The Taster

by V. S. Alexander

  “I looked for your father,” he said. “I never found him.”

  The guard approached and spoke to us in broken German. Our time was up. We had to return to our respective “homes.” I held up my hand, a signal for a moment longer.

  “I have something to tell you,” I said to Karl. “How much do you love me?”

  “You know the answer. Enough to wait a lifetime.”

  I trembled and held on to his hands. “I was raped by Russian soldiers. I can’t have children. If that’s what you want, perhaps—”

  He looked at me sadly, but thwarted my words with a finger to my lips. After a few moments, he said, “I married you. I’ve taken you for life. Nothing you say can change that.”

  The guard signaled he had had enough of our delays and he made us leave the table. We looked at each other as we were led away.

  * * *

  Two years later, Karl and I were released by the Americans. On that day, we started our second life. Our first night together we made love and talked until dawn. I told him everything.

  EPILOGUE

  Berlin, 2013

  Did I kill Hitler? Now you know the answer. I only wish it could have been sooner.

  Before the Soviets began the blockade in 1948, I traveled to Berlin and made my way through the sector to my old neighborhood. The block where my family had lived was still in rubble. I asked a few people if they had heard of my father, but they shook their heads and looked at me blankly.

  I made my way through the streets to Irmigard’s old apartment. Three families were living there because the building still had walls and floors, although there was only the woodstove and no running water, much as it had been when I was there. I asked if I might see the room where Irmigard’s family had lived. A nice woman and her young son welcomed me in. The apartment looked the same, only the current residents had brought in their few belongings.

  “I lived here early in 1945,” I said.

  “What’s your name?” the woman asked.

  “Magda Weber. Ritter was my maiden name. Are you from this neighborhood?”

  “No. We came looking for my husband, a soldier, and ended up here. We were fortunate to find this shelter.” She frowned and then sat in a rickety chair. “It isn’t much, but it’s all we have.” She paused and studied me. “If you lived here you must know something about this place. What happened? Every day I wonder because I feel their presence.”

  I looked at her with alarm. “Who?”

  “Spirits of the dead. The war has caused so many to walk the earth, so many horrible stories remain untold.”

  “I would tell you, but—” I pointed to her son.

  “Rolf, go into the front and stay until you’re told.”

  The boy reluctantly left us and closed the French doors that had muffled our screams that terrible night. I told her the story and she wept.

  “The house is filled with tragedy,” she said. “Rolf,” she called out, “bring out the suitcase that was left here.”

  The doors soon opened and the boy dragged a beat-up suitcase across the floor. The woman lifted it to a table so I could inspect it. Her eyes glistened with tears. “It was buried in a corner, covered by a bloody mattress. Your name is written in pen inside. I kept it, thinking that one day the owner might return.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and clasped her hands. “What happened here was no more tragic than what happened to others.”

  “It had been rifled through,” the woman said apologetically. “I hope you will pardon me. I pushed everything back inside and closed it.”

  I hugged her and then opened the lid. I had forgotten that years ago I’d written Magda Ritter in blue pen on the inside. My watch had disappeared, but a few dresses and some undergarments still remained. And beneath them lay my stuffed monkey. It had remained in Berlin waiting for my return. I clutched it to my chest and cried.

  “Mother,” Rolf said, “the lady is crying over a toy.”

  The woman nodded and said, “It’s much more than a toy. You will cry someday—over a memory.”

  I’ve cried many days over memories. I never found my father. I heard that Cook had been captured by the Russians. She disappeared from my life after I left her on the tracks beneath Berlin. Karl died in 1995 from an aneurysm. We, of course, had no children, but we spent many happy years together. I went on with my life and never remarried. No man could replace Karl.

  As I consider what happened to me as I approach the end of my life, I give thanks for what I’ve learned. I want to share my knowledge with others. What happened in Germany in those terrible years must never happen again. As much as humanity strives for good, cruelty remains.

  I, Magda Ritter, was one of fifteen women who tasted food for Hitler so he would not be poisoned by the Allies or traitors to the cause. As far as I know, only two attempts to poison him were made—one by Ursula Thalberg, the other in the Great Hall. He lived much longer than he should have.

  As I said in the beginning, so it is in the end. The secrets I held so long inside needed to be released from their inner prison. I have been punished enough by the past. Now that you’ve read my story perhaps you will not judge me as harshly as I’ve judged myself.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The idea for The Taster came from an Associated Press news story of April 26, 2013. The report, by Kirsten Grieshaber, chronicled the life of Margot Woelk, a taster for Adolf Hitler. Ms. Woelk had kept her previous profession a guarded secret until she turned ninety-five. She told the reporter that for decades she had tried to shake off the memories of her days with Hitler but that “they always came back to haunt me at night.” The Taster is not an account of Ms. Woelk’s life, although I based several scenes in the novel on her experiences. Nor is the novel intended to be a veiled biography of her life.

  I have been interested at various times in reading about the Nazi Party, Adolf Hitler and World War II. When I told a colleague about my intention to write The Taster, she said she hoped I would refrain from turning it into a celebration of fascism and the German dictator’s life. I assured her that I had no such intention. I’ve met so many people who have been fascinated by Hitler—not because they admired the man who was responsible for the death of millions but because they, like me, wondered how this terrible tragedy could have happened. And, more important, how we could prevent a similar occurrence from happening in the future. Unfortunately, as we know, history repeats itself. What were the factors that led to the rise of fascism and its embrace by most of the German people? How did Hitler fool the world? These are complex questions that historians, sociologists and psychologists have struggled to answer. I make no pretense at providing answers. If I, as an author, have allowed the reader to remember, to never forget, then I have succeeded in my task.

  Most will read this book as a novel, a fictional account of a life in a significant time period. Others may read it as history. And it is to those latter readers that I issue a caveat: The Taster is not intended to be a strictly historical account of the Third Reich. For example, Joachim Fest in his book Inside Hitler’s Bunker (2002) makes the astounding statement that the circumstance of Hitler’s suicide in the Berlin bunker “has by now become impossible to reconstruct.” Was a third party involved in his death? Historians have speculated on such a possibility. That question opened up my novel for me. It allowed me to place Magda in the bunker with Hitler.

  I researched The Taster to the best of my ability; however, historical accounts and timelines do vary. The reader should know I made every attempt to marry history with fiction. In reconstructing the day-to-day life at the Berghof, I relied on many sources, some of which differed. I inserted real people, now dead, among my characters. Hitler had a knack for keeping company with those who served him personally. A major character in the book, Cook, is a composite of several hired by the leader of the Reich. Hitler had many cooks who served him with varying degrees of success. My main model was Constanze Manziarly, but she was not serving at the Berghof wh
en my heroine, Magda Ritter, arrives in the late spring of 1943. Such is fictional license.

  The timeline of Hitler’s stays at his various headquarters and travels is well documented. The Nazis were, if anything, meticulous in their detail. Again, I have tried to honor history, although there may be, for the sake of fiction, occurrences where action and timeline don’t necessarily coincide. For example, I placed Hitler in the Berghof during Christmas 1943. Other sources say he spent an unobserved holiday at the Wolf’s Lair during that time. Some historical details were difficult to track down. I advanced the timeline somewhat for Bromberg-Ost, a concentration camp for women. Try as I might, I found no photos and little information about this camp, except for details about female guards who were later hanged for their crimes.

  Many readers may ask the question: Did the rank-and-file SS, Wehrmacht and German citizens know about the death squads, the camps and the corresponding atrocities? The answer is open to debate. Several books have questioned whether all Germans were complicit in the Nazi undertakings. Or were they just blithely unaware? Certainly high-level officials and some officers within the Party knew what had been ordered, but to indict all officers, Party members and nationals is misleading, I think.

  From that viewpoint, I also wanted to portray the plight of the German people during this time. Not all of them were fervent Nazis. The SS “conspirators” and other officers who spearheaded the July 1944 bombing at the Wolf’s Lair knew details about Reich activities that were not available to the German people. Had the public known what was going on, the propaganda machine perpetrated by Joseph Goebbels might have taken a very different turn. But even today, historians disagree on why the attempt was made on Hitler’s life. Was it because the war was going badly and the officers wanted to save their necks, or because they knew about and abhorred Hitler’s atrocities? History favors the former supposition.

  Many assassination attempts on the Führer’s life failed or were never carried out. Some were “lone wolf” plots; others were hatched by groups. My research indicated that a major factor in these attempts was the intention of killing not only Hitler but other major targets as well. Many conspirators were concerned about who would take over the government and, therefore, failed to act. Some plots were quashed over this important consideration. I used this idea as a fictional element in The Taster. This factor had faded considerably by the time von Stauffenberg came into the picture.

  In the creation of this novel, I would like to thank my editor at Kensington Books, John Scognamiglio, for believing in this book; Evan Marshall, my agent, for steadfastly steering the course; and editors Traci E. Hall and Christopher Hawke, both of the brilliant red pen, for their invaluable suggestions in plotting, emotion, nuance and choreography. As always I rely on my beta readers for their astute observations: in this case, Robert Pinsky and Mike Deaton.

  I have read too many books on the Third Reich over the years to cite them all, but a listing of a few major works in my library is necessary. There are also many invaluable Web sites, too numerous to mention, that aided me in the writing of The Taster.

  The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. William L. Shirer.

  Inside Hitler’s Bunker: The Last Days of the Third Reich. Joachim Fest.

  Inside the Third Reich. Albert Speer.

  Until the Final Hour: Hitler’s Last Secretary. Traudle Junge, edited by Melissa Müller.

  He Was My Chief: The Memoirs of Adolf Hitler’s Secretary. Christa Schroeder, with an introduction by Robert Moorhouse.

  The Hitler I Knew: Memoirs of the Third Reich’s Press Chief. Otto Dietrich, with an introduction by Robert Moorhouse.

  Night, Elie Wiesel.

  The Holocaust Chronicle. Publications International, Ltd.

  Of significant help with photos useful for historical reconstruction was Third Reich in Ruins at www.thirdreichruins.com.

  * * *

  Lest we forget, this book should serve as a remembrance for all who lost their lives in World War II. We tend to forget that the events portrayed in this novel occurred only seventy-five years ago, a blip in time. We can only hope and pray that God’s grace and our diligence will deliver us from similar events in the future. Another global war would surely lead to annihilation; therefore, we must maintain a constant vigil against those who would use their power to destroy.

  A READING GROUP GUIDE

  THE TASTER

  V. S. Alexander

  ABOUT THIS GUIDE

  The suggested questions are included to enhance your group’s reading of V. S. Alexander’s The Taster.

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  1. Magda describes what her life was like as a young woman in Germany. The Reich wanted women to be mothers as well as workers. Do you think she was happy under these restrictions?

  2. Early in the book, Magda witnesses a couple being arrested on a train. What do you think their crime was?

  3. Magda has little choice but to accept the job as a taster for Hitler. If you were in her place would you have continued or left the Reich’s service?

  4. Cook teaches Magda about poisons. What do you think your reaction would have been to such training?

  5. Eva Braun tells Magda a secret. Do you think Magda was correct in her understanding of the secret?

  6. Karl shows Magda the pictures of the atrocities committed in the East. Would you have believed him?

  7. Hitler loved his dog and acted as a father figure to many on his staff. Do you believe that he held any goodness in his heart?

  8. How did Magda change in the course of the novel? Do you think she became a stronger woman?

  9. Would you have pulled the trigger?

  10. The Taster is written from the viewpoint of a German woman. Much has been written about “ordinary” Germans and their role in World War II. What do you think? Has the novel given you a new perspective on the war?

  Turn the page for a sneak peek at The Magdalen Girls by V.S. Alexander!

  Prologue

  The nuns convened near the doorway like a swarm of black flies. Some giggled with nervous anxiety. Some clutched the crucifix that hung by their side and stared at the three young women who lay supine before them.

  Sister Anne, the Mother Superior, had arranged them in the manner of Golgotha, much like the crucifixion depicted in a Renaissance painting. A punishment should never leave a bruise or draw blood. To do so would defile the body and bring disgrace upon The Sisters of the Holy Redemption. No, it was better to make the penitents realize their mistake through the love of Christ.

  No crimson, royal purples, or azure blues adorned the three on the library floor. The composition was artfully arranged, the troublemaker with the most to regret, Teresa, pretty and blond, taking the place of Jesus. Her head was above the other two girls to the left and right, her compatriots in sin. The afternoon sunlight filtered through the room, catching the motes that swam in the air like beaded jewels in the convent’s old library. Seeing the girls in their plain uniforms, their arms spread in supplication, their bodies as stiff as the boards they were supposed to be nailed upon, gave Sister Anne modest pleasure. She didn’t want to hurt them; she wanted them to realize how much pain they had brought to the Order. She couldn’t tolerate insubordination and vain camaraderie from those who had sinned. Rehabilitation and penance were never far from her mind, nor was love.

  The nuns craned their necks through the doorway to get a better look. They had seen punishments before from Sister Anne, but this was a new twist. A few clucked in anticipation of the admonishment the three penitents deserved. The Mother Superior towered over them like the Holy Ghost and marveled at the thought of the love flowing through her to them.

  Sister Anne crossed herself. “Penance.” She pronounced the word slowly, accenting the two syllables distinctly, but barely loud enough for the girls to hear. She lowered her tall, thin body and knelt above Teresa’s face.

  The girl stared at the ceiling and then closed her eyes. Monica, the dark-haired one, to the
right of Teresa, seethed with anger, her gaze full of hate. Lea, white and slender, to the left, was already in prayer. Sister Anne didn’t want to punish Lea, because, of the three, she was the good girl. However, she had to break the bond between them.

  “You know why you are here,” Sister Anne said. “Don’t speak. Just listen.” Her eyes flickered with irritation. “You have hurt us, damaged our Order with your words and deeds. You cannot defame the Lord, go against His will.” She wondered if the penitents were paying attention. Of the three, she judged Monica to be the most attentive, but that was only because she was angry. Why did these girls try her so?

  “You will lie here, in the position of the Cross, until you learn your lesson,” the Mother Superior said. “You must understand what Jesus suffered. You will not eat, nor drink, nor soil yourself.” She rose to her feet. “When the evil has been removed from your spirit, you’ll be able to join us. I do this out of love, so you will know Christ and His ways.”

  Teresa didn’t speak. Lea muttered silent prayer. Monica spat at the Mother Superior. The spittle fell on the hem of her habit. The nuns gasped. Sister Anne called for a towel. One of the obedient Sisters ran to her side and wiped away the offensive fluid. “You have much to learn.” Sister Anne’s jaws clenched. She knelt by Monica’s extended arm and withdrew a straight pin from her sash. The girl’s eyes flashed in terror as the metallic sliver descended toward her palm.

  Monica sat up. “Don’t you dare!”

  The Mother Superior called to Sister Mary-Elizabeth, who came to her aid. “Hold her hands against the floor.”