Jeeves and Hitler

Mack Hall

P. G. Wodehouse wrote ten or so novels and perhaps fifty short stories about his two most famous fictional creations, Jeeves and Wooster. As Jeeves would say, "they make light, attractive reading" about the wealthy and rather dim Bertie Wooster and his brilliant valet, Jeeves. Although the stories were written over six decades, Bertie and Jeeves are forever young, living in an innocent England that never was. Like the white-telephone movies of the 1930s, the Jeeves and Wooster yarns are comic treats with no message, no edge, and no heavy breathing, and with only the most harmless of Roadrunner car crashes and explosions.

That exposition established, I relate to you, gentle reader, the recent communication I had from a bookseller:

Dear Amazon.com Customer,

As someone who has purchased or rated Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit by P. G. Wodehouse, you might like to know that With Hitler to the End: The Memoir of Hitler’s Valet will be released on September 1, 2009. You can pre-order yours…

The educated reader will agree that one cannot pre-order anything, just as one cannot pre-plan, pre-pay, or pre-position; one can only order, plan, pay, or position. My, my, my, what do they teach them in the schools these days?

But to the point: one can only marvel at Amazon.com’s intellectual and ideological contortions in connecting mild fictional amusement with very real genocide.

Heinz Linge was Hitler’s valet, and after his release from ten years of Soviet imprisonment wrote his memoirs, to be published this fall. Linge-Jeeves won’t receive any royalties, though, since he died in 1980.

Do you suppose that when Linge was born his parents said "Oh, what a fine-looking baby! I hope he grows up to be a servant to a mass-murderer!"

One wonders what a typical day in Linge’s life was like, imagining him quietly taking in the morning cup of tea to The One’s bedroom and parting the curtains:

"’Morning, Linge," yawns Dear Leader. "What sort of day is it?"

"Good morning, Dear Leader. Extremely clement, sir," says Linge. "Shall I lay out our hound’s-tooth check? We have an informal execution in the garden at two."

"Linge, one doesn’t like to complain, but you’ve served me the lapsang instead of the Irish breakfast tea!"

"I am terribly sorry, sir. I’ll have the kitchen maid who fills the tea canisters shot at once."

"Oh, that won’t be necessary; just send her to Dachau for end-of-life counseling. Never let it be said that the Fuhrer hasn’t a heart of gold as well as a will of iron, eh, what?"

"That is very kind of you, sir. I’ll draw your bath now, sir, if that is satisfactory."

Jeeves is always rescuing Bertie Wooster from jams into which the young master has gotten himself, often accidental engagements. Linge could have tried harder with his own master:

"So, Linge, you think I shouldn’t have gotten involved with Russia, eh? Pray tell why."

"Well, sir, Russia is an amusing and, shall we say, vivacious country, but for a man of your, er, quiet, retiring habits of drugs, the occult, and the occasional betrayal of old comrades…"

"Explain yourself, Linge."

"Ahem. While Russia is well-noted for Tchaikovsky, Chekhov, vodka, beefy farm girls with large forearms, and mass executions…"

"Aha! You see, Linge – mass executions. I like mass executions. The Soviets like mass executions. This is a marriage made in He…well, you know."

"Indeed, sir."

"So let’s have no more blithering rot about my incursion into the Soviet Union."

"Just as you say, sir."

What did Heinz Linge do for a living later in life? Was there much of a market for gentlemen’s gentlemen in Berlin in 1955?

"Well, Mr. Linge," says the employment counselor, "we seem to have a problem with your references. You say they all died in 1945? Ummm...you understand that there's not much call for valets for genocidal maniacs just now. Perhaps as a greeter at a big-box store...how are you at working with the public? Maybe a position as a market analyst for a bookstore chain?"