“Tell me about your friend, that young corporal you wrote about. How is he?” Fritz had written several amusing anecdotes about him in his letters. Perhaps he’d tell another, and we’d laugh until our sides ached, as we used to do.
Fritz glances away, down at his hands. Slowly, he begins to twist the cap, working the stiff fabric. “He’s … he died, Sophie. Killed by an exploding shell.”
I draw in a breath. “I’m sorry.” I reach for his hand, place mine over his, stilling it.
He looks up at me. “I watched him die, you know. I’ve watched lots of men die. A good many more than I’ve written you about. It’s a horrible thing, to see a man once hale and hearty with half his body blown to bloody shreds. Horrible.”
“And you still think this war is a worthy thing?” My words are fast, my tone much too sharp.
After a long pause, Fritz shakes his head. “I don’t know what I think anymore.”
We sit in silence for several minutes. Fritz plucks a piece of bark from the tree behind us, turning it over in his strong hands. “Do you remember what you once told me you wanted to be?” A hint of a smile fills his words.
Memories. Sometimes they seem the only safe things to smile about.
“What?”
“A piece of bark. You said you wanted to be one with the trees. For in nature, there is freedom. Nature doesn’t judge. It exists for our good pleasure.”
I grin. “It’s true.”
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought about that. When everything around me is dirty men and smoke and the sound of shots, I remember nature and you.” He slips an arm around my waist.
Before, I might have argued with him, said that while nature can be enjoyed, one cannot live in a state of perpetual escape. We must face the realities of our lives.
But our time is too short, and I don’t want to waste it arguing.
In the end, much between us is left unsaid. We spend the hours sitting on that little iron bench, my head on his shoulder, his arm around my waist. I don’t speak of the late-night discussions in Hans’s apartment, the plans we’re putting in place. Fritz avoids the war. We exchange the Englischer Garten for a crowded café nearby, where we order kaffee and sit at a corner table, holding hands across the space between us.
I don’t need to check my watch to know our time is running out. Cloth napkins and kaffee cups with nothing left but brown residue clutter the scarred wood.
Taking a deep breath, I pull the piece of paper from my pocket. Our knees bump under the table. Fritz’s large frame is hunched in the small chair.
“Would you do me a favor?” I hold out the paper to him, keeping my tone offhand. “Could you get this stamped and submitted? I have it all filled out, see.”
Fritz takes the paper, scans it. His brow furrows. Beneath the table, I clench and unclench my fingers.
“This is an order for a duplicating machine,” he says quietly.
I nod. “Ja. It’s for Storm Lantern. We’re hoping to increase circulation.”
Fritz glances back at the order, running his fingertip along the lines. “Those are hard to get. I’m not sure it’s possible. Why … why do you care about increasing circulation of Storm Lantern? Don’t you have better things to do?”
I swallow. “Why not?” My words falter. “It seems like the perfect time. Our writing encourages truth. People need to be woken up, the sooner the better. Our … publication may not do much, but at least it’s something.”
He nods slowly, gauging me. Then he leans across the table. His gaze reaches into me, as if he can see everything. His face is taut. “I don’t know what you’re doing, Sophie. I’m not sure I want to know.” He casts a furtive glance around the restaurant. Pots and pans clatter in the background. A couple exits through the swinging door, the bell jangling in their wake. He looks back at me. His voice lowers. “But are you aware this could cost you your life?”
I meet his eyes, looking into his handsome, earnest face. Fritz, my fiancé and friend, who wishes nothing but good things for me. There have been few people outside of my family to whom I’ve shown my true self. Fritz is one of the few. In the past years, almost the only one.
“I know,” I say simply.
His face pales. Quickly, he takes the order and stuffs it in his pocket. I don’t ask him what he intends to do with it. He exhales a shuddering breath, reaches across the table, and brushes his fingers over my cheek. I lean into his touch.
“Be safe, Sophie. For afterward.” There’s a catch in his voice. “When this is all over, we’re going to find ourselves a little church and get married. I’m counting on it.”
I nod, swallowing back the lump in my throat. Only minutes remain. Then he’ll get up and walk away and go back to his duty. Leaving me to return to mine. I reach up and place my hand over his. I smile, but it trembles at the edges. “Ja, Fritz. Me too.”
Annalise
May 25, 1942
The weekend before I met Sophie Scholl, loneliness prompted me to leave my apartment and walk to a used bookshop. I spent hours wending my way among the shelves, elated to discover a copy of Heinrich Heine’s Book of Songs, the thin volume wedged between a dictionary and a cookbook on the bottom shelf. As a child, Heine’s poetry seemed to me art in written form, and I spent hours curled up on the sofa, immersing myself in every word. One evening when I was twelve, Vater strode into the room and plucked the book from my hands. He glanced at the spine.
“Heine,” he muttered. “Degenerate Jewish trash.”
I watched, dumbstruck, as he crossed to the fireplace and tossed the volume into the crackling blaze. “The Fatherland must be cleansed of un-German literature.” In those days, his hardness had not been fully formed, and he returned to where I sat, gazing down at me. “If you like to read, we’ll go to a bookshop on Saturday. We’ll get you something better, ja?” He gave my shoulder an awkward pat, as if to console me.
I didn’t look at him, riveted on my beloved book, pages blackening in the flames. My heart thudded, hot and cold drenching my body. Suddenly, I jumped to my feet, facing him.
“Heine says ‘Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings,’” I shouted, angry tears filling my eyes. I tried to storm past him, but he grabbed my arm with a bruising grip.
The crack of his hand against my cheek reverberates through me, even now. I stared up at him, vision blurred, a chill soaking through me at the anger in his gaze. In Munich, finding and buying Heine had seemed like another way to affirm my independence, but reading it during the dull lecture had been nothing less than stupid. Had I been caught by someone else …
I shudder.
Since that day, I’ve seen Sophie several times at the university, greeting each other as we passed in the halls. On Friday, after mutually enduring another Volk and Race lecture, she suggested we meet today and walk to the Bodega, one of her favorite cafés.
I hurry across the cobblestones, plaid skirt bouncing against my knees. Sophie stands by the fountain, in the midst of a circle of young men. She tilts her head, listening, then addresses one of the group. A breeze stirs the bottom of her navy dress and a satchel hangs from her hand. The three young men around her carry books or have their hands in their pockets. All of them wear Wehrmacht uniforms. Another girl, tall and stylish in an olive suit that accentuates her curly dark hair, is also a part of the circle.
I hesitate to join them, shyness taking hold and halting my steps.
One of the young men turns, angles slightly toward Sophie.
My heart falters.
It’s him. The man whose smile so captivated me. He doesn’t see me—just one of many students taking advantage of the break between classes. Fingers wrapped around the spine of the notebook clutched to my chest, I watch him as the crowd circulates around me. He gestures as he speaks, stance easy without any of that soldierly stiffness common among young men these days.
I wait, almost breathless, willing him to smile.
He d
oes. And I’m lost in its warmth, awash in its half-crooked brilliance. The desire to draw closer flits through my mind. What would I say if I stood near him, that smile upon me?
Involuntarily, I take a few steps closer. My bobbed curls brush my cheek. Sunlight winks from the sky. A couple walks past, blocking my view.
Sophie glances in my direction. She waves and bids farewell to her companions, hurrying toward me.
“I’m sorry.” The words rush out. “I didn’t mean to take you from your friends. You did say after morning classes?”
She smiles. “No need to apologize. You’re just in time.” We fall into step, but not before I steal a glance over my shoulder, to see if the young man is watching us.
He isn’t.
It shouldn’t send a pang through me. I don’t even know him.
“How were your morning classes?”
I slide my notebook into my satchel, hesitating. Two of my three art teachers are cut from the same mold as Vater. True art, they insist, is that which glorifies the Führer—beaming blond women surrounded by a horde of children, a parade of storm troopers marching in tandem. The old masters are presented, but only those the Führer hasn’t ousted from the galleries. We students are advised to emulate the pieces showcased in the House of German Art—a gallery of some nine hundred works selected by the president of the Reich Chamber of Visual Arts. I’ve already been, when it first opened, with Vater. It’s not worth a return visit.
Despite our shared love of Heine, I pause. I don’t know Sophie’s feelings on the Führer and his regulated systems. Honestly, do I even know my own?
“All right,” is all I say.
Her brow creases in a quick, puzzled frown. We pass through the Siegestor—the stone victory arch on the outskirts of the university. I scramble for something to say. “Tell me about where you’re from, your family.” Isn’t this what normal girls with normal friendships talk about? Families?
Her answering smile is warm. “I’m from Ulm.”
“The cathedral there is beautiful, I hear.”
“We take walks by the Danube at twilight.” Her tone becomes wistful, as if she’s transported far away from the bustle of pedestrians and shop windows. “Hans, Vater, and me. Sometimes Inge comes too. Inge’s the oldest. Then there’s Hans. You haven’t met my brother, have you?” She pauses beneath the awning of a pharmacy. Our reflections stare back at us in the front window.
I shake my head, while inside, my heart jumps. Her brother …
Could he be the man whose smile fills me with hummingbird wings?
“He’s on duty at the hospital today, or I would’ve introduced you. You’d like him. It’s impossible to meet Hans without falling under his spell. He has a way about him.” She grins, flashing slightly uneven teeth. We move down the street. “After Hans, there’s Elisabeth—Lisl, we call her—and then me. Werner’s the youngest.” She says something else about Werner, but I’m processing the fact that the man I’ve been watching is not Sophie’s brother.
“And your parents?” I ask, trying to hold up my end of the conversation.
“My vater used to be the mayor of Forchtenberg. Now he manages a business and tax consulting firm. I’ve only seen my family off and on the past few years. Labor service, you know.”
I nod. Do I ever. Though I rather enjoyed the compulsory stint of farm labor (particularly the stolen moments sketching nature), Vater’s shadow followed me, even there. As Standartenführer Brandt’s daughter, I lived under a magnifying glass.
“Didn’t care for it?” We approach the café.
I shake my head. “Not really.”
Sophie laughs. “Neither did I.”
Our conversation lapses as we enter the low-beamed room. Oak-paneled walls match square tables and wooden chairs. It’s sparsely populated with working men and soldiers, a few women. Their voices mingle with the scents of greasy food and cigarette smoke.
The waitress greets Sophie with a smile and leads us to our seats. Placing worn parchment-paper menus in front of us, she takes our drink orders and bustles away.
I skim the selection and prices. Though Vater’s allowance is generous, it has to last. As do my ration coupons.
“Tell me about your family.” Sophie folds her hands atop the table.
My throat goes dry. I will not lie. I will not.
“My vater is a standartenführer in the SS.” My breath webs inside my chest. I can already tell she’s not one of those swooning, Führer-infatuated girls. Her eyes hold too much intelligence.
The waitress returns with our cups of ersatz kaffee, leaning over the table to place them in front of us, her ample bosom obscuring Sophie’s face from view. We order bowls of bean and pea soup.
When the waitress leaves again, Sophie turns to me. “And your mutter?”
No comment? No adoration? Just a question about my mutter, who would, by her own admission, call herself the most ordinary woman in Germany.
“She’s a wonderful person. A kind and loving woman.” I pause. “But in my vater’s shadow … she’s diminished, somehow.”
“A woman’s place though, isn’t it? To be diminished?” Sophie’s tone is slow, almost testing. Her keen eyes fix upon me.
“I don’t think so. Just because a woman is married doesn’t mean she should become her husband’s mirror. She’s still her own person, worth more than Kinder, Küche, Kirche.” Children, kitchen, church—one of the Führer’s pet phrases about the realm of the ideal woman. “Those things are important. But they’re not the sole reason for her existence.”
What have I just said? If Vater heard me, I’d be on the next train home, promise or no promise.
Sophie nods, eyes sparking. “Women are more than the vehicle by which future generations are propagated.”
Her words are soft, but their impact strikes me like a shout. Never have I dared to utter my unvoiced thoughts. But they are true.
More so because that is who I will become in a year’s time. The vehicle by which future generations for the Fatherland are propagated. Just thinking about it makes me nauseous.
“What does your vater think of your views?” That quizzical frown wrinkles her brow again.
“He doesn’t know. We’re not close.” I lower my gaze to my clasped hands. I didn’t want to speak of him today. Why must he follow me everywhere, even on this first chance at real friendship I’ve had in years?
Something warm brushes my hand. I look up. Sophie’s fingers rest against mine. Her brown eyes radiate understanding. “His loss,” she says simply, then takes her hand away.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Sophie
May 28, 1942
IF I HAVE LEARNED anything in these years under Hitler’s rule, it is that every person we meet represents a choice. To trust. To conceal. To let in. To shut out.
To do otherwise, especially if one’s opinions don’t align with the political consensus, means devastating risks for oneself and one’s family.
Annalise—the girl who risks reading Heine and chafes against Kinder, Küche, Kirche—is the daughter of an SS standartenführer. He would not have ascended to such a position if his views did not conform to the Führer’s in every respect.
I should be wary of Annalise, and in a way, I am. But our own family situation is proof that offspring don’t always choose the same side as their parents. My own vater opposed Hitler from the beginning, but as adolescents, Hans, Inge, and I proudly rose to leadership in our local branches of the Hitler Youth and BDM. Hans was even chosen to be flag bearer for the Hitler Youth contingent from Ulm during the 1935 Nuremburg Rally. He returned home distant and disillusioned, the breaking point of his growing disgust at the Hitler Youth’s attempt to regulate and control every aspect of the lives of its members, reaching to the books they read, the music they listened to, and the friends they chose.
Werner finally became so repulsed he walked out, right in the middle of a meeting. His insubordination cost him the opportunity to attend university, thus m
aking certain he was drafted straight into the Wehrmacht. He responded by scaling a statue outside the Ulm courthouse in the middle of the night and wrapping a swastika flag over the eyes of the figure holding the scales of justice. I was furious when I found out he’d done something so dangerous, but also secretly proud.
My musings carry me outside, past the entrance of the Lichthof—the immense glass-ceilinged great hall of the university. I pass a trio of brown-shirted National Socialist Student Association members, their proud step and swastika armbands marking them as rabid devotees. They mar the university landscape, sitting in on lectures to ferret out any speck of sedition uttered by the professors.
I catch sight of Annalise, sitting on an iron bench beneath a spreading tree, head bent over a sheet of paper held in both hands.
Should I speak to her? It’s safest, especially in light of our work on the leaflets, to be civil in passing, but nothing more.
I’m about to pass by, when Annalise looks up. Her face breaks into a smile and she waves as if to beckon me over. It would be rude to ignore her now, so I wave back and cross the grass.
“Hello.”
“Grüß Gott,” she replies. “See, I’m trying to become a true Bavarian.”
“You’re doing well.” The difference in dialects between Berlin and Bavarian Munich would be an adjustment for some, but Annalise seems to be handling it admirably, only the slightest crisp Berliner flavor making its way into her pronunciation. At first, that’s the main thing I notice. Then I realize she greeted me with the formerly popular Bavarian Grüß Gott—may God bless you—instead of the standard, almost mandatory Heil Hitler. I duck using the latter as often as possible. No man deserves to be Heiled. It’s just another method of controlling us, turning our everyday greetings into one-on-one Nazi Party rallies. But an SS officer’s daughter would surely use the correct greeting.
Annalise Brandt is an enigma.
“I’m trying. I muddle a few words here and there, but it’s getting easier.” She scoots to make room for me on the bench. “Please, sit down.”
I sit, placing my satchel on the grass beside the bench, and smooth my skirt over my knees.
The White Rose Resists Page 6