turn, at first steadily, from 1933 steeply, from 1937 vertically; according to statements made by his former staff members and a number of experts, he made money “hand over fist” with the “Siegfried Line,” but according to Hoyser he had spent large sums as early as 1935 to buy up “the best available experts on fortifications and concrete dugouts,” long before he could actually “put them to work.” “We constantly worked with loans so big that it still makes me dizzy to think of them.” Gruyten was quite simply betting on what he called the “Maginot complex” of all statesmen; “years after the Maginot myth has been destroyed, it will” (Gruyten’s words quoted by Hoyser) “persist and continue to persist. The Russians are the only ones who don’t have this complex; their frontier is too long for them to be able to afford it, but whether this will spell their salvation or their doom remains to be seen. Hitler at any rate has it, however much he may propagate and practice a war of mobility,
he personally
has the dugout and fortifications complex, you wait and see” (early 1940, statement made before the conquest of France and Denmark).
Be that as it may: by 1938 the Gruyten firm was six times as large as it had been in 1936, when it had been six times as large as in 1932; in 1940 it was twice as large as in 1938, and (Hoyser) “by 1943 you couldn’t have established any ratio at all.”
One characteristic of Gruyten, Sr., is confirmed by everyone, although in two different terms: some call him “courageous,” others “fearless,” a certain minority of perhaps two or three call him “a megalomaniac.” Experts testify to this day that without any doubt Gruyten, at a very early stage, hired or lured away the best fortifications experts on the market, later ruthlessly employing even French engineers and technicians who had been involved in the building of the Maginot Line, and that he had “known perfectly well” (a high-ranking official of the Ordnance Department who also would prefer to remain anonymous) that: “to economize on wages and salaries during a time of inflation is nonsense.” Gruyten paid well. At the time in question he is forty-one years of age. Custom-made suits of “expensive, but not ostentatiously expensive material” (Lotte Hoyser) have turned a “fine figure of a man” into a “fine figure of a gentleman”; he was not even ashamed of being nouveau riche, expressing himself as follows to one of his colleagues (Werner von Hoffgau, an architect from an old-established family), “all wealth was at one time new, even yours, at the time when your family was becoming wealthy but hadn’t yet attained wealth.” Gruyten refused to build himself a villa (to the end of his days he referred to a house as a “home”) in that part of town which was then mandatory for those well on the way to prosperity.
It would be irresponsible to regard Gruyten as a naive, crude self-made man; among his abilities is one that cannot be learned and cannot be inherited: he understands human nature, and all his staff—architects, technicians, businessmen—admire him, and most of them respect him. The education and upbringing of his son are carefully planned and closely watched by him, he keeps an eye on them; he visits the boy frequently, seldombringing him home because—surprising statement, verified by Hoyser—he does not want the boy to soil his hands with business. “What he had in mind for the boy was a scholarly career, not just any old professor, more like the one we built that villa for.” (Hoyser; according to H.’s statement this referred to a fairly well-known specialist in Romance languages, whose library, cosmopolitanism, and “straight-forward cordial manner with people” must have impressed Gruyten.) With some impatience he finds that at fifteen his son “doesn’t speak Spanish as well as I had expected.”
One thing he never did: regard Leni as a “silly goose.”
he personally
has the dugout and fortifications complex, you wait and see” (early 1940, statement made before the conquest of France and Denmark).
Be that as it may: by 1938 the Gruyten firm was six times as large as it had been in 1936, when it had been six times as large as in 1932; in 1940 it was twice as large as in 1938, and (Hoyser) “by 1943 you couldn’t have established any ratio at all.”
One characteristic of Gruyten, Sr., is confirmed by everyone, although in two different terms: some call him “courageous,” others “fearless,” a certain minority of perhaps two or three call him “a megalomaniac.” Experts testify to this day that without any doubt Gruyten, at a very early stage, hired or lured away the best fortifications experts on the market, later ruthlessly employing even French engineers and technicians who had been involved in the building of the Maginot Line, and that he had “known perfectly well” (a high-ranking official of the Ordnance Department who also would prefer to remain anonymous) that: “to economize on wages and salaries during a time of inflation is nonsense.” Gruyten paid well. At the time in question he is forty-one years of age. Custom-made suits of “expensive, but not ostentatiously expensive material” (Lotte Hoyser) have turned a “fine figure of a man” into a “fine figure of a gentleman”; he was not even ashamed of being nouveau riche, expressing himself as follows to one of his colleagues (Werner von Hoffgau, an architect from an old-established family), “all wealth was at one time new, even yours, at the time when your family was becoming wealthy but hadn’t yet attained wealth.” Gruyten refused to build himself a villa (to the end of his days he referred to a house as a “home”) in that part of town which was then mandatory for those well on the way to prosperity.
It would be irresponsible to regard Gruyten as a naive, crude self-made man; among his abilities is one that cannot be learned and cannot be inherited: he understands human nature, and all his staff—architects, technicians, businessmen—admire him, and most of them respect him. The education and upbringing of his son are carefully planned and closely watched by him, he keeps an eye on them; he visits the boy frequently, seldombringing him home because—surprising statement, verified by Hoyser—he does not want the boy to soil his hands with business. “What he had in mind for the boy was a scholarly career, not just any old professor, more like the one we built that villa for.” (Hoyser; according to H.’s statement this referred to a fairly well-known specialist in Romance languages, whose library, cosmopolitanism, and “straight-forward cordial manner with people” must have impressed Gruyten.) With some impatience he finds that at fifteen his son “doesn’t speak Spanish as well as I had expected.”
One thing he never did: regard Leni as a “silly goose.”
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