to achieve exactly
the opposite. May I therefore ask that my own paper not stab me in the back with tactically unwise
articles?
With German Greetings,
Adolf Hitler
A wave of despair enveloped him. The letter was five years old but still potent, still hurtful. Paper
cuts inflicted by Hitler never healed. Alfred shook his head vigorously to clear his head. Think about
this man named Hitler, he told himself. He is, after all, only a man. Closing his eyes, he let his
thoughts flow.
I introduced Hitler to the breadth and depth of German culture. I showed him the immensity of the
Jewish scourge. I polished his ideas of race and blood. He and I walked the same streets, sat in the same
cafés, talked incessantly, worked together on Beobachter articles, once even sketched together. But no
longer. Now I can only watch him in astonishment, like a hen gazing up at a hawk. I was witness to his
gathering together the scattered party members when he left prison, to his entering parliamentary
elections, to his building a propaganda machine the likes of which the world had never before seen—a
machine that invented direct mail and campaigned continuously, even when there were no elections. I
saw him shrug off poor returns of less than 5 percent the first few years and keep improving until 1930,
when his party became the second largest in Germany with 18 percent of the vote. And in 1932 I ran
huge headlines announcing that the Nazis had become the largest party, with 38 percent of the vote.
Some say it was Goebbels who was the mastermind, but I know it was Hitler. Hitler was behind
everything. I covered every step of the way for the Beobachter. I saw him fly from city to city making
appearances all over the county on the same day and persuading the populace that he was an
Übermensch, capable of being everywhere at once. I admired his fearlessness as he deliberately
scheduled meetings in the midst of dangerous Communist-controlled neighborhoods and commanded
his storm troopers to battle the Bolshevists on the streets. I saw him reject my advice and run against
Hindenburg in 1932. He gathered only 37 percent of the votes, but he showed me he was right to run: he
knew no one could have defeated Hindenberg, but the election made him a household name. A few
months later he agreed to a coalition Hitler/Papen government and then soon became chancellor. I
followed every single political step, and I still don’t know how he did it.
And the Reichstag fire. I remember how he showed up wild-eyed at my office at 5 am, yelling “Where
is everyone?” and demanded huge coverage of the Communists burning down the Reichstag. I still don’t
think the Communists had anything to do with the fire, but no matter—in a stroke of genius he used the
fire to ban the Communist Party and assume absolute one-man power. He never won a majority vote,
never more than 38 percent, and there he was—an absolute ruler! How did he do it? I still don’t know!
Alfred’s reverie was interrupted by a knock on the door and the entry of Dr. Gebbardt, followed by
Friedrich Pfister. “I have a surprise for you, Reichsleiter Rosenberg. I bring an old friend who may
prove useful in treating your condition. I’ll leave the two of you to discuss this alone.”
Alfred glared at Friedrich for a long while before saying, “You betrayed me. You broke your vow to
me about secrecy. How else could he have known that you and I—”
Friedrich wheeled about instantly and, without a word or glance at Alfred, strode out of the room.
Panicky, Alfred flopped back on the bed, closed his eyes, and tried to slow his rapid breathing.
A few minutes later Friedrich returned with Dr. Gebbardt, who said, “Dr. Pfister has asked me to
tell you how I selected him. Do you not remember, Reichsleiter Rosenberg, our conversation three or
four weeks ago, in which I asked you whether you had ever bared yourself completely to anyone? Your
exact words were, ‘a friend from Estonia, now living here, Dr. Friedrich Pfister.’”
Alfred shook his head slowly. “I vaguely remember our discussion but do not recall using his
name.”
“You did indeed. How else could I have known it? Or known he was in Germany? Last week, when
your depression deepened and you would not speak to me, I decided to try to locate your friend,
thinking that a visit from him might be salubrious. When I learned he was in the Wehrmacht, I asked
the Führer to order his transfer to the Hohenlychen Clinic.”
“Would you mind,” asked Friedrich, “telling Reichsleiter Rosenberg about my response?”
“Only that you once knew him growing up in Estonia.”
“And . . .” prodded Friedrich.
“There was nothing more . . . except that you regretted leaving the many patients who depended on
you but that nothing took precedence over following the Führer’s orders.”
“May I have a brief private conversation with Reichsleiter Rosenberg before you leave the ward this
morning?”
“Of course. I’ll wait for you at the nurses’ station.”
When the door closed, Friedrich said, “Other questions, Reichsleiter Rosenberg?”
“Alfred, please, Friedrich. I am Alfred. Call me Alfred.”
“All right. Other questions, Alfred? He’s waiting.”
“You’re to be my doctor? I assure you that under the old conditions I would welcome it. But, now,
how can I possibly speak to you? You’re in the Wehrmacht and under orders to report to him.”
“Yes, I understand your dilemma. I would feel the same way if I were in your position.” Friedrich
sat down on the chair next to the bed and thought for a few moments; then he rose and left the room,
saying, “I’ll be back in a minute,” and soon returned with Dr. Gebbardt.
“Sir,” he addressed Dr. Gebbardt, “my orders are to attend to Reichsleiter Rosenberg, and, of
course, I shall follow those orders to the best of my ability. But there is an impediment. He and I are
old acquaintances, and we’ve long shared intimate concerns with one another. If I’m to be helpful to
him, then it is essential he and I have complete privacy. I must be able to promise him absolute
confidentiality. I know that daily notes in the medical chart are mandatory, and I ask that I be
permitted to enter notes describing only his medical condition.”
“I’m not a psychiatrist, Dr. Pfister, but I can understand the necessity for privacy in this instance. It
is not standard procedure, but nothing takes precedence over Reichsleiter Rosenberg’s recovery and
return to his important work. I agree to your request.” He saluted both men and departed.
“Does this reassure you, Alfred?”
Alfred nodded. “I am reassured.”
“And are there no other questions?”
“I am satisfied. Despite the fractious end of our last encounter I continue to have a strange trust in
you. I say ‘strange’ because in truth I trust practically no one. And I need your help. Last year I was
hospitalized here for three months in a similar state—a deep black hole. I could not climb out. I felt
finished. I could not sleep. I was exhausted yet couldn’t sit still, couldn’t rest.”
“Your condition—we call it ‘agitated depression’—almost always resolves in about three to six
months. I can help you shorten that.”
“I will be eternally grateful. Everything—my whole life—is in jeopardy.”
“Let’s go to work. You know my approach and probably won’t be surprised to hear me say that our
first chore is to clear away all obstacles to our working together. I, like you, have concerns. Let me
gather my thoughts.”
Friedrich closed his eyes for a few moments and began. “It’s best if I clear the air and just say what
comes to mind. I have troubling doubts about our working together. We’re too different. My
propensity is to understand, to uncover the hidden roots of difficulties—that’s the basic belief of the
psychoanalytic method. Full knowledge removes conflicts and promotes healing. Yet, with you, I
worry that I cannot take that path. Last time, when I attempted to explore the sources of your
difficulties, you grew angry and defensive and charged out of my office. So I worry if I, or at least that
approach, can be useful to you.”
Alfred stood up and paced about his room.
“Am I unsettling you by my frankness?”
“No, it’s just my nerves. I can’t sit for too long. I appreciate your candor. No one else speaks so
forthrightly to me. You’re my one friend, Friedrich.”
Friedrich tried to digest those words. He was moved despite himself. And he was furious at having
been transferred with no advance notice to the Hohenlychen Clinic. His sudden transfer meant
abandoning a large number of patients in the midst of their treatment without being able to provide a
definite date of return. Nor did he relish seeing Alfred Rosenberg again. Six years ago, he watched
Alfred Rosenberg’s back as he stormed out of his office muttering sinister threats about the Jewish
roots of his profession, and was relieved to have seen the last of him. Moreover, he had tried to read
The Myth of the Twentieth Century. But like everyone else he found it incomprehensible. It was one of
those best sellers everyone bought but no one read. What little he read alarmed him. Alfred may be
suffering, he plaintively says I’m his only friend, but he is a dangerous man—dangerous for Germany, for
everyone.
The thoughts in the Mythus and Mein Kampf were parallel—he remembered Alfred saying Hitler
had stolen his ideas. Both books sickened him—so vile, so base. And so menacing that he had begun
to consider emigration and had already written to Carl Jung and Eugen Bleuler to enquire about a post
at the Zurich hospital where he had trained. But then came the accursed conscription letter
congratulating him on his appointment as an Oberleutnant in the Wehrmacht. He should have acted
earlier. He had been warned by his analyst, Hans Meyer, who several years ago read Mein Kampf over
a weekend, foresaw the cataclysm to come, and began advising every single one of his Jewish patients
to leave the country immediately. He himself had emigrated to London within a month.
So what to do? Friedrich had put aside the naïve thought that he could help Alfred become a better
person—that seemed a piece of youthful foolishness. For the sake of his own career (and the welfare
of his wife and his two young sons), there was only one viable option: follow orders, and do his best
to get Alfred out of the hospital as quickly as possible and get himself back to his family and patients
at his Berlin posting. He had to bury his contempt for his patient and act professionally. His first step
was to construct a clear frame for therapy.
“I’m touched by your comment about our friendship,” he said. “But your statement that I am your
only friend concerns me. Everyone needs friends and confidants. We should try to address your
isolation: there is no doubt it plays a major role in your illness. As for our work together, let me share
some other concerns. These are more difficult to express, but it’s essential that I do so. I, too, have
privacy issues. As you know, it’s now a criminal offense to question any party positions. One’s very
speech is monitored, and no doubt the monitoring will be even more intensive as time goes by. It’s
always been so in authoritarian regimes. I, like the majority of Germans, don’t agree with all the tenets
of the NSDAP. You, of course, know well that Hitler never received a majority vote. Last time we
met—it has been many years—six, I think—you stormed out of my office in, if you’ll permit me to
say, an angry, out-of-control state. In that state I could not feel confident in your respecting my
privacy. And that will result in my feeling constricted and less effective in my work with you. I’m being
wordy here, but I think you get my point: confidentiality must go both ways. You have my personal
and professional oath that what you say here remains here. I need the same assurance.”
Both men sat in silence for some time until Alfred said, “Yes, I understand. I give you my word that
all of your comments will be held in confidence. And I can understand how you can’t feel safe if I get
in an out-of-control state.”
“Right. So we must work more safely and strive to make us both feel safe?”
Friedrich took a closer look at his patient. Alfred was unshaved. Dark bags under his eyes gave
testimony to sleepless nights, and his mournful countenance stirred Friedrich’s doctorly instincts; he
tuned out his antipathy and got to work. “Tell me, Alfred, what’s our goal? I want to help. What would
you like to get from me?”
Alfred hesitated for a several moments and then said, “Try this idea. These last weeks I’ve been
reading a great deal.” He pointed to the stack of books littering the room. “I’m going back to the
classics, especially Goethe. Do you remember my telling you about my problems with Acting
Headmaster Epstein just before high school graduation?
“Refresh my memory.”
“Because of an anti-Semitic speech I had made as class president, I was required to memorize
some passages in Goethe’s autobiography.”
“Oh yes, yes—it’s all coming back to me. Some passages about Spinoza. They assigned them to
you because Goethe so admired Spinoza.”
“I was so frightened by the prospect of not graduating that I memorized them well. I could recite
them even now, but for the sake of brevity let me summarize the major points: Goethe wrote that he
was in a restless state, and reading Spinoza gave him a remarkable sedative for his passions.
Spinoza’s mathematical approach provided a wonderful balance for his disturbing thoughts and led
to calmness and a more disciplined way of thinking that allowed him to trust his own conclusions
and to feel free from the influence of others.”
“Well put, Alfred. And in reference to you and me? . . .”
“Well, that’s what I want from you. I want what Goethe got from Spinoza. I need all these things. I
want a sedative for my passions. I want—”
“This is good. Very good. Stop for a moment. Let me jot this down.” Friedrich opened his fountain
pen, a gift from his supervisor, and wrote “sedative for passions.” Alfred continued while Friedrich
took notes: “Freedom from the influence of others. Balance. Calm, disciplined way of thinking.”
“Good, Alfred. It would be good for both of us to get back to Spinoza. And, what’s more, trying to
implement his ideas may be well suited for a philosophically inclined mind like yours. Perhaps, too, it
will keep us out of contentious areas. Let’s meet tomorrow at the same time, and in the meanwhile I’ll
get to work and do some reading. May I borrow your Goethe autobiography? And do you still have
your copy of the Ethics?”
“The same copy I bought when I was twenty. They say Goethe carried the Ethics in his pocket for a
whole year. I haven’t kept it in my pocket. In fact, I haven’t picked it up for years. Yet I can’t bring
myself to throw it away.”
Though only a few minutes before, Friedrich had been eager to leave, he now sat back down. “I see
my task. I’ll try to locate passages and ideas that helped Goethe and may help you as well. But I think
I need to know more about what precipitated this current bout of despair.”
Alfred described the self-analysis he had been conducting earlier that day. He told Friedrich of his
lack of pleasure in his successes and how the Mythus, his greatest achievement, had caused so much
torment. He poured out everything, especially how everything inexorably led back to Hitler. Alfred
ended: “More than ever, I see now how my entire sense of self depends on Hitler’s opinion of me. I
must get over this. I am a slave to the desire for his approval.”
“I remember your struggling with this issue when we last met. You told me how Hitler always
preferred the company of others and never included you in the inner circle.”
“Now take the feeling I had then and multiply by ten, by a hundred. It’s a curse; it has seeped into
every corner of my mind. I need to exorcise it.”
“I’ll do my best. Let’s see what Benedictus Spinoza has to offer us.”
The following afternoon, Friedrich entered Alfred’s room and was greeted by a better shaved and
better dressed patient who stood up briskly and said, “Ah, Friedrich, I’m eager to begin. The last
twenty-four hours I’ve thought of little else but our meeting today.”
“You look brighter.”
“I feel that way. I feel better than I’ve felt in weeks. How is this possible? Even though twice our
meetings ended badly, still I profited from seeing you. How do you do it, Friedrich?”
“Perhaps I bring hope?”
“That’s part of it. But there’s something else.”
“I believe it has much to do with your very human need for caring and connection. Let’s keep that
on the agenda—it’s important. But for now let’s stay focused on our plan of action. I’ve picked out a
few Spinoza passages that seem relevant. Let’s start with these two phrases.”
He opened his copy of the Ethics and read:
Different men can be affected differently by the same object.
The same man can be affected differently at different times by the same object.
Noting Alfred’s puzzled look, Friedrich explained. “I cite this only as a starting place for our work.
Spinoza is simply saying that each of us can be differently affected by the identical external object.
Your reaction to Hitler may be quite different from the reaction of other men. Others may love and
honor him as you do, yet their entire well-being and self-regard may not be so entirely dependent on
their experience of him. Not so?”
“Maybe. But I have no way of knowing others’ inner experiences.”
“I spend much of my life exploring that territory and see much evidence supporting Spinoza’s
postulate. For example, my patients have varying responses to me even in their very first visits. Some
distrust me, whereas others may have immediate confidence in me, while still others feel I’m out to
do them injury. And in each instance I believe I am relating to them in the same way. How can that be
explained? Only by assuming there are different inner worlds perceiving the single event.”
Alfred nodded. “But what is the relevance to my situation?”
“Good. Don’t let me wander. I’m only making the point that your relationship to Hitler is to some
degree a function of your own mind. My point is simple. We must start with the goal of altering
yourself, rather than attempting to alter Hitler’s behavior.”
“I accept that, but I’m glad you added ‘to some degree’ because Hitler looms large to everyone.
Even Göring, in a moment of uncharacteristic candor, said to me that ‘Everyone around Hitler is a
yes-man because all the no-men are six feet under.’”
Friedrich nodded.
“But you have persuaded me that he looms excessively large for me,” Alfred continued, “and I want
you to help me to change that. Does Spinoza have a proposal for procedure?”
“Let’s take a look at what he says about freeing oneself from the influence of others,” said
Friedrich, scanning his notes. “That is one of the things Goethe learned from Spinoza. Here’s a
relevant passage in Part 4, a section called ‘Of Human Bondage’: ‘When a man is prey to his
emotions, he is not his own master, but lies at the mercy of fortune.’ That describes what’s
happening to you, Alfred. You’re prey to your emotions, buffeted by waves of anxiety, fear, and
self-contempt. Does that sound right?”
Alfred nodded.
“Spinoza continues by saying that if your self-esteem is based on love from the multitude, then
you will always be anxious because such love is fickle. He refers to this as ‘empty self-esteem.’”
“As contrasted with what? What is full self-esteem?”
“Goethe and Spinoza both insisted that we should never tie our fate to something corruptible or
fickle. On the contrary Spinoza urges that we love something incorruptible and eternal.”
“That being?”
“That being God or Spinoza’s version of God, which is entirely equivalent to Nature. Recall
Spinoza’s phrase that influenced Goethe so much: ‘Whosoever truly loves God must not desire God
to love him in return.’ He’s saying that we live in folly if we love God in the expectation of receiving
God’s love in return. Spinoza’s God is not a sentient being. If we love God, we cannot receive love in
return, but we do receive some other good.”
“Which other good?”
“Something that Spinoza refers to as the highest state of blessedness—Amor Dei Intellectualis.
Here, listen to these lines from the Ethics:
Thus in life it is important before all things to perfect the understanding, or reason. . . In this
man’s highest happiness consists; indeed blessedness is nothing else but contentment of spirit
which arises from the intuitive knowledge of God.
“You see,” Friedrich continued, “Spinoza’s religious feeling seems to be a state of awe that is
experienced when one appreciates the grand scheme of the laws of Nature. Goethe fully embraces
that idea.”
“I’m trying to follow you, Friedrich, but I need something tangible, something I can use.”
“I don’t think I’m being a good guide. Let’s go back to your original request: ‘I want what Goethe
got from Spinoza.’”
Friedrich glanced at his notes. “Here’s what you said you wanted: ‘peace of mind, balance,
independence from influence of others, and a calm, disciplined way of thinking leading to clarity of
vision of the world.’ Your memory is excellent, by the way. Last night I reread Goethe’s comments
about Spinoza in the autobiography, and you’ve cited him very accurately. Though he considers
Spinoza as a noble, remarkable soul who lived an exemplary life, and credits Spinoza with altering his
life, unfortunately, for our purposes he offers no specific details of the manner in which Spinoza
helped him.”
“So where does that leave us?”
“Here’s what I suggest. Let me offer some informed guesses about how Spinoza influenced him.
First, keep in mind that Goethe had already formed certain Spinoza-like ideas before he encountered
Spinoza—the connectedness of everything in Nature, the idea that Nature is self-regulatory, with
nothing beyond or above it. Thus Goethe felt much affirmation when reading Spinoza. Both men were
brought to a state of extreme joy by grasping the connectedness of everything in Nature. And
remember that, for Spinoza, God was equivalent to Nature. He does not refer to the Christian or
Jewish God, but a universal religion of reason in which there would no longer be any Christian, Jew,
Muslim, or Hindu.”
“Hmm, I hadn’t appreciated Spinoza wanted to eliminate all religions. Interesting.”
“He was a universalist. He expected conventional religions to fade away as greater and greater
numbers of men devoted themselves to seeking the fullest understanding of the cosmos. We talked
about some of this years ago. Spinoza was the supreme rationalist. He saw an endless stream of
causality in the world. For him there is no such entity as will or will power. Nothing happens
capriciously. Everything is caused by something prior, and the more we devote ourselves to the
understanding of this causative network, the more free we become. It was this view of an orderly
universe with predictable, mathematically derived laws, a world with an infinite explanatory power,
that offered Goethe a sense of calmness.”
“Enough, Friedrich, my head is spinning. I feel only dread in this natural orderliness. This is so
abstruse.”
“I’m merely following your inquiry about how Goethe got help from Spinoza and your desire to
reap those same benefits. There is no single technique in Spinoza’s work. He doesn’t offer a single
exercise like confession or catharsis or psychoanalysis. One has to follow him step by step to arrive at
his all-encompassing view of the world, behavior, and morality.”
“I am tormented about Hitler. How would he suggest I alleviate it?”
“Spinoza took the position that we can overcome torment and all human passions by arriving at
the understanding of the world as woven out of logic. His belief in this is so strong that he
says”—Friedrich flipped through the pages—“‘I shall consider human actions and feelings just as if it
were a question of lines, planes, and bodies.’”
“And me and Hitler?”
“I’m sure he would have said that you are subject to passions that are driven by inadequate ideas
rather than by the ideas that flow from a true quest for understanding the nature of reality.”
“And how does one rid oneself of these inadequate ideas?”
“He states explicitly that a passion ceases to be a passion as soon as we form a more clear and
distinct idea of it—that is, the causative nexus underlying the passion.”
Alfred fell silent and slouched in his chair with a pinched face that looked as though he had tasted
curdled milk. “There is something disturbing about this. Highly disturbing. I think I’m beginning to
see the Jew in Spinoza—something flaccid, pale, weak, and anti-German. He denies the will and
labels passions as inferior, whereas we modern Germans take the opposite viewpoint. Passion and
will are not things to be eliminated. Passion is the heart and soul of the Volk, whose trinity is bravery,
loyalty, and physical force. Yes, there is no doubt: there is something anti-German about Spinoza.”
“Alfred, you’re jumping to conclusions too quickly. Remember how you threw the Ethics down
because the first few pages were crammed with abstruse axioms and definitions? To understand
Spinoza, as Goethe did, we have to familiarize ourselves with his language and step by step, theorem
by theorem, follow the construction of his worldview. You’re a scholar. I am certain you spent years
of historical research in writing your Mythus. And yet you refuse to give Spinoza, one of the greatest
minds in history, more than a passing glance at his chapter headings. The great German intellectuals
delved deep into his work. Give him the time he deserves.”
“You always defend the Jews.”
“He doesn’t represent the Jews. He espouses pure reason. The Jews cast him out.”
“I warned you about studying with Jews long ago. I warned you of entering this Jewish field. I
warned you of your great danger.”
“You may rest at ease. The danger is past. All the Jews in the psychoanalytic institute have left the
country. As has Albert Einstein. As have the other great Jewish German scientists. And the great
German non-Jewish writers—like Thomas Mann and two hundred fifty of our finest writers. Do you
really believe this strengthens our country?”
“Germany grows stronger and more pure every time a Jew or a lover of Jews leaves the country.”
“Do you believe such hatred—”
“It’s not a matter of hatred. It’s a matter of preserving the race. For Germany, the Jewish question
is only solved when the last Jew has left the Greater German space. I wish them no harm. I just want
them to live elsewhere.”
Friedrich had hoped to force Alfred to look at the consequences of his goals. He sensed the
pointlessness of going down this trail but could not control himself: “Do you see no harm in
uprooting millions of people and doing—what with them?”
“They must go elsewhere—Russia, Madagascar, anywhere.”
“Use your reason! You think of yourself as a philosopher—”
“There are higher things than reason—honor, blood, courage.”
“Look at the implications of what you’re proposing, Alfred. I urge you to muster the courage to
look, to really look, at the human implications of your proposals. But maybe you do know at some
level. Maybe your great agitation stems from the part of your mind that knows the horror—”
A knock on the door. Alfred stood, strode to the door, opened it, and was startled to see Rudolf
Hess.
“Good day, Reichsleiter Rosenberg. The Führer is here to visit you. He has news for you and awaits
your presence in the conference room. I’ll wait outside and escort you.”
Alfred froze for a moment. Then he stood more erect; strode to his closet, from which he removed
his Nazi uniform; turned toward Friedrich—and seemed almost surprised to see him still there. “Herr
Oberleutnant Pfister, go to your room. Await me there.”
Quickly donning his uniform and putting on his boots, he joined Hess. They walked in silence to
the room where Hitler awaited.
Hitler rose to greet Alfred, returned his salute, pointed for him to be seated, and indicated to Hess
that he wait outside.
“You’re looking well, Rosenberg. Not at all like a hospitalized patient. I am relieved.”
Alfred, flustered by Hitler’s affability, mumbled his thanks.
“I’ve just reread your Völkischer Beobachter article last year on the award of the Nobel peace prize to
Carl von Ossietzky. An excellent piece of journalism, Rosenberg. Far superior to the pallid stuff
published in our paper during your absence. Just the right tone of dignity and outrage at the Nobel
committee awarding the peace price to a citizen who is in prison in his own country for treason. I
entirely agree with your position. It is indeed an insult and a frontal attack upon the sovereign Reich.
Please prepare Ossietzky’s obituary. He is not tolerating the concentration camp very well, and we
may have the good fortune to report his death shortly.
“But I am visiting today not only to inquire after your health and to give you my greetings but also
to give you news. I very much liked your suggestion in the article that Germany should no longer
tolerate the arrogance of Stockholm and should instead initiate our own German equivalent of the
now-odorous Nobel prize. I have taken action and have created a selection committee to consider
candidates for the German National Prize for Art and Science, and commissioned Müller-Erfurt to
design an elaborate diamond-studded pendant. There will a prize of 100,000 reichsmarks. I want you
to be the first to know that I have nominated you for the first Deutscher Nationalpreis. Here is a copy
of the public statement that I shall release shortly.”
Alfred took the sheet and read greedily:
The National Socialist movement, and beyond that, the entire German people, will be deeply
gratified that the Führer has distinguished Alfred Rosenberg as one of his oldest and most faithful
fighting comrades by awarding him the German National Prize.
“Thank you. Thank you, mein Führer. Thank you for the proudest moment of my life.”
“And when will you be going back to work? The Völkischer Beobachter needs you.”
“Tomorrow. I am now entirely fit.”
“The new doctor, that friend of yours, must be a miracle worker. We should commend and
promote him.”
“No, no—I recovered before he arrived. He deserves no credit. As a matter of fact, he was trained
in that Jew-run Freud institute in Berlin and weeps tears that the Jewish psychiatrists have all left the
country. I’ve tried, but I don’t think I can get the Jew out of him. We should watch him. He may need
some rehabilitation. And now I go to work. Heil, mein Führer!”
Alfred marched briskly to his room and quickly began to pack. A few minutes later Friedrich knocked
on his door.
“Alfred, you’re leaving?”
“Yes, I’m leaving.”
“What’s happened?
“What’s happened is that I have no further use for your services, Herr Oberleutnant Pfister. Return
immediately to your post in Berlin.”
==
31CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
VOORBURG—DECEMBER 1666
My dear Bento,
Simon promises to deliver this letter within a week, and unless you tell him otherwise I shall visit you
in Voorburg in the late morning of December 20. I have much to share with you and much to learn of
your life. How I have missed you! I have been under such excruciating surveillance that I have not dared
even to visit Simon to post a letter. Please know that even though we have not been together, you have
been close to my heart all these years. Not a day passes without my seeing your radiant face and hearing
your voice in my mind.
You most likely know that Rabbi Mortera died not too long after our last visit and that your
brother-in-law, Rabbi Samuel Casseres, who gave the funeral oration, died a few weeks later. Your sister,
Rebekah, lives with her son, Daniel, now sixteen and destined for the rabbinate. Your brother, Gabriel,
now known as Abraham, has become a successful merchant and travels often to Barbados for trade.
I am now a rabbi! Yes, a rabbi! And until recently I was the assistant of Rabbi Aboab, who is now
chief rabbi. Amsterdam is now under a madness, and no one speaks of anything else except the arrival of
the Messiah, Sabbatai Zevi. Oddly, and I shall explain later, it is this madness about him that makes it
possible for me to visit. Even though Rabbi Aboab continues to scrutinize my every move, it now no
longer matters. I embrace you, and soon you shall know all.
Franco (also known as Rabbi Benitez)
Bento read Franco’s letter a second and then a third time. He grimaced at the portentous phrase “it
no longer matters”? What did that mean? And he grimaced again at the mention of the new Messiah.
Sabbatai Zevi was in the air. Only the day before, he had received a letter about the coming of the
Messiah from one of his regular correspondents, Henry Oldenburg, corresponding secretary of the
British Royal Society of Science. Bento fetched Oldenburg’s letter and reread the pertinent passage:
Here there is a widespread rumor that the Israelites, who have been dispersed for more than two
thousand years, are to return to their homeland. Few hereabouts believe it, but many wish it. . . I am
anxious to hear what the Jews in Amsterdam have heard about it and how they are affected by so
momentous an announcement.
Bento paced as he thought. His tile-floored room was more spacious than his Rijnsburg room. His
two bookcases, now filled with over sixty large volumes, occupied one of his four walls; his slashed
greatcoat hung next to the two small windows of a second wall; and the two remaining walls were
adorned with borders of Delft tiles of windmills and a dozen fine Dutch landscapes by Dutch painters
collected by Daniel Tydeman, his landlord, a Collegiant and an admirer of his philosophy. It was at
Daniel’s insistence that Bento had left Rijnsburg three years earlier to rent a room in his house in
Voorburg, a charming village, only two miles from the seat of government in The Hague. Moreover,
Voorburg was also the home of a valued acquaintance, Christiaan Huygens, the eminent astronomer,
who often praised Bento’s lenses.
Bento slapped his forehead as he muttered, “Sabbatai Zevi! The coming of the Messiah! What
madness! Will there ever be an end to such foolish gullibility?” Few things irritated Bento more than
irrational numerological beliefs, and 1666 was awash in fantastical predictions. Many superstitious
Christians had long held that the great flood occurred 1656 years after the Creation and that a second
coming or some other world-changing event was to occur in 1656. When that year passed
uneventfully, they merely transferred expectations to 1666, a year given significance by a statement in
the book of Revelations naming the number of the beast as 666 (“six hundred three score and
six”—Revelations 13:18). Hence many had predicted the coming of the Antichrist in 666. When that
prediction failed, latter-day prophets had set the ominous date one millennium ahead, to 1666—a
belief given more credibility by the great fire of London only three months earlier.
The Jews were no less gullible. The messianists, especially among the Marranos, were fully
anticipating the imminent coming of the Messiah, who would gather all the dispersed Jews and return
them to the Holy Land. For many the arrival of Sabbatai Zevi was the answer to their prayers.
On Friday, the appointed date of Franco’s arrival, Bento was unusually distracted by the sounds of
the bustling Voorburg marketplace, only thirty meters from his room. This was odd for
him—ordinarily he concentrated on his scholarly work despite all noises and outside events—but
Franco’s face kept dancing through his mind. After a half hour of rereading the same page of
Epictetus, he gave up, closed the book, and returned it to the bookcase. This morning he allowed
himself to daydream.
He tidied up the room, straightened the pillows, and smoothed the down blankets on the
four-poster bed. He stepped back to admire his work and thought, Someday I shall die upon that bed.
He eagerly anticipated Franco’s arrival and wondered if the room were warm enough. Though he
himself was indifferent to temperature, he imagined Franco would be chilled after his journey. Hence
he gathered two armfuls of wood from the woodpile behind the house but tripped as he entered the
house, scattering the logs on the floor. He collected them, carried them into his room, and bent to
light a fire in the fireplace. Daniel Tydeman, who had heard the clatter of the falling logs, gently
knocked on his door. “Good morning. A fire? Are you not feeling well?”
“The fire’s not for me, Daniel. I’m expecting a visitor from Amsterdam.”
“Amsterdam? He’ll be hungry. I’ll tell the huishoudster to prepare some coffee and some extra
dinner.”
Bento spent much of the morning looking out of his window. At midday, spotting Franco, he
joyously rushed out to embrace him and lead him into his room. Once inside, he stepped back to
admire Franco, who was now dressed as any proper Dutch citizen, with a tall, broad-brimmed hat, a
long greatcoat, a jacket buttoned to the neck with a square white collar, and knee britches and hose.
His hair was brushed and his short beard neatly trimmed. They sat together silently on Bento’s bed
and beamed at one another.
“Silence today,” Bento said in familiar Portuguese of years past, “but this time I know why. There is
simply too much to be said.”
“And also great joy often overwhelms words,” added Franco.
Their sweet silence was fractured by Bento’s short coughing fit. The phlegm that he spat into his
handkerchief was speckled brown and yellow.
“That cough again, Bento. You are ailing?”
He waved his hand to dismiss his friend’s concern. “My cough and congestion have taken up
lodging in my chest, and they never wander too far from home. But in all other ways, my life is good.
Exile suits me, and, today excepted of course, I am grateful for my solitude. And you, Franco, or
should I say Rabbi Franco Benitez, you look so different, so groomed . . . so . . . so Dutch.”
“Yes, Rabbi Aboab, kabbalistic and otherworldly though he be, nonetheless wishes me to dress as
the everyday Dutchman and even insists I trim my beard. I think he prefers to be the only full-bearded
Jew in the community.”
“And how have you possibly managed to arrive here so early from Amsterdam?”
“I came yesterday on the trekschuit from Amsterdam to The Hague and spent the night there with a
Jewish family.”
“Are you thirsty? Coffee?”
“Perhaps later, but now I am famished for only one thing—conversation with you. I want to know
of your new writing and thinking.”
“I’ll converse more easily if I first ease my mind. A line in your letter gave me great concern.” Bento
walked over to his desk, fetched Franco’s letter, and looked at it. “Here it is: ‘Even though Rabbi
Aboab continues to examine my every move, it now no longer matters.’ What has happened, Franco?”
“What happened was that which necessarily happened—and I believe I use your term ‘necessarily”
correctly, in that things could not have happened otherwise.”
“But what?”
“Don’t be alarmed, Bento. For once we’re not rushed. We have until two this afternoon, when I
must take the trekschuit to Leiden, where I shall visit some Jewish families. We have ample time to go
over the story of my life and of your life. All will be told, and all will be well, but stories are best told
from the beginning rather than from the end backward. You see I still love stories and persist in my
campaign to increase your respect for them.”
“Yes, I remember your strange notion that I secretly enjoy stories. Well, you won’t find many
there”—Bento waved his hand toward his bookcase.
Franco walked over to peruse Bento’s library and glanced over the titles of the four shelves of
books. “Oh, they’re beautiful, Bento. I wish I could spend months here reading your books and
talking about them. But look here!” Franco pointed to one shelf. “What’s this before my eyes? Do I
not see the greatest storytellers of all? Ovid, Homer, Virgil? In fact I hear them whispering to me.”
Franco bent his ear to them. “They’re pleading, ‘Please, please read us—we have wisdom, but our
unamused master ignores us so.’”
Bento burst out laughing, stood, and embraced his friend. “Ah, Franco, I miss you. Only you talk
to me like this. Everyone else is so deferential to the Sage of Voorburg.”
“Ah, yes. And, Bento, you and I both know that the Sage plays no role whatsoever in the deferential
manner in which he is treated.”
Another big guffaw from Bento. “How dare you keep the Sage waiting? Get to your story.”
Franco took his seat next to Bento and began. “When last we met at Simon’s home, I was just
embarking on my study of Talmud and Torah and excited by the process of education.”
“‘Joyous study’ was your term.”
Franco smiled. “Precisely the phrase I used—but I expected no less from you. Three or four years
ago, I asked the old caretaker of the synagogue, Abrihim, who was ailing and near death, about his
memories of you, and he replied, ‘Baruch de Espinoza forgets nothing. Total retention.’ Yes, I was
indeed joyous to learn, and my appetite and aptitude were so evident that Rabbi Aboab soon regarded
me as his best student and extended my stipend so that I could continue on to rabbinical studies. I
wrote you about that. You received my letter?”
Bento nodded. “I received it but was puzzled. In fact, astounded. Not by your love of
learning—that I understand, that we share. But given your strong feelings about the dangers, the
restrictions, the irrationality of religion, why choose to become a rabbi? Why join the enemies of
reason?”
“I joined them for the same reason you left them.”
Bento raised his eyebrows and then smiled slightly in comprehension.
“I think you understand, Bento. You and I both want to change Judaism—you from the outside and
I from the inside!”
“No, no, I must disagree. My goal is not to change Judaism. My goal of radical universalism would
eradicate all religions and institute a universal religion in which all men seek to attain blessedness
through the full understanding of Nature. But let’s return to this later. Exploring too many tributaries
will impede your explanation of why Rabbi Aboab’s surveillance no longer matters.”
“So after my studies,” Franco continued, “Rabbi Aboab ordained and blessed me and appointed
me his assistant. For the first three years things went well. I participated by his side in all the daily
services and eased his burden by taking over many of the bar mitzvahs and the marriage ceremonies.
Soon his faith in me was so great that he sent me more and more of the individual congregation
members who wished guidance and counseling. But the golden period, the time when we walked into
the synagogue arm in arm, like father and son, was foreshortened. Dark clouds appeared on the
horizon.”
“Because of the coming of Sabbatai Zevi? I remember Rabbi Aboab as a fervent messianist.”
“Even before that. Things went awry when Rabbi Aboab began to instruct me in the kabbalah.”
“Ah yes. Of course. And I imagine that is when you ceased being a joyous student.”
“Exactly. I tried my best, but my credulity was stretched to the breaking point. I attempted to
convince myself that this text was an important historical document that I should study carefully.
Shouldn’t a scholar know the mythology of his own culture as well as others? But, Bento, your
crystal-clear voice and your incisive method of Torah critique rang in my ears, and I was exquisitely
attuned to the inconsistencies and to the insubstantially grounded premises on which the kabbalah
rested. And of course Rabbi Aboab insisted he was not teaching me mythology—he was teaching me
history, facts, the living truth, the word of God. No matter how hard I tried to dissimulate, my lack of
enthusiasm shone through. Slowly, day by day, his loving smile faded; he no longer grasped my arm
as we walked; he grew more distant, more disappointed. Then, when one of my students reported to
him that I had used the term ‘metaphor’ to refer to Luria’s description of kabbalistic cosmic creation,
he publicly rebuked me and restricted my duties. I believe that he then placed informants in all my
classes and enlisted observers who reported on all my activities.”
“And now I understand why you could not contact Simon to correspond with me.”
“Yes, although recently my wife picked up Simon’s twelve-page Dutch translation of some of your
thoughts about overcoming the passions.”
“Your wife? I thought you could not share with—”
“Place a bookmark at this point. Patience. We’ll return to it shortly, but, to continue with my
personal chronology, my problems with the kabbalah were troublesome enough. But the real crisis
with Rabbi Aboab concerned the supposed Messiah, Sabbatai Zevi.”
“What can you tell me about him?”
“I imagine it has been a long time since you read the Zohar, but no doubt you recall the
predictions about the coming of the Messiah.”
“Yes, I recall my final talk with Rabbi Mortera, who believed that the sacred texts predicted the
arrival of the Messiah when the Jews were at their lowest point. We had an unpleasant interchange
about that when I asked, ‘If we are indeed the chosen, why is it necessary for us to be at the point of
greatest despair before the Messiah arrives?’ When I suggested that it seemed likely that the idea of a
Messiah was designed by humans to combat their hopelessness, he was outraged by my daring to
question divine word.”
“Bento, can you believe that I actually long for the good days of Rabbi Mortera? Rabbi Aboab is so
extreme in his Messianic beliefs that Rabbi Mortera seems enlightened in comparison. Moreover,
some coincidences have increased Rabbi Aboab’s fervor. Do you recall the Zohar’s prediction of the
birth date of the Messiah?”
“I remember nine five—the ninth day of the fifth month.”
“And, lo and behold, it is reported that Sabbatai Zevi was born on the ninth of Av in Smyrna in
Turkey in 1626, and last year he was proclaimed to be the Messiah by Nathan, a cabbalist of Gaza,
who has become his patron. Rumors of miracles abound. Zevi is said to be charismatic, tall as a
cedar, beautiful, pious, and ascetic. He is said to fast for long periods while singing psalms in a
melodious voice the whole night through. Everywhere he travels he seems to go out of his way to
offend and threaten the entrenched rabbinical authorities. He was expelled by the rabbis of Smyrna
because he dared to speak the name of God from the synagogue bimah and expelled by the rabbis of
Salonica for holding a marriage ceremony with himself as the groom and the Torah as the bride. But
he seemed little troubled by the rabbis’ displeasure, and he continued to wander through the Holy
Land gathering ever greater numbers of followers. Soon the news of the Messiah’s arrival swept like a
hurricane throughout the Jewish world. With my own eyes I saw Amsterdam Jews dance in the street
when the news arrived, and many have sold or given away all their worldly goods and set sail to join
him in the Holy Land. And not just the uneducated but many of our eminent citizens are under his
spell—even the ever cautious Isaac Pereira has disposed of his entire fortune and gone to join him.
And rather than restoring sanity, Rabbi Aboab celebrates and raises the enthusiasm about this man to
a fever pitch. This despite the fact that many rabbis in the Holy Land threaten Sabbatai Zevi with
cherem.”
Bento, his eyes closed, held both hands to his head and moaned, “The fools, the fools.”
“Wait. The worst is yet to come. About three weeks ago a traveler from the east arrived and
reported that the Ottoman sultan was so displeased with the hordes of Jews pouring into the east to
join the Messiah that he summoned Sabbatai Zevi to his palace and offered him the choice of
martyrdom or conversion to Islam. Sabbatai Zevi’s decision? The Messiah promptly chose to become
a Muslim!”
“He converted to Islam! So that’s it?” Bento’s face registered surprise, “Just like that. The Messiah
insanity over is over?”
“One would think so! One would think that all the Messiah’s followers would understand they’d
been duped. But not in the least—instead, Nathan and others have convinced his followers that his
conversion is part of the divine plan, and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Jews have followed him
into conversion to Islam.”
“And what then happened with you and Rabbi Aboab?”
“I could no longer contain myself and publicly urged my congregation to come to their senses, to
stop selling their homes and possessions, and to wait, at least wait a year, before emigrating to the
Holy Land. Rabbi Aboab was irate and now has suspended me and threatens me with cherem.”
“Cherem? Cherem? Franco, I must make a ‘Franco’ observation—something I learned from you.”
“And that is?” Franco looked at Bento with great interest.
“Your words and your melody do not match.”
“My words and my melody?”
“You describe such portentous events—Rabbi Aboab rebuking you publicly, withdrawing his love,
sending observers, restricting your freedom, and now cherem. And yet, even though you were
horrified by witnessing my cherem, I see no despair in your face, no fear in your words. In fact you
seem—what? Almost buoyant. Whence comes your lightheartedness?”
“You observe accurately, Bento, though, if we had spoken even a month ago, I would not have
been so buoyant. But just recently a solution occurred to me. I’ve decided to emigrate! At least
twenty-five Jewish families who believe in my way of being a Jew will, in three weeks’ time, set sail
with me for the New World, to the Dutch island of Curacao, where we will establish our own
synagogue and our own way of religious life. Yesterday I visited two families in The Hague who had
left Rabbi Aboab’s congregation two years ago, and they too will most likely join us. This evening I
hope to enlist two other families.”
“Curaçao? Half the world away?”
“Believe me, Bento, though I am full of hope about our future in the New World, I am also greatly
saddened to think that you and I may never again meet. Yesterday on the trekschuit ride I daydreamed,
and not for the first time, that you came to visit us in the New World and then chose to remain with
us as our sage and scholar. But I know it is a dream. Your cough and your congestion tell me you
cannot make the journey, and your contentment with your life tells me you will not make it.”
Bento stood and paced about the room. “I am too aggrieved even to sit still. Even though our
meetings are perforce infrequent, your presence in my life is vital to me. The thought of a permanent
farewell is such a shock, such a loss, I can find no words to speak of it. And at the same time my love
for you raises other thoughts. The dangers! How will you live? Are there not already Jews and a
synagogue in Curacao? How will they accept you?”
“Danger is always present for Jews. We have always been oppressed—if not by Christians or
Muslims, than by our own elders. Amsterdam is the one spot in the old world that offers us some
degree of freedom, but many foresee the end of that freedom. Multiple enemies gain strength: the war
with the English is over but most likely only briefly, Louis the XIV threatens us, and our own liberal
government may not long withstand the Dutch Orangists, who want to create a monarchy. Don’t you
share these concerns, Bento?”
“Yes! So much so that that I have put aside my work on the Ethics and am now writing a book
about my theological and political views. Religious authorities have influence over the governing
bodies and are now meddling so much in politics that they must be stopped. We must keep religion
and politics separate.”
“Tell me more about your new project, Bento.”
“Much of it is an old project. You remember the biblical critique I offered you and Jacob?”
“Every word.”
“I am putting these on paper and shall include all those arguments and so much more that any
reasonable person will come to doubt the divine sources of the scriptures and ultimately come to
accept that everything happens according to the universal laws of Nature.”
“So you’re going to publish the very ideas that brought about your cherem?”
“Let’s discuss that later. For now, Franco, let’s return to your plans. There is more urgency there.”
“More and more, our group has come to believe our only hope is in the New World. One of our
merchant members has already visited and selected some land that we have purchased from the
Dutch West Indies Company. And yes, you’re right: there is already an established Jewish community
in Curacao. But we will be on the opposite side of the island on our own land, teach ourselves to
farm, and create a different type of Jewish community.”
“And your family? How do they react to this move?”
“My wife, Sarah, agrees to go but only under certain conditions.”
“Certain conditions? Can a Jewish wife set conditions? What conditions?”
“Sarah is strong-willed. She agrees to go only if I agree to take seriously her views about changing
the way Judaism regards and treats women.”
“I cannot believe what I hear. How we regard women? I’ve never heard such nonsense.”
“She asked me to discuss this very topic with you.”
“You talked with her about me? I thought you had to keep your contact with me secret even from
her.”
“She has changed. We have changed. We have no secrets from one another. May I deliver her
words to you?”
Bento nods warily.
Franco cleared his throat and spoke in a higher key. “Mister Spinoza, do you agree it is just for
women to be treated as inferior creatures in every manner? In the synagogue we must sit separately
from the men and in poorer seating and—”
“Sarah,” Bento interrupted, immediately entering into the role play, “of course you women and
your lustful glances are seated separately. Is it right that men be distracted from God?”
“I know her answer exactly,” said Franco and, mimicking her, continued: “You mean that men are
like beasts in continual heat and are driven from their rational minds by the mere presence of a
woman—the very woman they sleep with side by side each night. And the mere sight of our faces will
dispel their love of God. Can you imagine how that feels to us?”
“Oh foolish woman—of course you must be out of our sight! The presence of your tempting eyes
and your fluttering fans and shallow comments are inimical to religious contemplation.”
“So because men are weak and cannot stay focused, it is the woman’s fault, not theirs? My
husband tells me you have said that nothing is good or bad but it is the mind that makes it so. Not
right?”
Bento reluctantly nods.
“So perhaps it is the mind of the man that needs to be edified. Perhaps men should wear
mule-blinders instead of demanding that women wear veils! Do I make my point, or shall I continue?”
Bento started to reply in detail but stopped and, shaking his head, said, “Go on.”
“We women are kept prisoners in the house and are never taught Dutch and thus are limited in
shopping or conversing with others. We carry the burden of an unequal amount of work in the family,
while men sit for much of the day and debate issues in the Talmud. Rabbis openly oppose educating
us because they say we are of inferior intelligence and if they were to teach us the Torah, they would
be teaching us nonsense because we women could never grasp its complexity.”
“On this one instance I agree with the rabbi. You actually believe that women and men have equal
intelligence?”
“Ask my husband. He’s standing right next to you. Ask him if I don’t learn as fast and understand
as deeply as he does.”
Bento raised his chin gesturing to Franco, who smiled and said, “She speaks the truth, Bento. She
learns and comprehends as quickly, perhaps more quickly, than I. And you knew a woman like her.
Remember that young woman who taught you Latin, whom you yourself labeled a prodigy? Sarah
even believes women should be counted as one of the minyan and be called upon to read from the
bimah and even become rabbis.”
“Read from the bimah? Become a rabbi? This is beyond belief! If women were capable of sharing
power, then we could consult history and find many such instances. But there are none to be found,
no instances of women ruling equally with men, and no instances of women ruling men. We can only
conclude that women have an inherent weakness.”
Franco shook his head. “Sarah would say—and here I would agree with her—that your evidence is
no evidence at all. The reason there is no power sharing is—”
A knock on the door interrupted their discussion, and the housekeeper entered, carrying a tray
heavy with food. “Mr. Spinoza, may I serve you?’”
Bento nodded, and she began placing dishes steaming with food on Bento’s table. He turned to
Franco. “She’s asking if we’re ready for some lunch. We can eat in here.”
Franco, startled, looked at Bento and replied in Portuguese, “Bento, how can you think I could eat
this food with you? Have you forgotten? I’m a rabbi!”
==
32CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
BERLIN, THE NETHERLANDS—1939–1945
He is “almost Alfred.” Rosenberg almost managed to become a scholar, a journalist, a
politician—but only almost.
—Joseph Goebbels
Why does the world shed crocodile’s tears over the richly merited fate of a small Jewish
minority? . . . I ask Roosevelt, I ask the American people: Are you prepared to receive in your
midst these well-poisoners of the German people and the universal spirit of Christianity? We
would willingly give every one of them a free steamer ticket and a thousand-mark note for
traveling expenses, if we could get rid of them.
—Adolf Hitler
Though Alfred did not suffer another debilitating depression, he never grew comfortable in his skin,
and for the rest of his life his self-worth gyrated wildly: he was either puffed or deflated, depending on
his perceived closeness to Adolf Hitler.
Hitler never loved him; yet, convinced that Alfred’s skills were useful to the party, he continued to
heap responsibilities on him. These duties were always in addition to Alfred’s primary task as
editor-in-chief of the party newspaper. The Völkischer Beobachter, “the fighting newspaper of the Nazi
Party,” flourished under Alfred’s direction: by the 1940s it had a daily circulation of well over a
million. Personally, Hitler preferred the vulgar, anti-Semitic caricatures in Streicher’s Der Stürmer, but
the Beobachter was the official party newspaper, and Hitler or his deputy, Rudolf Hess, never failed to
read it daily.
Alfred had a cordial relationship with Hess and, through him, gained access to Hitler. But that
ended precipitously on May 10, 1941, when, after a long leisurely breakfast with Rosenberg, Hess
drove to the airport and, for reasons still perplexing historians, flew a Messerschmitt BF110 to
Scotland and parachuted out, only to be immediately captured and imprisoned by the British for the
rest of his life. Martin Bormann assumed Hess’s deputy post and, as Alfred put it, became “dictator
of the antechamber.” Except for rare occasions, Bormann granted access to the Führer only to the
inner circle—and that never included Alfred Rosenberg.
Yet no one could deny Alfred the amazing success of his book The Myth of the Twentieth Century.
By 1940 it had sold over a million copies and was second in Germany only to Mein Kampf. Other
duties abounded: Alfred’s role as director of the ideological education of the entire Nazi Party
required frequent meetings and public addresses. His speeches never strayed far from the catechism
outlined in his book: Aryan race superiority, the Jewish menace, purity of blood, dangers of impure
breeding, necessity for Lebensraum, and the dangers posed by religion. He relentlessly hammered
away at the threats posed to the Reich by Jews and never failed to insist that the Jewish question must
be solved by the removal of every Jew from Europe. When, by 1939, it became clear that no country
would accept the German, Polish, and Czech Jews, he argued for the relocation of the European Jews
to a reservation (pointedly not a state) outside of Europe—for example, Madagascar or Guyana. For a
time he considered Alaska but then decided that its harsh climate would be too severe for the Jews.
In 1939 Hitler summoned Rosenberg for a meeting.
“Rosenberg, in my hand I have my official announcement of your German National award. I’m
certain you remember our conversation about my nominating you—you called it the proudest day of
your life. I myself approved these lines. ‘Rosenberg’s indefatigable struggle to keep National Socialist
philosophy clean was especially meritorious. Only future times will be able to fully estimate the depth
of the influence of this man on the philosophical foundation of the National Socialist Reich.’”
Alfred’s pupils widened: he was stunned by Hitler’s largesse.
“And today I plan to assign you to a position you were meant for. I’ve decided to formally establish
the Hohe Schule, the party’s elite university of Nazism. You are to be its leader.”
“I am deeply honored, mein Führer. But I’ve heard nothing of the plans for the Hohe Schule.”
“It shall be an advanced center of ideological and educational research to be located in northern
Bavaria. I envision a three-thousand-seat auditorium, a library of five hundred thousand volumes, and
different branches in various cities of the Reich.”
Alfred took out his notepad. “Shall I write about this in the Beobachter?”
“Yes. My secretary will give you the background material on it. A brief Beobachter announcement of
its establishment and your appointment to head it would be timely. Your first task—and this is not for
publication”—Hitler lowered his voice—“is to build the university library. And build it quickly.
Immediately. The books are available right now. I want you to take the lead in seizing the contents of
all Jewish and Freemason libraries in occupied territories.”
Alfred was euphoric: this task was meant for him. He began immediately. Soon Rosenberg’s
emissaries were ransacking Jewish libraries throughout Eastern Europe and sending thousands of
rare books to Frankfurt, where librarians would select the best books for the Hohe Schule library.
Hitler was also planning a museum for extinct peoples, and other valuable books would be selected
for ultimate display there. Before long, Alfred’s mandate was broadened to include artwork as well as
books. Like an eager puppy craving attention, he wrote Hitler on the Führer’s fiftieth birthday:
Heil, mein Führer:
In my desire to give you, my Führer, some joy for your birthday, I take the liberty to present to you
photos of some of the most valuable paintings that my special purpose staff, in compliance with your
order, secured from ownerless Jewish art collections in the occupied territories. These photos represent an
addition to the collection of fifty-three of the most valuable objects of art delivered some time ago to your
collection.
I beg of you, my Führer, to give me a chance during my next audience to report to you orally on the
whole extent and scope of this art seizure action. I beg you to accept a short written intermediate report
of the progress and extent of the art seizure action, which will be used as a basis for this later oral report,
and also accept three copies of the temporary picture catalogues, which, too, show only part of the
collection you own. I shall take the liberty during the requested audience to give you, my Führer, another
twenty folders of pictures, with the hope that this short involvement with the beautiful things of art that
are nearest to your heart will send a ray of beauty and joy into your revered life.
In 1940 Hitler formally notified the entire Nazi Party of the formation of the ERR—Einsatzstab
(task force) of Reichsleiter Rosenberg—whose mission was to confiscate all Jewish-owned European
art and books for use by the Reich. Rosenberg found himself at the head of an enormous
organization that moved together with the military into occupied territory to safeguard and remove
“ownerless” Jewish property deemed valuable to Germany.
Alfred was thrilled. This was his most rewarding assignment. As he pranced down the streets of
Prague and Warsaw with his ERR team, he mused: Power! Finally, power! To have life-and-death
decisions over the Jewish libraries and galleries of Europe. And also to have bargaining chips with Göring,
who is suddenly so nice to me. His greedy hands grasp for art plunder everywhere. But now I’m first in line. I
get first pick of the art for the Führer before Göring can snatch it away for his own collection. Such greed!
Göring should have been eliminated a long time ago. Why does the Führer tolerate such betrayal of Aryan
tradition and ideology.
The seizure of the Jewish libraries of Poland and Czechoslovakia whetted Alfred’s appetite for the
grandest treasure of all—the library at the Rijnsburg Museum. With Spinoza’s library clearly in his
sights, Alfred avidly wrote headline after triumphant headline about the Nazi progress on the Western
Front. “Nothing can stop our blitzkrieg,” the Beobachter blared. Country after country bowed to
Hitler’s force, and before long it was the Netherlands’ turn. Though that small country had remained
neutral in World War I and hoped to do the same in the new war, Hitler had different ideas. On May
10, 1940, Nazi troops invaded the Netherlands in full force. Four days later, the Luftwaffe
carpet-bombed the industrial city of Rotterdam, destroying a full square mile of the city center, and on
the following day the Dutch forces capitulated. Alfred was jubilant as he prepared the front-page
headlines and story on the five-day Netherlands war for the Völkischer Beobachter and wrote an
editorial about the invincibility of the Nazi blitzkrieg. Beobachter staff members were astonished by
Alfred’s behavior—never before had they seen him grin so broadly. Could this be Alfred Rosenberg
opening bottles of champagne in the office, pouring drinks for everyone, and loudly offering toasts,
first to the Führer and then to the memory of Dietrich Eckart?
A few weeks before, Alfred had come across a quote by Albert Einstein: “The secret to creativity is
knowing how to hide your sources.” At first he snorted—“Brazen dishonesty, typical Jewish
hypocrisy”—and dismissed it. But for days Einstein’s statement unaccountably returned to his mind.
Was it a clue to solving the Spinoza problem? Perhaps the “original” ideas of Bento Spinoza were not
so original. Perhaps the real origins of his thoughts were hidden in the pages of the 151 books in his
personal library.
The ERR, Alfred’s plundering task force, was ready for action in the Netherlands in February 1941.
Alfred flew into Amsterdam and attended a staff meeting organized by Werner Schwier, the German
officer responsible for the liquidation of Freemasonry and related organizations in the Netherlands.
The Nazis hated Freemasonry, Jewish and non-Jewish members alike. Hitler claimed in Mein Kampf
that Freemasonry had “succumbed” to the Jews and had been a major force in Germany’s loss of
World War I. Present at the staff meeting were Schwier’s staff of a dozen “provincial liquidators,” each
assigned to his own territory. Before the meeting Schwier had asked for Alfred’s approval of the
instructions he planned to distribute to the liquidators. All goods with Masonic emblems were to be
destroyed: glasses, busts, paintings, badges, jewels, swords, circles, plumbs, trowels, gavels,
seven-armed candelabras, and sextants. All wooden goods with irremovable emblems had to be
smashed or burned. All Masonic leather aprons were to be cut into quarters and confiscated. Alfred
smiled as he read and made only one correction—leather aprons should be cut into sixteen parts
before confiscation. All else he approved, and he commended Schwier for his thoroughness.
Then, glancing at his list of sites to be confiscated, he asked, “Herr Schwier, I see you have the
Rijnsburg Spinozahuis on this list. Why?”
“The entire Spinoza Association is crawling with Freemasons.”
“Do they hold Freemason meetings in the Spinozahuis?”
“Not to my knowledge. We haven’t discovered the Rijnsburg meeting places yet.”
“I authorize you to arrest all suspected Freemasons but leave the Spinozahuis to the ERR. I’ll
personally pay a visit to the Spinozahuis to confiscate the library, and if I find any Freemason
material, I’ll turn it over to you.”
“You personally, Reichsleiter? Of course. Do you need assistance? I’d be glad to assign some of my
men.”
“Thank you, no. My ERR men are in place, and we’re fully prepared.”
“Is it permissible, Reichsleiter, for me to inquire why this site is important enough to require your
personal attention?”
“Spinoza’s library and his works in general may have importance for the Hohe Schule. His library
will require my personal attention. It may eventually be displayed in the Museum of Extinct Peoples
that the Führer is planning.”
Two days later, at 11 AM, Rosenberg and his chief assistant, Oberbereichsleiter Schimmer, arrived
at Rijnsburg in a luxury Mercedes limousine followed by another limousine and a small truck carrying
ERR personnel and empty crates. Alfred ordered two troops to guard the caretaker’s house that
adjoined the museum and two troops to apprehend the president of the Spinoza Society, who lived a
block away. The museum door was locked, but it took little time to fetch the caretaker, Gerard
Egmond, who unlocked and opened the door. Alfred strode through the vestibule to the bookcase. It
was not as he remembered it—far less packed. He silently counted the books. Sixty-eight.
“Where are the other books?” demanded Alfred.
Looking startled and frightened, the caretaker shrugged his shoulders.
“The other ninety-one books,” said Alfred, drawing his pistol.
“I’m just the caretaker. I know nothing about this.”
“Who does know?”
Just then his men entered with Johannes Diderik Bierens de Haan, the elderly president of the
Spinoza Society, a dignified, well-dressed, elderly man with a white goatee and steel-rimmed
spectacles. Alfred turned to him, waving his pistol at the half empty bookcase. “We’re here for the
library. To put it in a safe place. Where are the other ninety-one books? Do you think we are fools?”
Bierens de Haan appeared shaken but said nothing.
Alfred walked around the room. “And, Herr President, where is Einstein’s poem that used to be
hanging right there?” Alfred tapped his pistol against a spot on the wall.
At this point Bierens de Haan seemed entirely bewildered. He shook his head as he mumbled, “I
know nothing about any of this. I never in my life saw a poem hanging there.”
“How long have you been in charge?”
“Fifteen years.”
“That guard, that fat disheveled disgrace, who worked here in the early twenties. Acted as if he
owned the place. Where is he?”
“You probably mean Abraham. He’s long dead.”
“Lucky man. What a pity. I so wanted to meet him again. You have a family, Herr Spinozahuis
President?”
A nod from Bierens de Haan.
“You have two choices: either lead us to the books, and you will return immediately to your family
and your warm kitchen, or don’t tell us, and it will be a long cold time before you see them again.
We’ll find the books, I assure you, even if we have to take this museum apart plank by plank and leave
nothing but a heap of lumber and stones. And we’ll begin that work right now.”
No response from Bierens de Haan.
“And then we’ll do the same to the house next door. And next your own house. We’ll find the
books—I assure you.”
Bierens de Haan thought for a moment and then, unexpectedly, wheeled to Egmond and said,
“Take them to the books.”
“And I demand the poem also,” added Alfred.
“There is no poem,” Bierens de Haan barked back.
The caretaker led them next door to a concealed closet in the pantry, where the rest of the books
were clumsily stored under a canvas wrap and covered with crockery and jars of preserves.
The troops efficiently packed the library and all other goods of value—portraits of Spinoza, a
seventeenth-century landscape, a bronze bust of Spinoza, a small reading desk—into wooden crates
and carried them to their truck. Two hours later, the plunderers and the treasures were on their way to
Amsterdam.
“I’ve taken part in many such operations, Reichsleiter Rosenberg,” said Schimmer during the drive
back, “but never one handled more efficiently. It was a privilege to see you in action. How did you
know that books were missing?”
“I know a lot about the library. It will be invaluable to the Hohe Schule. It will help us with the
Spinoza problem.”
“Spinoza problem?”
“Too complicated now to explain in detail. Let’s just say it’s a major Jewish hoax in philosophy that
has gone on for centuries. I mean to give it my personal attention. Ship the books directly to the
Berlin ERR office.”
“And I was impressed with the way you handled the old man. Bloodlessly. Efficiently. He caved in
so easily.”
Alfred tapped his forehead. “Show your strength. Show your superior knowledge and your
determination. They pretend at great thoughts but tremble at the thought of their home in rubble. As
soon as I mentioned no more warm kitchen, the game was over. This is exactly why we shall easily
prevail all over Europe.”
“What about the poem?”
“It was of infinitely less value than the books. It was clear he was telling the truth: no one giving up
this priceless library would place himself in jeopardy for some scribbled lines of doggerel on a sheet
of paper. Most likely it didn’t belong to the museum but was posted by a guard.”
The two Dutchmen sat dejectedly in the caretaker’s kitchen. Bierens de Haan moaned as he held his
head. “We betrayed our trust. We were the guardians of the books.”
“You had no choice,” said Egmond. “First, they would have torn down the museum and then torn
down this house and would have found not only the books but her as well.”
Bierens de Haan continued to moan.
“What would Spinoza have done?” asked the caretaker.
“I can only imagine he would have chosen virtue. If it’s a choice between saving valuable goods
and saving a person, then we must save her.”
“Yes, I agree. Well, they’re gone. Shall I tell her it’s over now?”
Bierens de Haan nodded. Egmond went upstairs and, using a long pole, tapped three times on the
corner of the bedroom ceiling. In a couple of minutes the trapdoor opened, a ladder dropped, and a
frightened middle-aged Jewish woman, Selma de Vries-Cohen, descended.
“Selma,” said Egmond, “rest easy. They’re gone. They’ve taken everything of value and now will
turn to plundering the rest of our country.”
“Why were they here? What did they want?” asked Selma.
“The entire Spinoza library. I have no idea why it was so important to them. It’s a total mystery.
They could have easily plucked one Rembrandt from the dozens at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam
that would have far greater value than all those books together. But I have something for you. One
book they missed. There was one Spinoza book in Dutch translation, called Ethica, which I hid
separately in my son’s home. They didn’t know about that one, and I’ll bring it to you tomorrow. It
might be interesting for you to read it—it’s his major book.”
“Dutch translation? I always thought he was Dutch.”
“He was, but in those days scholars wrote in Latin.”
“Am I safe now?” asked Selma, still visibly trembling. “Is it safe to bring my mother here? Are you,
yourself, safe?”
“No one is entirely safe with these beasts loose. But you’re in the safest town in all of Holland.
They’ve sealed the museum doors and windows with tape, they’ve abolished the Spinoza Association,
and the German government has laid claim to this house. But I very much doubt they’ll ever return to
this empty museum. There is nothing else of importance here. Even so, to be entirely safe, I’d like to
move you to another spot for a month. Several families in Rijnsburg have volunteered to hide you.
You have many friends in Rijnsburg. Meanwhile I need to install a toilet in your room before your
mother comes next month.”
When the books arrived in Berlin, Alfred ordered his men to deliver them immediately to his home
office. The next morning he took his coffee into his office, sat down, and stared at them, simply
luxuriating in the presence and aroma of these precious works—books that Spinoza had held in his
hands. For hours he caressed the books and scanned the titles. Some authors were familiar—Virgil,
Homer, Ovid, Caesar, Aristotle, Tacitus, Petrarch, Pliny, Cicero, Livy, Horace, Aristotle, Epictetus,
Seneca, and a five-volume set of the work of Machiavelli. Oh, he lamented, if only I had gone to the
gymnasium. I could have read these. No Latin or Greek—the tragedy of my life. Then, with a sudden
shock, he realized there was not a single book he could read: none were in German or Russian. There
was Descartes’ Discours de la méthode, but his French was only elementary.
And most were entirely unfamiliar: a great many Hebrew texts, probably Old Testaments and
biblical commentary, and many authors he had never heard of, such as Nizolius, Josephus, and
Pagninus. Some, judging from illustrations, were works on optics (Huygens, Longomontanus),
others anatomical (Riolan) or mathematical. Alfred had expected there might be clues to Spinoza’s
sources from his bookmarks or marginalia, and he spent the rest of the day turning every page of
every book. But in vain—there was nothing, not a trace of Spinoza. By the afternoon, the harsh reality
set in: he lacked the knowledge to learn anything about Spinoza from the library. Obviously, his next
step must be to seek consultation from classical scholars.
Hitler had other plans for him. Shortly after the library arrived in Rosenberg’s home, four and a half
million Nazi troops invaded Russia. Hitler appointed Rosenberg as the Reich minister for the
occupied eastern territories and asked him to draw up a master plan for a large area of Western
Russia, inhabited by thirty million Russians, to be repopulated by Germans. Fifteen million Russians
were to be deported. The other fifteen million were allowed to stay but had to be “Germanized” within
thirty years.
Alfred had strong opinions about Russia. He believed that Russia could be defeated only by
Russians and that the Germans should strive to Balkanize the country and seek to build fighting
forces composed of Ukrainians who would move against Bolshevists.
This high-profile appointment, at first a triumph for Rosenberg, soon turned into a disaster. He
submitted his plans to Hitler, but military leaders—Göring, Himmler, and Erich Koch—vehemently
disagreed and entirely ignored or undermined all his suggestions. They allowed tens of thousands of
Ukrainian prisoners of war to die in the camps and millions of civilians to die of starvation by
shipping all wheat and foodstuffs to Germany. Rosenberg continued complaining to Hitler, who
eventually responded harshly: “Stop meddling in military affairs. Your preoccupation with ideological
issues has blocked you from contact with day-to-day affairs.”
Million-book best seller. Editor-in-chief of major newspaper. One prestigious government post
after another: head of Nazi ideology and education, head of the ERR, Reich minister of occupied
eastern territories. Yet always disliked and ridiculed by the Nazi inner circle. How did Rosenberg
accrue so many honors? Sometimes abstruse, convoluted, inscrutable prose elicits an unrealistically
elevated appraisal of the author’s intelligence. Perhaps that is why Hitler persisted in offering
Rosenberg so many demanding assignments.
Eventually, as the Russians began to repel the German forces and regain their territory, Alfred’s
position as Reichsminister of the occupied East became irrelevant, and he tendered his resignation.
Hitler was too busy to reply.
His hope of an in-depth study of Spinoza’s library never materialized. Before long the Allies were
bombing Berlin in force. When a house only two hundred meters from his own was destroyed, Alfred
ordered the library shipped to Frankfurt for greater safety.
Alfred’s Völkischer Beobachter, “the fighting newspaper of Nazi Germany,” continued fighting till the
end, and Alfred never stopped slavishly honoring Hitler in its pages. In one of its last editions (April
20, 1945) Rosenberg celebrated him on the occasion of his fifty-sixth birthday by hailing Adolf Hitler
as the “Man of the Century.” Ten days later, as the approaching Russian army was only a few blocks
away from Hitler’s underground bunker, the Führer married Eva Braun, distributed cyanide capsules
to the wedding party, wrote his will, and shot himself after his wife swallowed cyanide. Twenty-four
hours later, in the same bunker, Goebbels and his wife killed their six children with morphine and
cyanide, and then he and his wife committed suicide together. Even so, the Völkischer Beobachter
presses continued to roll until the German surrender on May 8, 1945. When its offices were overrun,
the Russians found a couple of predated editions. The last undistributed issue, dated May 11, 1945,
contained a survival guide entitled “Subsistence in German Fields and Forests.”
After Hitler’s death, Alfred, along with the other surviving Nazi leaders, fled to Flensburg, where
Admiral Doenitz, the new head of state, assembled his government. Alfred hoped that he, the senior
surviving Reichsleiter, would be asked to join the cabinet. But no one took any heed of his presence.
Finally, he sent a carefully worded letter of surrender to Field Marshall Montgomery. But even the
British failed to fully appreciate his importance, and Reichsleiter Rosenberg waited impatiently at his
hotel for six days before the British military police dropped by to arrest him. Shortly afterward he was
placed under American control and was informed that he, along with a small group of major Nazi war
criminals, had been singled out to be tried at the Nuremberg special international tribunal.
Major Nazi war criminals! Indeed. A smile flitted across Alfred’s lips.
Meanwhile, in Rijnsburg on VE day, Selma de Vries-Cohen and her elderly mother, Sophie, climbed
down the ladder of their tiny room and for the first time in years stepped outside into the sunlight.
They walked around the side of the house to the Spinozahuis entrance, where they signed the guest
registry—the first signature in four years: “In grateful remembrance of the time we were allowed to
hide here. To the Spinoza House and to those who cared so excellently for us and saved our lives
from the German threat.”
==
33CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
VOORBURG—DECEMBER 1666
Bento, shaking his head in astonishment, walked over to the huishouder and murmured in Dutch that
they would not be having lunch after all.
After she had left, he exclaimed, “Kosher! You keep kosher?”
“Of course! Bento, what did you think? I’m a rabbi.”
“And I’m a bewildered philosopher. You agree that there is no supernatural God who has wishes or
makes demands or is pleased or vexed or even aware of our desires, our prayers, or our very
existence?”
“Most certainly, I agree.”
“And you agree that the entire Torah—including Leviticus with the Halakha and all its arcane
dietary rules—is a collection of theological, legal, mythological, political writings compiled by Ezra
two thousand years ago?”
“Indeed.”
“And that you are going to create a new enlightened Judaism?”
“That is my hope.”
“But because of laws that you know to be sheer invention you cannot take lunch with me?”
“Ah, there you are not right, Bento.” Franco reached into his bag and extracted a packet. “The
family I visited in The Hague has prepared food. Let us share a Jewish meal.”
As Franco unwrapped smoked herring, bread, cheese, and two apples, Bento continued. “But,
Franco, I ask again, why stay kosher? How can you switch off your rational mind? I can’t. It pains me
to see a man of such intelligence obediently bowing to such arbitrary laws. And Franco, please, I beg
you, spare me the standard answer that you must keep the two-thousand-year tradition alive.”
Franco swallowed a mouthful of herring, took a sip of water, and thought for a few moments. “I
once again assure you that I, like you—like you, Bento—disapprove of the irrationality in our religion.
Consider how I appealed to reason when I spoke to my congregation about the false Messiah. I, like
you, want to change our religion, but unlike you I think it must be changed from the inside. In fact it is
through witnessing what has happened to you that I have concluded it can be changed only from the
inside. If I am to be effective in changing Judaism and move my congregation away from supernatural
explanations, then I must first gain their confidence. They must view me as one of them and that
includes keeping kosher. As a rabbi in my community, it is necessary—it is imperative—that any Jew
in the world feel comfortable visiting me and eating in my home.”
“And so you follow all the other laws and the ceremonial rituals?”
“I obey the Sabbath. I lay tefillin, I say prayers at meals, and, of course, I lead many of the services
at the synagogue—that is, until recently. Bento, you know that the rabbi must immerse himself fully
in the community religious life—”
“And,” Bento interrupted, “you do this solely to gain the confidence of the people?”
Franco hesitated for a moment. “Not solely. It would be dishonest to say so. Many times, when
performing my ceremonial duties, I overlook the content of the words and lose myself in the ritual
and in the pleasant wave of feelings that sweep over me. The chants inspire and transport me. And I
love the poetry of the psalms, of all the piyyutim. I love the cadence, the alliteration, and am much
moved by the pathos about aging and facing death and yearning for salvation.
“But there’s something even more important,” Franco continued. “When I read and chant the
Hebrew melodies together with the entire congregation, I feel safe; I feel at home, almost merged with
my people. Knowing that everyone else there shares the same despair and the same yearning fills me
with love for every person. Did you never have these experiences, Bento?”
“I’m sure I did when I was young. But not now. Not for many years. Unlike you, I’m not able to
turn my attention away from the meaning of the words. My mind is always vigilant, and once I grew
old enough to examine the actual meaning of the Torah, my connection to community began to fade.”
“You see,” Franco clasped Bento’s arm, “right there, we have a fundamental difference. I don’t
agree that all feelings must be subservient to reason. There are some feelings that deserve equal
status to reason. Take nostalgia, for example. When I lead prayers, I connect to my past, to my father
and grandfather, and, yes, Bento, I dare to say it, I think of my ancestors who, for two thousand years,
have been saying the same lines, chanting the same prayers, singing the same melodies. At those
moments, I lose my self-importance, my separateness, and become a part, a very small part, of an
unbroken stream of community. That thought offers me something invaluable—how to describe
it?—a connection, a union with others that is vastly comforting. I need this. I imagine everyone does.”
“But, Franco, what is the advantage of these feelings? What is the advantage in drawing further
away from true understanding? Further from a true knowledge of God?”
“Advantage? How about survival? Hasn’t man always lived in some kind of community, even if
simply a family? How else could we survive? You have no joy in community at all? No sense of being
a part of a group?”
Bento started to shake his head but quickly caught himself. “I experienced that, oddly enough, on
the day before our last meeting. On the way to Amsterdam I saw a group of Ashkenazi Jews engaged
in the Tashlich ceremony. I was on the trekschuit but quickly jumped off, followed them, and was
welcomed and offered bread by an older woman named Rifke. I don’t know why her name sticks in
my mind. I listened to the ceremony, feeling pleasantly warm and unusually drawn to the whole
community. Instead of tossing Rifke’s bread in the water, I ate it. Slowly. And it was uncommonly
good. But then, as I continued on my way, my warm nostalgic feeling soon faded. The whole
experience was another reminder that my cherem affected me more than I had thought. But now,
finally, the pain of expulsion has faded, and I experience no need, none whatsoever, for immersion in
a community.”
“But, Bento, explain to me: how can you, how do you, live in such solitude? You are not by nature a
cold, distant person. I’m certain of that because, whenever we are together, I feel such a strong
connection—on your part as well as mine. I know there is love between us.”
“Yes, I too feel and treasure our love most keenly.” Bento gazed into Franco’s eyes just for a
moment and then looked away. “Solitude. You ask about my solitude. There are times I suffer from it.
And I so regret that I haven’t been able to share my ideas with you. When I am trying to clarify my
ideas, I often have daydreams of discussing them with you.”
“Bento, who knows—this may be our last chance. Please talk about them now. At least, tell me of
some of the major directions you’ve taken.”
“Yes, I want to, but to start? I’ll begin with my own starting point—what am I? What is my core, my
essence? What is it that makes me what I am? What is it that results in my being this person rather
than any other? When I think of being, a fundamental truth seems self-evident: I, like every living
thing, strive to persevere in my own being. I would say that this conatus, the desire to continue to
flourish, powers all of a person’s endeavors.”
“So you begin with the solitary individual rather than with the opposite pole of community, which I
hold paramount?”
“But I don’t envision man as a creature of solitude. It’s just that I have a different perspective on
the idea of connection. I seek the joyous experience that issues not so much from connection as from
the loss of separateness.”
Franco shook his head in puzzlement. “Here you are just beginning, and I’m already confused.
Aren’t connection and loss of separation the same?”
“There’s a subtle but crucial difference. Let me try to explain. As you know, at the very foundation
of my thinking is the idea that through logic alone we can comprehend some of the essence of Nature
or God. I say ‘some’ because the actual being of God is a mystery over and beyond thinking. God is
infinite, and since we are only finite creatures, our vision is limited. Am I being clear?”
“So far.”
“Therefore,” Bento continued, “to increase our understanding, we must try to view this world sub
specie aeternitatis—from the aspect of eternity. In other words, we have to overcome the obstructions
to our knowledge that result from our attachment to our own self.” Bento paused. “Franco, you have
such a quizzical look.”
“I’m lost. You were going to explain your loss of separation. What happened to that?”
“Patience, Franco. That comes next. First I’ve got to provide the background. As I was saying, to
view the world sub species aeternitatis I must cast off my own identity—that is, my attachment to
myself—and view everything from the absolute adequate and true perspective. When I can do that, I
cease to experience boundaries between myself and others. Once this happens, a great calmness
floods in, and no event concerning me, even my death, makes any difference. And when others
achieve this perspective, we will befriend one another, want for others what we want for ourselves,
and act with high-mindedness. This blessed and joyful experience is thus a consequence of a loss of
separation rather than a connection. So you see there is a difference—the difference between men
huddling together for warmth and safety versus men who together share an enlightened joyous view
of Nature or God.”
Franco, still looking puzzled, said, “I’m trying to understand, but it’s not easy because I’ve never
had that experience, Bento. To lose your own identity—that is hard to imagine. It gives me a headache
to think of it. And it seems so solitary—and so cold.”
“Solitary and yet, paradoxically, this idea can bind all men together—it is being simultaneously
apart from and a part of. I don’t suggest or prefer solitude. In fact I have no doubt that if you and I
could meet for daily discussions, our strivings for understanding would be greatly augmented. It
seems paradoxical to say that men are most useful to one another when each pursues his own
advantage. But when they are men of reason, it is so. Enlightened egoism leads to mutual utility. We
all have in common our ability to reason, and a true earthly paradise will occur when our commitment
to understanding Nature, or God, replaces all other affiliations, be they religious, cultural, or
national.”
“Bento, if I grasp your meaning, I fear this kind of paradise is still a thousand years away. And I
also wonder if I, or anyone who does not have your type of mind and your breadth and depth, will
have the ability to grasp these ideas fully.”
“I don’t doubt it takes effort. All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare. Yet I do have a
community of Collegiants and other philosophers who read and comprehend my words, though it is
true that many of them write me far too many letters asking for greater clarification. I don’t expect my
ideas to be read and understood by the unprepared mind. On the contrary, many would be confused
or unsettled, and I would advise them not to read my work. I write in Latin for the philosophical mind,
and I hope only that some of the minds I influence will in turn influence others. For example, at
present Johan De Witt, our grand pensionary, and Henry Oldenburg, secretary of the British Royal
Society, are among my correspondents. But if you are thinking that my work may never be published
for a greater audience, you may be right. It is very possible that my ideas will have to wait a thousand
years.”
The two men lapsed into silence until Bento added, “So, given all I have said about my reliance on
reason, you see now why I oppose reading and speaking words and prayers without regard to their
content? This internal cleavage cannot be good for the health of your mind. I don’t believe that ritual
can coexist with the alert reasoning mind. I believe they are sharp antagonists.”
“I don’t regard ritual as dangerous, Bento. Remember, I’ve been indoctrinated into the beliefs and
rituals of both Catholicism and Judaism and in the past two years have been studying Islam as well.
The more I read, the more I am struck by how every religion, without exception, inspires a sense of
community, employs ritual and music, and develops a mythology full of stories of miraculous events.
And every religion, without exception, promises everlasting life, providing one lives according to
some prescribed manner. Isn’t it remarkable that religions emerging independently in different parts
of the world so resemble one another?”
“Your point being?”
“My point, Bento, is that if ritual, ceremony, and yes, superstition also are so deeply embedded in
the very nature of human beings, then perhaps it is legitimate to conclude that we humans require
them.”
“I don’t require them. Children require things that adults do not. The man of two thousand years
ago required things that man today does not. I think the reason for superstition in all these cultures
was that ancient man was terrified by the mysterious capriciousness of existence. He lacked the
knowledge that might provide the one thing he needed most of all—explanations. And in those
ancient days he grasped at the one available form of explanation—the supernatural—with prayer and
sacrifice and kosher laws and—”
“And? Go further, Bento—what function does explanation serve?”
“Explanation soothes. It relieves the anguish of uncertainty. Ancient man wanted to persist, was
fearful of death, helpless against much in his environment, and explanation provided the sense, or at
least the illusion, of control. He concluded that if all that occurs is supernaturally caused, then
perhaps a way might be found to placate the supernatural.”
“Bento, it’s not that we disagree on this; it’s just that our methods are different. Changing age-old
thinking is a slow process. You cannot do everything at once. Change, even from the inside, must be
slow.”
“I’m certain you are right, but I’m also certain that much of the slowness stems from the tenacity
with which aging rabbis and priests cling to power. It was so with Rabbi Mortera, and it is so today
with Rabbi Aboab. Earlier I shuddered as you described how he fanned the flames of belief in
Sabbatai Zevi. I lived among the superstitious my entire youth; I am nonetheless shocked at this Zevi
frenzy. How can Jews believe such nonsense? It seems impossible to overestimate their capacity for
irrationality. Somewhere in this world, with every blink of the eye, a fool is born.”
Franco took his final bite of apple, grinned, and asked, “Bento, may I make a Franco observation?”
“Ah, my dessert! What could be better. Let me prepare.” Bento leaned back and settled himself into
the bolster. “I think I’m about to learn something about myself.”
“You’ve said that we must liberate ourselves from the bondage of passion, and yet, today, your
own passion has broken through several times. Though you are entirely forgiving of a man who tried
to kill you, you are full of passion about Rabbi Aboab and those who choose to accept the new
Messiah.”
Bento nodded, “Yes, that is true.”
“I’ll go further—you were also more understanding of the Jewish assassin than you were of my
wife’s viewpoints. Is that not so?”
Bento again nodded, this time more warily. “Continue, teacher.”
“Once you told me that human emotions could be understood just as lines, planes, and bodies.
Right?”
Another nod.
“Then shall we try to apply that very principle to your vituperative response to Rabbi Aboab and the
gullible followers of Sabbatai Zevi? And to my wife, Sarah?”
Bento looked quizzical. “Where are you heading, Franco?”
“I’m asking you to turn your instruments of understanding onto your own emotions. Remember
your words to me when I was so enraged at the assassin. ‘Everything, every fact, bar none,’ you said,
‘has a cause, and we must understand that everything necessarily occurs.’ Do I have that right?”
“Your memory is impeccable, Franco.”
“Thank you. So let us apply the same reasoned approach today.”
“You know I can’t decline that invitation while at the same time claiming that the pursuit of reason
is my raison d’être.”
“Good. Do you remember the moral of the Talmudic tale about Rabbi Yohanon?”
Bento nodded. “The prisoner cannot free himself. No doubt you’re suggesting I can free others but
not myself?”
“Exactly. Perhaps I can see some things about Bento Spinoza that he himself cannot.”
Bento smiled. “And why is your vision sharper than his?”
“Just as you described a few minutes ago: your own self is in the way and obstructs your vision.
Take, for example, your harsh comments about the gullible fools in Amsterdam taken in by the false
Messiah. Your passionate vitriol and their gullibility are necessarily so. It could not have been different.
And, Bento, I have some notions about the sources of their behavior and of yours.”
“And? Go on.”
“First of all, it’s of interest that you and I witness the same events and we have different responses.
To quote you, ‘It’s our mind that makes it so.’ Right?”
“Again, right.”
“I’m personally not surprised or perplexed by the gullibility of the Marrano populace.” Franco now
spoke with much ease and conviction. “They necessarily believe in the Messiah. Of course we Marranos
are susceptible to messianic thinking! After all, in our Catholic indoctrination, weren’t we constantly
confronted by the idea of Jesus as a man who was more than mere man, as a man who was sent to
Earth on a mission? And of course Marranos are not outraged by Sabbatai Zevi’s conversion under
duress. Did not we Marranos experience forced conversion firsthand? And, what’s more, many of us
have had the personal experience of reconversion as a better Jew.”
“Right, right, and right, Franco. You see how much I will miss speaking to you! You’re helping me
identify my unfree areas. You are right: my words about Sabbatai Zevi, Rabbi Aboab, and gullible
fools are not in accord with reason. A free man does not disturb his peace with such feelings of scorn
or indignation. I still have work to do controlling my passions.”
“Once you told me that reason is no match for passion and that our only way of freeing ourselves
from passion is to turn reason into a passion.”
“Aha, I think I know what you may be implying—that I have so transformed reason that it is at
times indistinguishable from unreason.”
“Exactly. I’ve noticed that your anger and ill-tempered accusations emerge only when reason is
threatened.”
“Reason and freedom both,” added Bento.
Franco hesitated a moment, choosing his words carefully. “On second thought, there is one other
time when I saw your passions arise: when we discussed the place and rights of women. I believe that
your arguments proving women’s inferior intelligence lack your usual rigor. For example, you stated
that women did not share rulership, yet you neglected the existence of powerful queens—for example,
Cleopatra of Egypt, Elizabeth of England, and Isabella of Spain and—”
“Yes, yes, but time is precious today, and we cannot cover all issues. Let’s work on reason and
freedom. I’m most disinclined to deal now with the issue of women.”
“Will you not at least agree that this is another area to consider in the future?”
“Perhaps. I’m not certain.”
“Then simply allow me one final comment, and we’ll move on to other topics.” Without waiting for
a response Franco hurried on. “It is clear that you and I have very different attitudes toward women,
and I think I have an idea of the causative network. Are you interested?”
“I should be, but I feel some reluctance to hear you out.”
“I’ll continue anyway—just for a minute. I think it stems from our different experiences with
women. I’ve had a very loving relationship with my mother and now with my wife and daughter, and
my guess is that your attitudes toward women are necessarily negative because of your previous
contact with them. From what you’ve told me your experiences have been bleak: your mother died
when you were a young child, and your subsequent mothers—your older sister and then your
stepmother—also died. The whole community knows of your harsh rejection by your remaining
sister, Rebekah. I’ve heard she filed suit contesting your father’s will so that you wouldn’t receive his
estate. And then there is Clara Maria, the one woman you loved, and she wounded you by choosing
another. Aside from her I’ve never heard you mention a single positive experience with a woman.”
Bento remained silent, nodding for a few moments, slowly digesting Franco’s words, and then
said, “Now to the other topics. First, there’s something I haven’t said to you—and that is how much I
admire your courage in speaking out to your congregation urging moderation. Your public opposition
to Rabbi Aboab was based on what I call ‘adequate’ ideas—driven by reason rather than by passion.
I’d also like to hear more about your vision of the new Judaism you hope to create. Earlier, I may have
diverted the discussion.”
Both knew their time was running out, and Franco spoke quickly. “I hope to create a different kind
of Judaism based on our love for one another and our shared tradition. I plan to hold religious
services that have no mention of the supernatural and that are based on our common humanity,
drawing wisdom from Torah and Talmud that leads to a loving and moral life. And, yes, we will follow
Jewish law but in the service of connection and moral life, not because it is divinely ordained. And
pervading all of this there will be the spirit of my friend, Baruch Spinoza. As I plan for the future, I
sometimes imagine you as a father. My dream is to build a synagogue to which you would send your
own son.”
Bento brushed away a tear running down his cheek. “Yes, we are of one mind if you believe we
should use enough ceremony to appeal to that part of our nature that still requires it but not so much
as to enslave us.”
“That is indeed my position. And is it not ironic that, though you try to change Judaism from the
outside and I from the inside, we both encounter cherem, you already and mine no doubt to come?”
“I agree with the second part of your statement—the irony of our both encountering cherem—but,
lest you misunderstand, let me say yet once again that it is not my intent to change Judaism. It is my
hope that a vital dedication to reason should eradicate all religions, including Judaism.” Bento
glances at the clock. “Alas, it is time, Franco—almost two o’clock—and the trekschuit will be here
shortly.”
As they strolled to the trekschuit landing, Franco said, “I have one final thing I must say to
you—that book you are planning to write about your critique of the Bible?”
“Yes?”
“I love you for writing it, but please, my friend, be cautious. Do not put your name on this book. I
believe what you say, but it will not be listened to in a reasonable way. Not now, not in our lifetime.”
Franco boarded. The boatman loosened the moorings, the horses strained at their ropes, and the
trekschuit pulled away from the dock. Bento gazed at the barge for a long while. The smaller it grew as
it moved toward the horizon, the larger loomed his cherem. Finally, when no trace of Franco
remained, Bento backed slowly away from the dock, back into the arms of solitude.
==
34 EPILOGUE
In 1670, Bento, age thirty-eight, finished his Theological-Political Treatise. His publisher, quite
correctly, predicted that it would be deemed inflammatory. Thus it was published anonymously,
under the imprimatur of fictitious publishers in fictitious cities. Its sale was quickly prohibited by
both civil and religious authorities. Nonetheless, numerous underground copies circulated.
A few months later Spinoza moved from Voorburg to The Hague, where he lived the remainder of
his life, first renting a modest attic room in the home of the Widow Van der Werve and then, a few
months later, even less expensive quarters—a single large room in the house of Hendrik Van der
Spyck, a master painter of home interiors. A life of tranquility—that’s what Spinoza wanted and found
in The Hague. There he spent his days reading the great works in his library, working on the Ethics,
and grinding lenses. Evenings he smoked his pipe and chatted amiably with Van der Spyck, his wife,
and their seven children, except for the times he was too engrossed in his writing to leave his room,
often for days on end. On Sundays he sometimes accompanied the family to listen to the sermon at
the nearby Nieuwe Kerk.
With a cough that never improved and often produced blood-flecked sputum, he grew noticeably
weaker from year to year. Perhaps the inhalation of glass dust from optical work had compromised
his lungs, but most likely he had tuberculosis, like his mother and other family members. On
February 20, 1677, he felt so weak that he sent for a doctor, who instructed Mrs. Van der Spyck to
cook an old hen and feed Spinoza the rich broth. She followed instructions, and he seemed better the
next morning. The family attended church in the afternoon, but when they returned two hours later,
Bento Spinoza, at the age of forty-four, was dead.
Spinoza lived his philosophy: he attained Amor dei intellectualis, freed himself from the bondage of
disturbing passions, and faced the end of his life with serenity. Yet this quiet life and death left in its
wake a great turbulence that roils even to the present day, as many reach out to revere and reclaim
him while others expel and excoriate him.
Though he left no will, he made a point of instructing his landlord, in the event of his death, to
ship his writing desk and all its contents immediately to his publisher, Rieuwertsz, in Amsterdam.
Van der Spyck honored Spinoza’s wishes: he tightly secured the desk and shipped it to Amsterdam by
trekschuit. It arrived safely, containing in its locked drawers the Ethics and other precious unpublished
manuscripts and correspondence.
Bento’s friends set to work immediately editing the manuscripts and letters. Following Spinoza’s
instructions, they removed all personal material from the letters, leaving only philosophic content.
A few months after his death, Spinoza’s Posthumous Works (containing the Ethics, the unfinished
Tractatus politicus, and De Intellectus Emendatione, a selection from Spinoza’s correspondence, along
with a Compendium of Hebrew Grammar and the Treatise on the Rainbow) was published in both
Dutch and Latin, again with no author’s name, a fictitious publisher, and false city of publication. As
expected, the state of Holland quickly proscribed the book in an official edict, accusing it of profane
blasphemies and atheist sentiments.
As word spread of Spinoza’s death, his sister, Rebekah, who had shunned him for twenty-one
years, reappeared and presented herself and her son, Daniel, as Bento’s sole legal heirs. However,
when Van der Spyck gave her an accounting of Spinoza’s possessions and debts, she reconsidered:
Bento’s debts for past rent, for burial expenses, for barber and apothecary were probably greater than
the value of his possessions. Eight months later, the auction of his possessions (primarily his library
and lens-grinding equipment) was held, and, indeed, the proceeds fell short of what he owed. Rather
than inherit debts, Rebekah legally renounced all claims to the estate and once again vanished from
history. Bento’s small outstanding obligations were met by the brother-in-law of Bento’s friend Simon
de Vries. (Simon, who had died ten years earlier, in 1667, had offered to leave Bento his entire estate.
Bento had declined, saying that it was unfair to Simon’s family and that, moreover, money would be
only a distraction to him. Simon’s family offered Bento an annual annuity of five hundred guilders.
That, too, Spinoza declined, insisting it was more than he needed. He finally agreed to a small annuity
of three hundred guilders.)
The auction of Spinoza’s property was conducted by W. van den Hove, a conscientious notary who
left a detailed inventory of the 159 books in Spinoza’s library, with precise information about the date,
publisher, and format of each book. In 1900 George Rosenthal, a Dutch businessman, used the
notary’s list to try to reassemble the philosopher’s book collection for the Spinozahuis at Rijnsburg.
Great care was taken to purchase the same editions, with the same dates and cities, but, of course,
these were not the very same books that Spinoza had held in his hands. (In chapter 32 I imagine a
scene in which Alfred Rosenberg is unaware of this fact.) Eventually George Rosenthal was able to
collect 110 of the 159 books in Spinoza’s original collection. He also donated another 35
pre-seventeenth-century books, as well as works on Spinoza’s life and philosophy.
Spinoza was buried under the flagstones inside the Nieuwe Kerk, causing many to assume that he
had undergone a late conversion to Christianity. Yet, given Spinoza’s sentiment that “the notion that
God took upon himself the nature of man seems as self-contradictory as would be the statement that
the circle has taken on the nature of the square,” a conversion seems highly unlikely. In liberal
seventeenth-century Holland, the burial of non-Protestants inside churches was not rare. Even
Catholics, who were far more disliked in Protestant Holland than Jews, were occasionally buried
inside the church. (In the following century, policy changed, and only the very wealthy and prominent
were buried there.) As was the custom, Spinoza’s burial plot was rented for a limited number of
years, and when there was no longer maintenance money available, probably after ten years, his
bones were disinterred and scattered in the half-acre churchyard next to the church.
As the years passed, the Netherlands claimed him, and his prominence grew such that his portrait
was featured on the Dutch thousand-guilder banknote until the euro was introduced in 2002. Like all
portraits of Spinoza, the banknote portrait was based on scanty written descriptions; no likenesses of
Spinoza were drawn during his lifetime.
A plaque was placed in the Nieuwe Kerk churchyard in 1927 to commemorate the
two-hundred-fiftieth anniversary of Spinoza’s death. Several Jewish enthusiasts from Palestine, who
wished to reclaim Baruch Spinoza as a Jew, were involved in the commemoration. The Latin
inscription reads: “This earth covers the bones of Benedictus Spinoza, once buried in the new
church.”
In Palestine, at about the same time as the unveiling of this plaque, Joseph Klausner, the renowned
historian and later a candidate in Israel’s first presidential election, delivered a speech at Hebrew
University in which he declared that the Jewish people had committed a terrible sin in
excommunicating Spinoza; he called for a repudiation of the idea that Spinoza was a heretic. He
ended, “To Spinoza, the Jew, we call out . . . from atop Mount Scopus, out of our new sanctuary—the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem—the ban is rescinded! Judaism’s wrongdoing against you is hereby
lifted, and whatever was your sin against her shall be forgiven. Our brother are you, our brother are
you, our brother are you!”
In 1956, the three-hundredth anniversary of Spinoza’s excommunication, Heer H. F. K. Douglas,
one of Spinoza’s Dutch admirers, conceived the idea of constructing an additional memorial next to
the 1927 plaque. Knowing that Ben-Gurion, the prime minister of Israel, much admired Spinoza, Heer
Douglas asked for his support. Ben-Gurion enthusiastically offered it, and when the word spread in
Israel, members of a humanistic Jewish organization in Haifa, who considered Spinoza the progenitor
of Jewish humanism, offered to contribute a black basalt stone as part of the memorial. The formal
unveiling of the monument was well attended and included governmental representatives of both
Holland and Israel. Ben-Gurion did not attend the unveiling but visited the memorial in an official
ceremony three years later.
The new plaque, placed next to the 1927 plaque, contained a relief of Spinoza’s head and the single
word “Caute” (caution) found on Spinoza’s ring seal, and, below that, the black Israeli basalt stone
sealed to the plaque contains the Hebrew word עמך (amcha), meaning “Your People.”
Some Israelis took issue with Ben-Gurion’s attempts to reclaim Spinoza. Orthodox members of
the Knesset were so outraged by the idea of Israel honoring Spinoza that they called for the censure
of both Ben-Gurion and the foreign minister, Golda Meir, for instructing the Israeli ambassador in
Holland to attend the unveiling.
Earlier, in an article, Ben-Gurion addressed the issue of Spinoza’s excommunication. “It is difficult
to blame the Jewish community in seventeenth century Amsterdam. Their position was precarious . . .
and the traumatized Jewish community had the right to defend their cohesion. But today the Jewish
people do not have the right to forever exclude Spinoza the immortal from the Community of Israel.”
Ben-Gurion insisted that the Hebrew language is not complete without the works of Spinoza. And
indeed, shortly after the publication of his article, the Hebrew University published the entire body of
Spinoza’s work in Hebrew.
Some Jews wished Ben-Gurion to appeal to the Amsterdam rabbinate for reversal of the
excommunication, but he declined and wrote: “I did not seek to have the excommunication annulled,
since I took it for granted that the excommunication is null and void. . . There is a street in Tel-Aviv
bearing Spinoza’s name, and there is not one single reasonable person in this country who thinks
that the excommunication is still in force.”
Image copyright Omer Tamir. Permission granted under Creative Commons/No Derivative Works
license.
The Rijnsburg Spinoza library was confiscated by Rosenberg’s ERR in 1942. Oberbereichsleiter
Schimmer, the working head of the ERR in the Netherlands, described the seizure in his 1942 report
(later to become an official Nuremburg document): “The libraries of the Societas Spinozana in Den
Haag and of the Spinoza-House in Rijnsburg also were packed. Packed in eighteen cases, they, too,
contain extremely valuable early works of great importance for the exploration of the Spinoza problem.
Not without reason did the director of the Societas Spinozana try, under false pretenses which we
uncovered, to withhold the library from us.”
The stolen Rijnsburg library was housed in Frankfurt along with the greatest store of plunder in
world history. Under Rosenberg’s leadership, the ERR stole over three million books from a thousand
libraries. When Frankfurt came under heavy allied bombardment in 1944, the Nazis hurriedly moved
their plunder to underground storage sites. Spinoza’s library, along with thousands of other
uncatalogued books, were sent to a salt mine at Hungen, near Munich. At the war’s end, all the
Hungen treasures were transferred to the American Offenbach central depot, where a small army of
librarians and historians searched for their owners. Eventually Dirk Marius Graswinckel, a Dutch
archivist, came upon Spinoza’s books and transferred the entire collection (minus only a handful of
books) to the Netherlands on the Mary Rotterdam, a Dutch ship. They arrived in Rijnsburg in March
1946 and were once again placed on display at the Spinoza Museum, where they may be viewed to
this very day.
For the month awaiting trial, Alfred remained in solitary confinement in the Nuremberg prison,
meeting only with the attorney preparing his defense, an American military physician, and a
psychologist. It was not until November 20, 1945, the first day of the trial, that he saw the other Nazi
defendants as they assembled before the presiding judicial body and the teams of prosecutors from
the United States, Great Britain, Russia, and France. Over the next eleven months all would assemble
in the same room 218 times.
There were twenty-four defendants, but only twenty-two were present for the trial. A twenty-third,
Robert Ley, had hanged himself with a towel in his cell two weeks earlier, and the twenty-fourth,
Martin Bormann, the “dictator of Hitler’s antechamber,” was to be tried in absentia, though it was
widely believed that he had been killed as the Russians overran Berlin. The defendants were seated on
four wooden benches arranged in two rows, with a row of armed soldiers standing at attention behind
them. Alfred was seated second in the front right bench. On the front left bench were Göring; Hess;
Joachim von Ribbentrop, Nazi minister of foreign affairs; and Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, supreme
commander of the military. In the months of detention preceding the trial, Göring had been
withdrawn from drugs, lost twenty-five pounds, and now appeared sleek and jovial.
On Alfred’s right was Ernst Kaltenbrunner, highest surviving SS officer. On his left were Hans
Frank, governor-general of occupied Poland; Wilhelm Frick, Reich protector of Bohemia-Moravia; and
at the end of the bench, Julius Streicher, editor of Der Stürmer. Alfred must have been relieved he did
not have to sit next to Streicher, whom he found particularly repulsive.
In the second row were such eminences as Admiral Dönitz, the Reich president after Hitler’s
suicide and the commander of the U-boat campaign, and Field Marshal Alfred Jodl. Both maintained
a haughty military bearing. Next sat Fritz Sauckel, head of the Nazi slave labor program; Arthur
Seyss-Inquart, Reich commissioner of the Netherlands; and then Albert Speer, Hitler’s close friend
and architect—a man whom Alfred hated almost as much as Goebbels. Next there were Walther
Funk, who turned the Reichsbank into a depository for gold teeth and other valuables seized from
concentration camp victims, and Baldur von Schirach, head of the Nazi youth program. The two other
defendants in the back row were lesser known Nazi businessmen.
The selection of the major Nazi war criminals had taken months. They were, of course, not the
original inner circle, but with the suicides of Hitler, Goebbels, and Himmler, these men represented
the best-known Nazis. Finally, finally, Alfred Rosenberg had entered the inner circle. True to character,
Göring, Hitler’s second in command, tried to take control of the group, using a seductive twinkle or a
bullying glare, and soon many deferred to him. The prosecuting team, disturbed by the prospect of
Göring influencing the testimony of the other defendants, quickly took steps to separate Göring from
them. First, they ordered Göring to eat alone during lunch breaks on trial days, while the other
defendants sat at tables of three. Later, to minimize Göring’s influence even more, they enforced
stricter solitary confinement for all defendants. Alfred, as always, declined to participate in the few
remaining social opportunities available—during meals, on the walks to the courtroom, or whispered
comments during proceedings. The others did not conceal their dislike of him, and he reciprocated
fully: these were the men he considered responsible for the failure of the noble ideological foundation
he and the Führer had so carefully fashioned.
A few days into the trial the entire court viewed a powerful film made by American troops when
they had liberated concentration camps. Nothing, not a gruesome detail, was omitted: the entire court
was stunned and revolted by the screen images of gas chambers, the crematorium ovens crammed
with half-burned bodies, mountains of decaying corpses, huge mounds of articles taken from the
dead—spectacles, baby shoes, human hair. An American cameraman trained his lens on the faces of
the defendants as they watched the film. Rosenberg’s white face registered horror, and he
immediately looked away. After the film, he insisted, in concert with all of the Nazi defendants, that he
had had absolutely no idea of the existence of such things.
Was that true? How much did he know about the mass executions of the Jews in Eastern Europe?
What did he know of the death camps? Rosenberg took that secret to the grave. He left no paper trail,
no definitive proof. (Even Hitler’s signature never appeared on a document related to the camps.)
And, of course, Alfred never wrote about the camps in the Beobachter, since explicit Nazi policy
forbade any public discussion of the camps. Rosenberg was quick to point out to the court that he
had declined to attend the momentous Wannsee Conference in January 1942, attended by top Nazi
bureaucrats, during which Reinhard Heydrich vividly described the plans for the Final Solution.
Rosenberg sent his assistant, Alfred Meyer, in his stead. But Meyer was his close associate for many
years and it is inconceivable that the two never spoke of Wannsee.
On the trial’s seventeenth day, the prosecution presented as evidence a four-hour movie, The Nazi
Plan, compiled from various Nazi propaganda films and newsreels. The film began with clips from
the Leni Riefenstahl film The Triumph of the Will, in which Rosenberg, preening in his elaborate party
uniform, provided pompous narration. Alfred and the defendants did not conceal their enjoyment of
this brief trip back to their time of glory.
When other defendants were being cross-examined in the courtroom, Alfred was inattentive.
Sometimes he sketched faces of courtroom figures; sometimes he turned his earphones to the
Russian translation of the proceedings, smirking and shaking his head at the plethora of errors. Even
during his own examination, he listened to the Russian translation and publicly protested the many
mistakes of interpretation.
Throughout the trial Rosenberg was taken far more seriously by the court than he ever had been by
the Nazis themselves. Many times the court described him as the leading ideologue of the Nazi Party,
the man who drew the blueprint of European destruction, and Rosenberg never once denied these
charges. One may imagine Göring’s mixed responses: scoffing at Rosenberg’s presumed importance
in the Third Reich and, on the other hand, snickering at Rosenberg’s obliviousness to the fact he was
driving nails into his own coffin.
During his long defense testimony, Rosenberg’s evasiveness, pedantic tone, and complex
language greatly irritated the prosecutors. Unlike Hitler, they were not taken in by his pretense at
profundity, perhaps because the Nuremberg lawyers had the advantage of IQ test results
administered by the American psychologist Lieutenant G. M. Gilbert. Rosenberg’s 124 IQ placed him
at the median of the twenty-one defendants. (Julius Streicher, editor in chief of Hitler’s favorite
newspaper, placed dead last at 106.) Though Rosenberg maintained his well-practiced superior smirk,
he no longer fooled anyone into thinking that he thought deeper thoughts than they could
comprehend.
The chief American counsel, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert J. Jackson, wrote, “It was
Rosenberg, the intellectual high priest of the ‘master race,’ who provided the doctrine of hatred which
gave the impetus for the annihilation of Jewry, and who put his infidel theories into practice against
the Eastern Occupied Territories. His woolly philosophy also added boredom to the long list of Nazi
atrocities.”
In his collected letters Thomas Dodd, American executive trial counsel (and father of Senator
Christopher Dodd), bared his feelings about Rosenberg: “Two more days are gone. I cross-examined
Alfred Rosenberg this morning and think I did an adequate job. . . . He was most difficult to
examine—an evasive lying rogue, if ever I saw one. I actually dislike him—he is such a faker, such a
complete hypocrite.”
Sir David Maxwell, the chief British prosecutor, commented, “The only evidence presented is the
claim that Rosenberg wouldn’t hurt a fly and that the witnesses have seen him not hurting flies.
Rosenberg was a master of euphemism, a bureaucratic pedant, whose seemingly endless sentences
snaked about, intertwined, and stuck to each other like overboiled spaghetti.”
And the closing statement of the Russian chief prosecutor, General Rudenko, ended with these
words: “In spite of Rosenberg’s efforts to juggle with historical facts and events, he cannot deny that
he was the official ideologist of the Nazi Party; that already a quarter of a century ago, he had laid the
‘theoretical’ foundations of the fascist Hitlerite State, which during this whole period morally
corrupted millions of Germans, preparing them ‘ideologically’ for the monstrous crimes committed
by the Hitlerites.”
Rosenberg had only one possible effective defense—that his Nazi colleagues had never taken him
seriously and that all the policies he proposed in the occupied eastern countries were entirely
ignored. But he had too inflated an opinion of his worth to admit publicly his own insignificance.
Instead, he chose to meander evasively hour after hour. As one Nuremberg observer put it, “It was no
more possible to grasp what he was saying than to grab a handful of cloud.”
Unlike the other defendants, Rosenberg never recanted. At the end he remained the sole true
believer. He never repudiated Hitler and his racist ideology. “I did not see in Hitler a tyrant,”
Rosenberg told the court, “but like many millions of National Socialists, I trusted him personally on
the strength of the experience of a fourteen-year-long struggle. I served Adolf Hitler loyally, and
whatever the party may have done during those years, I supported that too.” In a conversation with
another defendant, he defended Hitler even more emphatically: “No matter how often I go over
everything in my mind, I still cannot believe there was a single flaw in that man’s character.” He
continued to insist on the correctness of his ideology: “What has motivated me the last twenty-five
years was the idea of wanting to serve not only the German people, but the whole of Europe—in fact
the whole white race.” And shortly before his death, he expressed the hope that the idea of National
Socialism would never be forgotten and would be “reborn from a new generation steeled by
suffering.”
October 1, 1946, was judgment day. The court had met 218 times and for the previous six weeks
had been adjourned while the jurists engaged in prolonged deliberations. On the morning of October
1, each defendant learned, in order of their seating, the verdict of the court. Three
defendants—Schacht, von Papen, and Fritzsche—were acquitted and offered immediate freedom.
The rest were found guilty of some or all of the charges.
That afternoon each defendant learned his fate. Alfred was the sixth man to face the court:
“Defendant Alfred Rosenberg, on the Counts of the Indictment on which you have been convicted,
the Tribunal sentences you to death by hanging.”
Ten other defendants heard the identical words: Göring, Von Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner,
Jodl, Frank, Frick, Streicher, Seyss-Inquart, and Sauckel. Martin Bormann received his death sentence
in absentia, and the remaining seven were sentenced to varying periods of imprisonment.
The executions were set for early morning on October 16, 1946. After the sentencing, a military
guard stood outside each cell observing the prisoner around the clock through a small opening in the
cell door. On the day before the executions the defendants could hear the sounds of hammering as
three gallows were constructed in the prison courtyard.
At 11 PM on October 15, the night before the executions were scheduled to commence, the guard
outside Göring’s cell heard him groaning and saw him twitching in his bed. The camp commander
and physician rushed into his cell, but Göring was already dead. Glass fragments in his mouth gave
evidence that he had bitten into a cyanide capsule. Hundreds of such suicide capsules had been
distributed to the Nazi leaders, but it has remained a mystery how Göring managed, despite multiple
close searches of his self and property, to conceal the one that ended his life. The other defendants
never learned of Göring’s death. Von Ribbentrop would replace Göring as the first to be called.
Guards entered each cell, one by one, called out the prisoner’s name, and escorted the condemned
man to the gymnasium, which only a couple days before had been used by American security officers
for a basketball game. On October 16, it contained three black-painted wooden scaffolds. Two
gallows were used alternately. The third one was unused, there only for insurance. Planks lined the
base of the scaffold so that once the hanged man dropped, spectators could not see him struggling at
the end of the rope.
Rosenberg, fourth in line, was handcuffed, brought to the base of the gallows, and asked his name.
In a soft voice he replied, “Rosenberg,” and, with a U.S. Army sergeant supporting him on each side,
he ascended the thirteen steps of the gallows. When asked if he had any last words, his dark-circled
eyes appeared bewildered as he looked at the hangman for a few moments and then shook his head
vigorously. Each of the other nine Nazis made a final statement—Streicher shouted, “The Bolsheviks
will hang you one day.” But Rosenberg went to his death silently. Like a sphinx.
The bodies of Göring and the nine hanged men were placed in coffins and photographed to
remove any doubt that they were, indeed, dead. By cover of night, the ten bodies were taken to
Dachau, where the ovens were fired up one last time to incinerate their makers. Sixty pounds of ash,
all that remained of the Nazi leaders, were scattered into a stream and soon drifted into the Isar River,
which flows through Munich, where this saddest and darkest of all stories had begun.
==
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