Free Winter of the World by Ken Follett Page A

said he had no sense of danger, but that was not quite right. He did get scared sometimes, but it always made him feel combative. His instinct was to go on the attack, not to retreat. This
scared his mother.
    Ironically, she was just the same. She was not going home. She was frightened, but she was also thrilled to be here in Berlin at this turning point in German history, and outraged by the
violence and repression she was witnessing; and she felt sure she could write a book that would forewarn democrats in other countries about Fascist tactics. ‘You’re worse than
me,’ Lloyd had said to her, and she had had no answer.
    Inside, the opera house was swarming with Brownshirts and SS men, many of them armed. They guarded every door and showed, with looks and gestures, their hatred and contempt for anyone not
supporting the Nazis.
    Walter was late for a Social Democratic Party group meeting. Lloyd hurried around the building looking for the right room. Glancing into the debating chamber, he saw that a giant swastika hung
from the ceiling, dominating the room.
    The first matter to be discussed, when proceedings began that afternoon, was to be the Enabling Act, which would permit Hitler’s cabinet to pass laws without the approval of the
Reichstag.
    The Act offered a dreadful prospect. It would make Hitler a dictator. The repression, intimidation, violence, torture and murder that Germany had seen in the past few weeks would become
permanent. It was unthinkable.
    But Lloyd could not imagine that any parliament in the world would pass such a law. They would be voting themselves out of power. It was political suicide.
    He found the Social Democrats in a small auditorium. Their meeting had already begun. Lloyd hurried Walter to the room, then he was sent for coffee.
    Waiting in the queue, he found himself behind a pale, intense-looking young man dressed in funereal black. Lloyd’s German had become more fluent and colloquial, and he now had the
confidence to strike up a conversation with a stranger. The man in black was Heinrich von Kessel, he learned. He was doing the same sort of job as Lloyd, working as an unpaid aide to his father,
Gottfried von Kessel, a deputy for the Centre Party, which was Catholic.
    ‘My father knows Walter von Ulrich very well,’ Heinrich said. ‘They were both attachés at the German embassy in London in 1914.’
    The world of international politics and diplomacy was quite small, Lloyd reflected.
    Heinrich told Lloyd that a return to the Christian faith was the answer to Germany’s problems.
    ‘I’m not much of a Christian,’ Lloyd said candidly. ‘I hope you don’t mind my saying so. My grandparents are Welsh Bible-punchers, but my mother is indifferent and
my stepfather’s Jewish. Occasionally we go to the Calvary Gospel Hall in Aldgate, mainly because the pastor is a Labour Party member.’
    Heinrich smiled and said: ‘I’ll pray for you.’
    Catholics were not proselytizers, Lloyd remembered. What a contrast to his dogmatic grandparents in Aberowen, who thought that people who did not believe as they did were wilfully blinding
themselves to the gospel, and would be condemned to eternal damnation.
    When Lloyd re-entered the Social Democratic Party meeting, Walter was speaking. ‘It can’t happen!’ he said. ‘The Enabling Act is a constitutional amendment. Two thirds of
the representatives must be present, which would be 432 out of a possible 647. And two thirds of those present must approve.’
    Lloyd added up the numbers in his head as he put the tray down on the table. The Nazis had 288 seats, and the Nationalists who were their close allies had 52, making 340 – nearly 100
short. Walter was right. The Act could not be passed. Lloyd was comforted and sat down to listen to the discussion and to improve his German.
    But his relief was short-lived. ‘Don’t be so sure,’ said a man with a working-class Berlin accent. ‘The Nazis are caucusing with the Centre