Chapter 47 Munich, 1919

Hastin passed away, but Fink Manor did not disband. Larma, who had long since recovered from the grief of losing her son, continued to be responsible for cleaning, laundry, and some miscellaneous tasks. After being promoted to the position of steward, according to the tradition of the Finkenstein family, Barrend no longer served as a cook, woodcutter, porter, or security guard. They hired someone else to handle these odd jobs, but that didn't mean Barrend could relax. In fact, being a good steward meant carrying a heavier burden than the average servant.

Anna didn't show up, which surprised Zhang Hainuo. After completing Hastin's funeral, he immediately set off for Lugen Island. When he arrived, he learned that with the end of the war and the significant reduction in the navy's size, the naval convalescent home had long been disbanded, and the staff there had all moved on to other jobs.

Following Anna's previous address, Zhang Hainuo went to Kailheim again, a Bavarian town less than 100 kilometers from Munich. Anna's family used to live at 32 Hangland Street in the eastern part of the town.

"They moved out six months ago?"

After nervously knocking on the door of the apartment building, Zhang Hainuo was greeted by a disproportionately shaped middle-aged woman. After a simple inquiry, he was informed that a military officer and his family had indeed lived there before, but they had moved out several months ago. As for where they had moved to, she had no idea.

At this moment, Zhang Hainuo didn't know whether to curse fate or take it as a blessing. Although he knew Anna's father's name, if he had retired, even if he found information from the Army Archives, it would likely be this old address. After roughly estimating the itinerary and time, Zhang Hainuo immediately set off for Munich, where he could not only check the archives of the Bavarian military but also visit the birthplace of Hitler.

Munich, the capital of Bavaria after World War I, could be called a land of controversy. On November 7, 1918, a revolution took place here. Led by a Jewish writer, hundreds of people swaggered through the streets, occupied the parliament and government buildings without firing a shot, and declared the establishment of a republic. Such a republic naturally could not last long. Three months later, the leader of this republic was assassinated by a young right-wing military officer, and the workers then established a Soviet Republic. However, it didn't last long. In May 1919, regular army troops sent from Berlin and the Bavarian "Freikorps" paramilitary forces entered Munich, overthrowing the Soviet regime and carrying out a brutal massacre, putting Bavaria back into the hands of the right-wing forces.

In addition to advocating restoration, the Bavarian right-wing also included many demobilized soldiers. The end of the war brought about huge changes for them. They couldn't find jobs, had nowhere to go, and reality blocked their path back to the peaceful society before the war. As a result, they "became revolutionaries for revolution's sake, hoping that revolution would become a permanent state".

When Zhang Hainuo arrived alone in Munich, he could still faintly see traces left by the bloody regime change of that May day. The streets were sparsely populated, and armed police and so-called "Freikorps" soldiers with weapons could be seen at street corners or outside shop windows, casually scrutinizing passersby.

At present, it was September 1919, and he guessed that this small party had probably not yet changed its name to the Nazi Party, the abbreviated form of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, which later became known to the world. When he asked several passersby, their answers confirmed his speculation.

After wandering the streets of Munich for a while, Zhang Hainuo ended up with several leaflets. There were extreme anti-Semitic propaganda leaflets, recruitment leaflets for Soviet unions and labor parties, as well as one that read "Bavarian Workers' Labor Party", but none of these were the targets Zhang Hainuo was looking for.

As the day grew dark, Zhang Hainuo found himself in a crowded inn. Although the economy in Germany was very depressed at the moment, and the unemployment rate was reaching new highs, the Germans still had the habit of going to the pub to drink and chat after dark. There were no waitresses in skirts politely saying "welcome", and the guests found their own seats and then asked the waiter to bring beer.

After a while, Zhang Hainuo found an empty seat in a corner of the inn. There were already two people sitting at the small round table, one was a scholarly young man wearing glasses, and the other was burly but without a rough look on his face. Zhang Hainuo walked through the crowded hall to the table, asked if he could sit there, and then sat down calmly, calling over the waiter.

"A pitcher of beer, a stack of peanuts, and a plate of potato cakes!"

The latter two were food he saw on other tables in the pub. Although he was hungry, he didn't want to stand out by ordering too much food. Being in a place where he was unfamiliar with life, it was better to keep a low profile!

The waiter soon brought his beer and food. As he leisurely ate, he observed the characters in the tavern, hoping to be pleasantly surprised by finding someone in a corner with a 3-7 split and a little mustache, or seeing a man in a black coat striding in from the door and delivering a passionate speech, but none of this happened. Before he left the tavern, two men stood on the table one after another to deliver speeches, but they were disappointing. One's speech was fluent but lacked strength, and he was soon booed down, while the other spoke convincingly but lacked vividness, and the audience's reaction was not strong.

Zhang Hainuo also noticed that while those two were speaking, the young man with glasses beside him kept jotting down notes in his notebook. If he wasn't a humble scholar, then he should be a spy or something similar. Zhang Hainuo remembered that Hitler had originally been ordered to investigate a small party, but by a coincidence, he ended up joining their party and soon became the leader.

Although he didn't gain anything substantial during these few hours in the tavern, it gave Zhang Hainuo a more accurate understanding of himself: in terms of eloquence and speaking ability, he was not much better than those two guys he saw earlier. Obviously, he couldn't rally these German citizens with just his mouth. In other words, he had no chance to replicate Hitler's rise to power.

After returning to the inn and taking a shower, Zhang Hainuo went to bed. The bed was relatively soft, which made him feel a bit sore in the back and waist after sleeping on hard floors for over a year. After washing up, he left early. It was time for work, and there were slightly more pedestrians on the street than when he arrived yesterday, but it seemed inconsistent with the identity of Munich as an industrial metropolis. When he crossed the street, he saw several newspaper boys selling freshly printed newspapers to passersby, so he bought two copies and found a café to drink coffee and read the newspaper.

After briefly reading the comments on the current situation, the criticisms, and the political articles, Zhang Hainuo began to browse through the last few pages, where he found a small paragraph in a very inconspicuous place: The German Workers' Party is holding a public rally. This is a party based on the working class and invites anyone with aspirations to attend! Location: Schutzenaclaub Beer Hall; Time: 7 p.m., September 26, 1919.

The German Workers' Party?

Zhang Hainuo's heart skipped a beat. This should be the predecessor of the Nazi Party!

He flipped to the first page of the newspaper, where the date of today was written next to the big header of the Munich Morning News: September 26, 1919.