Unity by Michael Arditti Read Free Book Online Page B

where labour costs are cheaper (I sound like my mother). For the rest, Wolfram aims to use as many of the actual locations as possible. This is partly to ensure authenticity but also to test a rather Gothic belief that every building retains a unique energy (I’d have thought that there were some which it would be wiser not to tap into, but never mind). In Munich, this is easier than you might have supposed. While much of the city centre was destroyed during the War, it was rebuilt along its original lines. Besides, as luck would have it, many of the principal Unity sites remain intact. Almost every day, I walk down the Ludwigstrasse, which is where she had her pension and Diana her flat. Having escaped both the bombers and the developers, its blandly symmetrical architecture stretches for miles without a trace of individuality or caprice. Even the four ancient philosophers guarding the library, known for reasons I have yet to fathom as the Three Wise Men, appear to have railway-timetable minds.
    The Osteria Bavaria has survived, thinly disguised as the Osteria Italiana. Last week, Wolfram took me there for dinner. I felt a strange mixture of excitement and unease to think that Iwas standing in the room in which Unity first met Hitler. It was here that their story – and, in a sense therefore, ours – began. My discomfort increased as he pointed to the corner where Hitler had his permanent table. There, he would sit among his fawning followers and painstakingly study the menu before ordering the inevitable ravioli, accompanied by some equally predictable by-play with the waitresses about his expanding girth. I remember how, at Cambridge, you insisted that, unless we made Hitler human, we would absolve the audience of responsibility. But, surely, this was a trait too far? It begins with pasta and ends with the Hitler Cookbook. I no longer felt comfortable about eating there … and, fortunately, I didn’t have to, since as soon as the owner learnt of Wolfram’s presence, he stormed out of the kitchen and ordered us to leave. It seems that one of the early films, Stadtguerillas (it was never released in England), featured the restaurant in a less than favourable light. Despite Wolfram’s show of outrage, I think he was secretly flattered. Energy or not, that is one set that will have to be built.
    Authentic Third Reich architecture poses a different problem, namely, that there is so little of it left. Knowing your aversion to schlock, I don’t suppose that you’ve seen The Eagle Has Landed . 22 Wolfram and Heike are scathing about the opening scene set in a Berlin building with very English sash windows. That grates on German sensibilities the way that Hollywood’s treatment of British history (‘Crusades, crusades, crusades, that’s all you ever think about, Dickie Plantagenet!’ 23 ) does on ours. The illusion should be easier to sustain given Wolfram’s decision to film inblack and white (‘my two favourite colours’). His aim is both to establish a Thirties style and to prevent the audience from identifying too closely with the characters. ‘This is the story of Germany and England not a romantic melodrama.’
    All is not lost – or bombed or demolished. In Munich, there are two existing buildings which are perfect for our purposes: the Haus der Kunst , now the Museum of Modern Art (I was about to say too modern until I remembered that that was also Hitler’s attitude) and the Führerbau , the administrative headquarters where he signed Chamberlain’s ‘piece of paper’ and which is now a music and drama school. In Berlin, the Nazi sites are less accessible . If only the Wall had been erected a mile or so to the right (I’m sure it’s a deliberate Commie plot to thwart us!), we could have used the Propaganda Ministry and Göring’s Air Ministry. As it is, we must pin our hopes on a couple of embassies (I think they’re the Spanish and Italian). Meanwhile, there’s the Olympic Stadium, complete with