Hilde paused. It wouldn’t be wise to write about Annie’s constant whining about the hardships in her life, or how she used the situation to her own benefit. Then Hilde smiled and took the pen again…
You know her; she’s such a good soul. Always putting the well-being of others above her own. She never complains when Emma asks her to send much-needed funds for the boys’ upkeep. Apparently, she had to sell a few of our things because there wasn’t enough cash and I convinced her to sublet our apartment in Nikolassee for the time being. I hope this is in accordance with your wishes.
Are you receiving the packages I asked Annie to send you? I told her I will gladly do without anything as long as I know that you are well. You need the extra food so much more than I do.
Thankfully, my health is decent, and I haven’t lost much weight because I spend all day sitting in my cell on the bed, day in and day out. Such an idle life is not something I enjoy, and I long to be useful. Annie and Emma both send me small tasks to do. But the mending, stuffing, and knitting is always finished within a few days, and I have nothing to do but sit and wait for the next package, write letters when allowed, and wish for better days.
Hilde ran a hand through her dull, lifeless hair and looked in horror at the bundle of hair between her fingers. Q had always loved her shiny hair. If she continued to shed like a cat in spring, she’d soon be bald.
Memories of better times formed in her mind. Their honeymoon in Italy, a blissful time without worries. She gave a deep sigh and continued her letter.
We had such a good life together, and I wanted to thank you for each and every day. I miss you and our boys more than anything, but the good memories of our time together give me solace. Please know that you are always on my mind, and no matter what the future holds, my love for you is eternal. I wouldn’t have wanted to miss one single day with you, and I gladly endure everything if this is the price I have to pay for nine years of bliss.
How many people can say they lived life to the fullest? Those nine years with you mean more to me than a lifetime without you could. My life turned around the day I met you, and from then on I was the happiest person on earth.
Hilde placed a kiss on the paper, and for lack of lip color, she traced the shape of her lips with the pen. When she was content with her artwork, she took the pen one last time to finish her letter.
You are probably busy putting down all sorts of thoughts on paper, and I hope that one day they will fall into the right hands. I love your brilliant mind. I love everything about you.
Your Hilde
Margit waited until Hilde had finished her letter and then pointed to the pictures lying on the mattress next to her. “Your boys are so cute.”
“Yes. Aren’t they? Volker is the spitting image of his father with his blond curls, but Peter takes after me.” Hilde grinned. “Look, he’s finally growing some hair. You can see it’s dark and will be straight like mine.” She handed Margit the pictures.
“They look happy,” Margit commented.
Hilde fingered the pictures when Margit returned them. “My heart hurts at the thought of giving one of the pictures away, but I want Q to have one as well. So he will know what our children look like now.”
“I’m sure he’ll be very appreciative,” Margit said.
“I’ll ask Emma to replace the one I sent him, then I’ll have both pictures again,” Hilde murmured.
Margit laughed at her. “You and your children. I wish I could meet them one day. By the way, isn’t your stepmother writing to Q as well and could send him pictures?”
“I know she is writing him, but he cannot answer her because he is only allowed one letter every four weeks and he saves that letter for me. Apparently, sending secret messages is more difficult in his prison.”
“We are lucky,” Margit agreed.
“I’m not so sure I can agree wholeheartedly,” Hilde answered and got up from the bed. She was away from her children with only a few words and a picture here and there to keep her abreast of their growth. She wasn’t tucking them into their beds at night or taking walks in the park with them. She wasn’t lucky. She was on borrowed time and barely surviving.
Is this a unique form of torture? It certainly isn’t luck.
“You know what I mean,” Margit said, and after a look at Hilde’s nostalgic face, she added, “Let’s go for a walk.”
Hilde looked at her cellmate, wondering whether the girl had completely lost her mind now, but Margit linked arms with her, and they went for a walk in their cell. Five steps, turn, another five steps, turn, while Margit pretended they were walking outside in the park and Hilde’s boys were with them.
“Look how big they are! Hasn’t Peter grown since our last walk? And the way he’s talking. His little voice is so sweet.”
Hilde giggled, and for lack of a better pastime she went along with Margit’s game. “Oh yes, he walks like a big one. And he looks just like his brother did at his age. Aren’t they wonderful?”
“Yes, they are.”
Hilde turned and looked at her cellmate. “I remember as if it had happened yesterday how Volker walked his first steps alone between his pappa and me. A few steps from one to another. We were sitting opposite each other, and for his safety, we had put out our arms to the left and right of him. But he managed all on his own; he was so proud and beamed all over his cute little face.”
Hilde became serious again. “I’ll ask Emma to cut a lock from each one’s hair and send it to me.”
“I’m sure she will. You’re lucky to have someone like your stepmother to take care of your boys. Many women who get arrested don’t have that luxury and their children are sent to the orphanages or to the workhouses.” Margit stopped walking, slightly out of breath.
“I really am thankful. They could nowhere have a better life than with their grandmother. My parents have a small garden attached to their house where the children can play outside.”
“When I was a child, we often visited my aunt in the countryside, and I loved running around outside. We would wake up extra early, and my sister and I would rush out to explore.”
“Peter is the one who wakes up early every morning…” Hilde murmured.
“Oh, yes. As soon as they are awake, small children believe everyone else has to get up with them. I have enough nieces and nephews to know.”
Their happy chatter was interrupted by the guard who came to bring them dinner and reminded them of their harsh reality.
Chapter 32
As May 1943 progressed, Q thought of a plan to save Hilde and asked for permission to send, in addition to his monthly letter to Hilde, a letter to Hermann Göring, the head of the Luftwaffe, who was also responsible for all military production by means of the four-year-plan.
While he was waiting for his request to be decided upon, he initiated Werner and Pfarrer Bernau into his plan during one of their weekly chats.
“Pfarrer Bernau, I wonder if I might run an idea past you?” Q started the conversation.
“Certainly. What’s on your mind?” the gaunt man in his fifties answered.
“I was working on the development of a new secret weapon prior to being arrested. Horchtorpedos, or acoustic torpedoes, aim themselves by listening for the sound of a ship’s screw. When I was still involved, we had a prototype called Falke, but it turned out too susceptible to faults. It often picked up other sounds and aimed for them, missing the target. Anyhow, I think I’ve solved the problem.”
“And…” Pfarrer Bernau said and tilted his head.
“Well, here is my plan. I have been asked for permission to send a letter to Hermann Göring. I will offer him my solution about how to make the Horchtorpedos foolproof in exchange for his securing a life prison sentence for Hilde instead of the death penalty.”
“That is a bold move,” the priest said with a serious face.
“What makes you think he would go for this? Those torpedoes won’t do much good in this war, it’s too close to being finishe
d,” Werner commented.
“That’s what we believe, but our government still thinks it can win this war, and they need the Horchtorpedos to work reliably.” Q coughed a bitter laugh. “Those delusional men in power always believe a new invention or more advanced model of something that already exists will be the holy grail leading to victory.”
“But you would condemn your wife to life in prison. Would she want this?”
Q shook his head. “Hitler’s regime won’t last forever…”
“They are calling for a thousand year Reich,” Pfarrer Bernau reminded him.
“Yes, but we know that will never stand. At some point, the masses will either dwindle to the point the regime couldn’t keep up, or they will revolt in great numbers,” Q argued.
“The people are too downtrodden to even think about that kind of revolt,” the priest reminded him softly, everyone having kept their voices down because of the nature of their discussion.
“I think you should do it; what is the worst that could happen?” Werner asked.
“…That my solution actually works,” Q whispered, his conscience screaming to be heard.
Pfarrer Bernau put his hands on Q’s shoulders and looked deep into his eyes. It felt disturbingly like facing the Last Judgment. “That, my son, is a dilemma only you can solve. Consider your decision carefully, and may God be with you in every step.”
Q spent most of the night and the next day thinking. Was Hilde’s life worth more than the lives of uncounted nameless sailors who might be killed by the Horchtorpedos Q had helped to improve? Was her life worth betraying his own ideals and convictions to never harm anyone? But if he didn’t try to save her, how could he forgive himself for killing what he most loved in the world?
He pressed his lips into a tight line. It’s too late to use the Horchtorpedos in this war anyway. Nobody will be hurt.
It was a lie. And he knew it.
The next day, his request for a letter to Göring was granted, and he sat down to write his offer. There was still a chance Göring wouldn’t take him up on it.
Chapter 33
Q was growing maudlin as he waited day in, day out for the executioners to come for him. Like the young Frenchman, he sat down to write what he considered his “legacy.”
My dear little mother,
Just before Whitsunday, while cleaning my cell, I received the letter you wrote on June 6. I was so delighted and moved that I, the cleaning rag still in hand, broke out in screams of joy, of consent, and of blessing.
Of course, I have read your letter many times since, and the need to tell you my inner thoughts became so strong that I asked for an additional letter, which was thankfully granted to me. The one letter I am normally allowed always is reserved for Hilde. For her, it means so much, maybe everything.
How friendly the act of the grace of the gods that I may still while alive receive an earthly manifestation of your love coming to me in the form of a simple piece of paper written by your hand. Yes, I can feel your love around me, helping and blessing me.
Oh, if I could describe to you what inner joy, what paradox, inexplicable and elated vibrancy, what preparedness for my fate has filled me.
What a peace!
How all those long and silent hours in prison have become a present, if I spend them meditating. Which I never had the time for before, or better, I never took the time to do.
But first, I want to clarify something just in case, even though I don’t think this is necessary with you. All those spiritual goods that I still receive, all the maturity and rounding my soul receives, the goal of your blessing and that of the gods themselves: they are not meant in the case of my staying alive (how kitschig that sounds), of being rescued from death, and will be rendered senseless with my execution. No, I take everything with gratitude and happiness as a victory in the clear certainty that I will soon finish my life here.
A small joke may clarify my opinion for you…some poor fellow has written on the walls of this cell sentences like “Virgin Mary, please rescue me for the sake of my family” or “Mother of mercifulness, please lead everything to a good end” and so on.
Reading one, “God be with me,” I could not resist scribbling under that sentence: “He is with you, but that doesn’t impede him from letting you die here on the guillotine.”
And is not my current situation, seen in the right light, a unique chance that I will not slide into death without a warning? That I not be a laggard in the sense of “tomorrow is another day,” but through the certainty that within a foreseeable time my life will be over. I am eager to make each minute count and gather as much spiritual awareness as I can.
Everything in my cell is geared towards helping me to gain the most spiritual awareness. Look, from one moment to the next, I have been freed from all those mundane tasks like earning money, going shopping, household chores, and of work that was mediocre at best, but has used up many hours of my day. (My work at Loewe was, due to the war, far below or besides my interests.)
In prison, life is isolated and pre-designed. Every day is like the last, and the next one will just be like today.
It will contain long refreshing hours of sleep and rest, food that is very simple but not worse than the food the free people in the war-ridden country eat, punctual meals, and once a day a short walk, good discussions with other prisoners, and even the luxury of reading good literature.
We have valuable books at our disposal. I just read Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, Italian Journey, and Götz von Berlichingen by Johann Wolfgang Gothe. I have read Selma Lagerlöf, the Swedish literature Nobel Prize winner, and Eduard Mörike.
And as a special favor for me, I am allowed to work scientifically, writing down all my inventions, ideas, and experiences. Furthermore, I am debriefing my three years of work at the Biologische Reichsanstalt in the field of plant protection.
All of you spoil me and make it easy for my soul to say goodbye. Hilde sends me heroic letters, full of love, where she repeats her unwavering love for me and forgives me, despite my actions – those actions that caused so much pain not only for me but for her and our two children.
She absolves me from the guilt of having caused her own misfortune, pain, and threat of death. And in eternal love and connection, she wants to share my fate without quarreling over whether it is deserved or undeserved.
What a wonderful life’s partner I have had. I see this more than ever now in bad times. Please think of her with the same love you think about me.
How amazingly well the children seem to be cared for. I can think only the most joyful and hopeful thoughts about them. Your letter has elated me – that you love my Volker so much that you would take him as your own. And the wonderful Dremmers.
My body is through the mercy of the gods completely healthy; no aches and pains hurt me.
Then there is my cell. I believe I’m made for prison life, for living in a small cell. Haven’t you had a vision of me from a former life, where I have been writing in a cell?
I don’t feel locked in or encaged. No, I feel safe and secure inside my cell, and the small confinements of the physical room give me the needed focus to concentrate on my spiritual development.
But I am still attached to my earthly life and can appreciate the small patch of sky that I can see through the window of my cell and that treetop, the sun passing by, the change of light and shadow caused by the clouds, the heat of the sun on my face, and the one thousand different things that I enjoy as an enrichment and clemency.
It is the life of a hermit that I enjoy after having lived a happy, conscious, and eventful life. I have enjoyed it to the fullest, traveling to many beautiful places in the world, together with the best, most loving life’s partner, my wife, Hilde.
May I use each and every one of the remaining days to explore as much spiritual development as possible. For this reason, I thank you for sending me all your loving thoughts, which I will use to keep myself conscious.
A noise outsi
de distracted Q for a moment. It was the telltale sound of the guillotine blade descending.
“Still writing that legacy of yours?” Werner looked up from the novel he was working on. He must have heard the sound too.
“Yes. You know what? I’m not afraid of dying. Not anymore. It doesn’t darken my day nor does it find its way into my dreams.”
“That’s good to know,” Werner said with a smirk.
“I already experienced one death and was quite disappointed to wake up again.” Q usually didn’t talk about his suicide attempt; in hindsight, it had been a rash and stupid act.
“When my final day arrives, I wish to keep a dignified posture until my last breath. I won’t beg and scream for my life,” Werner said.
Q nodded. “We won’t give our enemies and the regime the satisfaction of triumphing over our inner souls.”
They remained silent for a few moments before Q spoke again: “I have researched several articles about the death penalty and different execution methods.”
Werner shook his head. “So, have you decided on your preferred method yet?”
“You might find this amusing, but I found out that the physical act of dying is the most insignificant part of it. In fact, there are three main methods of execution used in Germany.”
Werner cast a knowing smile and packed his papers aside. When Q was in discussion mood, it was best to let him talk. “I’m all ears.”
“There’s the firing squad, which is normally reserved for military personnel or Party members.” Q stood in the middle of the cell and counted the methods on his fingers.
“Then there’s the guillotine. It’s borrowed from the French, and it’s an expedient method of separating the head from the body. Compared to the firing squad, the guillotine is a much faster and rather painless method. It’s used in our prison.
“And then there’s the hanging. This is supposed to be the most painful and dishonoring one. In earlier times, it was mainly reserved for criminals, and they were often hung publicly as a deterrent example for others. It can take several minutes until the death candidate suffocates in agony. This is the method I least prefer.”
Unwavering: Love and Resistance in WW2 Germany Page 13