by Therese Down
“Why didn’t he just say no? Didn’t he love his daughter?”
“Yes, he did love her, but not more than he loved his country.” Hedda stopped. “That is enough now, Agnette. Your brother is fast asleep. It is time you were too.” Hedda gently pushed her daughter to lie back upon her pillow, and getting up from the bed reached up to turn out the light that illuminated the print, but Agnette cried “No!” in such an earnest tone that she shrugged and left it on.
“Get to sleep, Agnette,” she admonished gently, turning to leave the room, heading at last for the sanctuary of the living room.
When the first bombs fell on Berlin in late August 1940, no one was more surprised than Reichsmarschall Goering. Well, it is possible the Führer’s astonishment was greater, for he had allowed himself to be so assured by Goering that penetration of Germany’s defences was impossible by air that he had simply believed it. In fact, he was not even aware that the Ruhr had already sustained minor damage to industrial buildings from the RAF in May of 1940, for Goering had forbidden the reporting of these raids on Germany’s interior, lest Hitler should lose confidence in his leadership of the Luftwaffe. Now central Berlin trembled in the dead of night as RAF bomber aircraft passed over her complacent roofs and blew her a retaliatory shrapnel kiss which, though yet merely flirtatious, was fatal to many lost in trusting sleep.
Hedda leapt from her bed and raced panic-stricken down the hall to the children’s rooms, shouting their names while trying to make sense of the whistling noises and the explosions that shook her windows and lit the skies on which they gazed. Walter joined her seconds later, buckling his gun belt around his hips, his SS cap askew upon his head, shirt still unbuttoned beneath his throat.
“Get downstairs,” he ordered, striding past their chaos and sleepy softness with automatic determination. “Head for the cellar and stay there.”
The cook came flying out of her little room at the end of the hall in a pink nightdress, all plumpness, her grey plait flailing, trying desperately to get her left arm into her dressing gown.
“Quickly, children. We must get to the cellar. Stay close to me,” instructed Hedda. More explosions and fiery illuminations increased their terror, but made it easier to negotiate the stairs. Soon Hedda was opening the cellar door with a trembling hand, and, as carefully as she could, guiding the frightened children and the cook down the cold stone steps. She thought she heard the front door slam, but cared little for Walter’s whereabouts. She was quite sure he would be safe, wherever he went.
In the cellar, a naked electric bulb trembled and swung as the walls vibrated and the children whimpered into their mother’s nightclothes. Elise sat and mumbled prayers to herself.
After some minutes, Agnette lifted her tear-stained face to Hedda’s and asked what was happening.
“Our enemies are dropping bombs on us,” Hedda replied.
“Who, Mutti? Who are our enemies? Are they the Greeks?”
“Shh!” said Hedda, irritable in her own fear. She preferred to retreat into an inner place when she was afraid, and observe from its quietness whatever was threatening her; she would not be caught easily nor go to meet it. And like such a hiding creature she became one with shadows. She was ready simply to sit on the wooden bench that ran along the cellar wall, contemplating the wine racks, the boxes of fruit and potatoes, and the way the pipes snaked and arched over each other. But Elise suddenly found her voice and stood up, facing Hedda and the children and shaking her fist in front of her while her tears ran fatly down her doughy cheeks.
“Hermann Meier, Hermann Meier…” Elise gasped and lifted her dressing gown to wipe tears from her face, sniffing fulsomely. “Isn’t that what Herr Goering said we should call him if Berlin were ever bombed? ‘My name shall be Hermann Meier if even one enemy plane should penetrate German airspace.’ Isn’t that what he said to us, on our streets, in our papers? The great Hermann Goering himself? Well, he’s Hermann Meier now, and we…” She could not go on. She sat down heavily on the bench and buried her face in her nightgown and sobbed.
Agnette and Anselm were thoroughly traumatized by so much adult upset and this rude awakening from secure slumber.
“Why is Cook crying, Mutti?” Agnette began to cry anew herself and Anselm’s face puckered into a pre-howl grimace. Hedda didn’t answer but drew her children to her and contemplated the arrogance of these men in boots and uniforms whose secrets and ambitions had snared their lives. And as she crawled deeper into her own darkness, and the cries of her children and her cook became less troublesome, it was Karl Muller’s smile Hedda remembered.
When it seemed that they had been sitting in the cellar for a very long time, and it was as though the coldness of the apples and potatoes, the dankness of the walls, had crept into them and accepted them as inmates, Walter suddenly opened the door and bade them come out.
It was four o’clock in the morning. The house was very still. Occasionally, shouts or sudden cries of women broke the strange numbness of this ravaged morning, but the children were exhausted, and Anselm had already fallen into a troubled sleep in which he frowned and twitched. Hedda’s priority was to get them both into bed. Elise begged Herr Gunther to forgive her prying, but she had relatives in the city and would very much like to know if… well, whether… people had been… She could not finish her question, and Walter took a deep, sharp breath and assured her that while he could not be certain how many casualties there were – for certainly there were some, inevitably – there were not many, and building damage seemed to be minimal, given what could have happened. It was certain that the Germania Palast theatre was completely destroyed, as were several other buildings in the city centre – apartment blocks and offices. One could only hope most of the people in the apartments had made for the basements.
Cook was little comforted, and went back to her room wringing her hands and muttering through her tears that it was all too much.
When the children were settled once more, Hedda went downstairs, where she found Walter drinking whisky and staring icily through the large bay windows of the dining room. The sky was a dull red, darkened by heavy smoke, and although the rising sun did its best to lift the night, it found it resistant. Berlin was not ready for August sunshine.
When Hedda entered the dining room, wrapping her night gown closely around herself and hugging her waist with folded arms, Walter turned and observed her for a moment, pausing in his transfer of whisky from glass to lips, then turned away from her again. Hedda considered for a second repeating what Cook had blurted in the cellar, about Goering’s inaugural, incautious boast that he had made Germany impervious to air attack. But she thought better of it and said softly to the back of Walter’s head, “Do you believe there is a God?”
Walter turned fully around to look at her, an incredulous expression distorting his features and lifting the left side of his upper lip. He contemplated her as if she were mad. “What are you asking now, Hedda?”
Hedda shrugged, looked with affected carelessness at the carpeted floor to her right. “I just wondered if you believe in God. That is all. It occurs to people in such times…” She lifted her eyes and looked at him as neutrally as she could.
Walter hmphed, gulped at his drink and placed the emptied glass on a small table to his left, wiped his mouth. He closed his eyes, lifted his chin and undid his collar buttons before he replied.
“No. I do not believe in God. Don’t be ridiculous.” He looked briefly at his wife, then said dismissively, “I am exhausted. I am going to bed.”
As he picked up his cap and made to pass her, she ventured one last question, just as her daughter had dared solicit an answer to her burning questions about Greeks and Trojans the night before.
“What do you believe in, Walter?”
Walter stopped, but did not turn to her this time. He seemed to consider the question briefly, then shrugged, made to walk on.
“Do you still believe in Reichsmarschall Goering?” Hedda could hardly believe she h
ad dared go so far. Something she barely understood was inchoate inside her. Something she could not yet name or even see with any definition, but it was coming to birth in the very centre of herself, as a photograph assumes definition beneath chemicals.
Walter hesitated a moment longer in the dining room doorway, but, although there was a definite stiffening of his shoulders, he merely put his cap on his head and strode across the parquet hall to the stairs. Alone, Hedda turned to the window and watched the sun smile helplessly on the wounded city.
Tiergarten Strasse 4 was the place of Walter’s new work as a T4 inspector, directly responsible to the chancellery of the Führer. His duties were varied but included inspecting new premises for the expansion of the activities of the T4 project, and he was also charged with “reining in a little”, to use Goering’s phrasing, the excesses and indulgences of the T4 staff, whose extraordinary responsibilities and attendant stress caused them to seek “outlets” of an often extreme and licentious nature. So much so that Dr Gerhard Bohne, the first designated T4 manager, had resigned in disgust. The orgiastic proclivities of his co-workers caused Walter little thought, but being conscientious he sacked a couple who were found copulating on duty. He also organized an impromptu raid of offices and confiscated many litres of liquor as a signal that his first loyalties were to the chancellery and that he was not a man to be compromised or underestimated. That accomplished, Walter was free to concentrate on the important stuff of his new post and establish a network of centres that would be suitable for the euthanasing of defective people who rendered German society less than Teutonically perfect.
That night in Carinhall, when Goering had asked Walter to accompany him to the room in which he had established his prodigious model railway, had been salutary indeed for Oberst Walter Gunther. Goering had read aloud from a letter written by the Führer himself, in which Hitler had outlined his plans for a policy of cleansing that would be executed under the auspices of the chancellery of the Führer, but which was to be treated with the greatest discretion. Already, Hitler had noted, there had been incidents of irresponsible scaremongering by certain people in the Hygiene Division. It was the wish of the Führer that his most trusted senior officials would identify suitable personnel who would discreetly obey the wishes of their Führer without question in the execution of this most important of political duties.
Goering had recommended Walter, and so the honour was bestowed. Walter had barely been able to conceal his disappointment that he would not be flying to France with the SS. Goering assured him that he was the last person anyone would suspect of cowardice, if it was this that was bothering him. And, he added, the bestowing of the Inspectorate of T4 was the greatest of honours and an ultimate testament to the faith the Reich had in his character. Here, Goering had looked Walter full in the eye and smiled his warmest, most charming smile. Walter had instinctively brought his heels together and raised his chin in salute. Then Goering had turned away and, picking up a clockwork locomotive from his Marklin O gauge track, he appeared to scrutinize it closely before winding it and carefully replacing it, watching as it chugged speedily away then disappeared into a tunnel.
After a minute or so of silence, in which Walter struggled with the impulse to decline the appointment, to phrase his strong desire to continue in active service, Goering finally turned to him and spoke again. “I am sorry about your parents,” he had said, looking into Walter’s unblinking ice blue eyes. “It must have been painful, no?”
Walter, caught off guard, said nothing, looked down momentarily then back into Goering’s eyes. Goering had nodded, patted Walter’s right shoulder gently twice, then put his arms behind his back, looking once more to the railway track. “Flossenberg, wasn’t it? Where your father died?”
Walter nodded curtly.
“A great pity, Walter. He was, I know, a good man. Sadly misguided, but a good man nonetheless. A fine general in his day. A sorry end indeed.”
“Thank you, Reichsmarschall Goering,” was all Walter dared in response. He was as much moved by the personal solicitation of Goering as the reference to his father.
“A sorry end for a brave man, Walter,” repeated Goering, then he turned to look again into Walter’s eyes. “But you were braver – what you did, well…”
Walter coloured at this reference to his denouncement of his father. He felt he must say something in justification, but as he started, Goering waved him silent, shaking his head and pursing his lips in an expression of avuncular indulgence. “I know, my boy; I know. Your loyalty to the Fatherland came before that to your father, eh? Exactly why we are having this conversation.” Goering turned away from Walter again and watched the little train slow to a halt on its second lap of the track. “It is no secret that Beck talks of overthrowing the Reich and reinstating the Hohenzollerns; negotiating peace with Britain and France. We owe much of our intelligence to you, my friend. If you had not alerted me to your father’s… sympathies with Beck, we would perhaps be at far greater risk of civil strife when we are now most vulnerable – with so many men abroad.”
Walter still said nothing. He was remembering the conversation he had had with Goering in his offices at the Air Ministry building on Wilhelmstrasse, when Walter was Logistics Manager in Goering’s Reichsluftfahrtministerium. It had not been an easy exchange. Even for one as zealous as Walter in his patriotism and desire to ingratiate himself, the betrayal of a father was no simple matter. Goering had come straight to the point. Klaus Gunther was about to be arrested on suspicion of conspiracy against the Reich, and it seemed there was sufficient evidence to support the idea that in his post at the Chief of Staff office, Klaus was passing vital military information to Beck and other Prussian sympathizers and was even suspected of being party to a plot to assassinate Hitler. In this, he was more extreme even than Beck, for the latter could see no chance of keeping Germany stable if Hitler were removed from office before the time was right.
Walter had listened, fury and excruciating embarrassment causing his face to heat and his eyes to flash. When Goering had finished talking, he nodded, swallowed and said in a barely audible hiss that he was not surprised; that the reason he had no contact with his father was precisely because of his treacherous politics and that he, Walter, was deeply ashamed of his father and hoped sincerely that this turn of events in no way changed Reichsmarschall Goering’s view of himself; that he hoped the Reichsmarschall could see that Walter was absolutely committed to the Führer’s Reich. Goering had smiled and said he had no doubts pertaining to Walter’s loyalty.
When Klaus was arrested, it was at three o’clock in the morning. Loud and relentless banging on the front door got him out of bed, and Agna came anxiously after him, wrapping her dressing gown around herself and tying it with shaking hands. She could only think something had happened to Walter or Hedda or the tiny granddaughter she had never even seen. When her husband opened the door it was to four SS officers, who ordered Klaus to dress in all haste and accompany them at once to Gestapo headquarters. He seemed unsurprised, did not protest. He had paused on his way back to the bedroom to take Agna’s hand in his and squeeze it, looking lovingly into her eyes. He would not tell her not to worry. He knew he was unlikely to see her again.
When Agna at last heard that Klaus had been interrogated, accused of conspiracy against the Reich and transported to Flossenberg concentration camp in Bavaria, she had sunk to her knees in abject grief. Walter would not take her telephone calls and she dared not travel to see him. A few days later, Walter was informed at home, by a senior SS officer, that his father was in Flossenberg and his mother had committed suicide by overdose.
He had listened without comment and then saluted and said “Heil Hitler”. He poured himself a large whisky, and then another. And no matter how hard he rationalized his father’s inevitable demise and his own part in it, he could not prevent the sudden release like butterflies from a box of a thousand blue sky memories of walks by the lakes at Wannsee, his father’s dark hair ri
sing from his forehead in the onshore breeze and the way his teeth gripped his pipe as he smiled and talked animatedly of kite flying and fishing. In spite of his best efforts to incapacitate memory with strong liquor, Walter recalled Christmases in the family home; the sweeping staircase, the ten-foot high Christmas tree twinkling in the hallway, how its lights would glint like stars on the marble floor. As a boy, Walter had tried to count the reflections, much to his father’s amusement. His father, handsome in his uniform, proud but always gracious. It was strange how clearly Walter saw and felt the affection Klaus always seemed unable to demonstrate; how plain it was now in memories of his father’s eyes, as he turned from contemplation of the blue and rolling Wannsee waters to look at Walter, as though he would fill his son with his love of sky and water and the God who made them.
Walter never told Hedda of his parents’ fate. He simply had not spoken of either of them since that day before Agnette’s birth, when they had turned up unexpectedly and remained for dinner. Now, Walter tried very hard, through many sleepless nights, to avoid imagining his father labouring all day in Flossenberg, starving, stripped of all dignity. It was almost a relief when he heard, about a year after his arrest, that Klaus had died of pneumonia.
Goering was tired with the constant kvetching by most senior Nazi officials about “das Judische problem” but too politically ambitious to risk voicing his suspicions that eradicating cripples and gypsies might not be as important for Germany as territorial acquisition. Certainly, it had been Goering who had decreed the “Aryanization” of the German economy and had dreamed up the idea of fining the Jews a billion marks for being Jewish. The revenue deriving from this post-pogram tax, following Kristallnacht in 1938, had been most useful – for the acquisition of paintings as well as for financing Hitler’s rise to power.
And Goering had lost no sleep when the talks about exterminating Polish Jews began. He had, though, suffered a few restless nights when called to bludgeon the Austrians and Czechs into submission in 1938. Still, victory was glorious, and now he was just a tactic away from German leadership. He needed to indulge the Führer; find men like Walter Gunther who would shoot or gas children without exhibiting distaste, or sell their own fathers to further their careers. Personally, Goering despised such men. If Germany were his, he would stand beneath clear blue skies and smile upon crowds of adoring compatriots, fill halls and theatres with fine music. He would build palaces of art and have the people pay homage to the empire dynasties on whose philosophical excellence he would rebuild the country. Such men as Gunther could have no part in such a nation. He would put them in gloomy offices in grim buildings and inundate them with paperwork. But for now – for now he must deal with them; be seen to do his job as Vice Chancellor to the Führer of Germany, as well as that of Reich Council Chairman of National Defence.