Prinzenplatz in Stuttgart
The four Jewish gentlemen
Prince Karl Philipp von Schwarzenberg was a principal architect of Napoleon’s defeat at Leipzig. Although he was Austrian, he is revered throughout Germany as a Field-Marshal who presided over the spectacular comeuppance on German soil of L’Empereur de la France. The statue in the Platz represents the Prince.
The officer leaving the Royal Württemberg Ministry of War, passing beneath the black-and-red flag of the Kingdom, is hurrying to Berlin. A member of the German Imperial General Staff, he has been on the telephone through the afternoon speaking with members of the Austro-Hungarian Imperial and Royal General Staff in Vienna. The several officers discussed appropriate responses to the assassination in Bosnia, little knowing that the Austrian Foreign Minister, Count Berchtold, had already begun plotting one of the most grandiose and vengeful ultimatums in history.
Across the Prinzenplatz, talking with three men, stands Hermann Schönfeld, the proprietor of the military tailor’s shop on the other side of the square. A respected leader of Stuttgart’s Jewish community, he is, as always, wearing a “morning” coat and Homburg hat, the dress of a prosperous gentleman. Because the Christian laws of Germany forbid commerce on Sundays, Herr Schönfeld and his three Hasidic cousins take advantage of their weekly, enforced idleness to engage in spirited debate of Talmudic law.
The four have met there for many years to the puzzlement of the police officer who often stops to eavesdrop, though he’s unable to make sense of the Hebrew and Yiddish he hears spoken. He’s a suspicious man, dull-witted and prejudiced, the sort who, in a mere nineteen years - among many like him - will become an enthusiastic member of the Nazi party.
He’s angry because “these Jews” know and understand things he doesn’t. It’s impossible for him to imagine that they can be proud of being German and Jewish at the same time. The policeman knows nothing of the world beyond the community he serves, being all too willing to believe the myths and propaganda he’s fed by political extremists.
