Franka almost laughed at the rhetoric the man was regurgitating but managed not to. What was he really thinking?
“Why didn’t you ask me to contact anyone when I was in town? What about your wife and daughters? Do they even know you’re alive?”
“That could compromise my mission. I need to ask that you not report to anyone that you’ve seen me, let alone the fact that I’m here.”
Franka went to the window, stepping over the hole in the floorboards to get there. She threw back the curtain. The snow drifting down was just visible outside. “The snow is coming down again. The roads are going to be closed for days. Weeks maybe. You’re not going anywhere for a long time. You need to start trusting me. I could be the only friend you’ve got.”
She picked up the basin, threw in the medical supplies, and stormed out of the bedroom, shutting the door behind her.
A day passed, and then the next. The man lolled in morphine-induced delirium most of the time, and they spoke little. He emerged from his stupor on the third day. His pain was decreasing, and she had given him the last of his morphine shots that morning. It was two o’clock in the afternoon. His door was closed, but she imagined he could hear the radio programs she was listening to—none of them sanctioned by the National Socialists. If he was such a loyal subject, why didn’t he object? What she was doing was illegal, and enough to land her back in jail. She sat in the rocking chair, staring past her book. She tried to reason that he was who he said he was, but there was no getting past what he’d said in his sleep, what she’d heard. If he were Luftwaffe, even a spy, he would have asked her to get in contact with someone when she was in town. Even if what he said were true, and he was nervous about the Gestapo finding out about his mission, there should have been someone to call. Surely someone would have wanted to know if he was alive or dead. She put the book in her lap and rubbed her eyes in frustration. She placed several pieces of wood on the fire and watched for a few seconds as the flames engulfed them. It seemed like there was only one thing to do.
He was awake and staring at the ceiling as she shoved the door open.
“I need to tell you who I am. If you are who you say you are, then you’ll likely be disgusted with me, and the next week or two that we’re forced to spend together is going to be difficult. But I need to tell you. Perhaps then you’ll open up to me.”
“Fräulein, there’s no need for any loose talk. The less we know about each other, the better. I’m most grateful for all that you’ve done for me, but I can’t let you compromise my mission.”
“What mission? What mission could a Luftwaffe airman possibly be on in the Black Forest Mountains in wintertime? I think you’re here by mistake. I also believe that you’re planning on trying to escape as soon as you’re well again. That’s your business as long as it doesn’t compromise my safety.”
The man seemed shocked. “I would never do anything to hurt you. Not now that I know—”
“Do you have any idea why I was prying up the floorboards when you woke?” The man didn’t answer, just looked on. “I was prying up the floorboards so I could hide you. So when the Gestapo come, which they inevitably will, you won’t be lying in this bed.”
“Fräulein—”
“The Gestapo will come,” she repeated. “I ran into an old boyfriend of mine, who’s a captain in the Gestapo. I didn’t tell him that you were here, but he will come, particularly if they’re already looking for you.” She leaned over the bed, both hands on the blanket. “I’ll tell you who I am, and at the end of my story, if you still insist that you’re a Luftwaffe airman, I’ll look after you here for the next few days, and you can limp away when the weather clears. Or else you can trust me, and I can help you.”
The man didn’t answer. His face was pale. He reached for the glass of water she’d left for him by the bed and then looked at the hole in the floorboards. Silence filled the air.
“I’m listening,” he said.
Chapter 6
The arrival of another new chancellor in 1933 didn’t seem momentous or noteworthy. There had been many, and little seemed to improve. Life was still hard. The worldwide depression was getting worse, and Germany appeared to have been stricken the hardest. The newspapers said that more than fifteen million people, 20 percent of the population at the time, were living at subsistence level. This new man, this Hitler, was regarded as an upstart, a bad joke. His National Socialist party had never achieved more than 37 percent of the vote, but the president had named him chancellor. Either way, the “little Austrian corporal,” as his political opponents had referred to him, could never last long. He and his brown-shirted rabble would be run out of power once the republic had solved the infighting that had split the political powers apart. And besides, Hitler could not have really meant what he said in his speeches about his intention to tear the republic apart and start again, or about his determination to avenge Germany’s defeat in the world war, or about the Jews. A statement released to the papers by one of his spokesmen was largely ignored: “You must realize that what has happened in Germany is no ordinary change. Parliamentary and democratic times are passed. A new era has begun.”
That same week Franka learned new words like “lymphoma” and “metastasized” and saw her father cry for the first time. Fredi didn’t understand, and his mother hugged him tight to her breast as he smiled that beautiful smile at her. She urged them to be brave. They had been through so much already. The future held only wonderful things. She would beat this cancer, and they would go on together. This was only the beginning of their lives. She wasn’t even forty. It didn’t matter what the doctors said. Faith would bring her through this, just as it had before, just as it had when Fredi was born, and all of the times with him after.
The cancer spread.
Within weeks, Hitler had consolidated his power. The rights of free speech, press, and public assembly were abolished, and thus the German experiment with freedom and democracy ended. The German citizenry ceded absolute power to Hitler and his Nazis without so much as a whimper. The people didn’t seem to feel oppressed by the new regime. They had no great faith in a dysfunctional and poorly designed democratic system. Kids began to wear Nazi armbands to school, and the new greeting of extending one’s arm while saying “Heil Hitler” became a way of signaling loyalty to the party.
The enthusiasm for a leadership that promised to place Germany back on its pedestal as one of the great nations of the world was contagious. Franka felt it. Almost every young person she knew felt it. It seemed like the German people were on the brink of something momentous and incredible. The support for the new National Socialist system came from all sides. Franka even noticed in the paper that an organization called the Association of German National Jews had voiced their support for the new Nazi regime.
Franka saw the change almost immediately. A new ruling class was rising in cities and towns throughout Germany, and they were determined to make their presence known. Fortified by the party emblems in their buttonholes, the party-membership cards in their pockets, and the swastikas on their sleeves, the previously obscure and unnoticed group began to assert themselves. Josef Donitz, a local grocer, began wearing a storm trooper’s uniform to work. Within weeks he took over the local government without the formality or troubles of an election. The local fire chief, a lifetime friend of Franka’s father, was elbowed out of his job by a junior fireman who was a known alcoholic and just happened to be a member of the party. Employees with party credentials spoke sharply to management, who began to listen respectfully. On every level of social and political life, the National Socialist revolution manifested itself as a kind of seepage upward—the scum rising to the top.
Franka’s mother’s determination pushed her past the timelines that the doctors laid out for her. For Sarah, “six months to live” meant “I’ll see you next year to make you eat your words.” She wanted to spend her time outside, in the wondrous natural playground that seemed to stretch without boundary all around th
em. Franka’s father, Thomas, bought the cabin in the mountains from his uncle Hermann, who had used it as a hunting lodge on his expeditions to shoot red deer and boar. Franka and her mother took to refurbishing the cabin while Thomas worked on making it habitable in time for the warmer months. They spent most of that summer of 1933 up there, luxuriating in their time together. Franka grew to adore the sight of her family sitting outside the cabin as she returned with her friends from a hike in the mountains. On those warm summer nights when the sun set behind the cabin, bathing the sky and trees in orange and red, when the smell of food on the stove mixed with the smoke from her father’s pipe, it seemed like they’d found their own little piece of heaven. At the end of that glorious summer, when Sarah declared that she was going to see the same again the next year, Fredi wrapped loving arms around her. Franka and her father remained silent. Only Fredi seemed to believe it was possible, but time would prove him right.
School changed. The Nazis were determined to be the party of youth. Commanding and controlling the allegiances of Germany’s youth was a fundamental goal. The influence of the National Socialist revolution was evident when Franka returned to Freiburg after that summer. The Nazi flag was hoisted in every classroom, and suddenly portraits of Adolf Hitler, the demigod at the head of the nation, appeared in place of crucifixes on the walls. The visage of a man she wouldn’t have recognized a year before was now in every classroom. Books from the school library that were deemed subversive were taken out, piled high, and burned in the yard. Franka asked the librarian what they had taken and was told that the local party members had removed any books, fact or fiction, that expressed a liberal idea, or suggested that the people themselves, rather than the führer, should control their own destinies. New books on how the National Socialists had rescued Germany from the abyss of the Weimar Republic soon filled the gaps on the shelves. These new books were written in childish, simple language, but none of the teachers complained. They all became members of the National Socialist Teachers League. Eager to retain their jobs, and under pressure from the local government, they began championing the new ideas of the Nazis. Franka’s favorite teacher, Herr Stiegel, was one of the few to protest the new ways, insisting that his lessons remain the same as they had been before the new government came to power. He lasted two weeks, and when Franka and some of the other students went to visit him at his old house outside town, they found it empty. They never saw him again. Nina Hess boasted afterward that she had informed on him to one of the local Nazi leaders. She was rewarded with a red sash signifying her loyalty to the National Socialist regime, which she wore every day for the rest of the school year.
No one wanted to be left behind, and Franka found herself swept up in the tidal wave of enthusiasm for the new dawn of the Aryan people. The Nazis had started using that term, “Aryan,” to describe the characteristics of ideal Germans. Franka was undoubtedly one of the superrace they described. There was something gratifying in being told by the government that your blond hair and blue eyes were perfect, that they made you the ideal German. She didn’t know any other races, but the National Socialists insisted that she and her friends were blood born into a master race, and that they were superior to all others. It felt good. She felt part of something important.
The decision to join the League of German Girls came easily. All her friends already had. She was almost seventeen then, and a bit old to be a member, but the promise of possibly being a group leader spurred her on. She didn’t want to be left out, and besides, this was not a time to stand on the sidelines. This was a time for bold action. So she joined, despite the protestations of her parents, who seemed wary of the Nazi Party at almost every level. Franka Gerber was the model of the magnificent youngster that Hitler prophesized would help Germany dominate the world, and she wasn’t going to let any old-fashioned notions stand in her way. She was going to do her bit for the cause of the German people.
Franka cherished her uniform of a white blouse with a loose black tie, pinned tight with the emblem of a swastika, over a navy skirt. The girls of the league marched in much the same way as the boys in the Hitler Youth who eyed them. They performed drills and did calisthenics and went on long hikes, often camping out under the stars, where they sang songs glorifying the führer and longing for the day when they might provide strong sons for a future war effort. A sisterhood developed between the girls. Their common goals and focused efforts brought them together. It felt wonderful to be accepted, to be valued, to be superior.
Daniel was a troop leader in the Hitler Youth and led the drills as they jogged through town in swastika-emblazoned singlets, singing “the old must perish, the weak must decay.” Truly they were the finest of German youth, slim and lithe, as fast as greyhounds, and as hard as Krupp steel, just as Hitler himself had demanded. And Daniel was the finest of them all and directed the younger members with a strict but fair countenance. With flushed cheeks, all the girls talked about him and whispered behind their hands as he strode past. He and Franka came together like magnets—all that was strong and beautiful about the new Germany encapsulated between them. His father, who had been unemployed before the National Socialist revolution, was now a leading member of the local council. Franka never saw him without his Nazi pin on his chest, or the Nazi armband adorning his bicep. His son was the realization of his dreams, the promise of a new and better life for the Aryan race.
Daniel was stern with his recruits but reserved a tenderness that he seemed to show only her. He was ambitious and forward-looking, serious and determined. He was the perfect boyfriend for the exciting times she was living through. She found herself drawn in deeper and deeper. It was the end of school, just before graduation, when she took him home to meet her parents for the first time. Daniel was respectful and polite. He wore his Hitler Youth leader’s uniform to dinner and gave the Nazi salute as Franka’s father opened the door to him. Franka’s mother stepped forward, doing her best to smile as he greeted her. They made their way to the table, and Franka sat down next to him. Fredi sat in his usual spot at the end of the table. Daniel greeted him with a nod. He wasn’t shy toward her parents, however, and spoke of his plans to join the newly formed Gestapo, the elite police force, and about the need to protect the revolution from spies and malingerers. That was the first time Franka ever heard the phrase “enemies of the state.” Her parents retained their polite demeanor, but she saw them glancing toward one another during the meal through slit eyes, could feel their judgment. She knew what was coming after he left.
Franka’s father carried Fredi up to bed. Her mother waited until he got back downstairs before she sat Franka down. She put a pale hand on Franka’s leg. She looked tired all the time now, her beauty dulled by the unseen enemy within her. Her bloodshot eyes were earnest but calm.
“How serious is it with Daniel? I know you’ve been seeing each other awhile.”
“I love him, Mother. You were only a little older than I am now when you met Father.”
Thomas sat down, rubbing his eyes. “I was twenty-two, your mother nineteen. You’re just seventeen and still in school. We’re wondering if Daniel is a distraction to your studies. You’re so involved with this League of German Girls now. It seems that you’re spending all your free time with them.”
“I love my troop. I’m part of something. You don’t know anything about what’s going on in this country. You’re stuck in the old world of the kaiser and the Weimar idiots who ran Germany into the ground.”
“The old world?” Sarah said. “Who taught you these things?”
Franka fought back the sympathetic emotions telling her to comfort her mother. That wouldn’t have been the patriotic thing to do. This was an opportunity to convince her parents that every German had a duty to help with the National Socialist revolution.
“We’re worried about you,” her mother said.
“Worried about what? I have the comradeship of the other girls in the league. Even my teachers all express the glory of the new move
ment. Everyone seems to but you.”
“So tell me about your glorious revolution,” Thomas said, his voice low.
“You only have to look at the statistics in the newspaper. Hitler is ending the depression. Unemployment is dropping to levels no one could have dreamed of before the führer swept to power. The German workman is productive once again. Surely that is an achievement worth lauding?”
“Yes,” said her father, “but think about how it’s being done. The wheels of industry are beginning to turn again—war industry. Hitler is taking us on a path to war. And those statistics you’re talking about don’t include women, or Jews—two groups that have been frozen out of the labor force.”
“Hitler is making Germany strong again.”
“For the people, or the Nazis themselves? This will end in war.”
“The führer is being praised all over the world. Inge, my troop leader, showed us an article in the paper where David Lloyd George, the British prime minister during the last war, called Hitler a great leader. He wishes the British had a statesman of their own like him.”
“He sounds like a fool,” Sarah said.
“I know the Nazis better than he does,” her father said. “They are wolves preying on the German people, and I’m afraid, Franka. I’m afraid of the effect they’re having on you. Being with a boy like Daniel is only going to exacerbate that effect.”
“I’ve found my place within the revolution, Father. The National Socialists are instituting policies for the good of all Germans—you included.”
“What about women?” Sarah repeated. “They’ve been barred from many sections of the workplace. And the Jews? They’re being frozen out of German society.”
“I don’t know about the Jews. They’ll find their place in our new society.”
“Have you not listened to Hitler’s speeches? This man you follow proudly preaches hatred against the Jews. And what about your brother? What place is there for him in this new, perfect Aryan world?”
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