Read Winds of War for Free Online Page A

That you rely on this man’s prudence for your safety, and for Natalie’s, strikes me as grotesque.”
    “Does it?” Jastrow glanced at his watch and sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m impressed with Hitler’s ability to use socialist prattle when necessary, and then discard it. He uses doctrines as he uses money, to get things done. They’re expendable. He uses racism because that’s the pure distillate of German romantic egotism, just as Lenin used utopian Marxism because it appealed to Russia’s messianic streak. Hitler means to hammer out a united Europe. If a nonsense jumble of racist bunkum, socialist promises, brass bands, parades, uniforms, and weepy songs is what welds Germans into a blunt instrument, he gives them that. The Germans are stolid, clever, brutal, and docile, and they will vigorously execute any command barked at them with a loud enough voice. He understands them, and he may just succeed. A unified Europe must come. The medieval jigsaw of nations is obsolete. The balance of power is dangerous foolishness in the industrial age. It must all be thrown out. Somebody has to be ruthless enough to do it, since the peoples with their ancient hatreds will never do it themselves. It’s only Napoleon’s original vision, but he was a century ahead of his time. The old crowd was still strong enough to catch and put him in a crate to die. But there’s nobody to cage Hitler.”
    Byron blurted, “Dr. Jastrow, when I was in Germany I saw the signs on park benches and in trolley cars about the Jews. I saw burnt-out synagogues.”
    “Yes?”
    They all looked at him. He went on, “I’m surprised you talk as calmly about Hitler as you do. Being Jewish, I mean.”
    Dr. Jastrow smiled a slow, acid smile, showing little yellowish teeth with one gold crown. He stroked his beard and spoke deliberately, the classroom note strong. “Well! Your surprise doesn’t surprise me. Young people – young Americans especially - aren’t aware that the tolerance for Jews in Europe is only fifty to a hundred years old and that it’s never gone deep. It didn’t touch Poland, where I was born. Even in the west - what about the Dreyfus case? No, no. In that respect Hitler represents only a return to normalcy for Europe, after the brief glow of liberalism. The hostility simply moved from the church to the anti-Semitic parties, because the French Revolution changed Europe from a religious to a political continent. If Hitler does win out, the Jews will fall back to the second-class status they always had under the kings and the popes. Well, we survived seventeen centuries of that. We have a lot of wisdom and doctrine for coping with it.”
    Slote shook his head. “You love to spin such talk, I know, but I wish you would do it on the next boat home.”
    “But I’m quite serious, Leslie,” Jastrow said with a faintly puckish smile. “You rang wild alarms when Mussolini passed the anti-Jewish laws. They proved a joke.”
    “They’re on the books, if the Germans ever press him to use them.”
    “The Italians loathe and fear the Germans to a man. Even if by some mischance there is a war, Italy won’t fight. Siena may well be as safe a place as any.”
    “I doubt that Natalie’s parents think so.”
    “She can go home tomorrow. Perhaps she finds Siena slightly more attractive than Miami Beach.”
    “I’m thinking of going,” the girl said. “But not because I’m afraid of war or of Hitler. There are things that bother me more.”
    “I daresay,” Jastrow said.
    Slote’s face turned astonishingly red. His pipe lay smoking on an ashtray, and he was playing with a yellow pencil he had taken from a pocket, turning it in one fist. The pencil stopped turning.
    Jastrow stood. “Byron, come along.”
    They left the girl and the scarlet-faced man at the table, glowering at each other.
    Books filled the shelves of a small wood-panelled library, and stood in piles on the desk and on the floor. Over a marble fireplace a stiff Sienese