Two Brothers

Personal Sacrifices Berlin, 1936

WHEN DAGMAR RETURNED to her bedroom, her face was stony cold.

‘Thanks for not coming out,’ she said.

Paulus was standing by the window.

‘I wanted to,’ he replied, ‘more than anything.’

He was looking out. Watching the black-clad figure retreating through the gate.

Dagmar’s mask of indifference lasted only a moment. Her voice was already cracking.

‘I had to send him away,’ she said, tears starting in her eyes. ‘It would have been even harder if he’d seen you. I sent him away, Pauly. Our Otto.’

‘He shouldn’t have come,’ Paulus said, trying to speak sensibly for her sake. ‘I knew he would, though, the first chance he got. I don’t blame him. I would have done the same.’

‘You should have seen him,’ Dagmar said, crying now. ‘His uniform! It was horrible. He was dressed… dressed as one of them!’

‘It’s the same Otto inside, Dags,’ Paulus said. ‘It’s just a uniform. You know that.’

‘No it isn’t,’ Dagmar sniffed. ‘That uniform can never be just a uniform.’

Paulus and Dagmar had been spending the evening together as they often did. In Dagmar’s bedroom. Drinking acorn coffee and smoking cigarettes. Paulus visited Dagmar at least three or four times a week. She was always home, having continued to cut herself off from her old life, from life in general.

‘Well, we’re not allowed to do anything if we do go out,’ she often lamented, ‘so what’s the point?’

Paulus was now Dagmar’s only friend and he was not ashamed to admit to himself how selfishly happy this made him. His love for her was undiminished and he took great pleasure in the knowledge of how much she needed him and appreciated him coming round. She had started to rely on him. Leaning on him more and more.

Her mother was no help to her at all. She now spent all of her time living in the past. Sitting in her drawing room, the shutters permanently closed, reading old letters and pasting photographs into albums.

‘It’s so depressing,’ Dagmar often complained. ‘Sometimes I think I’m going to go mad.’

She had been dwelling on the subject before Otto’s surprise arrival. Lying on the bed as she always did. Paulus sitting on the rug at her feet, always feeling the absence of his brother on the empty dressing-table chair. Paulus and Otto had occupied those two places in Dagmar’s room for so long that even though Otto had not been there for many months his absence still sometimes took Paulus by surprise.

‘The boredom is going to actually physically kill me,’ Dagmar had been saying. ‘I’m serious, if only I could just go swimming. I would give anything to just go swimming.’

Otto’s unexpected arrival at the front door had interrupted her thoughts and once he was gone neither she nor Paulus felt like resuming their conversation.

Seeing him and rejecting him had been too traumatic.

‘I broke the sacred bond of the Saturday Club,’ Dagmar lamented with a sad smile, having dried her eyes.

‘The Saturday Club rules were made for a civilized society,’ Paulus said. ‘Nobody should have to deal with the sort of dilemmas we do. It just isn’t fair.’

Paulus offered to go and make some more pretend coffee but Dagmar didn’t want any.

‘It’s repulsive anyway,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why we drink it. Boredom again of course. Something to do.’

The conversation became stilted.

They were both thinking about Otto.

Soon Dagmar said she was tired and thought she’d go to bed.

For perhaps the first time in his life Paulus was actually pleased to leave. It had been devastating for him to have been so close to Otto and then to have to watch from a window as he disappeared into the night alone. He had tried to be strong about it for Dagmar’s sake but now, like her, he needed a moment for himself.

As he went downstairs Frau Fischer appeared at the sitting room door and asked him to come in for a moment.

Paulus had imagined that she would want to talk about Otto. Ask him to try and exert some influence in persuading his brother not to return. But Frau Fischer brushed over the subject of Otto. It was Dagmar she wished to talk about.

‘You’re her only visitor now,’ Frau Fischer continued. ‘One or two of her old friends have tried, but she won’t see them. It’s her pride, you see, she used to be such a golden girl, so much the centre of attention, and now she can’t bear being an object of sympathy. She never really had any Jewish friends, I’m afraid, apart from you and… well. Apart from you. She went to the very best school, you see, and we never really saw ourselves as Jewish anyway.’

‘So she’s lonely?’ Paulus asked. ‘Of course I know that.’

‘I don’t think it’s so much the loneliness as the inactivity that’s really killing her. It’s all right for me. I’ve had a life but she’s only sixteen and she’s going crazy. She used to love teas and parties and dances and all sorts of lovely jolly things. And of course she was such an athletic girl too. With her gymnastics and her swimming, which meant everything to her. Now all of that’s been taken away and I feel like… I feel like I’m watching her fade.’

Paulus looked at his feet, he didn’t know what to say. Frau Fischer had never been one to unburden herself, even before her retreat into herself.

‘I don’t really know why I’m speaking to you about this, Pauly,’ Frau Fischer went on. ‘You’re a Jew too and of course subject to the same restrictions as she is. There’s not much you can do to help, I know. I just… I just wish somehow I could get her out of the house.’

‘Well some restrictions are being lifted for the Olympics,’ Paulus said, attempting a positivity he didn’t feel. ‘Not the swimming pools I don’t think but I reckon we’d be OK going to a park.’

The mention of the Olympics brought a look of angry despair to Frau Fischer’s face.

‘Those games will break Dagmar’s heart,’ she said. ‘I remember when Berlin won the right to stage them back before the Hitler time. Dagmar danced around the room and made her daddy book her extra swimming lessons right there and then. She might have competed you know. Even at sixteen it’s possible she could have qualified. And if not for Berlin perhaps for Tokyo in 1940. But that’s a fantasy now, she hasn’t trained properly for two years, and anyway no German selection committee would choose a Jew. We’re not even Germans any more, not since Nuremberg. Those damned games will be a torture for Dagmar every day they are on. She had always said she would attend every event.’

Paulus was silent. There really was nothing he could say.

‘I’m sorry, Paulus,’ Frau Fischer said. ‘It’s quite late and I’m keeping you from getting home and it isn’t safe out there. Run along, dear. There’s nothing you can do. There’s nothing any of us can do.’

Paulus left the Stengel house with a heavy heart. He knew that Frau Fischer was right. Dagmar was changing. Getting listless and depressed. Fading, Frau Fischer had said, and horrible though it was Paulus knew the description was a good one. He wanted more than anything else to be able to help. To be able to give Dagmar something of her life back. To be the cause of bringing a bloom back to her cheek. But he could not. He was a Jew like her and a Jew in Germany was powerless.

Paulus did not mention Otto’s appearance at the Fischers’ house to Frieda and Wolfgang when he got home. However, when Silke came to the Stengel apartment the following Sunday to give her weekly report, Paulus was privately not surprised to hear that Otto’s growing tolerance of his situation had been interrupted.

‘I’m worried about him,’ Silke admitted. ‘He was really different today. I thought he was settling down but now he’s back to being as angry as he was when he first left.’

‘Has he been fighting?’ Frieda asked anxiously. ‘Is he in trouble?’

‘No,’ Silke replied, ‘but I think it’s coming. He was so bitter today. He hardly spoke on our walk and he wouldn’t take me in to tea. He said he didn’t want to eat with the bastards. Lately he’s been so relaxed about it too. We’ve been laughing at the other boys and making jokes but today he was right back to just wanting to kill them. And then there’s the problem of the Hitler Youth.’

‘What about it?’ Frieda asked, very concerned.

‘Well, you must have read that they’re going to make it compulsory for every kid in the country to join. It’s been all over the news.’

‘We’ve rather given up on reading the German papers,’ Frieda said gently. ‘Not much fun in them for us. There’s a Jewish sheet we see sometimes.’

‘Well, they are,’ Silke went on. ‘Every German child belongs to Hitler and he wants to make it absolutely clear that he’s their real parents and not their family.’

‘How horrible,’ Frieda said, shaking her head. ‘Perhaps people will finally begin to realize what they’ve let themselves in for?’

‘Too late now, I reckon,’ Silke said. ‘Anyway, the point is Otto’s saying he won’t join.’

‘But why?’ Frieda asked. ‘He’s already at a Napola school so what’s the difference?’

‘That’s what I said, but for some reason he seems to have drawn a line. He says he just will not put on another Nazi uniform. I tell him I wear one and I’m a Communist but he says it’s different for a Jew.’

‘So he still says he’s a Jew?’ Frieda asked, almost smiling.

‘Of course he does. You know Otto,’ Silke replied. ‘I thought I was stubborn. It’s such a shame because things have been going really well for him at school despite him trying for them not to. He’s a boxing champ, which they love, and of course they’re thrilled about me.’ Silke went the shade of red which occurred whenever she mentioned herself and Otto in the same breath. ‘I go there in my BDM uniform and they think I’m his girlfriend.’

Frieda smiled. ‘And are you, Silke?’ she asked.

Silke went even redder.

‘No!’ she said, slightly too loudly. ‘You know which girl Otto thinks about. Same as Pauly does. Dagmar of course.’

‘But you have been seeing a lot of him,’ Frieda pressed.

‘Yes and I want to be able to keep seeing him and this business of the Hitler Youth becoming mandatory could make things go very wrong. If Otto refuses to obey the law, his teachers won’t be able to help him even if they want to. He’ll be arrested; it could actually mean a concentration camp.’

Wolfgang had been silent as he almost always was but now quite suddenly he slammed down his glass, spilling whatever foul-smelling spirit it was he’d been drinking on to the closed lid of his piano.

‘He can’t,’ Wolfgang said in what was almost a croak. ‘He can’t go there. I know what they do.’

They all turned to him. Wolfgang never spoke of his experiences in the camp. He rarely spoke of anything much any more, particularly if he’d managed to find something to drink. Now, however, he was shaking with emotion. ‘My little Ottsy can’t go there,’ he said, ‘he just can’t. The only way to survive in there is to beg and plead. With his character he’d be dead in a week.’

‘I know. I know,’ Silke said, ‘but what can we do? You know Ottsy, he’s so bloody-minded and he says nothing can persuade him to wear that uniform. He says he’s been taking life too easy and it’s time he let them all know he’s still a Jew. I can’t understand it. Everything was going so well and now he’s just so angry again. I think something must have happened and he’s not saying what.’

Paulus spoke up.

‘I know what’s made him so angry, Silks,’ and then added quietly, ‘and I know a way to make him see sense too.’

‘Tell us then, Pauly!’ Silke said eagerly.

‘You’re not going to like it,’ Paulus went on. ‘And for that matter nor am I.’

‘If it stops Ottsy getting himself sent to a camp then I’ll like it,’ Silke said firmly.

‘Why has Otto suddenly got so furious again, Pauly?’ Frieda asked. ‘Tell us what you know.’

‘All right then. Ottsy tried to see Dagmar the other night.’

‘Did you see him?’ Frieda gasped. ‘Did you talk to him?’

‘No, Mrs Fischer would hardly let him in the house. Anyway Dagmar made me stay in her room. She thought it would be even harder to make him go if he saw me.’

‘Dagmar spoke to him?’

‘Not for long. She sent him away. She told him that he wasn’t one of us any more. That she didn’t want to see him because he had a life and she didn’t.’

‘What a bitch!’ Silke exclaimed.

‘Silke!’ Frieda scolded. ‘I hate that word.’

‘Well, sorry. But I mean really it’s not Ottsy’s fault, is it?’

‘Look,’ Paulus said. ‘Perhaps I’m not putting what she said very well. It made sense at the time and it was mainly Frau Fischer who spoke to him anyway. And of course by turning up he was putting them in a lot of danger. He really should have thought of that. Perhaps he did but he just couldn’t stop himself… We all know how he feels about Dagmar.’

Silke looked away. Frieda reached over and squeezed her hand.

‘So it’s pretty obvious why he’s started acting up again,’ Paulus went on. ‘Dagmar refusing to see him will have made him crazy. He wants to prove he’s still a Jew. I know him. I know how he feels and he’d rather die and have her respect than live without it.’

Frieda’s face contorted with alarm.

‘You said you had an idea, Pauly. What is it?’ she asked.

‘Well,’ Paulus said grimly, ‘like I said, Dagmar’s getting very depressed.’

‘What’s she got to do with it?’ Silke exclaimed. ‘We’re talking about Ottsy.’

‘I know that, Silks,’ Paulus said patiently. ‘But you know as well as I do that Dagmar is the key to him. Anyway she’s kind of withdrawing within herself. Sort of giving up, a bit like…’

Paulus stopped himself but he couldn’t help casting a glance in the direction of Wolfgang.

‘Like me?’ Wolfgang said with a bitter smile. ‘Not quite as bad as that I hope. But if she is, you must make sure she avoids wood-based alcohol. It can blind you if you haven’t built up a tolerance.’

‘Please, Wolf,’ Frieda said, trying to mask the distaste in her voice. ‘We’re talking about Otto. Go on, Pauly.’

‘Frau Fischer’s really worried about her,’ Paulus said. ‘Dagmar used to love to go out. She loves to do things. She’s not like me. I can read a book, but she’s a physical person and she’s sort of fading away. She needs to be able to go swimming, she needs to go to cafés. Believe it or not, she needs tickets to the Olympics.’

Silke could hardly contain her frustration.

‘Well, she can’t go to the bloody Olympics, can she?’ she snapped. ‘What has all this got to do with—’

‘But you see she can,’ Paulus went on. ‘All she needs is a good cover. All she needs… is a Nazi boyfriend.’

‘You mean… Ottsy?’ Frieda gasped.

Silke looked dumbstruck.

‘Exactly,’ Paulus said. ‘If she was going about on the arm of a uniformed Jungmann from the elite Napola school, she could get in anywhere she wanted with no questions asked. He could even take her swimming, I’m sure of it.’

‘Yes,’ Silke conceded quietly, knowing instantly that her days as Otto’s best and only friend were over. ‘I suppose that’s right.’

‘And that’s the way we’ll keep Otto from causing trouble for himself. You have to go to him, Silks, and tell him that the better a Nazi he looks the more he’ll be able to help Dagmar. That’ll bring him round for sure.’

‘Goodness, Pauly!’ Frieda said. ‘What a clever plan.’

‘Isn’t it?’ Silke said glumly.

She and Paulus looked at each other. Both understanding the sacrifices they were each going to have to make.

Silke did her duty on the following Sunday, explaining to Otto Paulus’s audacious plan.

‘Dagmar needs you, Otts,’ she told him. ‘Pauly and Frau Fischer are really worried about her. She’s going crazy all cooped up and losing hope. She has to get out. She has to have some fun. You’re the only person who can do that for her so you really really have to start behaving yourself again and get them to trust you. Then they’ll let you go out of school, like the other boys, and you can start getting Dagmar out of herself.’

Otto certainly did not need telling twice. In an instant his entire demeanour altered.

‘Don’t you worry, Silks,’ he said with a broad smile, ‘you can rely on me!’

‘That’s great,’ Silke replied, her smile considerably less animated than Otto’s.

That same Sunday Paulus put the plan to Dagmar.

‘I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before,’ he said. ‘Ottsy gives you the perfect cover. You can be a German girl again and go where you please as long as you’re with him!’

At first the idea of going out amongst Nazis turned Dagmar white with terror. But very soon the excitement of the adventure overcame her fears and her spirits began visibly to rise.

‘Well, Otto would make rather a handsome beau,’ she conceded.

‘Try not to rub it in, Dags,’ Paulus said ruefully.

‘Silly!’ Dagmar replied with a happy tone that Paulus hadn’t heard her use in years. ‘You know I love you both.’

It was decided that Silke would take Dagmar with her to the very next Sunday tea at the Napola. Otto easily got permission to have an extra guest as girls were always in very short supply at the boarding school social functions. Of course Dagmar had no BDM uniform but the fact that she would be arriving as Silke’s friend would almost certainly be enough to ensure that no questions were asked.

The two girls travelled together across Berlin.

Having scarcely seen each other properly for a number of years they had very little to say to each other and conversation was very stilted. They tried to chat and joke a little about the old Saturday Club days, but apart from that shared history they had nothing else in common. They never had even before the Nazis, but now of course the gap between them was infinitely wider.

Spandau was at the very end of the line, after which they still had about a kilometre or so to complete the journey. Dagmar, who was wearing high heels, insisted on taking a taxi.

‘Don’t worry. I’ll pay,’ she said in answer to Silke’s doubtful look. ‘Mummy and I still have money, although they took a lot of it after… well… let’s say they fined my father for the inconvenience of murdering him.’

As they sat together in the taxi, Silke took Dagmar’s hand. Something she had not done since the days of children’s games.

‘I don’t know if I ever said,’ she whispered, ‘but what has happened to you is so terrible, Dagmar, and I’m so sorry. You know, about your dad and… well, about everything.’

Dagmar smiled.

‘Thank you, Silke,’ she said. ‘You didn’t say but I always knew you felt it. I may be mean sometimes but I’m not completely insensitive. Speaking of which, today for instance. I know how difficult this must be for—’

‘It’s fine,’ Silke said briskly, ‘absolutely fine. A really good plan. Pauly’s plans always are.’

Within a very few minutes they arrived at the grand gates of the Napola school with the huge wrought-iron eagle and swastika mounted upon them.

‘Oh God, I’m pretty nervous actually,’ Dagmar admitted. ‘I mean going in amongst all those Nazi boys.’

‘You’ll be fine,’ Silke assured her. ‘I’m absolutely sure of that.’

‘How can you be, Silks?’ Dagmar asked.

‘Dagmar, they may be Nazis. But they’re boys.’

Silke was right, of course. One glimpse of Dagmar at the school gates in her elegant, sophisticated, alluring grown-up clothes and she was the talk of the school. Jungmann Stengel, it seemed, had pulled off another coup, trading up from a nice-looking girl to a complete stunner. Certainly no one thought of asking such a beautiful creature for proof of her ancestry. Rather the excited boys would have queued up to lay down their lives for her.

Silke only accompanied Dagmar for one further Sunday before dropping out of the visits herself.

Her duty was done. Dagmar didn’t need her any more. Otto’s new companion was recognized and accepted by the school and had even been paid a toe-curlingly creepy compliment by the principal. Silke knew that no one would miss her and she couldn’t wait to bow out. She didn’t mind the other boys gawping at Dagmar but to see Otto doing it, panting and scampering about her like an eager puppy desperate to please, was hard for her to take.

Dagmar simply took over from Silke. More so in fact. Because whilst people merely thought that Silke had been Otto’s girlfriend, Dagmar immediately became it. And when she and Otto sat together beneath the oak tree looking over the soccer pitch they exchanged the kisses that Silke had longed would be hers.

Paulus’s plan worked perfectly. With Otto beside her Dagmar was now able to enjoy the kind of fun that was denied to other Jewish adolescents. Otto was sixteen and could apply for evenings out and also Saturday afternoons. During these times he took Dagmar to parks and to the zoo. They sat together in cafés and occasionally even went to bars, most proprietors being pretty lax about youthful drinking, particularly with such an attractive young couple.

Otto had no money himself but he had his military-style uniform and he had grown quite tall and very strong. Dagmar did have money and she was happy to spend it on those precious times when she was able to be a normal young person once again.

And of course Otto took Dagmar swimming, which was her greatest joy of all. Soon Dagmar forgot even to feel nervous as they bought their tickets to the baths. No attendant ever once asked the beautiful girl with the Napola boyfriend for identification. She worried sometimes of course that she would be recognized, but she had been withdrawn from public life for so long that most people’s memories of the heiress to Fischer’s department store fortune were of a girl of twelve or thirteen.

Frieda now got her news of Otto from Paulus who in turn heard it from Dagmar. Silke still visited the Stengels on a Sunday evening to hear the news also. Smiling hard at every tale of the fun that Otto and Dagmar were having together. Just as Paulus tried hard to deliver the second-hand stories with the same joy and enthusiasm with which Dagmar had told them to him.

‘They’re both really having fun,’ Paulus would say.

‘Which is great,’ Silke added.

And Frieda would look from one of them to the other and smile a sad little smile to herself.