92 HIS MAJESTY’S OPPONENT
Germany was understandable. He had an interview with the mayor of
Berlin and meetings with a few of fi cials in the German Foreign Office;
none of these exchanges amounted to much. He established contact
with Franz Thierfelder, director of the Deutsche Akademie in Munich,
with whom he explored prospects for improving Indo- German rela-
tions. Even though he remained in Germany for over a month on this
first visit, he was laid up for nearly three weeks with severe abdominal
pain, probably caused by his gallbladder ailment, and was forced to re-
strict his activities.^17
It was here in Berlin that Bose was befriended by Kitty Kurti, a young
Czech Jewish woman. As she walked along the Kurfürstendamm, her
gaze was caught by a strange fig ure approaching from the opposite di-
rection: “It was a tall, slender man, obviously Indian. He was clad in a
dark suit, not unlike a priest’s. He wore a small cream- colored Gandhi
cap that made him stand out. His face, a dark olive, was round and
childlike, yet strikingly intelligent. His slow, erect gait gave the impres-
sion of singular dignity and control.” Kitty next encountered this man
at the American Cultural Club, where he was the featured speaker. His
talk was po lit i cal in nature, and not, as she had expected, philosophical.
“Still,” she remembered, “as I carefully watched his countenance, I real-
ized that he was by no means merely a politician; he was, above all, a
true philosopher. A man who, though fight ing valiantly for the libera-
tion of his country, was equally interested in man’s fate and destiny, in
all humanity.” After the lecture, two British agents berated the Ameri-
can host for inviting this anti- British Indian. Kitty, however, was en-
thralled by Subhas Chandra Bose and had her husband, Alex, invite
him to their house. In the intimate setting of this young couple’s home,
Bose answered their eager questions about India and wanted to learn
from Kitty, a keen student of psychoanalysis, more about Freud and
Jung.^18 This was an aspect of his German experience that Bose enjoyed,
and he would call on the Kurtis during his future visits. His sensibilities
had led him to those who would be marginalized and eventually vic-
timized by the new regime.
After leaving Germany, Subhas spent much of the early autumn
of 1933 taking care of the ailing Vithalbhai Patel, his close friend and
po lit i cal ally, in Franzensbad, Vienna, and Geneva. On September 21,