Not everyone appreciated his loyalty and perseverance. Her father was besieged on all sides by obnoxious political enemies trying to push him out of office—not only Hitler’s men but Americans too, petty bureaucrats who complained that her father’s antipathy for the Nazis rendered him unfit for his post. Martha and Bill firmly believed that anyone who was not repulsed by Hitler and his Nazi regime was unqualified to represent the United States in Germany, on the grounds of intellectual weakness or moral bankruptcy or both. Their father, unimpressed by fascist spectacle, ethically incorruptible, was absolutely the best man for the job, but they worried that President Roosevelt could not perceive this from so far away. They feared even more that the job would put their father into an early grave.
Thus when they first glimpsed him descending from the train to the platform at the Lehrter Bahnhof, well rested and vigorous, they exchanged relieved glances and blinked back tears before making their way through the crowd to his side. He was smiling again, Martha observed, and how immeasurably grateful she was to see it. The haunted look had left his eyes, and he had acquired a healthy tan from hours basking in the Virginia sunshine as he puttered about his farm.
At long last, they were all together again, safe and sound. Embracing joyfully, they complimented him on his appearance and teased that he had come back just in time to save Germany from itself. “I’m not so sure about that,” he replied, rueful. “As we sailed down the Elbe, I spotted an astonishing number of army trucks on the roads hauling arms and equipment. My heart sank to see them, and all the other signs of the coming catastrophe.”
“Those awful instruments of death and destruction,” Martha’s mother said, shuddering as she took her husband’s arm. “Is there no possible way to stop men and nations from destroying each other?”
“What kind of talk is this for a family reunion?” Bill protested, draping his arms over his parents’ shoulders. “Let’s save the gloom and doom for tomorrow.”
Martha chimed in her agreement, and her father good-naturedly consented. His time back home in the States had apparently restored his energy and optimism, just as his family had hoped. As soon as they arrived at Tiergartenstrasse 27a, he took a book from his valise and proudly presented it to his wife. “How wonderful,” she exclaimed, holding out the book so that Martha could read the title, The Old South: Struggles for Democracy. “Congratulations, my dear.”
“Yes, congrats, Dad,” said Martha, rising up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “How marvelous it must be to hold a finished copy of your own book, your life’s work.” She hoped she would know that feeling herself someday.
“This is only volume one of my life’s work,” he corrected, smiling. “My publisher is eager for me to begin the second volume.”
Martha and her mother exchanged pensive glances. “Will your duties at the embassy leave you any time to write?” her mother asked. “You’ve only just regained your health. Promise me you won’t exhaust yourself from overwork.”
“I won’t, dear,” he said, clasping her hand. “I had several good conversations with the president, and he has agreed that I may resign in March.”
Martha’s mother cried out, surprised and thankful. Bill grinned and clapped their father on the back. But Martha felt her heart sink. She too felt homesick for America from time to time, and she had become thoroughly sick and tired of the oppressive Third Reich, but she could not help the resistance from Chicago. And how would her romance with Boris survive if they were an ocean apart? She already sensed his interest in marriage dwindling, and he was only in Warsaw.
Well, Martha thought, that’s it for dallying. They had until March to resolve things once and for all. Perhaps the thought of losing her forever would finally prompt Boris to propose.
“Why March?” asked Bill. “Why not now?”
“President Roosevelt asked me to stay on until spring to give him time to find the right man to succeed me. I also want to tie up some loose ends to smooth the transition.” He hesitated, wincing. “Also, if I left any sooner, it would give the impression that my rivals and critics, American and German alike, had succeeded in their efforts to have me removed.”
Martha nodded. The appearance that he had been abruptly fired would humiliate her father. A few more months at his post was a small price to pay for his dignity.
In the days that followed, Martha’s father resumed his duties with a new resolve to serve, as President Roosevelt had charged him to do more than four years before, as a steadfast example of American liberalism against fascism. To Martha, it seemed an increasingly futile task. She sensed dangerous forces at work in Germany, strengthening every day, driving the whole world toward an abyss. Although people like her father, the Harnacks, and her friends in the international press corps perceived the gaping emptiness ahead, no one with the power to act seemed willing or able to stop the inexorable rush into the darkness.
Then, on the afternoon of November 23, Martha was reading in the library when she heard her mother cry out. Racing to see what was the matter, she found her parents at the top of the grand staircase, her father home early from the embassy, pale and haggard, her mother taking his arm and guiding him to a chair. “What is it?” Martha asked, hurrying over.
“I’ve been relieved of my duties,” her father said, his voice strangely flat and distant.
“No, you resigned,” said Martha, bewildered. “You and the president agreed.”
Her father reached into his breast pocket and withdrew a folded telegram. Wordlessly he passed it to her, and although it was marked “Strictly Confidential,” Martha opened it. “It’s from Secretary Hull,” she told her mother. “‘Much as the President regrets any personal inconvenience which may be occasioned to you, he desires me to request that you arrange to leave Berlin if possible by December 15 and in any event not later than Christmas, because of the complications with which you are familiar and which threaten to increase.’ Complications? What is he talking about?”
Her father shook his head and held out his hand for the telegram. “I’ll protest, of course. I’ll remind Hull of my agreement with President Roosevelt. But I doubt it will do any good.”
“Unbelievable,” fumed Martha. “After all you’ve done for your country—”
“Perhaps it’s for the best,” her mother interrupted. “Now we can go home, where you want to be anyway. You can continue to recover your health and finish your book.”
“But important work remains to be done here.”
“Other men can do it,” she replied sharply, but then her voice softened. “Decide what is best and what you want most, dear, and I’ll be content.”
But other men had already decided for him. His protests went unheeded, and he realized that the forces arrayed against him were stronger and greater in number than he had suspected. Reconciling himself to the inevitable, he booked passage home.
He could not yet step down from his post, however, and when word of his imminent departure spread, he was inundated with invitations to dinners and luncheons with sympathetic ambassadors from other nations. Diplomats urgently sought his intervention on various matters while he still had the power to help them. Universities requested campus lectures, events that caused a greater stir of anticipation than they would have only a few months before, since he was now free to speak his mind without fear of repercussions. Privately Martha and Bill called it their father’s farewell tour, hiding their disgust that this show of approval had come too late to save his job.
Martha had farewells of her own to make.
Soon after her father had received the curt telegram from Washington, she went to Warsaw to break the bad news to Boris in person. He was dismayed—more than she had expected, which was rather satisfying—and their brief hours together were more passionate than ever, infused with the sweet melancholy of their inevitable parting.
Martha supposed, unhappily, that the rendezvous would be their last, but in mid-December, Boris unexpectedly appeared at the front door of Tiergarte
nstrasse 27a. He carried a bottle of vodka in one large hand and a bouquet of flowers in the other, but he managed to hold on to them both as he took her in his arms and pulled her close.
She spent the night with him at his hotel rather than add more turmoil to the household by inviting him to stay. She was astonished to learn that he had left his post without permission in order to see her one last time, and the thought that he would risk so much for her sake delighted and aroused her. “I want to marry you,” she told him as they lay in bed together, their limbs intertwined.
“It is impossible,” he said, sighing heavily. “It always was. Now it is even more so.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Darling, let’s forget about the future and just enjoy this time together. I’ll certainly pay dearly for it when I return.”
Their stolen days were glorious and heartbreaking and over too soon. Martha refused to believe that they might never see each other again, and she waited for Boris’s letter from Warsaw humorously describing the reprimand he had earned for her sake. She hoped against all reason that he might somehow manage another visit, just one more, to hold her over until they could meet again in better days.
Martha postponed saying goodbye to Mildred until the last possible moment. Mildred had been her truest, dearest friend throughout the four and a half years she had spent in Berlin, from the moment Mildred had met her family’s train at the Lehrter Bahnhof bearing flowers from the American Women’s Club.
A few days before Martha’s departure, she and Mildred met at a restaurant near the Harnacks’ flat where they were unlikely to run into any Nazi officials. They chose an inconspicuous table away from the front windows and lingered over lunch, reminiscing wistfully about their literary column, Mildred’s fascinating salons, mutual friends who had already left Berlin, Thomas Wolfe, their observations of Hitler at the Olympic Games. Only then did Martha realize how many of her memories of Germany were indelibly marked by Mildred’s presence.
They chatted about books, their dread of fascism, and their hopes for the future. “You must write to me now and then,” Martha said, when the hour grew late and she was overdue to help her mother finish packing.
“I’ll have to be circumspect,” said Mildred. “Don’t expect too many specific details.”
“Anything you can sneak past the censors will be good enough for me.”
“Agreed,” said Mildred. “You must promise to write back. Send me chapters of your book.”
“I haven’t even begun writing it yet. Besides, what I have to say would definitely get held up by the censors.”
They laughed together, but then Mildred abruptly stopped. “How can we joke about having our mail censored, as if it’s a perfectly ordinary inconvenience? What has happened to us? Five years ago, we would have been shocked and outraged by the very idea.”
“I’m still shocked and outraged.”
“Are you really?” Mildred shook her head. “I’m afraid we’ve all become acclimated to cruelty and injustice by being exposed to it in steadily increasing doses through the years. Intolerable wrongs we accept now as a matter of course would have provoked marches in the streets and calls for new elections only a few years ago.”
Martha reached across the table and took her hand. “Not you, Mildred. You don’t accept injustice any more now than you did when we first met. You could never be cruel or tolerate cruelty. And you are not alone.”
Reminded of their brave friends, Mildred allowed a small smile. Someday, they agreed, Germany would emerge from this nightmare of fascism and become a just, tolerant, and wise nation again, at peace with itself and the world.
They left the restaurant and parted with a quick kiss and promises to stay in touch. After they went their separate ways, Martha suddenly halted and turned around, eager for one more glimpse of her friend, hoping she would glance over her shoulder and offer one last smile, a parting wave. But Mildred had already disappeared into the crowd.
With a sharp pang of loneliness, Martha continued on to Tiergartenstrasse 27a. She would miss Mildred terribly, but she felt none of the bitter unhappiness of her parting from Boris, whom she suspected she would never see again. Surely she and Mildred would reunite someday back in America, perhaps not soon, but eventually.
Until then, they would share letters and memories.
On December 14, Martha took a train to Hamburg, where she boarded the SS Manhattan bound for New York. As the ship sailed slowly up the Elbe, Martha stood at the railing on an upper deck and took in her last views of Germany, marveling at how beautiful it became at a distance, as the swastika flags diminished and became indistinct, blending into the background of quaint villages and rich farmland and deep forests until she could almost convince herself that they were not there at all.
Chapter Forty
January–June 1938
Mildred
When Greta and Adam welcomed their son into the world in early January, Mildred and Arvid were among the first to meet him. Little Ule Kuckhoff had his father’s broad face and his mother’s dark, wavy hair and dark eyes, solemn and pensive, as if he knew that courage and sacrifice would be required of him soon.
Greta wrapped him in the soft blue-and-white-striped blanket Mildred had knit for him and placed him in Mildred’s arms. “This is your Tante Mildred,” she said softly, “and though you’ve only just met, she already loves you.”
“It’s true, dear one,” said Mildred softly. She eased herself into Greta’s chair and gently rocked the tiny newborn, her joy for her friends tempered by her incessant yearning for a child of her own. She was already an aunt several times over, but although she found much consolation in the role, it could not fulfill her heart’s desire.
Greta’s mother had come to help the new parents through the first few weeks, but Greta had endured a difficult labor and when her recovery came slowly, her mother’s visit stretched into a month and then two. Mildred visited as often as she could to help, and once, when they were alone, Greta confessed her frustration that her resistance work had come to an abrupt halt. “Adam and his comrades toil over their pamphlets and posters, and what do I do?” she fretted. “Nothing. I lie around the flat doing nothing while people suffer.”
“You’re regaining your strength and caring for your baby,” Mildred protested. “What could be more important?”
“Bringing down the Reich,” Greta retorted, but quietly so her mother would not overhear. “Speaking the truth. Refuting their lies. I have to make a better world for Ule.”
Mildred assured her that she would be able to resume her work soon, but Greta’s frustration mirrored her own. Ambassador Dodd, her most important American contact, had been recalled to the United States, and no one else had emerged as someone she could trust with the intelligence Arvid gathered from the Economics Ministry. Worse yet, acquaintances among the embassy staff had told her that Mr. Dodd’s successor, a career diplomat named Hugh Wilson, had resolved to take a more cordial approach to the Nazi regime. Improved relations between their two countries could only benefit American businesses, he had declared in more than one meeting, and after one junior official had presented reports of Gestapo abuses, Wilson rejected his offer to draft a stern condemnation. “We do not love or hate, we do not judge or condemn,” he had admonished the younger man. “We observe, we reflect, and we report.”
Even as Mildred’s contacts at the American embassy were diminishing in number, Arvid was losing his among the Soviet delegation. Stalin, apparently determined to rid the Soviet Union of every conceivable threat, had ordered sweeping, violent purges of his political enemies. Rumors abounded that within the past few years, nearly five million Soviet intellectuals, military officers, Communist party officials, police chiefs, and others had been arrested. Of these, nearly a million had been executed, and one could only assume that countless others had suffered and died in prison camps, with more deaths every day.
The sheer number of estimated dead was almost too vast to
comprehend, but Mildred’s amorphous dread came into sharp focus when, without warning, many Soviet diplomats and attachés stationed in Berlin were ordered to return to Moscow. Among those recalled was Sergei Bessonov, a prominent economist assigned to the Russian trade mission who had helped Arvid set up ARPLAN. In the years since, he and Arvid had become close, and Arvid and Mildred had frequently invited him to their home for supper. Bessonov had left Berlin so suddenly that Arvid had no chance to offer help or say goodbye.
They heard nothing more of Bessonov until early March, when the newspapers listed him as a defendant in the Trial of the Twenty-One. Prosecutors claimed that he belonged to a “Bloc of Rightists and Trotskyites” who had conspired to assassinate Lenin and Stalin, to commit espionage, and to collude with the governments of Germany and Japan in order to overthrow the Soviet Union. Arvid was deeply upset by the news. Bessonov was a good friend, and Arvid knew he was already lost. No defendant was ever acquitted in Stalin’s show trials.
Two days after Bessonov’s trial began, Mildred was reading the Berliner Tageblatt over breakfast when a familiar name leapt out at her from a column on international diplomacy. “Boris Vinogradov has been recalled to Moscow,” she said, dismayed. “He’s been accused of collaborating with the Nazis.”
“Poor fellow.” Arvid sighed, removed his glasses, and rubbed the bridge of his nose as if warding off a headache. “He put a target on his own back with that foolhardy visit to Martha in December.”
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