The Spinoza Problem (45 page)

“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!”

T
hough 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:

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.