The Taster

by V. S. Alexander

  “Holy shit. . . .” He spoke to the driver in English and then continued in German. He told me to keep my hands up while he patted me down.

  The driver shouted instructions in English.

  “He wants us to get in the jeep,” the soldier told me. “There’re Germans around here who still think the war is going on.”

  “Isn’t it?” I asked.

  He pointed to the jeep. “Climb in, sister. If it isn’t over already, it soon will be.”

  At 10:44 p.m. on May 4, 1945, I was taken into custody by officers of the American army Ninth Division. After midnight, I sat, shivering and disoriented, in an army camp near Magdeburg on the Elbe River. I was happy to be alive, but deeply saddened for my country.

  BERCHTESGADEN

  SUMMER 1945

  CHAPTER 23

  Freedom came through the price of blood. The Allies had leveled the Reich. Germany stood humbled and divided because the world wanted our nation enslaved. No people on earth wanted to see Germany, or the slightest specter of fascism, rise again. Meanwhile, Germans dug through the rubble trying to rebuild their lives. Along the way, many were felled by disease and hunger. Retribution also played its part in the continuing deaths. Many women killed themselves after being raped by enemy soldiers. Families starved on the streets. Hitler, in many ways, was right when he predicted that Germany would suffer terrible consequences for losing the war. He had taken the easy way out while those left behind suffered.

  At first I was numb and unsure what to do. How much could I tell the Americans who held me? Who would believe me if I told them I killed Hitler?

  My wedding ring was the talk of the camp.

  The Major who took it off my finger whistled when he saw the inscription. Soon I was in front of a sour-faced General who had little patience for “Nazi scum,” as he put it. All of this I learned through the German interpreter. I broke down and told him everything—how I came to be a taster through my stay with Aunt Reina and Uncle Willy, how Karl Weber shared information about the Party that changed my life. I told him of the bomb plot, how Karl sacrificed himself to end the horror ensnaring our country. I even gave him details about my rape by Russian soldiers and my final days in Berlin. I left out one detail about my stay in the bunker—the murder I committed. History would be better for not knowing.

  Other Americans wanted to question me, too, and made a strong case for it by citing my familiarity with the Berghof. A few weeks after my “arrest” at Magdeburg, I was picked up by a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army and transported to a camp near Munich called Dachau. I spent several days there answering questions from American authorities. Spring was in full bloom now and the days were pleasant, but the presence of death hung over the camp like a shroud. There were rumors among those being held of a “massacre” by the Americans of German guards. Everyone feared they would be lined up against a wall to receive a similar fate. The noxious odor of rot lingered over the camp. It hadn’t been that long since the prisoners who died here had been buried.

  I sat in a room with a military policeman, an interrogation officer and a young soldier who was a typist. The officer, who spoke perfect German as well as English, lit cigarettes one after the other while the typist puffed during breaks in my testimony. The smoke drifted through the room in a checkered haze. They wanted to know about the layout of the Berghof, who was there, how much information I was privy to and what Hitler did on a day-to-day basis. I answered their questions as best I could.

  Apparently, my “closeness” to Hitler made me somewhat of a celebrity. The interrogation officer had taken my stated wish to end Hitler’s life, and Karl’s collaboration with the bomb plotters, as amusing sidebars in a worldwide story filled with tragedy. Such admissions didn’t “cut the mustard” with him. There were too many lies being told, he said, too many to sort out.

  I lived in a large barracks with other women prisoners of war. In a way, it reminded me of Bromberg-Ost, only with better food and a nice view of the surrounding scenery, and, except for the rumors, no clear threat of death or mistreatment. I was a model prisoner and soon the American soldiers and guards took a liking to me. They smiled and laughed when we talked, even though there was a strict nonfraternization order between soldiers and German nationals. The Allies wanted to ferret out the Nazi criminals from the populace at all costs. Being a friend to a German woman was forbidden.

  In mid-June, the interrogating officer came to me one morning. “We’re going on a trip,” he said. “I think you’ll enjoy getting out.”

  I was suspicious, but any chance to leave the camp was a relief, even though conditions there were better than in most German cities.

  “Where are we going?” I asked as I grabbed my jacket.

  “Berchtesgaden,” he replied.

  My heart jumped and then sank in my chest. Where was he taking me? I thought of my aunt and uncle and wondered if they had made it through the war. I had not spoken to them in years, yet I dared not ask the officer to take me to their home.

  The officer escorted me to a jeep driven by a military policeman. I sat in the seat next to the MP while the officer relaxed and smoked in the back. The day was luminous and the spring clouds whisked by overhead. The sun warmed me and, for the first time in months, I felt like a human being, despite my incarceration.

  The driver turned the jeep south and we sped down the road. Sometimes we were blocked by troop convoys or had to cut across fields because of damaged roads. At one point when the going was particularly slow, the officer leaned forward and said, “British army intelligence has corroborated your testimony to us. We know a great deal about you.” He smiled and then leaned back in his seat. I wondered why he had told me this.

  We entered the northern edge of the Alps and then turned toward Berchtesgaden. The memories of my stay here came flooding back to me. We traveled on roads scarred by war, and I instinctively knew where we were headed. Soon the Berghof appeared high above us. I could tell it was different; it was no longer the white, pristine structure I remembered. We drove past the guardhouse, now occupied by American soldiers. The driver parked the jeep and we walked up the pitted driveway. The blasted face of Hitler’s mountain retreat came into view. Bomb craters scarred the ground; the trees had been stripped bare by the blasts. We turned the corner near the naked linden tree given to Hitler by Bormann.

  The gigantic window, part of the Great Hall, where my wedding was held, looked out on the landscape like a great hollow eye. A GI stood outlined in its frame, a lonely sentry admiring the view to the north. The roof had been blown off, the wood burned in a massive fire, the masonry blackened by the blaze. The east wing, which had contained my quarters and the kitchen, lay in jumbled ruins from a direct hit.

  Stunned by the destruction, I stood near the stone staircase leading up to the Berghof. I felt no sadness, only regret at the waste Hitler had brought upon the land. He had walked these stairs so many times: getting into his car, welcoming foreign dignitaries, taking his daily walk to the Teahouse. Now the cracked steps, the blackened stones, were emblems of the defeated Reich.

  The officer tapped my shoulder. “Tell me, Magda. What was it like here?”

  His question opened a torrent of emotion like blood flowing from a deep cut. I took a steadying breath and started my story. We walked through the rooms still smelling of ashes and destruction, and I told him everything I remembered about the Berghof. Part of our tour included the tunnels where Hitler’s record collection lay untouched. Much of the Berghof had already been stripped bare by the conquering forces. Graffiti covered its walls, a reminder of man’s innate desire to trumpet his victories.

  We spent several hours at the Berghof before we returned to the jeep. The MP took us to Berchtesgaden for lunch, where we ate American rations because the restaurants were dark and deserted. We sat in chairs outside the one that had served me before I went to the Reichsbund. There, my life had changed. I looked down the street and saw the façade of my aunt and uncle’s house. I
didn’t want to bring up their names again.

  “What are you looking at?” the officer asked.

  I shook my head. “Nothing.”

  “Your aunt and uncle’s home isn’t far from here. I’d like to talk to them as well.” He lit a cigarette and blew the smoke toward the street. “I’m sorry to surprise you like this, but we have our reasons.”

  The wind, suddenly cold, gusted across our table and I buttoned my jacket.

  “What do you want with them?” I asked. “They belonged to the Party, but my uncle is a policeman and minor bureaucrat. He’s had no direct contact with Hitler.”

  The officer looked down at the table and then at me, his blue eyes hard and inquisitive. “Your aunt is a fervent supporter of fascist governments. We know that about her. We’d like you to ask her to tell us more about what happened here—regarding the Party.”

  I looked away from him. “I doubt she will talk.”

  “Maybe you can persuade her.”

  We sat there for a few more minutes finishing our canned lunch. The officer rose from his chair and said, “Let’s go.”

  I had no choice.

  When we arrived, I was afraid to knock on the door. I wasn’t certain why, but a sense of dread filled me. The officer urged me on. I knocked, and a few moments later my aunt answered. She wore a simple housedress. The Nazi jewelry had disappeared from her attire. She gasped in surprise and covered her mouth with her hand, but when she saw the American officer and the MP, her eyes grew cold.

  “Why are you here?” she asked me.

  “They wish to talk to you,” I said.

  Aunt Reina hesitated for a moment and then opened the door. She drew me close and whispered in my ear, “They must stay in the living room.”

  The officer observed our whispering. “No secrets.”

  My aunt turned and led the three of us into the room. We took seats around the fireplace. The pillows, the rugs that had been embroidered with swastikas, were gone. The room was plain and dull in the afternoon light. The large portrait of Hitler that had hung in the dining room also had disappeared.

  My aunt sat across from us on the couch. With no display of emotion she said to me, “Your uncle is dead.”

  I started toward her, but the officer stopped me. The shock of my uncle’s death stunned me. Despite my aunt’s politics, I felt sorry for her. She had lost the man she loved.

  “He hanged himself when he learned of the Führer’s death,” she said. “He had talked about it for days—an American occupation, the fall of the Reich. I begged him. ‘Governments come and go,’ I said.” Her eyes moistened and she took a handkerchief from her pocket.

  By killing Hitler, I was partially responsible for my uncle’s suicide, an irony that struck me hard. But I couldn’t dwell upon it. One way or the other, Hitler would have ended up dead.

  The officer nodded politely to my aunt and said, “I need to ask you some questions about the Party structure in Berchtesgaden.”

  Reina chuckled. “Go ahead. You won’t get much because I don’t know much.”

  I heard footsteps.

  The officer and the MP jumped up and drew their pistols.

  I turned my head and saw a man’s legs on the stairs. He wore a loose-fitting pair of black pants and scuffed shoes.

  My aunt rose from her chair. “Go back! I told you to run, to get away when you could!”

  “Come down slowly,” the American officer said, and kept his pistol poised on his target.

  The man came down with his hands up.

  “I’m tired of running,” the man said.

  I fell to my knees and sobbed. The man on the stairs ran toward me.

  “Halt,” the officer shouted.

  My husband stood before me. My legs buckled and Karl rushed toward me. He pulled me up and, weeping, I fell into his arms. Time stopped as I collapsed in his embrace.

  “I told you,” he said as he covered my face with kisses. “Never give up.”

  I put my head on his chest, thinking I was clutching a phantom. I felt the flesh and blood of his shoulders and chest, but it was hard for me to believe he was alive. “I did it for you,” I whispered. “I survived because you told me to.”

  “I never doubted you.” He cupped my face with his hands for a time and then said, “Step aside for a moment, my love. I have unfinished business.” He opened his jacket slowly to show the Americans he was unarmed. Then he held out his hands. “I am SS Captain Karl Weber. I am surrendering to you.”

  “Do we have to use restraints, Captain Weber?” the officer asked as he patted my husband down.

  Karl shook his head.

  “I’ll take you at your word,” the officer said. “Please don’t try to escape or we may have to shoot.”

  Karl saluted the men. “No, sir, I will not. I want to be with my wife.”

  * * *

  We left my aunt’s a half hour later after the officer made radio contact with the camp. We traveled back to Munich. Karl was immediately whisked away by the Americans and it was two long weeks before we saw each other again. We sat across from each other at a long wooden table. Karl was dressed in camp clothes and looked tired, but otherwise seemed in good health. We held hands as we talked.

  “I still can’t believe you’re alive,” I said. “I pinch myself every day and thank God for this miracle.”

  “I believed,” he said. “I had to believe; otherwise, I couldn’t have gone on.”

  I looked at him, full of the questions I needed to ask in the short time we had together. One, in particular, troubled me. “Who died in that terrible blast and fire? I always felt in my heart you wouldn’t commit suicide.”

  “Franz. He never recovered from Ursula’s death.” Karl sighed, his face tinged with melancholy. “He was wounded at the Eastern Front—not badly, but enough to knock him out of service for a few weeks. Then, when the bomb plot failed, he knew we would both be implicated. The morning I left, I met him near the dark field where von Stauffenberg stopped you. Franz asked me to switch papers, which I did. He said he had a plan to save our lives. I had no idea what he intended to do. Franz kissed me on the cheek and I should have known what was going to happen.

  “I had formulated a plan to get to the railroad siding undetected and walk down the tracks. The guards knew me and let me pass through checkpoints. Everyone was in an uproar. I told them the Führer had given me orders to search for traitors. The last obstacle I faced inside the perimeter was the electric fence. I was able to find a tree with branches extending over it, one that had not been cleared. I climbed it and then jumped to the ground. The forest, Hitler’s hiding place, worked to my advantage. If I hadn’t been on my way, I would have turned around and tried to stop Franz, but I was already far away from Rastenburg when I found his note.”

  “Note?”

  “Yes, it was stuck in his papers. He explained in detail how he was going to kill himself by blowing himself up. It was better that he died than I, he said, because he knew you and I could go on together. There was no hope for him. The body must not be identified, he said; otherwise, the Gestapo would be on my trail. That’s why his death was so horrific. He doused himself in gasoline and set himself on fire. The fire burned over him until it ignited the bomb he carried. He succeeded; otherwise, they would have questioned you.”

  Karl’s jaw quivered and he wiped a tear from his eye. “I tried every trick I could to disguise myself. I had to destroy his papers and the note. They could never be found upon me, or I would be a dead man. I shed my uniform as soon as I could.”

  I stood up and looked past the American guard to the light that filtered through a window at the end of the barracks. Far off, thunder rumbled over the mountains. “Night and day, I wondered if you were really alive. Every time I thought about giving up, you came into my head. A man took me to Spandau from Berlin. His name was Karl. When we got there, he disappeared, just like you. I thought he was an angel sent to guide me, perhaps your spirit in another man’s body.
”

  Karl clasped his hands. “No, I’ve been in the south for a long time. I remembered your aunt’s and uncle’s names from our early days together. It was a struggle to get to Berchtesgaden. I slept in barns and fields some nights. Sympathetic farmers would welcome me now and then. I even worked a few days for some of them. When I arrived, I told your aunt and uncle I was married to you. I showed them our wedding ring and they took me in. I lied about my involvement in the plot to kill Hitler because your uncle would have turned me in. I pretended to be a spy for the Reich and a good Nazi. I begged them to tell no one I was here. I told them we had been separated when the Wolf’s Lair fell, and that you were still in service to the Führer. They were happy to know that.”

  “What happened to my uncle?”

  “Your aunt and I tried to reassure him that Germany would go on without Hitler, but he didn’t believe it. I could see what was happening, but I couldn’t stop it. He hanged himself from a bridge. The Nazi flag was draped around his body.”

  I lowered my head as I paced, shamed by my uncle’s actions. “He would be alive today if it hadn’t been for that evil man.” I hadn’t told Karl everything about my days in the bunker and I wondered how he would react. I couldn’t broach the subject. “Where did you stay before you traveled south?”

  “I made my way to Berlin and stayed there, before conditions became intolerable. I took clothes I found in abandoned buildings and stood in breadlines. Many days I went hungry because it was too dangerous to be seen. I had to be careful because people were hanged for stealing. One time, I took the coat off a dead man. He didn’t need it anymore. The hardest part was avoiding soldiers. I hid most of the time until I knew I had to leave.”

  I sat again on the bench and studied Karl’s face. It was leaner; worry lines spread outward from his mouth and eyes, furrowing deeply into his skin. Both of us had lived a full life in the year we’d been apart. I wanted to ask him another question, but was afraid to hear the answer. He looked at me as if he knew what I was going to ask.