The Edelweiss Sisters: An epic, heartbreaking and gripping World War 2 novel

by Kate Hewitt

  The train rolled on, and in the next second the sky was full of light, the air full of flying debris. Birgit saw Ingrid being flung backwards by the explosion as she turned away to protect herself from the blast.

  “Run,” Elsa said, already turning towards the woods.

  “Ingrid—”

  “It’s too late for her.”

  It was a rule, Birgit knew, that you never risked the whole group for the sake of an individual. Ingrid would be left to die, she would expect it, and yet, for an agonizing second, Birgit hesitated. What were they fighting for, if they left a fallen comrade to suffer torture and death?

  The front of the train had exploded into fragments, and the rest had run off the tracks. Already soldiers were coming from the back to investigate, rifles drawn.

  Birgit ran towards Ingrid. She was bloodied and unconscious, but breathing and whole. Birgit grabbed her by her arms, hauling her over her shoulder with a strength she hadn’t realized she possessed. As she reached the edge of the woods, she heard a gunshot, and something whistled by her ear.

  “Halt! Halt!”

  She half ran, half stumbled, her breath coming in tearing gasps, as another shot rang out. They would shoot them both. They would die here in the woods, and that was if they were lucky. It was impossible to get away in time.

  Then someone fell into step beside her, and Elsa hoisted Ingrid’s arm over her shoulder, to help carry the weight. “Come on,” she whispered as they ran through the woods as best as they could, Ingrid between them. “The car is waiting. We can make it.”

  The next few minutes felt endless. Birgit’s body was screaming with pain and fatigue as she forced one foot in front of the other, stumbling over the uneven ground. She could hear the soldiers in pursuit, thrashing their way through the undergrowth, but they did not know the woods as she and Elsa did, with its secret, narrow, winding paths.

  They ducked and weaved between the trees, finally—thankfully—emerging on a dirt road where the car waited; Eva, another woman in their group, was at the wheel. They flung themselves into the back seat, Ingrid lying prone between them as Eva pushed hard on the accelerator and they roared off in a gust of fumes.

  Ingrid’s eyes flickered open as they left the forest behind. “You should have left me there,” she murmured, but she was smiling.

  Just six hours later, with Ingrid safely recuperating, Birgit was waiting by the front door for Werner to pick her up for their trip to the Berghof. Her body ached with tension and fatigue, and she’d dusted her face with powder to hide the circles under her eyes. When Werner pulled up to the house in a little two-seater, she couldn’t keep from gaping in surprise.

  “How on earth did you get a car?”

  “It belongs to a friend, and he had petrol,” Werner replied grandly. “It’s not every day we go to the Eagle’s Nest, is it?”

  No, indeed it wasn’t. Birgit’s smile felt fixed as she kissed Werner’s cheek and then got into the car.

  “I thought we’d be taking the train,” she managed with a little laugh as they sped out of Salzburg, the sky a hard, bright blue above, the mountains glittering beneath it like jagged diamonds, some of them dusted in snow.

  “Not today.” Werner kept one hand on the wheel as he put his other around Birgit so she had to scoot closer to him. “I’m so happy to see you, engel,” he told her. “And you do look like an angel in that white dress.”

  “Oh, this old thing,” Birgit replied with a toss of her head, even though it had taken several clothing coupons and hours at the sewing machine to produce the simple dress of white eyelet cotton, with puffed sleeves and a nipped-in waist. She’d wanted to look the part, after all. She glanced down at her hands and saw she had dirt under her nails from last night. Quickly she hid them in her skirt.

  “I really am,” he said, sounding as if he meant it, even more than he usually did. Birgit slid him a sideways glance, noting how much leaner he looked since she’d last seen him, just a few months ago. There was a certain grim hardness to his features that even his easy smiles and laughing eyes could not soften. She’d asked him, when she’d first seen him, how he had been, and he’d shrugged off the question with an impatient jerk of his shoulders and said nothing.

  Birgit knew she should try asking again, but she couldn’t make herself. It was hard enough to think about spending the day at the Berghof, in Hitler’s presence, along with who knew how many other Nazi officers and officials. She felt as if the truth of who she was, what she did, would be written on her face, plain for all to see. And what about finding some information to pass on? She could not imagine how she would manage it. For now, as they sped down the lane, the mountains rising up before them, everything bright and glittering, she simply wanted to enjoy the time with Werner, or at least try to.

  “I’m glad to see you,” she told him as she squeezed his arm. “I only wish we didn’t have to spend the whole day with other people.” Especially these sorts of people.

  “You aren’t looking forward to getting a glimpse of the Berghof?” He slid her a smiling glance, although his face still looked hard, and Birgit thought she detected an uncharacteristically sardonic note to his voice. “Not many people get a look into the Führer’s private residence.”

  “I know. I’m rather nervous, to tell you the truth.” She had discovered that it was best to be as honest as she could with Werner; it made navigating the web of lies that little bit easier, even though she still hated the deception.

  “So am I, actually. I’ve never actually seen him in person before. Even when he came to Salzburg, my division didn’t get so much as a glimpse. We were too busy marching.”

  “Now you might even talk to him,” Birgit remarked, suppressing a shudder at the thought. She had absolutely no interest in saying so much as a word to Hitler; in fact, the prospect filled her with both terror and revulsion. She knew many women were half in love with their Führer, kissing his photograph or even baring their breasts when he rode by in his motorcade. Birgit could not fathom any of it.

  “The likelihood is he won’t even notice us. He’ll be paying attention to General Schörner, not to me.”

  Birgit thought Werner almost sounded relieved by that notion. She knew she was.

  Half an hour later they were driving up a winding road, the gatehouse to the estate in front of them flanked by two SS guards. Birgit knew that the pretty tourist area had been completely taken over by the Reich in recent years, with the surrounding area’s hoteliers and homeowners alike bought or forced out by the government. Besides Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest, several other high-ranking officials, including Goebbels and Göring, had holiday residences there. There were also constant patrols of SS guards and anti-aircraft guns to keep the whole compound secure. Werner turned into the road and stopped at the gatehouse to show his identification along with Birgit’s.

  Her heart was drumming in her chest as the guard examined them both, giving their faces a hard, probing glance before turning to the papers.

  “The First Mountain Division, eh?” he said as he handed the papers back, satisfied. “You saw some action in the summer, didn’t you? Captured Lviv?”

  “That’s right,” Werner replied. Birgit noticed how his fingers had tensed around the wheel.

  “I heard those communist bastards went crazy over there. Killed half their population.”

  “Just the Jews and Bolsheviks,” Werner replied with a dismissive shrug, but Birgit saw that his knuckles were white.

  “They’re practically doing your job for you,” the guard replied with a laugh as he waved them through.

  Birgit glanced at Werner as he drove up the lane that led to the Berghof. Perched on a mountaintop, the enormous chalet had several wide terraces overlooking the panorama of snow-capped mountains. She didn’t ask about what he’d meant when he’d spoken to the guard, but Werner gave his head a little warning shake anyway. They were both silent as he drove towards the chalet, and another guard waved him through to park in front of it
.

  Birgit’s legs felt watery as she got out of the car, fixing her hair nervously, her fingers trembling as she took off her headscarf and replaced it with a straw hat adorned with a sprig of edelweiss; she’d chosen it to match her dress. As edelweiss was the insignia of the mountain divisions, she’d thought it appropriate, but as she glanced at a few of the other women accompanying their soldiers, her whole ensemble seemed a bit too childish.

  They were all wearing either belted jackets and narrow skirts or dirndl dresses, which Birgit knew Hitler preferred as the epitome of Germanic womanhood. She feared she looked like an overgrown girl in her cotton eyelet, and yet she’d wanted to look innocent. She just hoped she hadn’t gone too far.

  “Come on, then,” Werner said. He looked even more tense and unhappy than he had before, his mouth set in a grim line, his body taut as they walked towards Hitler’s holiday home. The day was meant to be a festive celebration, but it didn’t feel like one at all.

  As they passed through the front doors, Birgit experienced an unexpected flicker of curiosity. Here was the home, the beating heart even, of the man who controlled nearly all of Europe and longed for the world. The man who had ordered the deaths of thousands, if not millions, of people. Who approved the arrest, torture, and execution of innocents. What would his home look like?

  Birgit didn’t know if she had been expecting some spartan and utilitarian place, or chambers of marble and gilt and excess, but the interior of the Berghof was, in its own way, both.

  The wide entrance hall was filled with cacti in pots of tin-glazed pottery; they walked through it to a large lobby boasting an enormous mantel of red marble and several pieces of Teutonic furniture, all built on a grand scale.

  Birgit barely had time to take in a wood-paneled dining room and a large library with walls lined with bookshelves before she and Werner, along with all the other guests, were ushered out to a wide terrace overlooking the mountains, with tables adorned with colorful canvas umbrellas scattered about.

  Although the view was stunning, the air was brisk, and Birgit shivered in her cotton dress. It was far colder up here than it had been down in Salzburg, where a hint of summer had still lingered in the air.

  “Shall you introduce me to some of your fellow soldiers?” she asked, trying for a light tone but knowing she sounded strained. Still, she had to make an effort to chat, to socialize. To learn any information she could.

  Waiters were handing out glasses of lemonade—Hitler never allowed alcohol to be served in his presence—and Birgit took a glass, clutching it like a lifeline. Even though most of the other men present were members of the First Mountain Division like Werner, there were, she saw, a few SS officers in their black dress uniform, as well as some other high-ranking Nazi officers she didn’t recognize, circulating about. Every single one of them terrified her.

  She had a horrible fear she might blurt out something inappropriate without even realizing, although in truth she couldn’t imagine being able to say so much as a syllable. Her lips were drawn up like the strings of a purse, as she glanced around with what she hoped was an expression of friendly interest rather than fearful furtiveness.

  “I’ll introduce you if you like,” Werner replied, sounding unenthused, and he walked up to several men and their wives. The introductions washed over Birgit without her taking in any names or details; she felt as if her body were on hyper-alert, waiting for the arrival of the man himself, a buzzing in her brain that drowned out all noise so she could barely pay attention to the innocuous chitchat about the view and the weather and the latest films; Hitler was, Birgit knew, a great fan of Hollywood cinema.

  Everyone was nervous, she realized with surprise. She saw it in their tense smiles, their strained voices, the way they clutched their glasses of lemonade and darted glances all around just as she was doing. Everyone was afraid of Hitler, of what he might say, of what he might do. And why shouldn’t they be? This was a man who was engineering the systematic persecution of an entire religion. Just as she’d once told Werner, why shouldn’t any of them be next?

  She wondered then about the adulation of Hitler she saw so often—the women she’d read about in the papers who kissed his photograph or even bared their breasts—was that motivated by fear, as well? Was adoration the other side of terror?

  She had no more time to consider the matter for a ripple of awareness was moving through the room like an electric current; people were standing taller, straightening shoulders and craning their necks, caught between curiosity and alarm. Hitler was about to enter.

  Birgit instinctively took a step back as he came into the room at a brisk stride, dressed in uniform. Her first thought was how surprisingly small he was. He was only a little taller than her father, and almost as slight. Yet he had an energy, a vitality, that made him seem to fill up the space, as he stood in the center of the room and everyone sent their right arms shooting out in the required Hitlergruss.

  Birgit hesitated, for in the three years and a half years since the Anschluss she had managed never to perform the odious salute. In the street she’d always made sure to carry something so she couldn’t lift her arm, and she’d never attended any rallies or parades. In the shop, when a customer entered, she kept her focus on the clocks and merely nodded in reply. Yet here, at the Berghof? With Hitler himself in the room?

  Her arm trembled as she raised it. “Heil Hitler,” she whispered, a beat later than everyone else, so it fell into the silence like a pebble into a pond. Werner gave her a quelling look, but thankfully no one else heard or noticed her. Birgit lowered her arm with a feeling of both relief and shame that she’d made the salutation at all.

  Hitler began to work his way around the room in a clockwise direction, greeting all the men and shaking their hands as they clicked their heels in response, looking both attentive and somber. Werner continued to move around the room too though, drawing Birgit along with him, so he was always ahead of Hitler, and it took her a few minutes of hurrying after him before she realized he was doing it deliberately. He didn’t want to meet him, a thought that made her glad but also curious and even hopeful. Was Werner no longer the admirer of Hitler that he’d once been?

  The rest of the afternoon passed with agonizing slowness—another hour of socializing, and then an interminable hour in the dining room, picking at a selection of cakes, and then a speech by Hitler that grew in volume and angry insistence.

  “Ahead of us lies a winter of work. What remains to be improved will be done. The German Army is now the strongest military instrument in our history. No power and no support coming from any part of the world can change the outcome of this battle in any respect. England will fall. The everlasting Providence will not give victory to him who, merely with the object of ruling through his gold, is willing to spill the blood of men!”

  A chorus of “Heil Hitlers” followed every dramatic pronouncement, with Hitler pausing deliberately for the wave of adulation that inevitably followed. Birgit merely mouthed the words, her heart leaden. She thought Werner was mouthing them, as well. And then, with a round of applause and yet more “Sieg Heils,” it was finally, thankfully finished.

  Although Birgit had tried not to listen to any of it, she’d found herself bizarrely compelled to keep sneaking glances at Hitler, taking in the bright blue of his eyes, the neat trim of his moustache, his pride-bearing shoulders ramrod straight, as if someone had put a poker down his back. He was charismatic, she’d acknowledged reluctantly, even as he remained utterly dreadful.

  As they were filing out of the room, she realized this was her last opportunity to gain any information. Before she could think better of it, she walked towards Hitler, flanked by his guard, sending her arm out.

  “Thank you, mein Führer, for your inspiring words,” she said, amazed at how confident she sounded. How sincere. “It has been such an honor to listen to you speak.”

  Hitler’s gaze narrowed as he gazed at her, his chest puffing out a little. “The truth always insp
ires, Fräulein.”

  “Indeed it does,” Birgit replied, bowing her head humbly as she slipped her arm through Werner’s. He stood stiffly next to her, practically vibrating with tension. “I am so proud of Hauptmann Haas and the entire First Gebirgsjäger,” she said, allowing for a tiny pause. “And all they have overcome and achieved, considering the challenges they have faced and will no doubt continue to face.” She let a questioning lilt into her voice, but if she thought Adolf Hitler was going to volunteer any information, she was, of course, wrong.

  “Indeed.”

  Birgit looked up from beneath her lashes, but Hitler’s gaze gave nothing away. She got the sense that any opportunity she might have had to discover something significant had already slipped away. What had she expected him to say? To announce his military plans to a wittering woman he’d never met before?

  “Thank you, mein Führer,” Werner murmured, and then ushered her away, his arm like a band of iron beneath Birgit’s.

  “What were you thinking?” he hissed once they’d gone outside, and Birgit bit her lip.

  “I just wanted to meet him.”

  “Why?” Werner demanded. He gave the SS guards a tight-lipped smile as he headed to the car. Neither of them spoke again until they’d driven through the gates and had left the Berghof behind.

  “I thought you didn’t even like Hitler,” Werner remarked tensely, his eyes on the winding road.

  “I don’t.” Birgit gazed unseeingly out at the country road. She felt weak and shuddery all of a sudden, the tension draining out of her, making her tremble. She closed her eyes briefly and then opened them again. “You’ve changed,” she told Werner. He did not reply. “Do you not admire him any more?” she pressed, needing to know. “Hitler?”

  “I know who you meant.”

  She stared at him, waiting for more, but he stayed silent. “Werner?” she finally asked hesitantly.