Enemies in Love

by Alexis Clark

  The dedicated space allowed for privacy for both families, which one would assume was a thoughtful arrangement, but from the moment Frederick and Elinor arrived, they realized that the separate quarters were more isolating than considerate.

  Karl and Margarete had never been in any intimate setting with black people before, and they truly weren’t ready for the adjustment. They had not digested what it would mean to have not one but two non-Aryans living with them. The only exposure Germans had had to African Americans in recent years was during the occupation of Germany when black soldiers from the United States and the British Army’s Caribbean regiments were stationed there. Before World War II, there had been a minuscule population of Africans who had moved to Germany to teach African languages during the country’s colonial period in the early twentieth century. There were also black scholars and entertainers from all over the world who had spent time there. Some had intimate relationships with German women, as did some of the French-African occupying soldiers in Germany after World War I. This small population of blacks, as well as the mixed-race children from these unions, although rarely acknowledged, ended up being victims of Hitler’s barbarism in addition to Jews and other groups deemed inferior. Some fled before Nazism spread across the country, but others weren’t as lucky and were sent to concentration camps and sterilized.14

  Despite the fact that black GIs had a presence in Germany during the years-long occupation after World War II, it was unheard of for a German soldier to return from the war with an African American wife and mixed-race child. Interracial coupling was still very much a taboo. It was more common for a black man to take up with a white woman, and there were frequent reports and complaints to the U.S. military about love affairs between black GIs and local German women in some of the larger cities that had American military bases, such as Stuttgart and Frankfurt.

  Elinor and Frederick were entering a country where interracial dating, marriage, and children were still isolated experiences that were scorned by German society. During the Allied occupation from 1947 to 1955, an estimated 67,000 children were born to soldiers from the occupied forces and German women. Out of that, a reported 4,776 were “brown babies.” That term and mischlingskinder were used to describe mixed-race children with white German mothers and black fathers. The ostracizing of these children would have been a good indication for Frederick and Elinor of what was in store for them had they known.

  Mischlingskinder were often placed in orphanages because no German families wanted to raise a half-black child. The children were seen as a blight on German culture and were mistreated. In response to the terrible predicament of these unwanted tan-skinned babies, an African American journalist named Mabel Grammer intervened. Grammer was married to Oscar Grammer, a black warrant officer stationed in Mannheim, Germany, from 1950 to 1954. She became aware of the discrimination these mixed-raced children faced when she was approached by German women seeking her help and nuns overseeing orphanages. She came up with the “Brown Baby Plan,” a transatlantic adoption program that placed mixed-race children in Germany who were in need of good African American families to adopt them. France, England and Italy were also facing a similar crisis where babies born to black soldiers and European white women were shunned and unwanted. The October 1948 cover of Ebony magazine pictured a mixed-race baby with the headline “Homes Needed for 10,000 Brown Orphans.”15

  The shunning of these mixed-race babies was emblematic of how both German and American society felt about black-white romantic relationships. German women who had children fathered by black soldiers were treated as castaways and had very few options for maintaining a decent life as a single parent without harassment and constant threats.

  Even though America was by no means free of racial prejudice, Mabel Grammer believed the orphans would be better off in the United States. It was no secret that the “brown babies” were leaving one oppressive regime, the remnants of the Third Reich, for another, Jim Crow, but Grammer thought that at least the children would have loving black families to take care of them. There would be communities of African Americans that would rally behind these children, unlike in Germany, where there was no significant black population.

  As the occupation continued into the 1950s, so did the relationships between black soldiers and German women. But they fraternized at their own peril. Blacks in uniform found themselves on the receiving end of the same indignities experienced in the United States, and by the same oppressors: white Americans. When German women were caught on dates with black men, they were reportedly called “nigger-whores” by Americans in uniform. These women were often harassed on the street and even threatened with incarceration. One black soldier stationed in the European theater, when interviewed by NAACP president Walter White, reportedly said, “What are we fighting for over here? Are we sent . . . to fight the Nazis—or our white soldiers?”16

  The U.S. military was aware of the injustices that white soldiers inflicted on black soldiers. In just one of many examples, in 1946, Dwight D. Eisenhower received a letter from Alvin M. Owsley, “an indignant former national commander of the American Legion,” after he saw a picture of a black GI and a white German woman. Owsley wrote:

  My dear General, I do not know . . . where these negroes come from, but it is certain that if they expect to be returned to the [U.S.] South, they very likely are on the way to be hanged or burned alive at public lynchings by the white men of the South. . . . There is only one way to stop the white man of the South from burning and hanging blackmen who lay their hands on our white women and that is . . . [for] . . . the blackmen to associate with black women and leave our women alone.17

  Black men stationed in Germany endured verbal slurs and physical threats. If a black soldier was spotted walking alongside a German woman, uniformed white soldiers were known to drive their vehicles onto the sidewalks as if they were about to run the black GI down. Sometimes these threats led to actual violence. In Asberg, Bavaria, white GIs threw beer bottles at black servicemen dancing with German women. A brawl later ensued, and a white soldier was fatally shot. Three black soldiers were court-martialed and sentenced to hang.18

  The strife between black and white American soldiers signaled to Germans that racism against blacks was acceptable. For example, there were alleged acts of discrimination by store owners who refused to serve black soldiers or their families. Some German bar owners, under pressure from white American GIs, barred black soldiers from their establishments. Anticipating objection from black GIs, white military police would patrol outside the bars in case any black soldiers attempted to enter.19

  If that treatment had been directed at a white soldier, there would have been repercussions. But since blacks were on the receiving end, the slights went unpunished and excused. Ironically, Germans learned from their American occupiers that white supremacy was a shared value in both American and German cultures.

  The town of Göttingen was completely unprepared for Elinor. Her time there was reminiscent of the days she spent being turned away from soda counters in Arizona. She was in a hostile environment. As an American, and a black American at that, her presence was an immediate reminder of the failed German empire and of a world that was forever changed.

  Kristina Brandner, Charlotte’s oldest daughter, was living with Karl and Margarete when Frederick, Elinor, and Stephen arrived. She was almost ten years old and fascinated with Elinor, the first black woman she had ever seen. Because she attended schools in the British zone, she could speak English.

  Kristina was raised similarly to Frederick and Charlotte. The war had not softened anything about Margarete or Karl’s reserved temperament toward children. Even after the devastation of World War II, there was a coldness that remained in the Albert household. Instead of being the grandchild that everyone doted on, Kristina wasn’t showered with kisses, hugs, and compliments. She experienced the same loneliness growing up as her mother and Frederick had.

  “My grandparents were very strict. I h
ad to learn good manners, discipline. They weren’t open-minded,” said Kristina.

  When Elinor arrived, the dynamic in the house immediately shifted. For one, “Frika” was finally home, and Margarete was thrilled to have her favorite child back. To see him fawn over Elinor was difficult for her to watch, though. She was jealous of the attention Frederick gave his wife, and the fact that she was black made it even worse.

  Elinor’s race was an undeniable issue for Margarete. She couldn’t grasp that she and a black woman were on equal footing. Kristina remembered Margarete saying that as a German woman, she couldn’t relate to Elinor, because her only familiarity with blacks came from photos of Africans in books wearing tribal garb. “That’s all my grandmother knew.”

  The lingering effects of German nationalism were very present in the Albert household. To Margarete, Elinor belonged to a foreign race. Kristina also attributed Margarete’s discomfort with Elinor to Hitler’s ban on foreign newspapers, which had made it illegal to provide information about other countries to German citizens. Margarete knew nothing at all about African Americans. Knowing Elinor couldn’t understand her, Margarete constantly asked Kristina, “How come Frika couldn’t marry someone white?”20

  If Elinor thought she would bond with her new mother-in-law, she was mistaken. There wasn’t anything Elinor could do right in Margarete’s eyes. Kristina remembered how her grandmother acted: “She wanted to tell Elinor how to do everything and what not to do.” The admonishments came in the form of shouting, which hurt Elinor deeply, but she was living in Margarete’s house, so she had no choice but to deal with the frequent screaming, which was, of course, in German. “Elinor suffered a lot. I saw the fights,” said Kristina.

  Margarete even frowned upon Elinor buying fashion magazines, which Margarete thought were a waste of money and nothing more than frivolous expenses. The reprimand had an undercurrent of shaming because it implied that Elinor was ungrateful and spent money carelessly. Margarete had always maintained a regular beauty regimen. She would get manicures every week and a pedicure once a month. She visited the hair salon weekly for her signature look, a low chignon.21 Instead of seeing Elinor’s interest in fashion and design as a common bond the two could share, however, she chastised her daughter-in-law about her shallow ness. Although Elinor usually couldn’t understand what her mother-in-law was saying until Kristina translated, her combative tone was enough to ascertain the meaning of her words.

  “Elinor was so unhappy and my grandmother could yell, my God, she could yell.” said Kristina. “Sometimes I went after Elinor. I saw her in the kitchen in the morning crying. How could she be happy here?”

  Elinor did her best to adapt to her inhospitable mother-in-law because she had a son to raise, but she mostly retreated to the suite that she and Frederick occupied. “I felt very badly for Elinor,” said Kristina. “My grandmother did not like her and didn’t want her there. To her, Frika married this black woman.”22 That infuriated Margarete. She didn’t understand how her son could choose someone black over someone white. And word spread quickly about the new “black woman” and tan child living with the Alberts.

  Elinor couldn’t leave the house without gawkers following her. What should have been an uneventful stroll down Wenderstrasse often turned into a spectacle. Everyone stared at Elinor wherever she went. One man, coming out of a store, dropped his bag of groceries when he saw her, and stood there motionless as his cabbage rolled down the sidewalk. Charlotte, on a visit, was with Elinor at the time. “He acted as if he had been struck by lightning. I’ll never forget that episode.”23 It’s quite possible that Elinor was the first black person most residents of Göttingen had ever seen up close. That, coupled with her statuesque six-foot physique and striking dark skin, shocked people into paralysis.

  It was unnerving for Elinor to stand out in this way. She felt as though she was a walking exhibit or an animal in a zoo, but she had no choice but to leave the house because little Stephen had to go to school and play outside. The two of them together stirred up so much curiosity and resentment that Kristina found herself in the unfortunate position of constantly answering questions about her aunt as well as her cousin, who looked neither white nor black.

  “In school, the other kids used to ask me how come there was a black woman living with us. ‘And your cousin, why is he another color?’” On some occasions, Kristina remembered, the children in her neighborhood would yell “nigger” when Elinor or little Stephen walked outside.

  Despondent and humiliated, Elinor couldn’t even give rude and obnoxious finger-pointing people a piece of her mind. She didn’t pick up German easily, so she wasn’t able to communicate with anyone. She was lonely and frustrated, not unlike when she first moved to Camp Florence. Kristina remembered that Elinor was alone all the time. “She had no friends. Nobody to talk to. Now that I’m a grown woman I can understand and feel what she felt.”24

  It wasn’t just Elinor who was miserable. Frederick was suffering too. The truth was that he was not succeeding in his father’s company. From the moment he arrived, he couldn’t adjust to the work—developing fireproof products. He was not the least bit interested in manufacturing and engineering. It was too technical and the experience was not bringing him any closer to his father.

  Kristina, even as a child, found it disturbing that Frederick didn’t defend Elinor when Margarete was mistreating her. It had to have been even more disappointing for Elinor to watch Frederick retreat instead of sticking up for her. But Frederick avoided any confrontation with Margarete. He just relegated himself to his suite with his tiny family. He didn’t have any friends in Göttingen either. The home was fraught with tension, and the two families lived separate lives under one roof.

  “We very rarely had family meals together,” said Kristina. “My grandmother cooked for my grandfather, herself, and me. And Elinor cooked separately for her family. We ate at different times and in different rooms: Elinor, Frika, and Stephen in their part of the house and we in the dining room.”25 Occasionally the two families would take Sunday walks together, but that didn’t happen often. And Karl, who would later be diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, never joined them for their strolls but not because of his health; he had taken up with a new girlfriend and preferred to spend his weekends with her.

  Frederick was in a difficult situation. He was living with his wife and child in his family home, which was safe and comfortable despite his parents’ inhospitable treatment. He was beholden to his father for employment, knowing he would be at the helm of the company one day even though he hated the work he was doing and the business he would eventually own. It seemed as though the practical aspects of his life—steady housing and income—were both severely compromised by the degree of unhappiness that came along with them. Yes, his parents were sparing him from a life of destitution in Boston, but the very things he feared about the move had come to fruition. He wasn’t thriving at his job, his father still didn’t embrace him, and his mother didn’t accept his wife.

  Elinor later shared with her niece Hope Taylor that when she lived in Göttingen, she had to double-check the word for “black” in German because that’s how often Margarete would say it. She told Hope that one time she could hear her mother-in-law telling someone on the phone that she had a “nigger” in her house.26

  It was a hopeless situation for Elinor. She was on her own while Frederick worked. The only time she had adult conversation was when he returned from the office. She picked up as much pidgin German as she could and learned to cook Bavarian food on her own to pass the time. She eventually would make excellent German meals—but it wasn’t because Margarete taught her.

  The move to Germany turned out to be terrible. Frederick and Elinor had a nice place to live, but that was the only improvement in their lives. It was inevitable that Elinor became depressed in such an alienating environment. It was becoming clear that she couldn’t stay there for much longer.

  A part of her still wanted to believe t
hat she and Frederick could make it work for financial reasons. And Elinor soon discovered she was pregnant with their second child. The two knew, though, that their marriage was suffering. “I think Elinor would have left Frika had they remained in Germany,” said Charlotte. Frederick realized that too. He was in love with his wife and he hated seeing her unhappy. Instead of fighting with his mother or demanding more respect from his father, he would leave. That was what he and Elinor had agreed on before they left the United States. Moving was becoming a survival mechanism for them. If wherever they landed didn’t work out, they would pack up and venture to a new destination.

  After a year in Göttingen, their second son, Christopher Wilhelm Farrow Albert, was born on June 17, 1953. Shortly thereafter, Frederick and Elinor decided to move back. The lure of family wealth didn’t outweigh their love for each other. Frederick would have to figure out a way to make the United States work, even though he hadn’t been successful the first time. He had to get Elinor out of Germany.

  10.

  Finally Home

  FREDERICK DECIDED IT WOULD BE BEST TO RETURN to the United States ahead of Elinor and the children. He wanted to find a job and a suitable place to live before sending for his family. It would have been difficult to search for housing with two young children in tow. And the truth was that it was easier to get a lease without the landlord and neighbors seeing his black wife and biracial sons.