Storm Front

Chapter Thirty-Four

Albert Speer University, Berlin

16 August 1985

Horst hadn’t been sure if Gudrun would be allowed to return to the university or not, even though she’d been released from jail without charge. Her father might have refused to allow her to return to the university, as several other fathers had apparently done in the wake of the strike and protest movements, or she might simply have been expelled for daring to get arrested in the first place. The university might try to be a little freer than the average school, but there were limits. He was relieved – very relieved – when he saw her entering the university two days after she’d been released, only to discover that half of the lectures they were due to attend had been cancelled.

“I’m glad to see you again,” he said, as they slipped into a meeting room. He wouldn’t have blamed her for taking advantage of the opportunity to drop out of the growing protest movement, but he was pleased to see she hadn’t. “What did your parents say?”

Gudrun winced as she sat down on a hard chair. “My mother apparently joined the crowd after she’d heard I was arrested, even defying my father to do it,” she said. “They bawled me out, then had a huge argument afterwards. Father wanted me to stay home for the next eternity, but mother insisted that I should return to university.”

Horst raised his eyebrows. “Your mother must be a very strong woman,” he said. He sat down next to her, close enough to touch… if she wanted to touch. “Did they impose any conditions on you?”

“Just wanted me to make sure I stuck to my classes and kept my head down,” Gudrun said, rather ruefully. “Father… was not very happy with me. I know he was worried…”

“He had good reason to worry,” Horst pointed out. “Better than he knows.”

Gudrun gave him a sharp look, then leaned forward until her lips were practically brushing his ear. “Is it safe to talk in here?”

“Someone has been sweeping the building and removing all the bugs,” Horst said. He smiled at her stunned expression. “As far as I can tell, there isn’t a bugged room left in the university.”

“The SS must love that,” Gudrun muttered. She kept her lips close to his ear. “Have you had any other orders?”

“Keep an eye out for troublemakers, but otherwise do nothing,” Horst said. “Right now, just about everyone in the university is a troublemaker. There’s going to be a big meeting this afternoon in the cafeteria.”

“I’ll be going,” Gudrun said. “I’m already marked as a troublemaker.”

“You were arrested for being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Horst reminded her, dryly. “But they’ll use that against you if they catch you causing trouble.”

“I can’t give up now,” Gudrun said. “Are you going to stop me?”

Horst wished he could. It would be simple to ring her father and tell him that Gudrun wasn’t staying out of trouble. She’d be kept home… and he probably wouldn’t see her again, even if she was released after a few weeks of grounding. The thought of her mad at him was almost painful…

Admit it, he told himself, sternly. You’re falling in love with her.

“No,” he said, finally. “But you do realise I’d have to report it? And you’d be at the top of the list because you were already arrested?”

“I understand the risks,” Gudrun said, softly. “I’ve been arrested.”

“It will be worse next time,” Horst hissed. “Gudrun, there are worse things than spending a night in a cell.”

“You forget the bit about being stark naked,” Gudrun snapped. “Is that normal?”

“You’d be amazed at what can be turned into a weapon with a little ingenuity,” Horst said, dryly. “Keeping the prisoners naked not only makes them uncomfortable, it ensures they have problems hiding anything from the guards.”

“Yeah,” Gudrun said. “You promised you’d teach me how to fight.”

Horst flushed. “I’m going to have to give that some thought,” he said. He knew there were SS tutors who specialised in teaching the handful of female SS operatives, yet he’d never met any of them, let alone watched them in action. He’d been pounded mercilessly by his teacher, but the thought of hammering Gudrun like that was intolerable. “How did you do with your exercises in the BDM?”

“Well enough,” Gudrun said. “They never taught us to fight, though.”

“I doubt you have time to learn,” Horst said, reluctantly. There were sparring chambers they could use, on the lower levels, but they weren’t truly private. Taking Gudrun back to the apartment he shared with the other SS operatives would be far too revealing. “Let me sort out where and when we can get together, then we can arrange something.”

“Very well,” Gudrun said. “And now… what’s been happening in my absence?”

“An uneasy peace,” Horst said. “I don’t expect it to last for long.”

Gudrun had never really expected to be grateful to her mother, not after she’d realised she didn’t want to be a housewife, a nurse, or any of the handful of other socially acceptable female professions, but she had to admit that her mother had stood up for her, even when her father had been in a foul mood. The smouldering ache in her backside, the droll reminder that her parents were displeased with her, was nothing compared to the knowledge of just how close she’d come to being locked away in her room until her father found a suitable man. And yet…

She cursed under her breath as she met up with the others and listened. Hilde’s mother was arranging more female groups, trying to set up a hierarchy of women demanding the same rights and freedoms as men, while Leopold’s father was still working with the growing network of strike committees. Clearly, Konrad’s father didn’t believe the government had been beaten either, even though it had conceded the first round. New committees were being set up all time, while experienced workers were sorting out what demands to present to the Reich Council.

“Volker Schulze is planning to run for the Reichstag,” Sven commented. “He’s organising thousands of men to support him.”

Horst looked unimpressed. “How does one even get elected to the Reichstag?”

“Good question,” Sven said. “I looked it up. One can win a seat through being selected by the local party committee. It’s just that most party committees rarely put forward candidates.”

“Because the Reichstag is nothing more than a glorified rubber stamp,” Horst commented, after a moment. “Finding a way to change that will be the next step, I think.”

Gudrun shifted, uncomfortably. “Can’t the elections be opened to everyone?”

“The voters have to be members of the Nazi Party in good standing,” Sven explained. “I don’t think they’ll let us change that in a hurry.”

“But most of the population are members of the Nazi Party,” Horst pointed out. “The trick would be getting them into the beer halls to vote. Have any of you seen your parents vote?”

Gudrun shook her head. Her father had never voted, as far as she knew; she hadn’t even known people could, technically, vote until she’d started the whole movement. But then, Horst was right; the Reichstag was nothing more than a rubber stamp. True power came from climbing up the ladder in the civil bureaucracy, the military or the SS. And yet, if that were true, what would happen when Volker Schulze started trying to change things?

She was still mulling over the problem as they went for lunch – another of their classes was cancelled without explanation – and walked down into the cafeteria. Someone had hung a black-edged photograph of Hartwig and a couple of other students, one of them a young woman, from the wall, a chilling reminder that their new freedom of speech had come with a price. Gudrun had never been sure what to make of Hartwig – he’d seemed more interested in chasing girls than actually doing his studies – but he hadn’t deserved to die on the streets of Berlin. The handful of testimonials written below the pictures suggested that Hartwig had died on his feet, fighting the police. She had no idea if that were actually true.

“I didn’t see him fall,” she said, when one of his friends saw her and asked. Everyone knew she’d been arrested by now, thanks to Sven and Horst. It was embarrassing, but perhaps she could use it. “It was a nightmare.”

“Tell us what happened,” someone shouted.

Gudrun braced herself as all eyes turned to her. She’d never been particularly shy, but being in prison, if only for a night, had left her with scars. She wondered, suddenly, if Horst had watched as she’d stripped naked for the policemen, then decided he probably hadn’t been able to go to the police station without an excuse. Gritting her teeth, knowing that she was committing herself, she climbed onto a chair. Thankfully, she had been taught how to recite sections of Mein Kampf at school.

“The strikers wanted to be paid for their work,” she said. Most of the students surrounding her wouldn’t have had a proper job. “But the corporations were demanding more work for less money.”

She ran through the whole story, somewhat awkwardly, then changed the tone. “My boyfriend went to South Africa,” she said. “And then I lost contact with him. It wasn’t until his father demanded answers that I found out the truth. My boyfriend was badly wounded, so badly wounded that he hangs on the border between life and death. He will probably never recover, but they won’t even let him die.

“They lied to us,” she added. She wished she’d had a chance to write a proper speech, instead of speaking from the heart. “They told us that the war in South Africa would never be anything more than a police action, that only a handful of soldiers would have to die. But they were lying! What else are they lying about?

“I went to prison, but we are all in prison, a prison camp called the Reich. We went to school, where we were taught our lessons by rote and punished for asking questions, and then to the Hitler Youth, where we were made to march in unison. How many lies were we told in school? How many times were we told never to question our superiors? How much has been buried beneath a wave of lies?”

She was tempted to mention what Grandpa Frank had told her, but she knew it would be wasted effort. Her audience had been taught to hate and fear Jews, even though none of them had ever seen a Jew – and, if Grandpa Frank was right, wouldn’t even recognise one if they did. Nor would they shed many tears over the hundreds of thousands of Untermenschen, worked to death in the labour camps or struggling to build the giant autobahns. But they’d understand their own people, students and workers, being punished just for speaking out.

“I’m sick of the fear,” she said. “I’m sick of never daring to speak, of never daring to say a word for fear it will be used against me. I’m sick of being told I should be a good little girl and never question the men; I’m sick of hearing my brothers told they should be proud to fight for the Reich. I’m sick of being forced to deny it when I see the discrepancy between their lies and objective truth. I’m sick of being trapped in this prison camp!”

She took a moment to steady herself, then went on. “I know; many of you are scared, many of you are nervous about stepping forward and taking a stand. We have all been taught that questioning authority, that failing to parrot back their words brings us nothing but pain. We have all been taught that the Reich is invincible, that any who dare to stand against it die horrible deaths. And yet, who told us that? Who ordered punishment for those who didn’t accept it at once? The people who wanted us to believe it!

“They told us a lie. They told us that the Reich was invincible. They told us that anyone who dared to question the Reich was a naughty child at best, an evil American spy at worst! But look around you. Look at your friends and tell me – are they evil? And when we showed our strength, the Reich stumbled rather than trying to fight. Alone, none of us have any power; together, we are strong enough to shake the Reich. And as long as we stay together, we will win.”

She stepped down from the chair and was instantly surrounded by a mob of students, some cheering her name and others patting her on the back. It had been a risk – her father was likely to explode with rage when he heard about it, while she might get arrested again within the hour – but she’d spoken from the heart. She was sick of living in the Reich. And there were more cracks in the edifice than she’d dared suppose. If Horst could forsake his duty, how many others in the SS, the bastion of the state, felt the same way?

And if we remain united, she told herself firmly, we can win.

Horst had been taught to keep his head down, to avoid being noticed. It was dreary tradecraft, all the more so when he was forced to play the role of a loud student at the university, but he’d long since mastered the trick of appearing to be one of them without compromising himself. And yet, Gudrun – in a moment of madness – had stood up and openly declared herself to be a dissident. Her speech had been clumsy, with none of the polish he heard from the Reich’s broadcasters, but it had transformed the mood of the student body. They now had a leader.

That was careless of her, he thought, savagely. How could she put herself in so much danger? Anyone else, male or female, would have been a better choice. Gudrun simply knew too much to risk attracting attention. A session with the Reich’s interrogators, men experienced in inflicting unimaginable levels of pain, would probably break her. She could get us all killed!

There was nothing he could say, in public, so all he could do was watch as Gudrun worked to rally the students, encouraging them to work together. Perhaps it was better that she steer the growing protest movement, rather than someone who hadn’t been there at the start, but it was still a security nightmare. Horst would have been surprised if someone in the room – someone else – hadn’t been an undercover SS agent, watching and waiting to see what happened. He’d have to come up with something to tell his handlers or they’d start wondering just what he’d been doing at the university. Gudrun might just have accidentally exposed his duel loyalties to his superiors. By the time she slipped out of the room, back towards the meeting room, he’d had plenty of time to get angry.

“That was stupid,” he hissed, as soon as they were alone. The walls were meant to be soundproofed, but he wouldn’t have bet money on them. A spy didn’t need an expensive bug to listen to a conversation, something he felt many in the Reich had forgotten. “What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that I had to make sure the entire student body was moving in the same direction,” Gudrun said, defiantly. “Don’t I have reason to speak now?”

Horst was tempted to point out that the BDM also made sure the girls moved in the same direction, but bit down on the thought. Gudrun meant well, yet… she could have put him in terrible danger. And if he were to come under intense suspicion, he wouldn’t be able to do anything other than make a run for Switzerland and hope he got there ahead of the manhunt.

“Your father didn’t thrash you hard enough,” he said, instead. “What do I tell my superiors?”

Gudrun reddened. “My father has nothing to do with this!”

“My superiors do,” Horst snapped. “What do I tell them?”

“Just that you watched me give a speech,” Gudrun said. She paused, her face paling. “Or you could claim you weren’t there.”

“And if there was someone in the crowd I don’t know,” Horst said, “I would be exposed as a liar. They’d know I was lying to them and they’d start to wonder why.”

Gudrun looked down at the floor. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I… I just got carried away.”

“Yes, you did,” Horst said. Was it worth a gamble? Was it worth pretending he wasn’t there when she made the speech? The risk would be appalling. Or… he took a breath. “Your speech isn’t exactly illegal, now.”

“No,” Gudrun said. She still looked pale. “They were kind enough to concede freedom of speech.”

“And you’re hardly the only one shooting her mouth off,” Horst added. “Maybe you can hide in the crowd.”

“There were others talking when I left,” Gudrun said. “They can’t arrest us all.”

Horst was tempted, very tempted, just to shake her. “No, they can’t,” he agreed. “But they know you already. They won’t hesitate to haul you in for the second time.”

“Then we have to keep running,” Gudrun said. Her voice was low, but grimly determined to carry on. “I might die – you might die – but the ideas we’re spreading will live on.”

“I hope you’re right,” Horst said. Gudrun was brave, he had to admit; he’d always thought that insane bravery was a male trait. “Because if you’re wrong, we’ll be hanging from meat hooks by the end of the day.”