“Thank you.” Hilde took tiny pieces of ham, fresh bread, apples, and even a morsel of cake. It was the first time in months that she didn’t feel the constant nagging of hunger.
After a while, Margit asked, “So, what did you do?”
Hilde looked at Margit, trying to gauge if she really was who she pretended to be. It wasn’t unusual to plant spies in prisons to get information the regime wouldn’t otherwise find out. But Hilde was already convicted, so what difference did it make?
“My husband relayed intelligence to our enemies, and I was accused of helping him.”
Margit scowled. “These Nazis…they are an insult to true Germans everywhere.”
“Shush! Aren’t you afraid someone will hear you?” Hilde urged her.
“I will not be silenced.” Margit threw her head back.
Hilde smiled. Margit was the spitting image of herself – a decade ago when she’d been young and hot-blooded. Determined to right the injustices around her. Before she’d grown up and stopped voicing her concerns openly, afraid of the consequences.
And what has that brought you? Nothing! Absolutely nothing!
Looking back on her life now, she wished she’d done more. Taken a more active role in the resistance efforts instead of just supporting Q’s work. But she’d had children to take care of…still, a pang of jealousy hit her as she witnessed Margit’s carefree manner. The girl simply refused to succumb to the necessities of life or let the Nazis threaten her.
Over the next days, Hilde and Margit became friends. Hilde enjoyed their conversations and the point of view of a teenager. In Margit’s life, everything was still easy – black and white.
Having someone to talk to relieved the boredom and helped keep her mind busy. It was only when she lay down to sleep, and the cell grew quiet, that her mind rolled back to Q, her little boys, and the death sentence that loomed over her head.
Chapter 18
After Hilde’s trial, Q was told he’d be transferred to the Plötzensee prison. His initial thrill at leaving the solitary confinement of the Moabit prison hospital was crushed when Kriminalkommissar Becker walked into his hospital cell with a satisfied grin.
“Prisoner. You couldn’t wait to be dead, could you? But let me tell you that I’m the one to decide when and how it happens, not you. And I might just let you rot in prison for a while; wouldn’t that be fun?”
Q chose not to take the bait. “Herr Kriminalkommissar, what a surprise to see you here.”
“I happened to be in the area and thought I would let you know that your mother has requested permission to visit you.”
“My mother?” Hope flared in Q. Usually, prisoners had the right to receive visitors once per month, and his old mother had gone to the trouble to visit Becker in the Gestapo Headquarters across the city from her place to receive a visiting permit.
“I denied it,” Becker stated.
Q felt his spirit deflate. So much for seeing his mother one last time. He swallowed down his angry retort and asked, “May I ask why?”
“You have shown so little cooperation, I decided you didn’t deserve the privilege of visitors,” Becker said with a cruel smile.
Since when had yet another lawful right become a privilege? Hatred for the Gestapo officer choked Q, and it was all he could do to hold his tongue and keep from verbally attacking the horrid man. He slumped down on his bed and stared at the floor.
“I hope you enjoy your new cell as much as you enjoyed our hospitality at Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse,” Becker said and left.
This one sentence brought memories to the surface that Q had carefully buried deep down for the past month. Angst seeped into every single bone, and his entire body trembled violently.
When the nurse entered the room a few minutes later, she knew with one glance on his face what had happened and muttered under her breath, “I really don’t know why we coddle the patients, and then give them back to the Gestapo.”
She helped him get up and turned him over to the prison guards who’d just arrived.
At Plötzensee, the guards shoved him into a cell that actually looked like a place where someone could live. The nine-by-twelve-foot space held a chair, a table, a closet, and a bunk bed. The bed was completely equipped with a mattress and a rough woolen blanket. Compared to the Gestapo cellar, this was luxury.
Q sat on the lower bed and jumped when a voice from above said, “Hello, my name is Werner Krauss.” A head with slightly too long, dark hair popped over the side and looked down at him from the upper bed.
“I’m Wilhelm Quedlin, but friends call me Q.”
“Q it is then. I believe we’ll have to keep each other company, whether we like it or not.” Werner climbed down from the upper bed and extended his hand.
Q immediately liked the dry humor of his cellmate. Judging by the way he talked, the man must be educated.
“Well, I would say it’s nice to meet you, but I think we both agree it would have been better to never meet than to meet here,” Q said as he shook the extended hand.
Werner answered with a dry laugh. “I was going crazy, talking only to myself.”
Over the next days, Q learned that Werner Krauss was indeed educated. He’d been a professor of literary sciences in Marburg before he was conscripted into the Wehrmacht and then transferred to Berlin. Q already looked forward to many fruitful arguments with his new cellmate. At least something was positive in his otherwise bleak life.
At one point, Q asked Werner about the bright red pieces of cloth tied to the bars of some of the prison cells, including theirs.
“TU. Todesurteil,” Werner said with a crooked smile. “So everyone knows the inmates have been sentenced to death.”
“Ah. You too.” Q swallowed and finally dared to ask the question he’d been avoiding all these days. “How does a professor end up on death row?”
“A very good question,” Werner agreed. “Via one of my friends, I made the acquaintance of Harro Schulze-Boysen. One thing led to another, and I ended up helping his group put up posters against the exposition The Soviet Paradise.”
“You mean the propaganda exposition they did last year in June? The one full of lies about the Soviet Union? Showing how people live in earth holes?”
“That one,” Werner answered.
“And you received a death sentence for pasting up posters?” Q shook his head. He’d known that, according to the Volksschädlingsverordnung, the decree about damages to the nation, every criminal act could be avenged with the death penalty. But gluing up posters?
“That, and listening to foreign radio transmissions.”
Q chuckled.
“What’s so funny?” Werner asked him.
“It’s just that I bought a Volksempfänger back in 1935 and adapted it to receive foreign radio stations. But that is the one thing the Gestapo never found out.”
Werner grinned. “I won’t tell them.”
Werner had influential friends in the intellectual community and had secret channels to receive real news, not the Goebbels propaganda. One day in early February, he received a visitor and came back to their cell with exciting news.
“Q. We have a reason to celebrate.”
“Your appeal was granted,” Q asked warily. It wasn’t that he begrudged his friend, but he would miss his company.
“No. That will come.” Werner waved it away. “Have you heard what is going on outside these walls?”
Q shook his head.
“My visitor just told me that a few days ago, the Wehrmacht had to surrender at Stalingrad.”
“Ach. You’re sure this is true? It would be the first blow to Hitler’s confidence in this war.”
“It is true. Hitler refused to speak on the tenth anniversary of his coming to power and Goebbels had to give the speech for him. And, hold your breath, Goebbels has ordered to close down all theaters, moving pictures, varietées, and other entertainment establishments until February 6 to commemorate the devastating defeat of the Wehrma
cht.”
Q and Werner discussed for endless hours the possible implications to the Eastern front, the Western front, the public mood in Germany and in the occupied countries. They also discussed Goebbels’s total war declaration and what that might mean for the citizens of Germany. They discussed the resistance effort and how they hoped the Russians would continue to push back the Nazi army.
Despite the distraction Werner provided, Q was riddled with guilt. Hilde had forgiven him, but he couldn’t do the same. It was his fault that she’d been sentenced to death, and there was nothing in the world that could take this burden from his shoulders.
Chapter 19
Three long weeks had passed since Hilde’s trial when the Blonde Angel opened her cell.
“You have a visitor,” Frau Herrmann said.
“A visitor?” Hilde beamed with joy. A visitor was something all prisoners longed for, and for her, it was the first one other than her attorney.
Frau Herrmann took her to the visiting room and said, “I’ll be back in one hour. Enjoy yourself.”
Hilde gave her a grateful smile and entered the room where Annie was waiting for her.
“Mother?” Hilde walked the short distance to her mother, and then stopped dead in her tracks, incapable of believing her own eyes.
“What’s wrong, dear?” Annie asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost?”
“I am. You are wearing my coat.” Hilde wanted to slap her mother in the face for appropriating the fur coat that Q had given her for Christmas when she was pregnant with Volker.
Annie tossed her head and rolled her eyes. “Well, it’s not as if you were using it, and it’s such a nice coat. Besides, it’s been freezing for weeks, and you wouldn’t want me to catch a chill.”
“You could have at least asked. I’m not dead yet, you know.” Hilde longed to rip the coat off her mother.
“Of course you’re not dead, my dear, or I wouldn’t be visiting, would I? Hilde, let me have a look at you.” Annie had the annoying habit of not replying to anything she didn’t like.
Hilde sighed. Maybe her mother should have the fur coat; she wouldn’t be allowed to keep it in prison anyway.
“You look good. But you should really eat more, you’re too thin.”
“Mother…” Hilde groaned inwardly. Had her mother no idea about reduced rations and that sort of formalities? “How did you get permission to visit me?”
“Oh, darling, it wasn’t hard. Sit with me.” Annie patted the chair beside her. “All I had to do was ask Kriminalkommissar Becker for permission. We had a wonderful chat, and he encouraged me to personally ask him whenever I want to visit. Within reason of course. He’s such a lovely man and so handsome in his Gestapo uniform.”
Hilde rolled her eyes. Her mother would be the only person in the world to use the words Gestapo and lovely in the same sentence.
“Trust me, there is nothing lovely about him,” Hilde protested.
“That’s because you don’t want to see things as they are. I’m sure if you had decided to stay within the law, you two would get along so well. He’s the dream of every mother-in-law. Polite, upright, firm in his opinions. Loyal to our Führer.”
“He’s a monster,” Hilde hissed, and her entire body tensed with the memory of the interrogations in the Gestapo headquarters. If her mother knew Becker’s true colors, she’d stop gushing about him. But Hilde wouldn’t enlighten her; those dark hours were something she wanted to keep locked deep inside, never to surface again.
“Your husband is the monster.” Annie shook her head. “You know none of this would have happened if you’d married a man like Kriminalkommissar Becker and not that dishonorable husband of yours. I will never forgive myself for not seeing through him earlier, and even allowing you to marry him.”
“I don’t remember asking for your permission,” Hilde said tartly.
“Well, that is your problem. You don’t ask your mother. You always were a difficult girl, out causing trouble and disobeying the authorities. I’m not surprised you ended up here. I should have drowned you in the first bath water I drew.”
Hilde took a deep breath. She’d heard that insult so many times, she shouldn’t care anymore. “Mother, it’s not his fault. He has loved me like no other man ever could. I don’t blame him and will continue to love him until I take my dying breath.”
“See how his love has ruined your life! You don’t have to die for him.” Annie dabbed at her eyes.
“Mother, please.” Hilde didn’t want to fight with her mother. “Tell me about the boys.”
Annie leaned back with a theatrical sigh. “Berlin wasn’t a good place for them. I had to send both of them to your father in Hamburg. His new wife has more time on her hands than I do.”
“I’m sure Emma will take good care of them.” Hilde tried to keep a straight face as she nodded. It hadn’t taken Annie long to figure out that raising children was a lot of work and interfered with her busy social schedule. Deep in her heart, Hilde was relieved to know her sons were in the capable hands of her stepmother.
“Thank you for helping out, Mother. And for contacting the lawyer.”
Annie beamed with pride. “It was no big deal. By the way, I almost forgot. I brought food and money.” She handed Hilde a package wrapped in plain brown paper.
Hilde unpacked black bread, cheese, ham, and precious sugar along with several banknotes.
“Kriminalkommissar Becker told me you can use the money to send extra letters if you wish. Because officially, he can allow you only one letter per month, and I assume that one will go to your sl… husband.”
Hilde chose to ignore her mother’s comment. After all, Annie was her only connection to the outside world and the grandmother of her sons. They would need her love and support, however meager it might be, if the worst-case scenario happened.
“Mother, I know you don’t like Q, but could you please send him letters and write news about the boys? He was so thin the last time I saw him, maybe you could also send him some of the food you plan to bring me?”
Annie shook her head. “You want me to help the man who is responsible for my daughter’s being sentenced to death?”
“Yes. Please, Mother. Do it for me. I will be happy if I know Q is fine.”
Annie’s nostrils flared. “Why do you still love that man? He’s brought nothing but misery to you and your sons.”
“I understand that you are angry with him. I really do.” Hilde ran a hand through her hair, desperate to make her mother understand. “But yes, I still love him as much as I did throughout our entire life together. If it is even possible, I love him now even more, because only now do I know what I had in him and what I will lose with him.”
Annie scoffed, but Hilde barreled on…
“Even if I stay alive, there will never again be a man who means this much to me. If I didn’t have the children, I wouldn’t want anything but to leave this world behind together with him.”
“Well, it looks as if your wish will be granted,” Annie hissed.
Hilde ignored her and went on. “Right now, in this very moment, I’m glad that I’m not better off than he is, that we are both in prison, both sentenced to death. He said that those nine years with me were the world for him. The memory of those experiences with me now make it easier for him to die.”
Annie lifted her chin. “Is it as easy for you?”
“I agree with him. We have enjoyed the pleasures of life, as much as possible, and we always knew that we were privileged. We had a good life, and we had each other. Never once did we fight or argue, we didn’t have unfulfilled desires, were always content and happy, and we have enjoyed this consciously. Few people will be able in their old age to say that they have experienced nine years of pure bliss.”
Annie was quiet now, looking down at her shoes, and Hilde thought she saw some hint of emotion on her face.
“Mother, for me, it won’t be hard to say goodbye to a world that no longer has Q in it. This m
ay be some solace for you, Mother, to know that I will have an easy goodbye and death.” Hilde slumped back in her chair. It was true. A world without Q wasn’t the same; it didn’t appeal to her anymore.
Annie sighed. “Fine. I will write him a letter and send him some food.”
“Thank you.” Hilde hugged her mother.
Annie moved a step away and smoothed her skirt. “Don’t despair, Hilde. Herr Müller is still working on your case. He’s currently weighing his options – whether it’s better to appeal your sentence or ask for clemency.”
Hilde nodded. “Yes, I know.”
A knock on the door indicated that their hour was over. Annie stood and walked to the visitor’s exit. In the door, she turned one last time. “Your half-brother will be conscripted as soon as he turns sixteen in a few weeks.”
Hilde waited until she was back in her cell to digest the news about her half-brother and his future. Hitler must be desperate if he’d started conscription of underage boys.
Usually, they weren’t sent to the front lines but used as Luftwaffenhelfer. Their main job was to operate flak and help shoot down enemy bombers. It was a dangerous job that took many lives.
Hilde was afraid for her baby brother, but in the current political climate, she knew that even if she were free, there’d be nothing she could do. All Germans had to help the war effort, whether they wanted to or not.
Those who didn’t comply faced severe punishment.
Chapter 20
In Plötzensee, Q felt surrounded by goodwill. Compared to his time at the Gestapo headquarters and prison hospital, it was actually pleasant. Even the guards treated the prisoners like humans, much different than the Gestapo brutes had done.
Q had his suspicions that the prison director was not a great enthusiast of the Nazis. Of course, no such words were ever uttered, but the evidence spoke for itself.
The director could have chosen any kind of man as Q’s cellmate, ranging from common criminals or forced laborers from the occupied countries to military prisoners of war. But he chose Werner Krauss. Werner and Q had been convicted in the same series of trials, and supposedly belonged to the same resistance organization the Gestapo had given the name Rote Kapelle, Red Orchestra. As such, it was entirely against the rules to put them in the same cell together.
Unwavering: Love and Resistance in WW2 Germany Page 8