Kufstein is the mountain town where Paul von Hartmann’s train pauses during the journey south to Munich, bringing him back to a landscape associated with an earlier summer and placing him within sight of a high-level political arrival. The station is at once a remembered holiday setting and a working point in the movement of the Führer’s party and the British delegation.

Setting and Memory

After more than twelve hours of travel, the train slows in hilly country about an hour south of Munich. As the woodland thins, Hartmann sees a river, brightly painted houses across the water, a medieval castle on a wooded hill, and the Alps in the distance. The half-timbered station and the view resemble the Reichsbahn poster that had drawn him, Hugh Legat, and Leyna south in the summer of 1932. The resemblance makes the stop more than a geographical marker: a landscape once tied to a shared excursion now lies within a changed political map.

A sign beside the waiting room identifies the town as Kufstein. Hartmann recognizes that he is in Austria—or, in his formulation, what had been Austria before the Führer altered the map. The train arrives at precisely 9:30 a.m. Hartmann checks the time on a Rolex given to him by his mother for his twenty-first birthday, and wonders whether the British delegation has taken off yet. The personal detail of the watch sits beside the exact scheduling of the journey, linking private memory to the diplomatic timetable.

The Station as a Point of Contact

While at Kufstein, Hartmann asks to use the railway telephone. He identifies himself as travelling with the Führer, and the railway official responds deferentially, pushing the instrument towards him. Hartmann then asks for an operator. The station thus serves not only as a halt but as a practical communications point during the journey.

On the call, Hartmann receives the list of names from London. He gets a pencil from the railway official, writes the names down, and repeats them to confirm what he has heard: Wilson, Strang, Malkin, Ashton-Gwatkin, Dunglass, and Legat. Legat’s name prompts a grin and Hartmann’s pleased response. He pockets the list before stepping outside, carrying news of the delegation from the station into the next encounter.

The Arrival of the Italian Train

A second train crawls into the station as Hartmann goes outside. A large welcoming party has gathered around Adolf Hitler, and the locomotive bears the green, white, and red Italian tricolour. It stops just short of the Führer’s train. An SS guard opens a door, and Benito Mussolini appears in a pale grey uniform and peaked cap, saluting as he descends. Hitler returns the salute, and the two leaders greet each other with a warm, mutual clasp of hands. Photographers’ flashes illuminate the reunion as members of both delegations gather on the platform.

Hitler gestures for the Italians to accompany him. Hartmann realizes he should get out of the way and half-turns just in time to see Sturmbannführer Sauer disappear into the railwayman’s office. In this brief sequence, the picturesque station becomes a threshold between the quiet scenery Hartmann associates with 1932 and the conspicuous choreography of political power: trains, uniforms, salutes, photographers, and the arriving Italian delegation.