“But this time, the torches that light their way will also plunge them into darkness,” said Dietrich quietly. “The darkness of intolerance and ignorance, more dangerous than the darkest night.”
Students, SA, SS, Hitler Youth—toward the Opernplatz they marched, row after row of them, their faces sinister in the garish light. In their arms were books seized from school libraries, from bookshops, from shelves in homes where Mildred imagined bewildered parents lamenting the strange fanaticism that had transformed their beloved children into frightening strangers. A thunderous roar of voices drew her attention back to the square, where torches were flung upon the pile of books, smoldering, smoking, rising into flame.
As the marchers approached the pyre to throw more books onto the blaze, Mildred felt a cold, sickening shiver run up her spine as tens of thousands of voices began chanting a litany of Fire Oaths—first, the offense against German language and literature; next, what must succeed it; and last, the author to be consigned to oblivion. “Against class struggle and materialism,” they chanted. “For national community and an idealistic way of life. Marx and Kautsky!”
An earsplitting roar followed as the men’s books were thrown onto the pyre.
“Against decadence and moral decay. For discipline and decency in family and state. Mann, Glaeser, and Kästner!”
The acrid smoke stung Mildred’s eyes and her breath caught in her throat. So many works by authors she respected and admired, whose brilliant words she taught to her students. Erich Remarque’s autobiographical novel of the Great War, All Quiet on the Western Front. Works by Theodor Wolff and Georg Bernhard. For their corrupting foreign influence, Ernest Hemingway and Jack London. For pacifism, for advocating for the disabled, for seeking better conditions for workers and women’s rights, Helen Keller.
Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels addressed the crowd from a podium draped with a swastika banner, his usually resonant tenor raspy from smoke or overuse. “The era of extreme Jewish intellectualism has come to an end, and the German revolution has again opened the way for the true essence of being German,” he declaimed, each word precisely enunciated. “Over the past fourteen years, you students have had to suffer in silent shame the humiliations of the Weimar Republic. Your libraries were inundated with the trash and filth of Jewish literati. The old past lies in flames. The new times will arise from the flame that burns in our hearts!”
On and on he went, stirring the crowd into a frenzy of exultant anger. Clasping Arvid’s hand so tightly her fingers ached, Mildred watched, horrified and dismayed, as the most cherished works of some of the world’s most celebrated authors turned to ash and smoke.
Then, a jolt of recognition so sharp it left her breathless.
Among the marchers, clad in SA brown, one of her former students filed past, not two feet from where she stood. His gaze fixed ardently upon the towering pyre, he did not recognize her, but she knew him, and she knew the book tucked under his arm—a collection of plays by the renowned nineteenth-century poet Heinrich Heine, a German Jew.
As she watched him march off to destroy the book, Mildred knew that at universities throughout Germany, other disgruntled, angry, vengeful students were destroying the very books that could teach them that this was wrong, that this would create nothing but ash and loss. It would not bring them joy, or find them work, or fill their bellies. It would not erase the wisdom that resonated from the author’s mind to the reader’s heart.
As flame and smoke rose to the sky, a line from Heine’s play Almansor drifted into her thoughts: “Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen.”
Where they burn books, in the end they will also burn people.
Chapter Fifteen
May 1933
Greta
Greta did not respond to Adam’s note to tell him she was returning to Germany. She was not entirely sure why. Perhaps she did not want him to think she was coming back for his sake rather than her country’s; fighting the rise of fascism in her homeland was more important to her than their ill-fated romance. Perhaps she wanted the option to change her mind if she decided at the last minute that she could not see him.
She arrived in Frankfurt am Main two days after tens of thousands of books had gone up in flames in city squares throughout Germany. Students from the Universität Frankfurt had staged their own cleansing by fire in Römerberg in front of city hall. By the time Greta passed through the square, the pile of ash was gone, cleared away by rain or an assiduous street sweeper. Somehow it seemed that the stink of burning lingered, like a ghost from the past or a foreboding vision of the future.
Before setting out from Dover, she had bought a newspaper at a stand near the pier. On the front page was an open letter to the Student Body of Germany from Helen Keller, the famous blind and deaf American author and advocate. “History has taught you nothing if you think you can kill ideas,” she had written. “Tyrants have tried to do that often before, and the ideas have risen up in their might and destroyed them. You can burn my books and the books of the best minds in Europe, but the ideas in them have seeped through a million channels and will continue to quicken other minds.” She reminded them that years before, out of love and compassion for the German people, she had arranged for all the royalties from her book sales to go to the care of German soldiers blinded during the Great War, but she concluded with a warning: “Do not imagine that your barbarities to the Jews are unknown here. God sleepeth not, and He will visit His judgment upon you. Better were it for you to have a millstone hung around your neck and sink into the sea than to be hated and despised of all men.”
The stirring words had heartened Greta even as the winds off the Channel threatened to tear the newspaper from her grasp, but once she arrived in Frankfurt, the oppressive weight of the Reich fell upon her shoulders like a lead cloak, compelling her to walk with her eyes downcast and shoulders slightly bent, curved protectively around her heart. She forced herself to lift her chin and stride with confidence, suitcases in hand, not seeking out the gaze of SA and SS men but not averting her eyes either. She refused to let the Nazis make her regret returning to Germany. She loved her homeland and would not abandon it to fascist barbarians without a fight.
When she entered her boardinghouse room, at first she found nothing amiss. She had asked her landlady to collect her mail and water the plants in her absence, but as she unpacked, she realized that some items on her dresser had been moved, and the stack of mail on the table near the door was thinner than it should have been. When her gaze fell on her disordered desk, she discovered that her typewriter was missing.
Greta hurried downstairs and knocked on her landlady’s door. “Did you borrow my typewriter?” she asked as soon as the older woman answered.
“Well, hello to you too,” the landlady replied. “I wasn’t sure you were coming back.”
“Did you borrow my typewriter?” Greta asked again, keeping her voice steady. “It’s all right if you did, but I need it back, please.”
“I don’t have it.” The older woman’s voice quavered. “The SA came around asking questions about you. I had to let them search your room. How could I refuse?”
“The SA took my typewriter? Did they say why?”
“No, but I’m to call them if you come back. I suppose I can wait a day—”
“No need for that. I’ll go see them right now.”
The older woman blanched. “Are you sure that’s wise?”
“How else will I get my typewriter back?”
Glancing about for eavesdroppers, her landlady argued against it. When Greta’s resolve did not waver, she sighed, withdrew into her room, and returned with a card the SA officer had left behind.
When Greta arrived at the SA headquarters near the Rathaus on the Römerberg, the clerk studied some papers, grimaced, and ordered her to follow him down a corridor. He halted before a small, windowless room furnished with a wooden table and two chairs placed on opposite sides. “Sit,” the cl
erk ordered, gesturing into the chamber. She obeyed, her stomach lurching when he remained in the hall and locked her in.
Heart pounding, she stood and paced the chamber, wishing she had never come. She tested the doorknob, but she had scarcely touched it when someone began to turn it from the other side. Quickly she returned to her chair and composed herself as two black-clad SA men entered, one young and tall, the other older and stocky, both regarding her severely.
The older man carried a folder, which he opened upon the table as he seated himself. The younger man planted himself between the table and the door. “Name?” the older man asked, his voice clipped.
Greta assumed that information was in the file, but she said, “Greta Lorke.”
He eyed her, frowning. “Full name?”
“Margaretha Lorke.”
“Place and date of birth?”
“Frankfurt an der Oder, December 14, 1902.” She watched as he checked off two items on the first paper in the file. “I beg your pardon, but I’ve come to collect my typewriter. One of your officers took it from my apartment, and I would like it back, please.”
“Why do you need it?”
“I’m a graduate student, and I use it to write papers, correspondence, the usual things.”
“And flyers summoning your comrades to treasonous gatherings?”
Greta started. “Of course not.”
“Did you help the Jew Karl Mannheim escape to England?”
“Escape? Why would Professor Mannheim need to escape?”
He slammed a fist on the table. “Did you or did you not assist him?”
“I assisted him in his move to the United Kingdom,” Greta replied, shaken. “He hired me to do so. My confusion is regarding the word ‘escape.’ Herr Mannheim left Frankfurt to join the faculty of the London School of Economics, not for any nefarious purpose.”
“Where did you learn to fly?” the younger officer demanded. “In the United States?”
Greta looked from him to the older man and back. “I don’t understand.”
“Do you deny going to the United States?” asked the older officer, incredulous.
“Of course not. I attended graduate school at the University of Wisconsin. I’m proud of my achievement and I certainly make no secret of it.”
The younger officer planted his hands on the table and loomed over her. “Where is your airplane?”
Greta inhaled deeply and held his gaze. “I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve never flown in an airplane. I’m just here for my typewriter.”
“The typewriter you used to produce this?” The older officer took a page from the file and placed it on the table before her. “Will you deny that you posted these throughout the university’s Department of Sociology?” He indicated her name, handwritten in the lower right corner. “That is your signature, yes?”
Greta stared at the paper, dumbfounded. “Yes, but—”
“Fliegergruppe?” the younger officer barked, jabbing a long finger at the title phrase. “A flying group with a zeppelin?”
“Where is your aircraft?” the elder officer demanded.
Greta burst into laughter. The two officers gaped at her, shocked.
“I’m sorry,” she gasped, fighting to suppress her wild mirth. “I mean no disrespect. Yes, I did create these flyers and post them on the department’s bulletin boards. The Fliegergruppe is only a study group. We call it our flying group because we fly from one topic and location to another; from one meeting to the next. You must be new to Frankfurt or you would have heard of Zeppelinallee—it’s a street just west of campus.” She shook her head and pressed her lips together, aware that their bewilderment might quickly give way to anger. “We discuss topics in sociology, collaborate on papers, study for exams. I swear to you, there isn’t a single pilot among us.”
The older officer regarded her sourly. “You would do well to choose another name for your group.”
“Yes, I see that now. I’ll suggest that at our next meeting.”
“There may be no need.” The younger officer straightened and clasped his hands behind his back. “While you were abroad, so many of your professors decided to take leaves of absence that your entire department has been closed down.”
Greta studied him, uncertain. “I hadn’t heard that.”
“What will you do now, Fräulein Lorke?” he asked, feigning sorrow. “Go back to England, to the Jew Mannheim?”
“I suppose—” Greta’s thoughts raced to come up with an answer that would please them. “I will go home to Frankfurt an der Oder, to care for my aging parents.”
The older officer nodded. “And once you’re settled at home, you should marry. Kinder, Kirche, Küche!”
She nodded and bowed her head in false submission. “I’m grateful to you both for your patience. Now that we’ve cleared up this misunderstanding, may I have my typewriter, please?”
“Why should you need it, if you are no longer going to be a student?” asked the younger officer, feigning puzzlement.
“For correspondence, for conducting household business for my parents . . .” Greta shrugged. “It is mine, after all, and I’ve done nothing wrong, nothing to warrant having my property confiscated.”
“I think you will be better off without the temptation of a typewriter, Fräulein Lorke.” The older officer closed his file and stood. “We will put it to good use in service of the Reich.”
She pressed her lips together to hold back a furious retort. She could not afford to buy a new typewriter every time a Nazi became confused.
Silently fuming, she allowed the younger officer to escort her to the door, where she nodded curtly instead of returning his sharp, one-armed salute. She went directly to the university, where she confirmed that the Sociology Department was essentially defunct. Professor Mannheim had left just in time.
Nothing remained to hold her in Frankfurt. She gave notice to her landlady, closed accounts and settled bills, and packed up her belongings. Two days later, she boarded the morning train for Berlin.
Greta’s first task was to find a place to stay. With only a small amount of savings and no certainty of finding work soon, she eschewed convenience and luxury and instead sublet a room in a boathouse on the Havel in Pichelswerder, a far western suburb just north of Grunewald.
Next, she left a message for Adam at the Staatstheater: If he wished to see her, she would be at the Romanisches Café at three o’clock the following afternoon.
He came, as she had known he would; unexpectedly, he arrived first. When she entered, he left his table and crossed the room to meet her. He grasped her hands, pulled her close, kissed her cheek, and murmured words of welcome and endearment, all with an intense, almost feverish energy.
They sat down and ordered Kaffee und Kuchen. “Are you merely visiting or have you come to stay?” he asked.
“I plan to stay.” Honesty compelled her to add, “For now.” If her savings ran out before she found work, she might have to return home to her parents after all.
“You’ve returned to a very different city than the one you left.”
“I saw that as soon as I got off the train.” Suppressing a shudder, Greta sipped her coffee and glanced out the window, where swastika banners hung from the windows and balconies of the building across the street. “Anna Klug insists that German theater is dead. Please tell me she’s wrong.”
He grimaced. “I wish I could.”
The Staatstheater had become almost intolerable under its new management, he explained, as she savored the sound of his voice, his familiar expressions and gestures. The director had not renewed the contract of Adam’s brother-in-law, Hans Otto, despite the acclaim he had received for his magnificent performance in Faust, Part II. Otto’s occasional costar, the beautiful and popular Elisabeth Bergner, a Jew, had fled Germany. Adam’s frequent collaborator, the author Armin Wegner, had disappeared into the Gestapo’s prison camp system after writing an impassioned letter denouncing antisemit
ism and mailing it to Hitler in care of Nazi headquarters in Munich. Other friends and colleagues had been arrested, or had fled the country, or had chosen cautious silence, which provoked Adam’s disgust.
“I can’t shirk my responsibility to remain politically active,” he said emphatically, arousing both Greta’s admiration and her unease. “You must become politically engaged too. Abandon your social scientist’s professional detachment and get involved. Don’t just stand at a distance and observe, analyze, and report. Write. Speak out. Protest.”
“I intend to,” she replied, a trifle defensively. “Why else do you think I came back? But I’m going to be smart about it. I’m not going to send Adolf Hitler heartfelt letters imploring him to stop hating the Jews.”
“Yes, you’re right, discretion can be the better part of valor when one is overmatched. But in this fight, everyone must take a side. Whoever does not actively oppose the Nazis abets them.”
“I will never abet them,” she shot back, her voice low and fierce. Their eyes met over the table. His gaze was warm and admiring, and a searing rush of love and desire flooded her, wonderful and terrifying, until she had to tear her gaze away before she was swept up in it and lost.
A long moment passed in silence. She sipped her coffee, which was cooling in the cup, and took a small bite of cake.
“Are you working?” he eventually asked. “Are you going to finish your doctorate at the University of Berlin?”
“When they’re forcing students out? I can’t imagine they’d let me in.” Greta shook her head. “I thought I’d look for freelance editing and tutoring. I got by on such piecework before. I’m sure I could again.”
“I’ll ask around for you, if you like. Some of my theater friends might need an assistant.”
“Thank you.” She took a pencil and notepad from her purse, jotted down her new address and telephone number, tore the paper free, and slid it across the table to him. “I appreciate your help.”
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