Resistance Women

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  After thinking it over and getting her parents’ reluctant consent, Martha called Putzi and agreed that he could play matchmaker.

  Martha had no idea what to wear for the date Putzi arranged, lunch at the Kaiserhof, a grand hotel seven blocks away on Wilhelmplatz, just southeast of the Tiergarten. She understood that Nazis preferred women to be seen and not heard, to be demure and lovely ornaments on the arms of great men. Wives were expected to be meticulous housekeepers and fecund mothers, but Martha would definitely break it off before it went that far.

  Still undecided with only one day to go, when Mildred came over to work on their column, Martha begged her to help her choose the perfect dress and accessories for a very important date. “You know what German men like,” she said. “You married one.”

  Mildred smiled and set down her pen. “Who is this special fellow?” she asked as they went upstairs. “Putzi Hanfstaengl?”

  “For the last time, no. Putzi is just a friend. You probably wouldn’t approve, but—” Martha shook her head. “Never mind.”

  “Never mind? You can’t leave it at that.”

  “Well—” Martha glanced over her shoulder. Her family had begun to suspect that Fritz sympathized with the Nazis, and one couldn’t be too careful. She waited until they were alone in her room before taking a deep breath and plunging ahead. “Putzi thinks Hitler needs a girlfriend to make him a more pleasant, reasonable person, so . . . he arranged a date. With me.”

  Mildred recoiled, horrified. “You can’t mean it. A date with that fascist monster? How could you agree to that? You know what he is, what he stands for!”

  “It’s only lunch,” said Martha, defensive. “I haven’t agreed to be his concubine.”

  Mildred grimaced and pressed a hand to her stomach. “Now I really do feel ill. I don’t understand. Hitler’s odious, vile, cruel. What will your parents say when they find out?”

  “They already know, and anyway, if my father knew who the alternative was, he’d push me into the chancellor’s arms.”

  “I can’t believe that. Anyone would be better than Hitler.”

  “If I tell you, you have to swear to tell no one, not even Arvid.”

  Mildred frowned and nodded, marking an X over her heart with a finger.

  “Boris Vinogradov.”

  For a moment Mildred could only stare at her. “The first secretary of the Soviet embassy?”

  “So you see my problem.” Martha dropped onto the bed, her hands in her lap. “The United States hasn’t officially recognized the Soviet Union. It would put my father in a very difficult position if word got out that I’m seeing one of their diplomats.”

  “That’s not your only problem,” said Mildred. “Arvid has friends at the Soviet embassy, and—I don’t have any proof, but Boris Vinogradov almost certainly works for the NKVD.” When Martha barely shrugged, she added, “That’s the Soviet intelligence division. It’s quite possible that he isn’t trying to romance you, but to recruit you.”

  “All the more reason for me to see other men.”

  “Agreed, but this man?”

  Martha threw her hands in the air, exasperated. “The last time I saw Carl Sandburg before leaving for Germany, he told me that I should take notes on anything and everything. He urged me to ‘find out what this man Hitler is made of, what makes his brain go round, what his bones and blood are made of.’”

  “So you’re saying you’d date Adolf Hitler because you think it would be good research for a future book?”

  “If you were single, wouldn’t you?”

  “Absolutely not. The very idea makes my skin crawl.”

  “Then my books are destined to be more exciting than yours,” Martha replied. “Now, are you still willing to help me decide what to wear?”

  After a moment Mildred nodded, but it was obvious she hoped Martha would find nothing suitable and would have no choice but to cancel the date.

  “Nothing too glamorous or revealing,” mused Martha as they studied her closet. “And yet still elegant and alluring. If I’m going to change the course of European history, I’d better look the part.”

  They settled on a pearlescent light mauve crepe de Chine suit and a hat with a tiny veil that added modesty without concealing any of her enticing features. “You look very pretty,” said Mildred as Martha turned and posed in front of the mirror. “Too pretty.”

  “I know you disapprove,” said Martha, turning her back to the mirror, “but if there’s even the slightest chance that Putzi is right, and I could influence the chancellor for the better, shouldn’t I try?”

  “I don’t know. Just be careful,” she begged, and Martha promised she would.

  The next day, Martha dressed, fixed her hair, and studied her face in the mirror, frowning slightly. She had worn almost no makeup as befitted the Nazi ideal, and she was not happy about it. But she had no time for second thoughts about her appearance, for Putzi arrived fifteen minutes early to drive her to the Kaiserhof. He seemed even more anxious than she was for the date to go well.

  Putzi escorted her to the elegant Kaiserhof tearoom, where they met another lunch guest, the famous Polish singer Jan Kiepura. “Where’s the chancellor?” Martha asked Putzi after they were seated and a quick glance around revealed that her date was not in the room.

  “He’s coming,” Putzi replied. “Not to worry.”

  The three chatted and drank tea for quite some time, and Martha was just beginning to wonder if she had been stood up when she heard a commotion near the front entrance, the scrape of chairs against the floor, and shouts of “Heil Hitler!” Moments later, Hitler entered the room with his usual entourage of Nazi Party men, bodyguards, and beloved chauffeur, a set of companions Boris contemptuously referred to as the Chauffeureska.

  Martha smiled and tried to catch the chancellor’s eye, but to her surprise, he never glanced her way as the maître d’ led his group to a nearby table. As Hitler and the Chauffeureska seated themselves and began perusing their menus, Martha raised her eyebrows at Putzi in a significant glance and picked up her own menu.

  The men at the chancellor’s table ordered lunch; Martha and her two companions ordered theirs. After the first course, one of Hitler’s aides came over to their table and invited Jan Kiepura to meet the chancellor. Martha feigned indifference, but she could not help feeling slighted as Hitler invited the singer to be seated and the two men conversed earnestly throughout the second course.

  “Kiepura is a Jew on his mother’s side,” Putzi murmured. “I don’t think Hitler knows.”

  “I hope you aren’t planning to tell him.”

  “Of course not,” Putzi replied, wounded. “It’s none of my business.”

  Martha managed a tight smile, wondering why she was there when her ostensible date seemed to have no interest in acknowledging her existence. The food was excellent, so at least there was that.

  As the second course was cleared, Putzi excused himself, walked over to Hitler’s table, and spoke briefly, bending close to his ear. Soon he returned to Martha and said that Hitler had consented to be introduced to her.

  Martha rose, hiding her surprise, for she had assumed consent had already been given. She followed Putzi to the other table and remained standing while he made a formal introduction. Hitler rose, took her hand, and kissed it politely. He murmured a few phrases in German that she did not quite catch, so she smiled and nodded in reply, wishing Putzi would translate for her.

  It occurred to her that Hitler’s little mustache did not look as ridiculous in person as it did in photographs. His face was unexpectedly soft and weak, with pouches under his eyes and fleshy lips. His hands were small and surprisingly feminine. His only distinctive feature was his eyes, which Martha found startling—very pale blue, intense, unwavering, even hypnotic.

  The chancellor spoke again in German, his tone polite and perhaps a bit embarrassed, and Martha smiled back, though she grasped only every third word or so and he could have been rudely propositioning her f
or all she knew. After a brief time he shook her hand, and raised it to his lips for another kiss, which Martha assumed was his way of bidding her goodbye, for as soon as he released her hand, Putzi escorted her back to their table.

  “Are you going to translate any of that for me?” she murmured.

  “Just the usual pleasantries,” he replied quietly, pulling out her chair. “He thinks you’re very pretty, sufficiently Aryan despite your dark hair.”

  Martha bit back a derisive laugh and sat down. Over dessert and coffee, she and Putzi chatted idly, while at the other table, Hitler and Kiepura resumed their conversation, sober and intent.

  “What are they talking about?” Martha asked Putzi in an undertone.

  “Music,” Putzi replied. “What else?”

  What else indeed. Martha muffled a sigh and finished her cake. From time to time, Hitler gave her a few curious, abashed stares, but they never exchanged another word, not even when the chancellor and his Chauffeureska rose and departed.

  Martha watched him go, bemused. Most men she met tried a little harder to impress her. Considering his position, perhaps he thought the burden was upon her to impress him.

  Putzi seemed jubilant as he drove her home, which Martha did not understand in the least, because she could not imagine that she had made a very good impression. She had no idea what sort of woman it would take to inspire romance from Chancellor Hitler.

  It came as no surprise when the days passed without an invitation from Hitler to meet again, or even a perfunctory, impersonal note from the chancellor’s office acknowledging their meeting, which an ambassador’s daughter might have expected.

  Putzi seemed disappointed at first, but he got over it by mid-November. The most enduring outcome of the date was the jealousy it provoked from Boris—which was quite thrilling, and added another element of excitement to their clandestine relationship. The United States officially recognized the Soviet Union on November 16, but even after Martha’s father paid his first official visit to the Soviet embassy, the couple remained utterly platonic in public. Their romance, if it became widely known, would displease Martha’s parents, Boris’s superiors, and the innumerable Nazi officials who spotted threats and conspiracy in every chance meeting between foreign diplomats—and their daughters too, apparently. Martha was certain the Gestapo shadowed her and Boris on walks through the Tiergarten to admire the autumn foliage, and at private dinners at discreet restaurants. Fortunately, Tiergartenstrasse 27a had many rooms, and her parents preferred to turn in early. How fortunate it was, too, that she had obtained a diaphragm back in Chicago during her brief stint as a married woman. It would have been all but impossible to get one as a single girl in Berlin.

  The Dodds’ first Thanksgiving abroad passed, and winter followed swiftly after with starry nights and gentle snow showers. It seemed to Martha that no one celebrated Christmas more merrily than Germans. Even in those troubled times, candles shone in the windows of every home and electric lights in every storefront, their illumination reflected in the streets and sidewalks, wet from melted snow. Strings of electric bulbs adorned the tall evergreen trees in public parks and squares, and shoppers bustled about purchasing delicacies for neighborhood parties and family feasts.

  “I find the German enthusiasm for Christmas absolutely extraordinary,” Martha’s father told his family a few days before the holiday. “Christmas trees at public squares and in every house I’ve entered. One might be led to think that Germans believe in Jesus and practice his teachings.”

  When his wife gently reminded him that many Germans did, Martha’s father acknowledged that he was wrong to conflate all Germans and the Nazis.

  “Never mind, Dad. We’ve all made that mistake,” said Martha, with a sudden flare of sympathy for the Harnacks, for Greta Lorke, for other Germans she knew who strongly opposed the regime, an increasingly shrinking minority in a country increasingly intolerant of dissent.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  January–June 1934

  Sara

  On the first day of the New Year, Sara’s brother and many of his colleagues were abruptly thrown out of work when the Editors Law went into effect. Foreign correspondents were exempt, but all German writers and editors were required to present church records or civil documentation to prove that they were Aryan. If they could not, they were forbidden to register with the Reich Press Chamber, and unregistered journalists caught writing or editing faced up to a year in prison. Jews who had served in the Great War, who had lost a son in battle, or who wrote for Jewish newspapers were exempt, but very few slipped through those loopholes. Natan was one who did not.

  Their father offered to ask Mr. Panofsky if there were any clerical posts available for him at the bank, but Natan said he would prefer to look for something that better suited his talents. Their mother reminded him that he could always move back home to save on rent until a new job came along. Natan thanked her but declined; he had been putting money aside ever since the law was announced in October, and he could afford to keep his apartment for now.

  Sara thought her brother was being remarkably stoic for someone whose career had been stolen from him. Natan had been forced to give up work he thrived on, and his circle of friends diminished as colleagues and competitors, newly unemployed and with most other professions closed to them, decided to emigrate. Some found their plans thwarted by bureaucracy. When Natan mentioned that some journalists he knew struggled to get visas, Sara asked for their names, ages, and addresses. He regarded her appraisingly but asked no questions, and two days later he produced a list of about a dozen journalists. At the next meeting of her study group, Sara took Mildred aside, gave her the folded paper, and asked if she could convince her contacts at the U.S. embassy to intervene.

  Mildred scanned the list. “I don’t see your brother’s name.”

  “He’s not leaving. I almost wish he would, except I’d miss him, and my parents would be heartbroken.”

  Mildred smiled understandingly, folded the paper, and slipped it into her pocket. She made no promises, but in early February, Natan told Sara that the obstacles preventing his friends from emigrating had inexplicably vanished. “I don’t know what you did,” he said, embracing her in a bear hug that lifted her feet nearly off the ground, “but thank you.”

  “All I did was pass on a list.”

  “To those men and their families, that was everything.”

  As winter passed, Sara continued her studies, dreading that any day her exemption would be revoked and she would be expelled from the university. Her father’s job seemed secure as long as Mr. Panofsky remained in charge, and with the American ambassador’s family residing in his home, the Gestapo surely would not risk an international incident by harassing him. Natan said very little about his job search, but it seemed to Sara that it had stalled, if it had ever truly started. She stopped reading the Berliner Tageblatt in protest, but Natan, amused, reminded her that it was not the publishers’ fault he was no longer permitted to work for them. “Depriving yourself of the best news reporting in the city won’t get me my job back,” he pointed out. “I still read the Berliner Tageblatt and I intend to continue.”

  “How can you be so loyal?” she asked. “The publishers didn’t fight to keep you. They’ve already replaced you. I’ve seen the new bylines.”

  He shrugged. “They have to keep the paper going, and they can’t do that without reporters.”

  Sara marveled at his forbearance. In his place, she would resent every new reporter who had accepted a job unwillingly vacated by a Jew. Surely they knew they were profiting from the misery of Natan and his former colleagues.

  When she shared her feelings with Dieter, he sided with Natan. “If your brother and your parents still read the Berliner Tageblatt, why shouldn’t you?” he asked reasonably. “Some of these new writers are really quite good.”

  “They can’t be as good as Natan,” she retorted, and Dieter quickly replied that of course they weren’t, he hadn’t meant
that at all. Natan had been wronged and the paper suffered for it, but he was resourceful and Dieter was confident that he would figure out something.

  Eventually Sara acquiesced, but when she resumed reading the paper, she insisted that it was not as good as before. “Some of the new reporters write fairly well,” she conceded one morning when Natan asked her for her honest opinion. He had joined the family for breakfast, something he indulged in more often lately, now that his schedule permitted. “This M. A. Holtzer, for example, has a fluid style.”

  “I’ll let you in on a secret,” said Natan. “M. A. stands for Mathilda Alisz.”

  “A woman?” their mother remarked. “And she’s not trapped on the society page? How marvelous!”

  Sara scanned the front page until her gaze lit upon another newly familiar name. “Konrad Dressler is quite good too. Informative, but never didactic or sensationalist. A graceful, yet straightforward style. And yet—”

  Natan’s eyebrows rose. “A complaint?”

  “No, a concern. Criticism of the Nazis is woven through everything he writes, so subtly that he wouldn’t be condemned for it, yet readers who agree with him couldn’t mistake his true meaning.” Sara spread the paper out flat and held Natan’s gaze over the table. “Do you know him well enough to warn him to be careful?”

  “I do, and I could, but I don’t think he’ll change.”

  “So he’s as stubborn as you?”

  “He should be. I taught him everything he knows.”

  Sara smiled sweetly and pointed at the second paragraph of Dressler’s editorial. “Including this rather eccentric use of the dative construction instead of the genitive?”

  “What?” Natan spun the paper around and studied it, frowning. “How did that happen?”

  “As editor, you would have caught that error. Say what you will, the paper isn’t as good as it once was.”

  “They’re doing the best they can in difficult circumstances. We all are.”