The Spinoza Problem (40 page)

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.”

“
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.

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:

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.