The Arms Maker of Berlin

TWENTY-ONE

Berlin—February 18, 1943

THE SHRILL CRY of a police whistle pursued them down Uhlandstrasse. Thank God for the blackout, or they would have been easy prey as they ran down the sidewalk.

“There’s a U-Bahn station coming up,” Kurt hissed in the dark Liesl and Hannelore were barely keeping pace. They rounded the corner and half stumbled down the steps of the station as the whistle sounded again.

“Hurry!” Liesl shouted.

Hannelore, predictably, had fallen farther behind, but when they reached the platform Kurt saw that luck was with them. A train lay waiting, rumbling like an animal ready to pounce. They clambered aboard just as a harsh voice shouted from the stairway.

“Halt! Polizei!”

Luckily, the subway driver either didn’t hear or was more worried about his timetable, because the doors jolted shut and the train lurched forward. With a rising moan it was soon hurtling into the tunnel. Kurt saw a fleeting image of a huffing policeman arriving on the platform with two black-clad Gestapo officers in his wake. Then, darkness, and the empty clatter of the tracks. He exhaled loudly and sagged forward in his seat. Sweat dripped from his nose onto the slatted wooden floor. His body stank, but so did everyone else’s these days. Between the ban on weekday bathing and the shortage of decent soap, every railcar smelled like a sweatshop.

Kurt looked across the aisle. Hannelore had of course taken the seat next to Liesl. Lately, Kurt and Hannelore seemed to be competing every day for Liesl’s time and attention. But at the moment he was angrier at Hannelore’s slowness.

The occasion for their close call was the fourth meeting of the Berlin White Rose. It was supposed to have been the first meeting to produce tangible results. Kurt had finally been able to steal a boxful of paper from his father’s offices. Eight full reams—four thousand sheets in all. Given the regime’s mania over seditious literature, a cache like that was as valuable as diamonds.

White Rose pamphlets out of Munich had been spreading across the country in recent weeks, and the local Gestapo was in a frenzy to keep the material out of Berlin. Anti-Nazi graffiti that appeared by night was gone by morning. Their group had decided that only an explosion of locally produced pamphlets could overcome such diligence.

Helmut Hartert had drafted their first message and was standing by with his printing press. The fourth meeting had been called to vote on the final wording. Then Kurt was supposed to hand over the paper so that the printing could begin.

He had lugged his precious cargo up five flights of stairs to the site—an empty loft above an exclusive dress shop. Christoph Klemm had chosen the place after a week of scouting. The shop, owned by his uncle, had been shuttered by the Propaganda Ministry after Goebbels deemed luxury items an affront to the long-suffering troops.

It was a relief to get rid of the paper, especially after the risks Kurt had taken to acquire it—swiping his father’s keys from a pants pocket long enough to make a wax impression, getting a set of copies made by a shady old Bolshevik in a Kreuzberg tenement, dodging the night watchman and his snarling dog, lugging the damn box through the dark along the rat-infested wharves of the Hohenzollern Canal, and, finally, hauling the dangerous cargo to the meeting aboard the S-Bahn.

But now it had come to nothing. The meeting had been under way for only half an hour when the excitable Dieter, posted as a rooftop lookout, cried out from above:

“Polizei! Five of them, and they’re coming up!”

Fortunately, Christoph had devised elaborate contingency plans for just such an emergency, although the box of precious paper had to be abandoned. They climbed to the roof to make a breathtaking crossing of the back alley to a neighboring building, on a span of stout but wobbly beams. To Kurt, the blackness below seemed bottomless, especially with the cold wind rushing up his trouser legs. He was surprised no one fell.

Christoph then pulled in the planks behind them while everyone clambered down the stairs of the rear building. This allowed them to emerge into the streets one block over from where the cops were still trudging upstairs and shouting orders.

They scattered in twos and threes, but even then the police had nearly caught his threesome. Thank goodness Kurt had removed everything from the box of paper that might have identified its source. With his sister’s wedding still on hold, his father was already nervous enough about official scrutiny without being linked to this.

Kurt looked across the subway car to offer Liesl a smile, but she didn’t notice. She seemed badly shaken. Her eyes were huge, as if the night’s drama had come as a complete shock. He fought back a surge of anger. “What did you expect?” he wanted to shout. “This is not a game. This is exactly what we bargained for!”

Just as quickly the thought disappeared, and he wanted to hold and protect her. But he couldn’t, of course, with Hannelore in the way. Liesl leaned across the aisle to speak. Hannelore and he bent forward to listen. Their three heads nearly touched.

“What do you think happened tonight?” Liesl whispered. “Were we betrayed?”

“No one in our group has the guts to betray us,” Hannelore said scornfully.

No one but her, she meant. She had often criticized their timid progress.

“Dieter said something to me just before the meeting, about one of the neighbors acting suspicious,” Liesl said. “He said someone from next door was prowling around outside. Maybe they heard us and thought we were thieves, looting the dress shop.”

“Dieter,” Kurt said with disdain. “He should have told everyone.”

Hannelore nodded. Dieter was one of the few subjects they agreed on.

They broke their huddle and sat up again, beginning to relax. That was when Kurt noticed a propaganda poster just above Hannelore’s seat. It featured the ubiquitous duo of loose-lipped troublemakers, Frau Knoterich and Herr Bramsig. The Frau’s uncanny resemblance to Hannelore, along with his giddiness over their narrow escape, provoked a sudden burst of nervous laughter.

“How can you possibly find this funny?” Hannelore whispered. “We barely made it.”

The heads of a few passengers turned their way.

“Sorry. It’s just that—” No, he’d better not.

“Well?” A challenging tone, as irritating as ever, so he took the plunge.

“It’s the poster above your head. I couldn’t help but note the resemblance.”

Hannelore turned to look. Unfortunately, so did Liesl. As if that weren’t bad enough, a foul-smelling old man seated near Kurt began laughing in a succession of wheezes.

“You’re right!” the fellow exclaimed. “She is Frau Knoterich. It’s her doppelgänger!”

Liesl must have also been giddy, because to Kurt’s amazement she, too, laughed.

Hannelore was outraged, but the reddening of her cheeks only sharpened the resemblance, which sent the old man into a fresh gale of laughter. As the subway pulled into the next stop she stood angrily and flung open the doors.

“You two,” she said loudly, “can just ride home with all the Nazis!”

The other riders turned away in shocked silence as she disappeared across the platform. The old man stood nervously and shuffled to another seat. When the car was under way again, no one spoke, which made the two-minute ride to the next stop seem more like ten. Liesl and Kurt scampered out of the car, and to their relief no one followed. As soon as the train departed they burst into laughter and fell into each other’s arms.

“My God, but that was close,” Liesl said. “Of all things for you to think of at a time like that. Frau Knoterich! What made it worse was that the old guy next to you looked like Herr Bramsig. I felt terrible for Hannelore, but I couldn’t help myself.”

“Oh, she’ll get over it.”

“Yes, but will she get over you?”

“So you’ve noticed she doesn’t like me?”

“And also that the feeling is mutual. Even at the meetings you never agree. What’s wrong with you two? Don’t we all want the same thing?”

Yes, Kurt thought. We all want Liesl. And for now, at least, he had her to himself.

Twenty minutes later they reached their bicycles and pedaled off to Liesl’s house. On arrival Kurt discovered more good fortune. Liesl’s parents were still away, visiting friends. Liesl’s sister was gone, too. A night that had careened so close to disaster suddenly seemed full of promise. Such were the fortunes of wartime, Kurt supposed. Nothing was certain. Luck was all.

When Liesl turned on the light, yet another pleasant surprise was revealed.

“Look!” she cried. “Chocolate!”

It was true. An entire bar, perhaps half a pound, poking from butcher paper with only a corner missing. You could already smell it, like something from another era.

“My mother said she’d have a surprise for us, but this is amazing.”

“I haven’t had any chocolate since …” Kurt paused.

“Since when?” she asked.

He had been about to say, “since December,” when his father and he had attended yet another holiday party at the Stuckarts’ house. But he didn’t want her to know that he still kept in touch with Erich. Did she really expect him to give up everything from his past life? Besides, if he changed his habits too much, people would get suspicious. He was sneaking around enough as it was. Tonight his parents thought he was seeing a mindless Heinz Ruhmann comedy at the Ufa-Palast, on a date with Heidi Falken, whom he hadn’t spoken to in ages.

“Oh, I don’t know. A long time.”

“Mmmm,” she said, taking the tiniest of bites. “Here.”

She broke off another piece and held it out. He opened his mouth, and she placed it on his tongue. Kurt licked a bit of melted chocolate from her fingertips, and she smiled. He was about to follow up with a kiss, but she abruptly backed away and refolded the butcher paper.

“We should save it. We can divide it when everyone else is home.”

Her voice was quieter, and he could tell she was still a little fragile. Understandable. One stumble and they would have all been sitting in Gestapo interrogation cells by now, down in the basement on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse.

“How ’bout some music?” he said, flipping on the radio.

Maybe that would calm her down. With any luck the stations wouldn’t be playing the nationalist dreck that had recently dominated the airwaves. Three days of national mourning had followed the announcement two weeks ago of the German surrender at Stalingrad, and ever since then the radio had played little more than dirges and marching songs. And of course there was never any jazz or swing, not the real stuff, just the counterfeit local version that had been approved for public consumption. Lately everyone seemed too cowed to show any joy, lest some officious snoop decide you weren’t “supporting the troops” in a suitably serious manner.

But there was no music tonight, only a familiar hectoring voice backed by an obliging crowd. It was Goebbels, shouting something about the new plan for victory in the east.

“So much for that idea,” Kurt said, reaching for the Off switch.

“No, wait. I want to hear it. We need to know what he’s up to. Please.”

Well, that would certainly end his chances for the evening, Kurt thought. Nothing quite like the venom of the Cripple to get a girl out of the mood. He sighed and took a seat, sagging onto the Folkertses’ leather couch, which smelled like her father’s pipe tobacco. At least the chocolate was good. The taste lingered sweetly on his tongue.

“Did you hear that?” she hooted scornfully. “He said we should all try to emulate Frederick the Great, right after saying that by the end of the Third Silesian War he was fifty-one years old, had no teeth, suffered from gout, and was tortured by a thousand pains. Well, that should really inspire the masses.”

The problem was that the masses did sound inspired—over the radio, anyway. Kurt wondered who was in the audience. Handpicked Party loyalists, perhaps, although there sure were a lot of them. As if in answer to Kurt’s question, Goebbels began describing the crowd gathered at his feet.

I see before me a cross-section of the whole German people in the best sense of the word! In front of me are rows of wounded German soldiers from the eastern front, missing legs and arms—

“Then how are they clapping?” Liesl said derisively.

Behind them are armaments workers from Berlin tank factories—

“Good God,” Kurt said. “This must have been what they were talking about the other day at the office. An order came in to send at least a hundred workers to the Sportspalast tonight. That’s them you’re hearing—Bauer employees, screaming their lungs out. Too bad they didn’t send some of the Poles instead. They’d have eaten him alive.”

“Your dad’s using captured Poles?”

“Czechs, too. A whole boxcar arrived just the other day. Jews, mostly. Sticks and bones. Some didn’t even make it off the train, and they smelled like an outhouse. I wonder where they sleep at night, because it’s not like we have anyplace handy.”

“Where do they go?”

“A government compound, I guess. Some sort of barracks. Who knows?”

“It’s probably horrible. You should find out. Do something about it.”

“Liesl, not even my dad can tell Speer and Sauckel what to do with guest workers.”

“ ‘Guest workers.’ You make it sound like they’re glad to be invited.”

“How do you know they aren’t? Have you seen the newsreels from Warsaw? There’s nothing left of the place.”

She shook her head, but said nothing more, apparently unwilling to argue the point. Or maybe she was just exhausted, because she sagged against him on the leather cushions. The warmth and pressure of her body produced an immediate reaction. An erection stiffened against his trousers.

“Listen to him now,” she said.

The Cripple had raised his voice to a tumult. Kurt could easily picture the wiry man’s emphatic gestures, elbows thrust out at right angles as he waved his forefinger like the barrel of a Luger. It might have all been silly and melodramatic if not for the crowd, which was lapping it up, roaring a huge “Ja!” at every command. He was exhorting them with a series of questions now, appealing to their deepest need for vengeance.

I ask you, do you want total war? If necessary, do you want a war more total and radical than anything that we can even imagine today?

“Ja!”

Even Kurt almost shivered. But given what they had endured earlier that evening, the worst moment came a few seconds later.

Do you agree that those who harm the war effort should lose their heads?

“Ja!”

They sounded like they meant it. Liesl pressed closer and turned her face to his.

“I’m scared, Kurt. And the worst part is, I’m not sure I will ever stop being scared. Not after tonight.”

“It will be better in the morning,” he said, stroking her hair. “It always is. We’ll go for a walk in the Grunewald. Enjoy some of that fake sunshine you see on the tree bark.”

She shook her head, as if that was no good at all.

“Sometimes I think we’ll never even survive the year. Not just us. Everyone. Either the police will take us away or some bomb will blow us all to pieces.”

His arms were around her now, and her face rose to his.

“Tell me that if they ever come for me you will do everything you can to save me,” she said. “Promise me.”

“Of course I will. I promise.”

“And that should be true for your family as well. Your sister. Your mother and father. We must all do everything in our power to save each other from the madmen. No matter what happens, no matter what the risk.”

Her eyes pleaded, on the verge of tears. Her emotions had reached a peak, and they were alone. No parents. No Hannelore. Just the two of them pressed together on the soft leather couch in the dim glow of a single lamp. He kissed her, and she responded with urgency. And when, a few moments later, he slipped his hands beneath her sweater she didn’t resist as she had in the past. Instead, she pulled his shirttail from his trousers and slid her own hands up his back, pressing closer.

Kurt was not particularly experienced in these matters. The closest he had come before to sexual conquest had been in the backseat of Erich’s car with a girl from their school who was said to be available to all comers, although she had only let Kurt briefly slide his hands to the tops of her thighs.

But at that moment with Liesl experience was no longer necessary, because matters took on a momentum of their own. They moved as if racing against time, one step leading to the next until his pants were off, and then her undergarments. Then he was climbing atop her, groping for position. Her hand guided him into place as she stared up at him, the vow they had made still evident in her eyes. Life or death, and this was their choice.

His movements were a little awkward at first. And just when it was seeming perfectly natural and comfortable, it ended all too quickly. But that, too, was okay, because she smiled and ran a finger down his chest, then softly kissed his lips, his nose, his eyelids. It was almost holy, a consecration of their promise.

“I am glad,” she whispered. “Glad that we did this.”

The radio had moved on to a marching song, with a drumbeat like the tramping of a thousand boots. They lay still, as if to let this army pass by their hiding place, and when the song was over she said again, “I am glad we did this.”

“I am, too.”

Outside, the sound of laughter. Cheerful voices were approaching up the sidewalk.

“My parents!” she cried.

She grabbed her clothes and ran for the bathroom. Kurt buttoned his shirt and pulled up his trousers. Whoever it was had stopped, even though the chatter continued. Of course. They had gone out with neighbors and were now saying good-bye. It gave him just enough time to cram his shirttail in and buckle his belt. His socks were still on, and he jammed his shoes on just as the door opened. Liesl’s father gave him a puzzled look.

“Where is Liesl?”

“She’s, uh, in the back. She should be right out.”

Liesl’s mother smiled and said hello, although her father still seemed wary. He had clearly been brought up short by the idea that Kurt and Liesl had been here alone. Thank goodness everyone stank these days, enough to cover all the telltale smells. And thank goodness the lights were low, so that they couldn’t see the flush of his face.

“Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad.” Liesl appeared, smiling, hair combed. “How was your evening?”

“Ah, too much wine,” her mother said, “but that’s a nice problem for a change.”

She was obviously too jolly to notice anything untoward, although Liesl’s father was now looking everywhere, eyes darting, as if studying the evidence.

“Kurt and I just got back,” Liesl said. “But he can only stay long enough for a bite of chocolate. We both took a little nibble right when we came in.”

“That’s what it’s here for, so please do. Just don’t ask me how much I paid for it while your father is in the room.”

This finally coaxed a smile from the man, and Kurt breathed easier. Two close calls in one night. But the earlier episode made this one feel like a lark.

Liesl walked him outside, and rose on her toes to kiss him goodbye. Such a momentous day, and now the perfect ending—an embrace beneath the sheltering pines. He searched her face in the glow from the window. Was there a touch of regret? Perhaps. But there was also an unmistakable freshness, the excitement of new territory, a look that said there would be more time together just like this and no one could stop them.

The thought kept him content all the way home, even as he pedaled into a wintry headwind. There was a nervous moment when a pair of cops stopped him on Kantstrasse. But they were only checking identity papers, and by the time he reached Charlottenburg he was even toying with the idea of another raid on the office paper supply.

It was well past eleven o’clock, and Kurt expected he would have some explaining to do. Instead, he threw open the door to find everyone in the parlor, gathered in a tight circle that had the air of an emergency. His sister, Traudl, was sobbing, his father ashen. His mother’s head was bowed, and her hands were folded in her lap.

“What’s wrong?”

Reinhard shook his head.

“Everything,” he said. “The SS people were here. From the Racial Office.”

His father handed him a sheet of paper. It was some sort of genealogical chart with the words “Bauer Family” printed beneath a swastika.

“Your great-great-grandmother,” his father explained. “On your mother’s side.”

Reinhard didn’t say it disapprovingly, but Kurt’s mother looked away in shame and wiped a tear from her eye, as if she had forfeited the right to let them fall.

“Tainted,” she whispered. “My blood is tainted.”

Kurt found it halfway across the page:“Anna Goldfarb, Jew.”

Born in Breslau, East Prussia, in 1826. She had married Karl Becker—his mother’s maiden name was Becker—whose lineage otherwise contained nothing but Aryan heritage, all the way back to 1800. But none of that mattered now.

“What does this mean?” Kurt asked.

“What do you think?” Traudl shrieked. “The wedding is off! My life is ruined!”

She ran from the room and up the stairs. Her bedroom door slammed.

“What does this mean?” he asked again.

“I don’t know yet,” his father said. “But it’s serious. We could lose everything.”

“They can’t. We’re too vital to the war effort. Speer won’t let them.”

“Everything,” his father repeated. “The worst part is, I saw it coming. Once they didn’t answer after three months I knew they must have found something, but I wouldn’t admit it to myself. I think that’s one reason I started checking possibilities in Bern.”

“Bern?” Kurt’s mother asked. “In Switzerland?”

Kurt and his father exchanged glances.

“It’s complicated,” Reinhard said. “And meaningless. Now I’ll never get another pass to travel.”

Kurt was sorry to hear that. He had grudgingly warmed to the idea of contacting the Americans. And to his surprise his father had been making progress. Only a week ago Reinhard had returned from Bern to confide pridefully that he had been granted a personal audience with the much-heralded Mr. Dulles. The American had even assigned his father a code name, Magneto. Useless now, of course, if the family lost its factories.

And what of Liesl? Surely she wouldn’t object to this Jewish connection, but her parents might. Even if they didn’t, Kurt might now be sent away, or imprisoned. Would they sew a Star of David onto his clothes just for this? Worse still, what if the authorities now decided to dig further into their activities? Surely they would discover not only his connections to Bonhoeffer but also everything about the local cell of the White Rose. His father was right. This meant disaster.

Kurt was too agitated to sit and watch his parents stare blankly at the floor, so he went upstairs. Perhaps something could be done to stave off events, given all their connections. He stepped into the bathroom and splashed his face. Then he looked in the mirror, studying his features, searching for some sign of his Jewish blood. Could you tell? He turned in profile, wondering if he had become so inured to all the propaganda that he was now imagining things about the set of his eyes, the shape of his nose. Perhaps later tonight there would be a knock at the door, and his family would be transported to one of the resettlement camps that no one ever discussed. Board a train at Grunewald station, one of those long ones that always left full and returned empty. A one-way ticket east.

And what had he been doing up to now to stop such diabolical measures? Hardly anything, really. Risking his neck to steal paper, or to cast votes on the wording of a pamphlet. What good was a pamphlet in times like these? Once again, he had fallen back on the relative safety of mere words. “Easy grace,” as Bonhoeffer had put it. There must be some stronger action he could take, not just for his family but for Liesl and him as well. He recalled her words from an hour ago: “We must all do everything in our power.”

Then an idea occurred to him, striking in its simplicity: a one-man job, a bold operation with no need to rely on weak vessels like Dieter or unstable temperaments like Hannelore’s. Lots of planning would be necessary, of course. But surely he could manage.

Then the doubts began leaking in. Costly sacrifices and trade-offs would be required, and none of them would come easily. Blood might even be spilled, perhaps by people he admired and respected. The price was too high. His conscience would never be able to bear the burden. He sighed, temporarily defeated.

Then he considered the consequences of doing nothing, and realized that the cost was even greater. This was what war demanded of people, he supposed. It thrust upon you unclean decisions with unclean results. The best you could hope for was to minimize the damage, to act before others decided matters for you.

So, with a dizzying sense of destiny buzzing in his temples, Kurt resolved to act while he still could, if only because this new idea offered the one possibility that most heartened and excited him: guaranteed survival for Liesl and him, as well as for his family and its business empire. Not only for the duration of the war but on into peacetime. Surely that would be enough to justify almost anything, especially when the alternative was doom for them all.

Fifteen days, he told himself. That would be his deadline. Fifteen days to either carry out this bold plan or come up with another course of action. Either way he was now grimly certain that the coming weeks would define him as a man from that point onward.

Kurt stared defiantly into the mirror, as if daring himself to raise an objection.