The Girl from Berlin: War Criminal's Widow

by Ellie Midwood

  “Fair enough.” I was satisfied even with that little victory.

  In less than a minute, after the ink dried on the document, I beamed with joy showing my son his first official ID.

  “See? That’s your name right here, sweetie. Ernst Ferdinand Rosenberg-Kaltenbrunner.”

  In the evening, after we shared dinner with our fellow OSS agents and were playing chess in our bedroom – the game which Misha awoke interest in Heinrich too, while secretly playing with him when his superiors wouldn’t see – my husband suddenly chuckled.

  “It’s so funny that it never occurred to me till I saw Ernie’s birth certificate today, but do you remember what Ernst said when we almost crashed into his car on our wedding night?”

  “Not really… what?”

  “He said that he’d forgive us on one condition: that we’d have to name our firstborn after him.”

  “Oh my God!” I even covered my mouth from the sudden revelation. “You’re right! He did say that!”

  “That sneaky bastard!” Heinrich tried not to laugh too loud so as not to wake the baby up. “How did he know?”

  I leaned back into my chair, memories flooding my head after Heinrich’s phrase: Ernst, so poised and self-assured at first as he was accepting my new husband’s apologies, breaks his arrogant state and grins at me, gently taking my hand into his as Heinrich introduces us. I could still feel his warm fingers slightly squeezing mine as he leaned forward, playfully scolding me for distracting the driver. I could still sense his perfume and the cigarette smoke from those strong ones he always preferred, which I hated at first and missed so dearly now. I would give anything just to hold his hand again, like during that first time…

  “Heinrich, do you think he’ll be alright?”

  “He’s a damn good lawyer and an even better conspirator. If he out cheated Himmler, Müller and Schellenberg, the Military Tribunal will be a piece of cake for him. I’ve never met a double-talker like he is,” Heinrich added with a smile. “Don’t worry about him, the Allies grabbed him just because they can’t get their hands on Himmler and Müller. As soon as they catch them, Ernst won’t be needed anymore. They’ll probably sentence him to five years for being a member of the ‘criminal government,’ and will let him out in two and a half.”

  “They say such horrible things about him in newspapers. Did you see that article they wrote when they just arrested him? ‘Americans Seize Mass Gas Killer’? Ernst didn’t have anything to do with gas chambers whatsoever! It was not even under his jurisdiction, but under Pohl’s! Did they capture Pohl, by the way?”

  Heinrich shook his head negatively. “Give it a little time, they’ll get them all.”

  I nodded several times, a little revived by Heinrich’s words. He was very smart, my husband, and he very rarely, if ever, made mistakes. Besides, I had nothing better to do but believe him.

  _______________

  Berlin, May 24, 1945

  Berlin was broke, starving and worn out by the events of the past few months. I was carrying Ernie in my arms, making my way between the pieces of armaments, crushed stone and empty gun shells still covering the ground. Several days ago I started following the military doctor’s advice and taking Ernie for walks, since the fresh air would be good for the both of us.

  Heinrich was escorting us when he wasn’t busy working with the other OSS agents, helping them to go through the former RSHA employees files and classify them according the their ranks and titles. Later, the ones who would be seized, would face the International Military Tribunal together with their leaders. Once again I thought of Ernst, who was currently held in a British prison as agent Foster told me, and pressed our son closer to my chest, saying yet another prayer for him.

  Some unexplainable force was leading me further and further away from our temporary house, back to the old RSHA building, the last place where I was so happy just to hear Ernst’s voice through the closed doors of his office when he was on the phone with someone, to hide my flushed cheeks from Reichsführer while pouring them both coffee; busy with the papers in front of him, Himmler wouldn’t notice how Ernst would trace his hand under my skirt on the inside of my thigh, higher and higher till I’d almost spill the coffee over something top secret…

  He would always find an excuse to lure me into his office just to steal another kiss in between the tightly scheduled appointments, to press me against the desk hugging my waist tightly and to tease me with a slight touch, at the same time whispering to me that the rest would follow later, when the work would be over. And I would sit on the edge of my chair, waiting for the clock to strike five because I couldn’t wait to be alone with him, in his car and later in his bed.

  I didn’t see the ruins anymore; my inflated consciousness, refusing to put up with the dreadful reality, was bringing up the memories of old, elegant Berlin, when Ernst and I were strolling down its streets together, my hand wrapped around his arm, and him, proudly observing me with the look of the conqueror. He couldn’t care less about public opinion and loved taking me out at every occasion, despite the disapproving whispers and angry looks from his fellow officers’ wives. I accidentally caught a piece of such heated discussion between two especially infuriated frau in the ladies room; of course they had no idea that the object of their indignation was right next to them in one of the stalls.

  “You just look at him, parading her here like she’s his wife! How distasteful it is, bringing your mistress to the opera house!”

  “They’re constantly touching each other on top of it, did you see it? My lawful husband would never allow himself to grab my waist like that!”

  “Did you see how he took her hand and put it on his lap?! They think that if it’s dark they can do whatever they want. Absolutely horrible!”

  “What did you expect? They, Austrians, aren’t like us, Germans. They don’t have class.”

  “She’s not Austrian.”

  “She’s just a whore. Who else would so shamelessly have an affair with a married man behind her husband’s back?”

  When I came back to Ernst and, giggling, whispered to his ear what I just heard, he shrugged, pulled me close and kissed me very loudly on the lips, clearly showing everybody around how much he ‘valued’ their opinion on our account.

  I clenched my teeth till it hurt, trying my best to chase away the horrifying thoughts of never seeing him again. I was walking faster, busy looking under my feet and concentrating on the sound of my steps instead of Ingrid’s voice inside, “You two have no future. He has no future…”

  “Yes, he has,” I argued out loud and had to start rocking baby Ernie back to sleep, who I so carelessly woke up with my voice. “Yes, he has, right, my angel? Of course he has. They’re all just saying that… You wait till they get that bad Herr Himmler and Herr Müller, they’ll let your Papa go right away. He’ll be so happy to see your pretty little face.”

  I finally found myself in front of the former RSHA building, or whatever what was left of it. The façade and the part of the left wing were still there, but as soon as I turned around the corner, to the back of the building, where the private park for the employees used to be, I saw only a pile of stones, bricks, wrecked metal constructions and an abandoned car, completely burnt out by the fire caused by the air raid. I didn’t know if the Allies destroyed the building on purpose or it just happened to be on their way, but whatever it was, my old office was leveled to the ground.

  Why am I even here? It’s all over with… I guess I was following the voice inside, begging and pleading to pick up at least something still connected to that happy past. Let’s go by his office, maybe we’ll find something that used to belong to him that the Russians didn’t take, maybe a piece of wood from his desk, a piece of the curtain, something that his hands touched, and we’ll keep it and we’ll take it with us to New York because we don’t know if we’ll ever see him again… But the building was gone, together with that last tiny hope. I had nothing else to do but keep walking.

&nb
sp; To my big relief the public park just a street away, in which Ernst and I would sometimes spend our lunchtime, was almost unharmed, and I walked over to a bench, just now realizing how exhausted I really was. I picked up an American newspaper (we didn’t actually have German ones anymore, so ‘Stars and Stripes’ was probably the only source of information for the Germans nowadays) and used it to dust off the bench before sitting down. I couldn’t feel my arms from carrying the baby the whole time, and I was glad that I could at last put Ernie down on my lap and take a little break.

  He was sleeping peacefully, my little angel, and not knowing what else to do, I decided to distract myself from my gloomy thoughts by opening a newspaper. It was fresh, dated today’s date, May 24th, and left by somebody opened in the middle. I flipped through the pages to get to the front one, and froze with my hand on top of it as soon as I saw the front line: “Nazi Gestapo Leader Himmler Dead of Suicide.”

  “It can’t be,” I kept whispering, following with ice cold fingers the lines describing the last hours of the former Reichsführer of SS.

  Himmler tried to escape prosecution by changing into the regular Wehrmacht uniform and disguising himself by shaving off his moustache and wearing a patch over his eye. He and his high ranking followers, all posing as regular army soldiers, joined the line of the captured prisoners of war; however their new passports, all in perfect condition, gave them away at the checking point. After he realized that his identity would be revealed in a matter of hours, the former Reichsführer took his eye patch off, put on his famous round glasses and announced that it was indeed him, Heinrich Himmler, and that he wanted to speak to General Montgomery. His capturers, familiar by now with the German infamous habit to take their own life fearing the worst, quickly decided to check Himmler’s clothes not to leave him such an opportunity. But then the former Reichsführer panicked and bit on a cyanide capsule he had on him. All the efforts to revive him were, naturally, in vain.

  I leaned back on the back of the bench, blankly staring into space in front of me. Himmler, the man behind the final solution directive, the main SS commander responsible for the Einsatzgruppen, for the Gestapo atrocities, for the whole RSHA deeds, was dead. And that meant only one thing: his responsibility for all the terrors committed automatically shifted onto Ernst’s shoulders.

  I pressed my hand to my throat as if I suddenly didn’t have enough air to breathe. All my hope was in that very Himmler, that after his capture Ernst would be tried only as his deputy at its worst, but not as the originator and the main perpetrator of all Reichsführer’s initiatives. Now that hope was gone, vanished, just like the old RSHA office, buried under the pile of the concrete dust.

  “Excuse me, are you waiting for somebody?”

  I raised my eyes to an American soldier, who was waiting for my reply with a smile on his face. They are always smiling, the Americans. Such a cheerful nation… What did he ask me again? I have to concentrate and answer something.

  “No.” I forced a smile back at him and moved the newspaper so he could sit next to me. “No, I’m not.”

  He thanked me for giving him space and looked at the newspaper with interest. “May I?”

  “Of course.” I handed him the already useless newspaper.

  “Himmler’s dead! Can you believe it?” The American was moving his lips while reading the article and suddenly shifted his eyes to me again. “Are you sure you’re not waiting for anybody? I don’t want to get your husband angry. Tell me if you want me to go, don’t be shy.”

  “No, it’s really fine. You can stay as long as you want.”

  “I’ll leave in five minutes, don’t worry. My lunch finishes at 12:30. Just need some fresh air.”

  Something in his words triggered some invisible cord inside my mind, something very important and very familiar at the same time, which I couldn’t quite grasp… Until I looked at the date on the newspaper again. May 24th. And then it all came back to me, same park, same beautiful sunny afternoon, same bench, only a year ago, and instead of the American soldier Ernst was sitting next to me. He also had a newspaper in his hands when he was pronouncing in a playfully solemn tone, “Annalise Friedmann, I invite you on a date next May 24, 1945, right here on this very bench, at 12:30, and even if your Allies level this park to the ground, I’ll still be waiting for you on this very spot with flowers in my hand.”

  I drew in air sharply, feeling the hot tears flooding my eyes as I clasped my mouth with a shaking hand and in a second started weeping uncontrollably.

  “What happened?” The petrified soldier was clasping and unclasping the newspaper in his hands not knowing what to do. “Are you alright? What happened? Did I do something? I’ll leave right now if you want to…”

  “No, no, it’s not you,” I could hardly speak through the tears, and the accompanying cries from Ernie, who I woke up once again. “You were right, I was waiting for somebody. Only he won’t come. Never again.”

  Chapter 12

  Berlin – New York, June 1945

  Agent Foster made sure that Heinrich and I were comfortably seated on a big military plane and went to speak with the pilot. My husband and I had just exchanged surprised looks that the OSS office was going to waste such a massive machine to fly it across the Atlantic half-empty, when several OSS officers showed up in the doors and motioned to the men following them to come inside.

  The latter weren’t dressed as military; on the contrary, they were wearing civil clothes and had small suitcases with them. As they were entering the plane one by one, the Americans were checking their names off the lists they had and pointed where the men were to sit. There were a lot of them, about a hundred I’d say, and they quickly started forming little groups as they were seated, and quietly talking amongst themselves. I recognized my native speech right away – the men were all Germans.

  Some of them kept throwing inquisitive looks at us, since I was not only the only woman on the plane, but a woman with a baby; some smiling and politely nodding. Agent Foster came back and once again made sure that we were comfortable and safe.

  “Hold the baby tight, especially during the take off,” he warned me for the third time probably. “And if the pressure change starts bothering him, give him something to drink. Swallowing naturally helps to alleviate pain in the ears.”

  “Thank you, I will.”

  Heinrich wrapped his healthy arm around me as the plane started making its way on the runway. The slight shaking, which turned into the more intense one as we started gaining speed, woke baby Ernie up and he immediately let everybody around know about his discontent with a loud scream.

  “What a voice!” Heinrich sneered as I was trying to rock the baby back to sleep or at least to bring down his ‘volume’ a little. “Reminds you of somebody? I’m afraid of what’s going to happen when he grows up – he’ll start throwing things at people!”

  “Oh, Heinrich, will you stop at least? I can’t deal with the two of you!” Even though I tried to sound grouchy, I still couldn’t conceal a smile.

  “Excuse me, are you Germans as well?” one of the men sitting next to us addressed us.

  “Yes, we are,” I replied, while Heinrich was busy looking for a bottle with milk that we prepared prior to departure.

  “Are you scientists or the RSHA?” Our neighbor tilted his head to one side with an obvious interest.

  I paused for a moment, a little confused by such prying, but figuring that if these people were sharing a plane with us and heading to the same place as we were, I decided to satisfy his curiosity. “The RSHA.”

  “Oh, really? Me too! What Department, if you don’t mind me asking? You both look very familiar.”

  “My husband used to be the head of Department D, SD-Ausland. And I’m just a former secretary.”

  “I used to be in SD-Inland, but I probably saw you in the building or at the meetings maybe. But those gentlemen over there were working together with you in SD-Ausland.” The former internal intelligence officer waived to
a small group of men sitting across from us. “Koch, Schäfer, say hello, they’re from Ausland too!”

  “Hey, I know you!” Heinrich finally fished out the bottle from our small suitcase, handed it to me and was now pointing at one of the former SD-Ausland officers. “You were in my Department! But your name is not Koch!”

  “Well, I bet you’re not Herr Oberführer Friedmann anymore too.” A young man smiled with a corner of his mouth.

  “Hermann Rosenberg,” Heinrich introduced himself, mirroring the former subordinate’s smile. “And my wife Emma Rosenberg.”

  “Former ‘persecuted Jews?’” Koch grinned as we nodded with a smile. “They don’t have an outstanding fantasy, the OSS. We’re the ‘former opposition.’ It either that, Communists, or Jews.”

  “I’m a Jew too now.” Our neighbor from SD-Inland looked at the hat in his hands. “Jacob Rosenthal.”

  Koch laughed at his pained facial expression. “I wonder if they’ll make you go to the synagogue as a part of your legend, ha-ha!”

  “I’d rather go to the synagogue than sit in jail together with everybody else!” Rosenthal snapped back, but then added kind-heartedly, “We’re all very lucky here. We could have been tried as war criminals and most of us, let’s be honest, would have most likely been hanged. Thank God we were fortunate enough that the OSS found us more useful alive than dead, so I honestly don’t care less what my new passport says, as long as I’m alive and relatively free.”

  An approving rumble and nodding heads confirmed agreement from most of the former intelligence staff, who were now heading to the United States to work for the OSS, except for a small group of frowning men who kept silent the whole time.