Mother Night

Campbell’s parents die before the end of the war, and Campbell suspects they died of broken hearts due to his wartime activities. Nevertheless, they leave him a sizable inheritance, and Campbell is able to live frugally off the interest in Greenwich village without working. He lives in seclusion for 13 years, with most of his possessions coming from a war surplus store. One night, he buys a wood carving kit and, struck by an inadvertent inspiration, carves his broom handle into a set of chess pieces. Seized by a need to show someone his work, Campbell goes to his downstairs neighbor to incite a game. The neighbor turns out to be a secret Russian agent operating in the United States, though he maintains his cover with Campbell for years, introducing himself as George Kraft. Kraft appears to be a painter, and he invites Campbell in for a game of chess. The two lonely men develop a close friendship that lasts for years before Kraft decides to “cruelly” use Campbell to advance “the Russian cause” (53).

Eventually, Campbell reveals his identity to Kraft, and Kraft, after reading his plays, praises their artistry. He encourages Campbell to write more, but Campbell demurs. When Kraft presses him, Campbell grows annoyed and leaves to check his mailbox. Amidst his regular mail, Campbell finds a copy of The White Christian Minuteman, “a scabrous, illiterate, anti-Semitic, anti-Negro, anti-Catholic hate sheet” (59). The paper has printed Campbell’s New York address, along with a letter from Bernard B. O’Hare, promising to visit violent retribution on Campbell very soon.

Campbell provides a brief biography of Lionel Jones, the publisher of The White Christian Minuteman. Born in 1889 in Haverhill, Massachusetts to a family of dentists, Jones attempts to follow in the family line, but while in dental school his papers increasingly turn into racist tracts pushing the hypothesis that the teeth of Jewish and Black Americans prove that “both groups were degenerate” (64). After a cache of weapons is found in his dorm room, he is expelled, marries a widow, and takes work as an embalmer, inventing a specialized embalming liquid. Upon the death of the widow, Jones uses his inheritance to start The White Christian Minuteman to promote his hateful ideologies. Though the paper soon goes out of business, Jones later restarts it, this time after being recruited and financially assisted by the Nazi propaganda division. Campbell admits he may have written pieces that appeared in its pages. After going to jail for publishing the paper through World War II, Jones restarts it again, this time with money made from the success of his embalming liquid. Campbell then states that he provides this biography to contrast himself against “a race-baiter who is ignorant and insane” (69).

Though Campbell is unaware of it at the time, it is Kraft who reported his location to The White Christian Minuteman, as “Kraft had plans for me” (72). One day, as Kraft is painting a portrait of Campbell, Jones and three of his associates arrive. As they are aged, it takes them a long time to ascend the staircase, during which time Campbell observes him. With Jones is his bodyguard, August Krapptauer, a former leader of the German American Bund—a league of German American immigrants who openly supported Hitler and the Third Rich during World War II—and Jones’ secretary, Patrick Keeley, a defrocked priest who preached vicious persecution of the Jews. Both men are ardent fans of Campbell’s antisemitic work and have used his material in their own campaigns. Jones tells Campbell that the woman ascending the stairs is Helga, Campbell’s long-lost wife.

Campbell imagines that Helga’s vivacity would have been wiped away by what he assumes her experience as a Russian captive would have entailed. He pictures her turned into “a nameless, sexless dragger of noisy carts” (78) after years of forced labor. Campbell rushes down the stairs to find an aged but immediately recognizable Helga.

Jones explains to Campbell that a subscriber to his paper in Germany, upon reading of Campbell’s life in New York, alerted Jones to Helga’s current whereabouts. Helga describes her past 15 years after being taken captive in Crimea. She was pressed into a forced labor gang but escaped after a few years. She was subsequently re-captured and worked as a translator in a Russian prisoner-of-war camp. She was then repatriated back into Germany, where Jones’s subscribers became aware of her and paid to have her flown to the US to reunite with Campbell. When Campbell wonders why they would do such a thing, Jones informs him that they are admirers and feel they owe a debt to Campbell as the only voice of truth throughout the war.

Moved by the reunion of Campbell and Helga, Krapptauer retrieves Helga’s luggage from the car, but the strain of the stairs and the weight of the bags cause him to have a heart attack and he dies. Jones laments the death, as Krapptauer has just started a new organization called “The Iron Guard of the White Sons of the American Constitution,” a youth group of burgeoning white nationalists. Jones explains that Krapptauer was dedicated to Campbell’s broadcasts and was hoping Campbell would help The Iron Guard. Jones’s chauffer, Robert Stirling Wilson, known as The Black Fuehrer of Harlem, arrives and informs Campbell that he is only serving Jones until he can organize an uprising against white people.

Campbell and Helga are given the chance to be alone, but Campbell is nervous about intimacy after so many years apart, and they talk instead. Campbell recounts the last time he saw Helga’s family in 1945. In the extended flashback that follows, Helga’s father, Werner Noth, is the chief of the Berlin police. He lives on the outskirts of the city with Helga’s mother and her sister, Resi, but when Campbell arrives, the family is packing for a move. Enslaved Polish and Russian women pack wagons with luggage and furniture under Noth’s supervision. One of the women, withdrawn due to the trauma inflicted upon her, is in danger of dropping a blue vase until Noth shrieks at her and snatches the vase. As punishment, he commands her to stand aside and observe the proper packing of the wagons. Noth tells Campbell that his wife and daughter are moving, but he will stay. When Campbell asks if he can help, Noth tells him to shoot Resi’s dog, who is too old to survive the trip. Noth admits that, while he does not like Campbell, he admires his broadcasting. He suggests that Campbell alone helped him justify Germany’s actions during the war. Noth returns to the enslaved woman and tries to help her understand the best way to perform her duties.

Campbell finds Resi waiting in the house with her dog. She is a detached 10-year old who fixates on death, both her own and that of her dog. The war has made her nihilistic, and she readily gives the dog over to Campbell to execute. She admits that she has been in love with Campbell since she was very young, and that after her sister’s death she fantasized about marrying him. She denies that that this love matters to her, however, saying, “Nothing means anything” (104). Campbell takes the dog out to the yard and shoots it, aware of Resi and her mother watching from separate windows. One of the soldiers guarding the slave women admires his work and suggests that Campbell bury the dog, as otherwise, someone will eat it.