‘Who are those dreadful men?’

      The birthday party that Harald and Veronica Winter put on for their younger son, Pauli’s twenty-fourth birthday was the first real birthday party he’d had since he was a child. Although unsaid, it was his parent’s celebration of Pauli Winter’s first term at university, his return to civilian life. The lovely old house was ablaze with lights and noisy with the excited chatter of more than fifty guests and a ten-piece dance band. In a grim sort of joke that was typically berlinerisch, the invitations were overprinted upon billion-mark banknotes. Back before the war, an unskilled worker in one of Harald Winter’s factories earned twenty-five marks a week, but the staggering inflation of the previous year had seen the value of Germany’s paper money plunge to a point where one U.S. dollar bought over two and a half billion marks. Foreigners came across the border from Holland and Czechoslovakia and bought land and mansions with handfuls of hard currency. Then finally the madness ended. The Reichsbank issued its new Rentenmarks, one of which was worth one billion in the old currency. As if in celebration, Aschingers, the famous restaurant near the Friedrichstrasse railway station, offered one main dish, a glass of beer, a dessert, and as many rolls as you cared to eat for just one new mark. Inflation had stopped.

      As the smoke cleared, it was apparent that the middle classes had suffered most: in the final few terrible weeks most people’s life savings totalled not enough to buy a postage stamp. But some Germans had not suffered. Harald Winter had almost doubled his fortune. Like many industrialists, he was allowed to borrow from the Reichsbank, which, in the manner of most government departments, reacted very slowly to the events of the day. Thus, even when the Reichsbank was charging its top rate of interest, Harald Winter could continue borrowing and repaying at rates far, far below that of inflation. And by 1924 the five-million-Reichsmark debt due to his father-in-law was nothing like enough to buy a meal in Aschingers. It could be renegotiated to almost anything Harald Winter decided.

      But not everyone present at Pauli’s birthday party this evening had been as fortunate and as astute as Winter. Many of them had had at least a part of their money in government securities, and now they were talking about the law of December 8, 1923. The socialist government had decided that their own debts were to be advantageously revalued – for instance, the reparations due to France – but the millions of holders of now worthless government securities would not be compensated.

      ‘By God!’ said Frau Wisliceny, who’d come with her daughters and, to Peter Winter’s indignation, brought her son-in-law Erich Hennig. ‘I’m beginning to believe that ruffian Hitler is right about the rogues who govern us.’ Frau Wisliceny had not mellowed with age – a big, handsome, matronly woman in an elaborate but decidedly unfashionable Paris gown that she’d had since before the war. Frau Wisliceny eachewed the new fashions for the sake of which women sacrificed their long hair and exposed their legs. Her voice was firm and decisive, and she prided herself that she was as well informed as anyone in Berlin and happy to argue about art, music, or politics with any man present.

      ‘Surely you would not wish to be ruled by such a rascal?’ said Richard Fischer. Foxy Fischer’s son, now forty-three years old and running the family’s steel empire, had left his ageing father in order to flirt with Inge until Frau Wisliceny moved into the group. Not that Frau Wisliceny would oppose a marriage between the two of them or object to Richard’s flirting. Richard Fischer was the most eligible of bachelors, and her eldest daughter was getting to an age when to be unmarried was noticeable. But Inge had not given up hope of marrying Peter Winter, and as long as he remained single she had eyes for no one else.

      ‘You’d better lower your voice,’ Erich Hennig advised. ‘That little Captain Graf over there is one of Hitler’s most notorious strongarm men, and the big brute with him is his so-called adjutant.’

      ‘I’m not frightened to speak my mind,’ said Fischer. He, too, was a big fellow, and his full beard, the confident manner that his riches provided, made him a formidable adversary in any sort of conflict.

      ‘Hitler will go to prison anyway,’ said Frau Wisliceny, in an attempt to avoid any friction that might arise between her son-in-law and Fischer. ‘Even the Bavarians won’t let him get away with an armed putsch against their legally elected government.’

      ‘I’m not sure he will,’ said Peter Winter. He was tall and slim, with a pale complexion that had come from long hours studying his law books. In his well-fitting evening suit he was as handsome as any man in the room. He’d let his dark hair grow unfashionably long, so that it touched the top of his ears. Inge eyed him adoringly. Peter was not the sort of man every girl would want: some said he was an unbending snob, too old-fashioned for the fast-moving permissiveness of Berlin in the twenties. But Inge had decided that there could be no other man for her, and now that her sister Lisl was married…‘My class in law school went to Munich last week. We spent some time with the prosecution people, and they let us see the evidence.’

      ‘But there is nothing to prove,’ said Lisl. ‘Hitler’s guilty. It was an attempt to seize power by armed force. It’s simply a matter of sentencing him.’

      Peter looked at her before replying. Marriage to the awful Hennig obviously agreed with her. She looked well and happy and was even more self-confident than he remembered. Most of her friends had predicted that she’d be crushed by the opinionated, dogmatic, domineering Hennig, but the opposite had happened: it was Lisl who made all the decisions, and when it came to political opinions Hennig deferred to his beautiful young wife.

      Peter said, ‘You only need half an hour in Munich