landscape), and the glimpses of secret gardens of Magnolia grandiflora and aristocratic old climbing roses and, underneath his feet, miles of books, stoically waiting, and the sound of bells and
the filtered voices of choirs, and strained piano notes flying from the Holy well Music Rooms.
Von Gottberg went back to Germany taking the imprint of Oxford with him. And for sixty years, E.A. Mendel walked around this
little rat-maze of stone and stained glass and richly fired brick, guilty about von Gottberg.
Von Gottberg's ninety-three-year-old wife, Liselotte, and one of his children, Caroline, have received him at their country
house, which is now given over to a religious foundation in his memory. This is the house to which they fled when the Russians
approached. The old lady said Axel loved Oxford. The daughter, Caroline, now sixty-three, had slightly staring, apparently
sightless eyes, the result, he guessed, of a kind of mysticism: she could see beyond the merely corporeal. As they sat in
the garden to talk, he saw that they were both sanctified and burdened by being good Germans. When he asked about von Gottberg's
feelings towards his Oxford friends, whether he felt he had been let down by Mendel, Lionel Wray and others, Caroline looked
to her mother for an answer. When there was none, she spoke -Conrad remembers dandelion heads floating behind her, past the
latticed brick of the old house — saying that there may have been this problem: my father was a German patriot, he wanted
to save Germany from Hitler. I think that some of his Oxford friends believed he wanted glory for himself. That is my understanding.
He wrote to us the night before he died, and we did not receive this letter although my mother was told in 1946 by a chaplain
that what he had written was that he regretted most that he was unable to use his experience and his insights to help the
country he loved. And when Conrad asked her, Do you think that means he believed his friends had let him down, she said, You
should ask my mother. The old lady, who was smiling at very low wattage, said, Yes, I think he was disappointed. Yes.
Conrad mentioned the letter to the Manchester Guardian that had so upset Mendel: Some of your husband's friends were worried about that letter. Liselotte said, When I met him in
1975, Mr Mendel said that he now believed that Axel wrote that letter because he wanted to deceive the Nazis. And literally
what Axel wrote was true: where he was working as a prosecutor, he saw no discrimination against Jews in 1934. But, as you
know, he tried to withdraw the letter the day after he sent it. Mr Mendel said that as a Jew he had felt that it was impossible
for Axel to have written that letter without compromising himself. But he wrote to Axel in 1939, saying that he would always
regard him with the warmest affection. Everyone always loved Axel, she said. And Caroline said, I think the Oxford friends
thought that Oxford was, how you say, the centre of the universe. My father loved Oxford, yes, but Germany came the first.
Conrad was invited to supper in the vaulted dining room. Liselotte had gone to bed. He ate with Caroline and some solemn Christians;
it seemed they were subdued, still stunned by the murder of Christ, the Nazis, the beastliness of the human race, their closeness
to an authentic martyr. He slept that night under a stag's head in the local inn, the Schwarzer Bock.
But he knew that families cannot be fully trusted: they manufacture their own myths. He didn't tell them that the film of
von Gottberg being hanged, naked, might still exist.
1
WHO ASKED YOU?
Difficult question. Nobody and everybody. What Francine meant was why did he think he had some obligation or right to rummage
about collecting - not a very systematic collection -ideas? She said he was like a shoplifter in a supermarket. What she meant
too was that he lived in a chaotic state, constantly picking up ideas
the filtered voices of choirs, and strained piano notes flying from the Holy well Music Rooms.
Von Gottberg went back to Germany taking the imprint of Oxford with him. And for sixty years, E.A. Mendel walked around this
little rat-maze of stone and stained glass and richly fired brick, guilty about von Gottberg.
Von Gottberg's ninety-three-year-old wife, Liselotte, and one of his children, Caroline, have received him at their country
house, which is now given over to a religious foundation in his memory. This is the house to which they fled when the Russians
approached. The old lady said Axel loved Oxford. The daughter, Caroline, now sixty-three, had slightly staring, apparently
sightless eyes, the result, he guessed, of a kind of mysticism: she could see beyond the merely corporeal. As they sat in
the garden to talk, he saw that they were both sanctified and burdened by being good Germans. When he asked about von Gottberg's
feelings towards his Oxford friends, whether he felt he had been let down by Mendel, Lionel Wray and others, Caroline looked
to her mother for an answer. When there was none, she spoke -Conrad remembers dandelion heads floating behind her, past the
latticed brick of the old house — saying that there may have been this problem: my father was a German patriot, he wanted
to save Germany from Hitler. I think that some of his Oxford friends believed he wanted glory for himself. That is my understanding.
He wrote to us the night before he died, and we did not receive this letter although my mother was told in 1946 by a chaplain
that what he had written was that he regretted most that he was unable to use his experience and his insights to help the
country he loved. And when Conrad asked her, Do you think that means he believed his friends had let him down, she said, You
should ask my mother. The old lady, who was smiling at very low wattage, said, Yes, I think he was disappointed. Yes.
Conrad mentioned the letter to the Manchester Guardian that had so upset Mendel: Some of your husband's friends were worried about that letter. Liselotte said, When I met him in
1975, Mr Mendel said that he now believed that Axel wrote that letter because he wanted to deceive the Nazis. And literally
what Axel wrote was true: where he was working as a prosecutor, he saw no discrimination against Jews in 1934. But, as you
know, he tried to withdraw the letter the day after he sent it. Mr Mendel said that as a Jew he had felt that it was impossible
for Axel to have written that letter without compromising himself. But he wrote to Axel in 1939, saying that he would always
regard him with the warmest affection. Everyone always loved Axel, she said. And Caroline said, I think the Oxford friends
thought that Oxford was, how you say, the centre of the universe. My father loved Oxford, yes, but Germany came the first.
Conrad was invited to supper in the vaulted dining room. Liselotte had gone to bed. He ate with Caroline and some solemn Christians;
it seemed they were subdued, still stunned by the murder of Christ, the Nazis, the beastliness of the human race, their closeness
to an authentic martyr. He slept that night under a stag's head in the local inn, the Schwarzer Bock.
But he knew that families cannot be fully trusted: they manufacture their own myths. He didn't tell them that the film of
von Gottberg being hanged, naked, might still exist.
1
WHO ASKED YOU?
Difficult question. Nobody and everybody. What Francine meant was why did he think he had some obligation or right to rummage
about collecting - not a very systematic collection -ideas? She said he was like a shoplifter in a supermarket. What she meant
too was that he lived in a chaotic state, constantly picking up ideas
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