Storm Front

Chapter Eighteen

Albert Speer University, Berlin

29 July 1985

Gudrun had been relieved when she’d woken up and discovered, as she helped her mother make breakfast, that her father had had to stay at the station overnight. It wasn’t common – her father normally worked from nine till five and then headed straight home – but it was a relief. Kurt might have spoken to their father for her, yet she’d been dreading their next meeting. Walking out of the house, carrying her bag of university books, had left her with the sensation that she was escaping a destiny mapped out by someone else. By the time she reached the university itself, she felt almost as if there was nothing she couldn’t do.

Horst met her by the gates. “There’s a lot of chatter,” he said, as Gudrun flushed with embarrassment. She’d kissed him – and she would have gone further, if he’d let her. “Just remember to be careful what you say.”

“Of course,” Gudrun said, a little tartly. Part of her would have been relieved if she’d never seen Horst again, even though she was sure he wouldn’t tell anyone about the kiss. But she needed to ask him and the others why the leaflets had been distributed far more widely than she’d expected. “Can we sneak up to the meeting room?”

“Better to wait for a while,” Horst said, as they stepped through the gates. “The entire university is buzzing.”

He was right, Gudrun discovered. Students were talking in small groups about the leaflets, comparing notes about soldiers who’d gone to South Africa and dropped out of contact; fathers, brothers and friends who seemed to have vanished. Gudrun listened, careful not to say too much, as the chatter grew stronger; hundreds of students, it seemed, were realising for the first time that they’d been told lies by the state. And, the more they compared notes, the clearer the picture became.

They can’t arrest everyone, she told herself. She had no idea if that was actually true, but there were over two thousand students in the university itself, all with friends and family who would be upset if they were arrested. They can’t take us all away, can they?

She shuddered, remembering Grandpa Frank’s words. The Reich had slaughtered untold millions – perhaps billions – of human beings, men and women who weren’t so different from the Germans themselves. It was a crime so vast as to be almost beyond her comprehension, an atrocity so staggering that it would be easy to believe it had never happened. And yet, reading between the lines, it was clear that it had happened. Grandpa Frank might have told her what he’d seen, but… but she’d read the books and noted carefully what they didn’t say.

“My father wasn’t too pleased,” she muttered to Horst. “He was demanding to know when I’d get married and out of his house.”

Horst shrugged. “Fathers are like that,” he said. “Mine certainly told me I’d be expected to marry as soon as I decently could, no matter what I did with my life.”

Gudrun shook her head, tiredly, as they made their way to the classrooms. Konrad was unlikely to recover, but her father didn’t know that. Not yet. As long as he thought she was engaged to Konrad – or close to engaged – he wouldn’t insist that she looked for another suitable husband. But once he found out the truth, he would tell her to find someone or to allow him to suggest potential candidates. Her stomach turned at the thought of who her father would consider suitable. A boring man, she was sure; a man who’d want a housewife and nothing more. And her father would keep shoving candidates at her until she gave in…

She looked at Horst, thoughtfully. He was handsome enough, she supposed; strong, smart – he’d have to be to get into the university – and all-too-aware of what she was doing instead of studying. Marriage to him wouldn’t be too bad, but she’d have to go to the east once she finished her studies… unless he decided to stay in the west with her. She opened her mouth to ask him what he’d do, then dismissed the thought. It was unlikely in the extreme that they’d live long enough to get married and make a future together.

Horst gave her an odd look. “Are you all right?”

“It’s just… it’s just the excuse,” Gudrun lied. They’d called their periods the excuse in the BDM. Horst frowned, then blushed with embarrassment. Gudrun couldn’t help smiling, despite her own embarrassment. Konrad had affected a selective deafness whenever female issues were mentioned. “I’ll be better soon, I’m sure.”

“I’m sure of it,” Horst agreed. He gave her a bland smile. “Gudrun, I…”

He broke off as a rustle ran through the students behind them. Gudrun turned and saw a trio of green-clad Order Policemen making their way through the crowd, their mere presence parting the students as effectively as Moses had parted the Red Sea. Horst caught her arm and gently pulled her out of the way, slipping down a side corridor as the policemen walked past their position. Gudrun tensed as she realised one of them was her father. Had he come to look for her? Or had he been called to the university on other business?

“That’s my father,” she breathed. Panic started to bubble up within her mind. “Horst…”

“Remain calm,” Horst whispered. Students were scattering in all directions, unwilling to risk doing anything that might draw attention from the policemen. “Just…”

He looked around, then drew her into an alcove. “We need to see what they’re doing here,” he added, at her bemused look. “Or do you want to run and hide?”

Gudrun, stung, drew herself up to her full height. “If he’s here for me,” she said, “is there any point in hiding?”

“Probably not,” Horst said, after a moment. “But if he was here for you, why would he bring two of his friends?”

Herman had never set foot in the university before, not even when Gudrun had been accepted as a student. Parents weren’t meant to supervise their children’s education and, while the university had thrown out many traditions, it had made sure to keep that one. Indeed, Herman had only visited his children’s schools after the teachers had complained about their behaviour. Kurt had often been in trouble for fighting and Johan, it seemed, was going the same way.

Good for him, Herman thought, as he made his way through the corridors. He’d never been in the building before, but there were helpful signs everywhere. A fighter is better than a coward.

The university struck him as odd. It was nothing like a school; indeed, the mandatory portraits of Hitler and the Reich Cabinet were at a bare minimum, while the walls were covered with bright maps, abstract paintings that looked as though someone had splashed ink randomly on paper and photographs of spacecraft, space stations and the tiny base on the moon. Kurt had wanted to be an astronaut, Herman recalled; he’d been disappointed for weeks after he failed to get into the air force, the first step towards flying into space. Johan had been talking about being the first man on Mars too…

And this place is where they design the next generation of spacecraft, he thought, as he paused in front of a drawing of a massive space rocket. It looked too big to be realistic, unless there was something special about the rocket drive; the tiny image of a teenage boy, a sea captain and a bald professor at the bottom caught his eye for a long moment. Maybe Johan will fly that rocket into space.

He pushed the thought aside as they walked on until they reached the computer labs and stepped through the door. Inside, there were fifty computers lined up in neat rows, dozens of students sitting in front of them tapping on keyboards. Their eyes went wide as they saw the policemen, guilt written all over their faces. Herman smirked inwardly – everyone, it seemed, remembered guilty secrets when they saw a policeman – and raked the room with his eyes, searching for Herr Doctor Professor Claus Murken. The Professor was standing behind a female student – Herman was irrationally grateful it wasn’t Gudrun – one hand resting on her shoulder as he explained something to her.

“Herr Doctor Professor Claus Murken,” he said, as the policemen stepped forward. Murken didn’t look dangerous, but they had strict orders to bring him in alive and relatively unharmed. “You are under arrest.”

Murken’s eyes widened in shock. He offered no resistance as he was roughly searched and his hands were cuffed behind his back. Herman had been curious to discover what a professor of computer studies might carry in his pockets – he’d tried reading one of Gudrun’s books and found it completely beyond his understanding – but Murken wasn’t carrying anything apart from a pair of pencils, an American-made pocket calculator and a tiny device Herman couldn’t identify. He bagged everything, then nodded to Fritz and Caius, who frog-marched the professor through the door and out into the corridor.

Herman braced himself as they marched past a number of students. Many of them had their faces frozen in the expressionless masks they learned as children, when showing the wrong emotion could lead to a beating or worse, but a number were staring in horror – and hatred, even though it could be dangerous. Herman was tempted to snap and snarl at them as they passed, or to drag them in for interrogation, yet he knew it would be pointless. Instead, he merely ignored the students, counting on their uniforms to clear a pathway for them. It worked; no one barred their way as they half-carried the shocked professor through the corridors and out through the gates. They’d get Murken back to the station, where the SS would interrogate him harshly.

“I didn’t do anything,” Murken said. “I didn’t…”

“I’m sure,” Herman snapped. He felt a flicker of guilt as they walked past a pair of female students, both of whom stared in horror. Murken wasn’t big enough to justify carrying him around like a drunken soldier. But he knew they had no choice. “The SS will be the judge of that.”

Gudrun had liked Professor Murken. He was always friendly, always willing to explain some of the more difficult concepts and, unlike some of the other professors, never seemed willing to assume that a girl was automatically nowhere near as capable as a boy. She’d hoped he’d tutor her when she entered her second year of computer studies. But now, her father and two burly policemen were carrying him out of the university, in cuffs. She felt sick as she watched them go by, her father bringing up the rear… she shrank back into the shadows as they passed, hoping and praying that her father didn’t see her.

They came and took the professor, she thought, numbly. She’d half-expected to be arrested herself, or to watch helplessly as some of her friends were marched away; she’d never expected to see Professor Murken arrested by her father. Why did they arrest him?

“They arrested him,” she muttered, once the policemen were out of earshot. If her father had seen her, and he might have done, he’d shown no sign of it. “Why did they arrest him?”

“I don’t know,” Horst muttered back. “But we’d better get into class.”

Gudrun gave him a nasty look as they made their way down the corridor. “How can you be so calm?”

“There’s nothing to be gained by panicking,” Horst pointed out. “The professor knows nothing and he’s quite valuable, so I’m sure he will be released soon enough.”

“I hope you’re right,” Gudrun said. “But if you’re wrong…”

She left the thought unfinished. They’d poked the authorities in their collective eye – and now they were angry. Her father might be the face of authority – and he had complete authority over her and her siblings – but he wouldn’t be the one making the real decisions, not after her little group had embarrassed the entire state. The Reich Council would be angry and humiliated and… and who knew what they’d do? They might consider the professor an acceptable scapegoat for the leaflets – or they might genuinely believe that he’d been involved in the plot.

And we sent copies of the leaflets through the computer network, she thought, as her blood ran cold. They might well have good reason to blame the professor.

Classes, not entirely to her surprise, were a joke. The professors were clearly nervous; the students were chattering away in small groups, telling one another what they’d seen when the policemen had entered the university. Gudrun did her best to keep her head down by reading her book, waiting for a chance to meet up with her friends after lunch. The professor dismissed class early, to her mingled dismay and relief. They’d learned nothing – and they had exams coming up in a matter of months.

Not that exams will matter that much, she thought, as they ate lunch and headed for the study room. If we get caught, I’ll be lucky if I get exiled to the east.

“They must have taken the professor’s fingerprint from one of the leaflets,” Horst said, once the door was closed and the bug was neutralised by bad American music. “He was the one who loaded the printer, I suspect. They took his fingerprint and assumed it was one of ours.”

Gudrun swallowed. “Is there anything we can do about that?”

“Not unless you want to be arrested yourself,” Sven said. “We should just count ourselves lucky that the professor knows nothing.”

“But he’s innocent,” Gudrun protested.

“They’ll find that out while they’re interrogating him,” Horst reassured her, again. “But for the moment, we can only consider our next move.”

Sven took a breath. “We sent copies of the leaflet to every email address in the Reich,” he said, “and worked additional copies into some of the more complex computer programs in existence. They may wipe the first set from the network, but the second set will be resent every Sunday until a genuine computer expert removes them completely. It will take some time for them to even realise there is a problem.”

“A week, to be precise,” Isla added.

“More or less,” Sven said. “There have been some covert messages exchanged on the network, Gudrun, and promises to share the leaflets widely across the Reich.”

“I heard that copies were found on trains and aircraft,” Günter said. “Word is spreading, is it not?”

“Yes, it is,” Gudrun said. “How did the leaflets get so far?”

“I believe some people took them, read them and dumped them,” Horst said, calmly. “And the more people who read them, the better.”

“We did ask readers to pass on the leaflets as quickly as possible,” Sven agreed. He sounded surprisingly cheerful. “They might just be taking us at our word.”

“That’s good,” Gudrun said. She held up a hand. “What do we do now?”

“Nothing,” Horst said.

Günter stared at him. “You think we should do nothing?”

“Yes,” Horst said, unabashed. “Right now, the security services will be on the alert. I would be surprised if we don’t get a few dozen new spies inserted into the university, now they think they can pin everything on poor Professor Murken. Anything we do may be noticed and lead back to us. We keep our heads down and wait for an opportunity to spread the word still further.”

Gudrun frowned. “But shouldn’t we strike while the iron is hot?”

“We’re more likely to be struck,” Horst countered. “Besides, what are we going to do?”

“We don’t have any weapons,” Leopold pointed out. “But we could get some, couldn’t we?”

“We’d be smashed flat in an instant if we tried an armed uprising,” Horst said, curtly. “I thought you would have learned that in the Hitler Youth!”

“So we keep pressing the issue,” Gudrun said. “I could go to Konrad’s father and ask him about the leaflets, convincing him to go demand answers about the fate of his son…”

“It might be dangerous,” Horst warned her. “He could report you to your father – or the SS.”

“We’ve already crossed the line,” Gudrun snapped. “If we can’t do anything spectacular, Horst, we can at least try to do something on a smaller scale.”

“I suppose,” Horst said. “But, right now, they will be wary. We need to be wary too.”

He was right, Gudrun knew, but it galled her. She didn’t want to admit it, yet she had a sense that time – her time – was running out. Maybe, just maybe, it would be better not to go visit Konrad’s family, not to ask his father to demand answers. Because, once they got an answer, Gudrun’s father would start insisting she looked for another potential husband…

He could at least give me time to mourn, she thought, bitterly.

“We could talk to our mothers,” Hilde offered, shyly. “My mother hosts bake sales and dozens of other activities. She’s involved in everything. She might well start asking questions of her friends.”

“That’s a possibility,” Gudrun agreed. Hilde’s mother was the kind of person who pulled everyone into her orbit. “My mother might be interested, if she were invited… so might Konrad’s mother.”

Horst nodded in agreement. “The SS would have problems if they tried to round up mothers running bake sales,” he said. “There’d be a riot.”

Gudrun nodded. “But be careful,” she warned. “Not all of our families are going to be happy when we start asking questions – and suggesting that they ask questions.”

“Everyone knows about the leaflets now,” Sven said. “The risk may not be as great as you think.”

“I hope you’re right,” Horst said. “But be careful. Be very careful. Because if we are caught, we will be killed.”