Two Brothers

The Night of the Broken Glass Berlin, November 1938

OTTO WAS AWOKEN by the familiar harsh rasping bark of a command delivered as unpleasantly and as aggressively as the speaker knew how.

‘Jungmannen! Parade, you lazy swine!’

Otto looked at his wristwatch. It was nearly midnight.

Of course it was.

Midnight. The Nazis’ favourite hour.

Everything felt more special at midnight, more sternly historic. Swearing-ins, oaths of allegiance, flag ceremonies. Brutal initiations and impossibly tough physical tasks. Why do them after breakfast when you can do them in the middle of the night? With bonfires, flickering torches and muffled drums?

Otto rolled out of his bunk. He had been asleep and lost in dreams of Dagmar from which he was most annoyed to have been torn.

‘Turn out, you fucking swine,’ the voice commanded. ‘On parade! Civilian clothes.’

Otto’s heart sank. It seemed to him that the dorm leaders had in mind their favourite torture. This was to force the boys on and off parade in all of their various kits in turn, summer, winter, sport, formal, swim, labouring etc., with ever decreasing periods of time in which to make the changes. Then when every single item of clothing and equipment in the school had been thrown on and thrown off in a frenzy of impossible deadlines, the leaders would call a dormitory inspection and punish the whole school for slovenly kept kit.

Otto’s options on civilian dress were more limited than the other boys’. He was an orphan without personal means, supported by the state. The school board supplied him with everything he possessed, and while Otto’s uniforms were splendid, they were not lavish with anything else. Otto had no long trousers to put on and so despite it being November he had to turn out on the frosty parade ground in shorts, which caused much sniggering amongst the younger boys.

Otto was just noting the identities of these juveniles for later payback, and also wondering why they had not already been sent running back to their dorms to change into another kit, when the headmaster himself emerged on to the parade ground in full party uniform.

‘Jungmannen!’ the principal began as every boy in the school stamped to attention in perfect unison. The man’s face was aglow with excitement and it was clear to Otto that whatever was coming was to be no mundane dormitory punishment exercise. ‘Tonight we are to be given the honour of acting alongside our party comrades in the SS!’

A shiver of excitement ran amongst the boys. The SS were heroes, Black Knights, the Death’s Head Gang. At Napola schools they represented the ultimate glamour, far more so than the Wehrmacht. Otto, however, felt a grip of fear. Even though he had become somewhat immersed in school life now and in fact enjoyed its rigorous physical challenges, he never forgot who his enemy was. Or who his family was and, most of all, whom he loved. He always knew that by the very nature of being a Napola boy he would at some point be called upon to act against his own kind.

He also knew that he would never do that.

Even at the risk of discovery and punishment, even of death.

‘We are also, by the way,’ the principal continued with a beaming smile, ‘to have a little fun. Because, my brave young German heroes, the time has come to settle one or two scores with those gentlemen and ladies who would do us harm. Tonight, lads, we have an appointment with the race enemy! With Germany’s misfortune! With the Jew!’

While the other boys grinned and discreetly nudged each other, Otto swallowed hard and tried to concentrate. The atmosphere in the city had been tense for days. There had been a murder in Paris. A Jew had shot a German embassy man and there had been plenty of talk of revenge both in the papers and on the street. Could this be the moment?

Standing rigidly to attention, Otto listened intently, staring at the principal through the cloud of silver breath that hung in front of his face.

Then he noticed something else.

The sky towards the city was glowing red.

How could that be? The sun had set hours ago.

Otto felt his stomach turn. Nausea gripped at his gut and his bowel. Something very wrong was hanging in the cold night air.

‘You will be aware, of course,’ the principal continued, his voice harsh, like metal on stone, ‘of the outrage that has occurred recently in Paris. A Jew has committed the vilest of murders. A crime against Germany, and tonight that Jew’s cousins here in Germany will pay! All over the Reich spontaneous demonstrations of outrage and retribution are breaking out. You, my young men, are to have the honour of being a part of this great reckoning alongside the entire Schutzstaffel and Sturmabteilung. Think of it, boys! The SS and the SA — and you are to be their comrades in combat! Be it noted, however, that they have also been instructed to operate out of uniform. The reason for this is that no maggot from the foreign press may accuse these demonstrations of being anything other than popular and spontaneous. For they are spontaneous, you can be assured of that, lads! But spontaneity as we understand the word in National Socialist Germany! Spontaneity that is properly and correctly ordered in the service of the state!’

Otto was hardly listening. He was watching the sky. It was getting redder.

Berlin was burning.

Or at least parts of it were, and there could be no doubt which parts they were.

The urge to break ranks and run, to get to Dagmar as fast as possible, thundered in Otto’s brain and pounded in his heart. He thought of his mother, too, but she at least had Paulus. Dagmar had no one to protect her at all. Otto struggled to remain at attention, he knew that to be of any use to her he must not panic, he must focus. He could see that trucks had been lined up at the end of the parade ground. Clearly he and the other boys were to be taken somewhere. It could only be into the heart of the ‘action’. If he wanted to get to Dagmar, for the moment at least he was better off remaining with the school.

‘These demonstrations of popular outrage are taking place across the entire Reich!’ the principal went on. ‘In every village, town and city. Wherever a Jew nest is found it is to be attacked. Our particular task is to pay a visit to the Kurfürstendamm! We are to make it clear to the whole world what Germany’s youth feels about the fact that Jew Communist Capitalist Parasites still fester and breed in the heart of our city! The SS have asked only for our older boys to assist in this action but I have decided on my own authority to send the whole school. For Germany is its youth and none are too young to serve. And as the Führer has said many times, youth must lead!’

Otto looked across the parade ground to the youngest of the pupils. Eleven-year-olds all turned out in their scarves and mufflers and their plus-four trousers. All standing rigidly to attention on the glittering frosty parade ground. Clouds of breath hanging in the air in front of them, yellow in the lamplight. The billowing swastika banners fluttering in the breeze above them.

Some of the little boys looked nervous, scared almost. But most were grinning broadly. It wasn’t every night that they were woken up and ordered by their teachers to go and smash windows.

Otto began almost to shake with frustration. When would they board the trucks? When would the old bastard shut up and let them go?

‘These orders,’ the principal went on, ‘have come from SS-Obergruppenführer Heydrich himself, and they are to be followed with absolute discipline as befits Napola boys. All Jews, Jewish businesses, Jewish property and Jewish dwellings are to be attacked, and all synagogues, without exception, are to be destroyed. However, no foreigners are to be threatened and this is to include foreign Jews. Where fires are set, extreme care must be taken that no German property is damaged in the action. If in doubt, smash but don’t burn. Am I clear? Gentlemen! The school maintenance department have supplied what hammers, sledge hammers, crowbars and spades are available. These are to be taken by the older boys. Signed for and returned!’

On command, the boys of Otto’s class rushed to grab at the best weapons, but Otto held back. He did not wish to be encumbered by school property for which he would have to answer, and he had no intention of remaining on the Kurfürstendamm. Dagmar would certainly not be there in the middle of the night.

Dwellings, the principal had said. They were to attack dwellings and Otto could imagine that the richer the dwelling, the more gleeful would be the attack. The well-identified Fischer house was an obvious target.

The boys boarded their buses and there was much raucous singing as they drove through the darkness towards the city.

All the old schoolroom favourites.

The Jews’ blood spurting from the knife makes us feel especially good.

Otto tried to join in, knowing that he must not arouse suspicion, but it was difficult for him to focus on the boisterous camaraderie. With each kilometre that passed, the scenes in the streets through which they were being driven grew uglier and more terrifying.

Every street contained at least one shop that had been smashed and set alight. Houses and apartment blocks were being wrecked, too, surrounded by wild mobs.

Pressing his face to the window, Otto saw many beatings. On every corner young men were being kicked on the ground. Girls thrown about by their hair and pushed into gutters. Mothers kicked and punched as they were dragged from their homes, babies screaming in their arms.

The air was very cold outside and with so many lusty voices singing inside the coach the windows were dripping with condensation. To see out, Otto had constantly to wipe a fresh gap in the wet film, and through this cloudy porthole a monstrous tableau of images was revealed.

He saw a man shot and another knifed.

Uniformed police were at the very heart of the disturbances. Over and over Otto watched as terrified young men were thrown into police vans, baton blows raining down on their defenceless heads.

Berlin’s Jews did not live in a ghetto, they were an integrated part of city life, and so the whole town bore witness to the savage, hysterical attacks.

It was an apocalyptic scene.

A pogrom of unrestrained brutality.

Now the Napola coaches were crossing the river Spree, driving over the Moltke bridge, the very place from which Wolfgang had thrown himself the year before. Otto gave that tragedy only a moment’s thought. A brief image of his father, putting his trumpet to his lips and then jumping from the parapet, passed across Otto’s mind but then it was gone. The terror of the immediate blotting out all pity for the past.

Once over the river and through the Tiergarten, although still some way short of the Ku’damm, the school buses were forced to stop. The streets were now so littered with shards of broken glass that the drivers feared their tyres would be shredded. The boys were therefore assembled on the pavement and ordered to make their way on foot to the famous shopping street, and once there to attack anything Jewish at will.

At this point it was a simple thing for Otto to slip away.

They wouldn’t miss him, it was chaos everywhere. The Napola group would never be able to stick together in such a frenzied crowd and he would not be the only straggler.

But Otto didn’t care anyway; he was in a panic to get to Dagmar.

The glass crunched horribly beneath his feet as he ran, pushing his way through the baying, staggering, swaggering gangs of men and women, intoxicated on stolen booze and on power.

Absolute power.

It seemed to Otto as if the whole population was out on the streets, although of course he knew they weren’t. No doubt the majority of Berliners were cowering, ostrich-like, behind their curtains. But there were enough people enjoying the party to make it look like the whole city, every thug, every thief, every bully, every disaffected inadequate with a grievance was on the rampage.

Many times Otto wanted to stop and try to help as pitifully defenceless people fell victim to the depraved savagery of the mob. A mob who had been whipped up into a storm of moral outrage against the ‘crimes’ of the race enemy.

These people deserved what they were getting.

Their attackers were actually the victims.

Forced to act having been goaded beyond endurance.

Torchlight flickered on faces that had become grotesque masks, distorted and bloated with righteous cruelty and untrammelled sadism.

Torch beams crisscrossed streets, searching for loot, for victims. For scurrying children to kick.

In every street Otto saw homes ransacked. He saw clothes torn from young women by mobs who chanted that they were whores. He saw five-and six-year-olds, their mouths so wide with screaming that their entire faces seemed nothing but great black wailing holes.

And other children silent, twitching, staring, dead-eyed and traumatized as their mothers and fathers were beaten in front of them. Killed in front of them.

Otto could not help them.

He scarcely registered them; they passed before his eyes like the disjointed imagery of a nightmare.

A dream.

Just two hours earlier he had been dreaming of Dagmar. Where was she? Was she already suffering at the hands of the mob? Were they pulling at her clothes? Were they beating her? Murdering her?

Desperate fear sent blood pumping through Otto’s body and he ran as he had never run before. Past the old Kaiser’s memorial church, along the Kantstrasse, where mobs of youths were starting bonfires of the Jewish property they did not wish to steal.

The contents of entire shops. Clothes, hardware, office supplies. Otto saw crazed women slashing at shop mannequins with knives. He saw men smashing typewriters and adding machines with sledge hammers. Entire telephone exchange boards torn from walls, hurled out of windows and reduced to splinters.

Snarling shouts and hoarse cries rang in Otto’s ears as he ran.

Berlin’s synagogues were burning, came the shout. The looted treasures of the temples lay scattered before Otto as he ran. Ground underfoot, hurled on to bonfires. Great and venerable leather-bound tomes fluttering like multi-winged moths on their way to incineration. Paintings, statues, carved lecterns, wall hangings and ornate furniture, all food for the flames.

Otto passed a gang of youths dancing about in stolen prayer shawls. They had made a patchwork on the pavement of some sacred embroideries and were forcing elderly Jews to urinate on them while their grey-haired wives stood by and wept.

‘Make ’em wear the piss-soaked rags,’ a teenage girl shouted at the boys, while her friends pushed a wailing old lady towards the scene.

Otto could do nothing.

He cared but he also didn’t care. Because if all this was happening to every Jew he passed, what was happening to Dagmar?

The streets became a little quieter once he entered the expensive district of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. There were not as many very rich Jews in Berlin as the Nazis claimed, and Otto ran through whole streets in which there were no disturbances at all.

Here and there a house was under siege, bottles thrown and windows smashed, but there were no random crowds of dazed thugs roaming about the prestigious streets. The police were seeing that better order was kept in so picturesque a suburb.

Briefly Otto dared to hope. Perhaps the madness had not quite arrived in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, perhaps he was still in time.

Hope lasted only a moment. For on turning from one wide tree-lined street into the one on which Dagmar lived, he saw flames ahead and in an agony that made him forget his bursting, aching lungs, he knew that he might already be too late.

The Fischer house was on fire.

A mob were gathered outside it, chanting, singing and dancing. Clearly they had already ransacked the place. Otto saw in one glance across the debris-strewn street many things he recognized from his visits over the years. Pictures, a gramophone player, beautiful cushions, shattered china and vases, small items of furniture, all smashed and scattered on the ground.

As he pushed his way through the crowd he trod on something soft.

Looking down he saw an old and frayed, knitted woollen monkey. Otto had seen that little stuffed toy many times before.

Lying on Dagmar’s pillow. Or propped up on her dressing table, leaning against a tin of talcum powder. Or sitting on a box of tissues.

For all her grown-up sophistication, Dagmar still cuddled that monkey. And now it was in the gutter.

Which meant that they had been in her bedroom.

Her toy was on the street. Where was she?

Stooping as he ran, Otto gathered up the toy and shoved it into his pocket.

‘Did you get them?’ he called out at some idiotic prancing boys. ‘The Fischers? Did the cops take them?’

‘Cops? What cops?’ the boys shouted happily.

‘The Fischer women, where are they?’ Otto said, and now dropping his pretence at a friendly enquiry, he grabbed one of the youths by the neck. ‘The woman and the girl! Where are they?’

‘Fuck off! I don’t know,’ the lad exclaimed. ‘Probably still inside. That’s where they were. Who fucking cares? Let ’em burn.’

Otto looked at the burning house. The ground floor was ablaze but the second floor wasn’t burning yet. It would not, however, be long.

He tried to approach the house. The front door was already a furnace. There was no way that even driven by love he could enter there. The front windows too were impassable, fierce flames coming from every one. The great bay window that looked out from Frau Fischer’s drawing room was a red-hot hole.

Then Otto heard the sound of sirens and clanking bells. There was a screeching of tyres and two large fire tenders thundered to a halt.

Otto dared to hope that all might still be well.

Firemen tumbled out as orders were shouted and with impressive efficiency the crew began preparing their hoses.

Otto ran over to the officer who was directing operations.

‘Stengel, sir! Otto Stengel,’ he said, snapping to attention and delivering the German salute. ‘I’m a Napola boy.’

Otto knew that a panicked appeal would get him nowhere. He must be calm, authoritative.

That’s how Paulus would have been.

‘I’m busy, son,’ the fire officer replied curtly.

‘I think the Fischers are still in there, sir. I have been in the house. I know the layout. I can help you get to them.’

But the officer simply shrugged and turned to direct his men who now had their hoses unwound.

‘Steady pressure!’ the officer called out. ‘One on either side.’

There was a roar and a gushing sound. The hoses which had been lying flat across the street squirmed and whipped into rigidity as the water engorged them and two great pressurized arcs shot from their spouts. There were three officers gathered around each nozzle struggling to contain and direct the water as the hoses twitched and slapped on the road, like tethered snakes desperate to break free.

For a second Otto felt relief, but only for a second. Relief was followed in short order by black horror.

The firemen were directing their hoses on to the houses on either side of the Fischer residence.

‘What are you doing!’ Otto screamed. ‘There are people in the burning house.’

‘Calm down, lad,’ the fire officer replied sternly. ‘If you’re here from Napola you’ll know the directive. We have been ordered to let Jewish property burn but to ensure that German property is not damaged. You may understand that the neighbours here are getting pretty concerned for their homes.’

For a moment longer Otto watched almost transfixed as the firemen, in accordance with a nationwide directive, dampened down the nearby houses while doing nothing to put out the actual fire.

Then he snapped out of it and ran. Crossing the front garden under the great arcs of water, skirting round the burning building and running up the dividing path that separated Dagmar’s house from one of its neighbours.

As he ran he was drenched in water, fizzing and steaming as it cascaded off the roof of the next-door building, soaking him, which was a tremendous relief as the heat from the burning Fischer house was terrible.

At the back of the building the garden was empty. There was plenty of evidence that it had recently been filled with looters and vandals but now with the fire taking hold in earnest whoever had been there had clearly decided to join the main party going on around at the front.

Otto knew there was a ladder. He had been in this garden many times as a boy and had sometimes seen the Fischers’ groundsman put a long ladder against the house to clear the gutters or carry out some minor repair to the roof.

He found the ladder just where it had always been, laid out on the ground behind the potting shed, and with a huge effort he was able to drag it out and get it up against the back of the house. Under the place he knew was Dagmar’s bedroom window.

The fire had still not ignited the upper storey but it had certainly taken hold of the whole of the ground floor and Otto felt as if he must burst into flames himself as he stood on the lawn, wrestling with the ladder in the burning heat, trying to raise its upper section by means of the pull rope until he could get it high enough.

Somehow he managed the job and once the top end of the ladder was rested on Dagmar’s windowsill, he scurried up, his skin burning at first but cooling as he got above the level of the flames.

Arriving at the window he peered into Dagmar’s room. It was dark and he could see nothing through the glass. The power lines must already have been consumed by the flames because there were no lights on in the house at all. Otto banged on the window, getting ready to try and smash a pane.

Then, to Otto’s relief and astonishment, the sash window began to open.

Sliding upwards in front of him.

Dagmar was standing behind it.

Her face a filthy, tear-stained mask of terror.

‘Ottsy,’ was all she could say.

‘Your mother!’ Otto demanded. ‘Frau Fischer…’

‘Downstairs,’ came the croaked reply.

Otto climbed into the room and pulled down the window behind him.

‘The draught,’ he said in answer to the mute plea in Dagmar’s eye. ‘It’d fan the flames.’

As he said it he was hurrying across the room. He opened the door and stepped out on to the upper landing. It was already a furnace. The staircase was alight, the ground floor beneath a mass of flame. The heat and smoke were overwhelming.

Otto took one step forward, almost by instinct. But it was useless, he could not get another centimetre closer to the flames than he was already. No one could have done. Besides, if Frau Fischer had remained downstairs she was assuredly already dead.

Otto retreated into Dagmar’s room and slammed the door behind him. Rushing to the window he opened it once more and looked out. He could see that below him the flames from the bottom floor of the house were already reaching out and licking at the lower part of his ladder.

If they were to get down that way they had only seconds left before their escape route was burned up beneath them.

‘I’ll go first in case you slip,’ he said.

He climbed out and descended the ladder by a rung or two then, looking back in, he noticed that Dagmar was in her stockinged feet. ‘Grab some shoes, Dags,’ he shouted. ‘You must have shoes. We’ve got to get away from here and there’s glass everywhere.’

The fact that Dagmar could scarcely speak did not mean that she was defeated entirely. Still mute, but active, she grabbed her strongest shoes from beneath the bed, and sitting on its pink coverlet for one final time managed to put them on without fumbling. Then she followed Otto out of the window.

‘The last bit’s going to be bloody hot,’ Otto shouted. ‘Let’s get it over with.’

Together they descended, both in turn losing their grip on the red-hot lower section of the ladder and falling together in a heap on the back lawn, before picking themselves up and scurrying away from the flames.

Dagmar turned and looked back at the burning house.

‘Mummy,’ she whispered.

Shouts could be heard from around at the front. Shouts and laughter and singing. Clearly the crowd was enjoying the bonfire, watching a beautiful home burn.

Then a chant began.

Death to Jews. Death to Jews.

Dagmar began shouting.

‘You got your wish!’ she shouted back, suddenly hysterical and violent. ‘My mum’s in there! My mum’s dead. My dad’s dead too. You got them both. The Jews died! Isn’t that enough!’

Otto grabbed her hand. He didn’t think there was much chance of her being heard by the mob at the front of the house, but it would only take a few of them to decide to have a look in the back garden for him and Dagmar to be discovered.

Or she might run round to the front. With the wild way she was screaming and twitching there was no telling what she would do.

Otto could scarcely imagine what her mental state was after what she had been through. Only minutes before she had been resigning herself to being burnt alive.

He tried gently to pull her away but she wouldn’t move. She simply stood, staring at her burning house.

‘They kicked down the front door,’ she said, quieter now but shaking terribly, her face and body flickering orange in the light of the fire. ‘They went all through the house. They slapped and hit us. They tore pictures off the wall and pissed on the rugs. They took what money and jewellery they could find and smashed everything else…’

‘Dagmar,’ Otto whispered, gently tugging at her sleeve, ‘we have to get out of here.’

‘Mama was hysterical,’ Dagmar went on. ‘Beating her fists against her own head, that made them laugh. I locked myself in the lavatory and they left me alone in there. Thank God for the laws on racial purity, eh?’

Dagmar actually smiled at that thought, but it was a shocking, mad smile.

‘Dagmar,’ Otto urged again, ‘we have to—’

‘Then they went away and we thought it was over and we sat together amongst the chaos they’d made—’

‘Dagmar—’

‘Mummy was trying to gather up all the photos and albums that had been thrown around. By the time I realized they’d set the house on fire it was too late to get out. The hallway was burning and the only place to go was upstairs. I ran but she must have been trying to bring her photo albums. I only realized when I turned back at the top of the stairs that she wasn’t following me. I could see her trying to pick up photographs and albums and bits of memories and then dropping it all as she reached out to try to gather more. I screamed at her to get out but it was too late, by the time she realized how close the danger was it was too late. All the papers and pictures around her were already burning. Then the ones she had gathered in her arms… her past life was her funeral pyre.’

‘Dagmar,’ Otto said, firmly now, ‘we have to get moving. They’re out for blood. You need somewhere to hide.’

But Dagmar wouldn’t move. She was simply frozen with horror. Having found the strength to get out of the burning house she now had none left to flee. The sight of the flames had transfixed her.

Then Otto remembered her toy. The stuffed monkey he had picked up in the street and which he knew had been with her all her life. Taking it from his pocket he pressed it into her hand.

‘How…?’ she murmured, looking down at it.

‘It was outside, on the road. I picked it up.’

Dagmar put the little woollen object to her face and breathed deeply, taking in its smell.

Somehow it seemed to help her. Otto’s desperate effort at providing a distraction had worked.

‘Where will you take me?’ she asked in a steady voice.

Relieved, Otto led her by the hand to the back of the garden where there was a gate into an alleyway behind.

‘I know how to get away from here,’ he said.

Paulus and Otto had never told Dagmar but years before, when they had first fallen in love, they had sometimes made their way right across town together in order to creep into that same back alley and stare up at Dagmar’s window. Hoping to catch a glimpse of her shadow on the blind.

‘We’ll go to my mum’s place,’ he said. ‘There are no other Jews in our block so at least they won’t have burnt it. There’s a big order gone out about not damaging German property.’

‘An order?’ Dagmar said, almost to herself.

‘Come on,’ Otto instructed, ‘we need to get a move on.’

The distance from the Fischer house to the Stengel apartment was a good eight kilometres clean across the centre of the city. A city they had known all their lives but one that had been transformed utterly into the most dangerous of jungles in which gangs of wild and merciless predators pack hunted Jews.

‘We’ll have to avoid the Ku’damm,’ Otto said, as they hurried along. ‘My school mates are all over it. I’m supposed to be a part of all this.’

‘You mean… it’s been planned?’ Dagmar said in astonishment.

‘Oh it’s been planned. They read out an SS order, signed by Heydrich himself. The police have been told not to intervene.’

They were hurrying along through the crowded streets. Streets that appeared to be in the grip of some bizarre sort of carnival in which joyful revellers perambulated from one bloody entertainment to another.

‘They’re going to kill us all,’ Dagmar said in a voice that sounded as if she was already dead. ‘They’re going to kill us all tonight.’

Otto kept firmly hold of Dagmar’s hand and pulled her forward.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We should be able to grab a tram at Zoo.’

With the town in the grip of a riot and the fire brigade at full stretch trying to contain the many and various blazes being set, it took them almost three hours to get to Friedrichshain. When they got there, however, the district was much quieter than the centre of the city had been. There were still screams and bangs and the smell of fire was everywhere, but the street on which the Stengels lived was free from hooligans.

Otto and Dagmar ran into the well of the apartment building and got into the lift which for once was at the right end of the shaft. They stood for a moment in silence as it began its noisy, ponderous way to the sixth floor.

‘Dagmar,’ Otto said falteringly, ‘I’m so sorry — about Frau Fischer. About your mum.’

The words seemed so supremely inadequate that he wished he’d said nothing.

‘I envy her,’ Dagmar said, her voice hollow and empty like a freshly dug grave. ‘Not the way she died, of course. But being dead.’

‘No, Dags! Please,’ Otto protested.

‘It was what she wanted anyway. She talked about it so often that these last few months it’s as if she’s been dead.’

The lift crawled its way up the building. Otto struggled to think of something to say.

‘You know I haven’t been in this lift since I was fifteen,’ he remarked.

‘Should you risk it now?’ Dagmar asked. ‘You know you’re banned from ever coming back here.’

‘Fuck them. They don’t know where I am.’

‘Won’t they miss you?’

‘It was a free-for-all, I’ll say I got separated. That I was chasing Jews,’ he said, almost with a smile, ‘which of course I was. I bet I’m not the only one of the older boys to have grabbed the opportunity to go off and please himself.’

Finally they arrived at the old familiar corridor.

There was no light on in the apartment and Otto of course no longer had a key.

‘Oh shit,’ he said, ‘please don’t tell me they’re out.’

He knocked on the door and then whispered: ‘Paulus… Paulus, are you there?’

After a moment they heard Paulus’s voice from within.

‘Who are you?’ the voice demanded. ‘What do you want?’

‘It’s me, Pauly! It’s Ottsy,’ Ottsy hissed. ‘I’ve got Dagmar.’

The door swung open and within a moment all three were in each other’s arms, hugging as if their lives depended on it.

‘Fuck, Ottsy,’ Paulus said eventually, ‘look at you! You’re huge.’

‘Where’s Mum?’ Otto replied.

‘She’s everywhere,’ Paulus said, ‘the phone hasn’t stopped ringing. There’s so many people hurt. It’s like they’ve actually declared war on us.’

‘They have,’ Dagmar whispered, cupping her hands around a mug of beef tea that Paulus had been preparing for himself and which he had now given to her.

‘Everybody needs Mum,’ Paulus went on, ‘so of course Mum tries to get to everybody. You know her. She’ll try and mend every broken head in Berlin.’

‘Why aren’t you out with her?’ Otto demanded angrily. ‘She’s alone, you should be protecting her.’

‘What sort of protection do you think I’d be? None. In fact, worse than none. Much worse,’ Paulus replied. ‘They’re targeting young Jewish men, that’s plain, they’re literally pulling in any they find and throwing them into trucks. We’ve heard of twenty at least taken in this neighbourhood. They’ve come knocking here twice but I lay low and the neighbour said I was out.

‘I still say you should have gone with Mum.’

‘Ottsy. It would have put her in more danger.’

‘All the same—’

‘All the same nothing!’ Paulus snapped. ‘Ottsy! I thought maybe you’d grown up! You’ve obviously just grown muscles. There’s no glory in being a dead hero. You have to think. We need to think now. We need to decide what to do about Dagmar. I’m presuming she can’t go back to her house tonight?’

‘Or ever,’ Dagmar said without looking up.

In answer to his questioning glance, Otto explained what had happened that evening. Struggling in vain to find a way to mitigate the shocking and terrible news.

When he had finished Paulus did not know what to say. He opened his mouth but no sound came.

‘Don’t worry about my mum, Pauly,’ Dagmar said, her voice still seeming to come from inside a grave. ‘It’s as bad for living Jews in this city as it is for the dead ones. Besides, it’s just a matter of time for all of us anyway, isn’t it?’

This was a subject on which Paulus could find words.

‘No, Dagmar,’ he said, ‘that’s not true. There’ll be better times, I swear it, just you wait.’

It was Otto who replied to this.

‘Wait? Wait?’ he snarled. ‘All we ever do is wait and what good has it done us? We need to do something.’

‘Same old Otto eh?’ Paulus said. ‘What are you going to do? Mug another SA man? Somehow I think we’re a bit beyond that.’

‘Don’t worry, Pauly,’ Otto replied fiercely. ‘I’ve got a better plan than beating one of them up.’

‘Oh yeah? And what is it?’

Otto had been sitting on his father’s old piano stool but now he stood up and stared for a moment at Paulus.

‘I’m going to kill Himmler,’ he said.

‘Kill Himmler?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Otto,’ Paulus said aghast, ‘it was killing one of them that started tonight’s pogrom.’

‘You think so?’ Otto replied with a sneer. ‘I don’t. They were just waiting for an excuse, they’d have easily found another.’

‘Yeah, OK but—’

‘But nothing! It’s time we started to fight back, Pauly. I can’t see any other way of this ending. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I’m going to finish school next month and guess what? They’re going to have a passing-out ceremony and it’s a big one too because we’re the first graduation class. Himmler is going to be there.’

‘Himmler himself?’

‘That’s right. Black Heinrich, head of the SS. The whole school’s basically an SS project and he’s going to give a speech. I reckon if I get hold of a gun from the armoury and sneak it into the passing-out parade I can nail the bastard. Do you hear me? I could kill Himmler!’

‘Otto!’ Paulus snapped. ‘What are you talking about? You can’t do that!’

‘Give me one good reason why not.’

‘I’ll give you the best reason there is — Dagmar.’

‘Dagmar?’

They both looked down at the girl they loved. She was sitting on the floor, leaning against the couch. Seemingly lost in her own thoughts.

‘Of course Dagmar,’ Paulus hissed. ‘Even if you did manage to do what you want to do — which you wouldn’t by the way — you’d get caught for sure and then what would happen to her?’

Otto nodded slowly and sank back down on to the piano stool.

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I suppose that’s true.’

‘Of course it is. You’re her one chance, Otts. Her very best shot at making it. It’s the same situation as it was two years ago when you started taking her out to the Olympics and stuff. You’re a German. A Napola boy no less. You’re going to go into the army. If things keep getting worse and she has to hide, you’ll be better placed to hide her than any Jew ever could. You’re a German, Otts, you have papers, you can do things. Buy things. Travel. Dag needs you. You can’t save all the Jews, but you can maybe save the one that matters most to us.’

Otto looked once more at Dagmar. She was staring into her drink. He wasn’t even sure if she was listening.

‘Yes,’ he said contritely. ‘Of course. You’re right. I didn’t think of it like that.’

‘Well think about it now,’ Paulus urged. ‘You might have to get her false papers, Otts, a new identity, God knows what. You’ll need to keep a clean, a very clean slate while you’re in the army and study hard—’

‘Study?’

‘Yes, so you can try and get an office desk, which will be safer for you and you’ll have access to official stamps and passes and—’

‘Wow, Pauly,’ Otto said, taken aback. ‘You’ve got it all planned out.’

‘I have to, Ottsy. I have to have it planned,’ Paulus replied, and it almost sounded as if he was pleading with his brother. ‘I need to know that you’re ready. That you’re thinking straight. I was going to find a way of seeing you to discuss all this soon anyway. You see, I’m going, Otts. I’m leaving.’

It turned out that Dagmar had been listening after all because at this she looked up.

‘You’re leaving?’ she said. ‘Oh, Pauly.’

‘Mum’s managed to get me a place in England, to live and to study. I have the visas I need.’

‘When?’

‘Some time in the New Year. I want to graduate from school of course, but by the spring for sure.’

Otto and Dagmar were both deeply shocked.

‘Is Mum going too?’ Otto asked.

‘You know she won’t leave her patients. She says we’re big boys now and don’t need her any more but every day a new baby is born who does.’

Quite suddenly Dagmar began crying. She tried to stop herself but couldn’t.

‘You’re so lucky, Pauly,’ she sobbed. ‘They won’t give me or Mum a visa because of what Dad did. They’ve been watching us, warning us not to try to…’

Her words trailed away and she sobbed more deeply. Clearly only remembering as the sentence ended that her mother was now dead.

Paulus looked utterly wretched.

‘Oh, Dags,’ he said. ‘You know that if there was one single way I could help you by staying, I would. But I’m a Jew too. I can’t go anywhere. I can’t do anything. Every Jew is a liability. To themselves and to those who care about them. With me out of the way Ottsy can focus absolutely on you and you alone. That’s all that matters to me. You’re all that matters to either of us.’

‘He’s right, Dags,’ Otto said. ‘It makes sense.’

Paulus turned once more to Otto. ‘It’s all down to you, Otts. And that’s why before I go I have to know. I absolutely have to have your solemn promise that you’ll look after Dagmar.’

Otto bridled at once. His fists clenched.

‘Hey, Pauly!’ he said angrily. ‘I don’t have to promise. You know damn well I’d die for Dagmar.’

And now Paulus too was angry.

‘Oh for God’s sake, Ottsy, are you really such a bloody moron?’

‘What do you mean?’ Otto asked, squaring up to his brother as he had done so many times before. ‘Who’s a moron? You asked me if I’d look after Dags and I told you I’d die for her and I would!’

‘But I don’t want you to die for her. Anyone can bloody die for someone. It’s easy, just get yourself killed. I want you to live for her. Keep yourself safe. Keep your stupid head down. Make sure everything you do, you do with Dagmar in mind. Don’t go trying to murder Himmler, and if there’s a war, which obviously there’s going to be, don’t get yourself killed. Because if you did then Dagmar would be all alone. Alone! Do you understand, you idiot? The last thing she needs you to do is die for her.’

Otto was almost contrite.

‘Oh. Well, put like that,’ he said, ‘I see what you’re saying. You’re right. Absolutely right, of course. You always are.’

‘When I’m gone, Ottsy,’ Paulus said solemnly, ‘you have to pretend you’re me. OK? Every move you make, every decision you take, you have to ask yourself, “What would Pauly have done?” Be calm. Be calculating. Be careful. Stay alive and keep Dagmar alive.’

‘Right, absolutely. I get it… And once I’m in uniform,’ he said, brightening, ‘I can try and get her across the border and—’

‘Otto, you’re doing it again!’ Paulus said, his face red with frustration. ‘You have to think things through.’

‘Well what’s wrong with—’

‘Quite apart from the fact that a lot more people have been shot trying to rush the border than have made it, there’s no point. Dags doesn’t have an entry visa any more. She had one five years ago for the States but not now. The Yanks are pulling up the drawbridge. Everywhere is. Even if you got her across she’d be sent back.’

‘Oh,’ was all Otto could say in reply.

‘You have to protect her in Germany. And when the time comes, hide her in Germany, Otto. Do you understand?’

‘Yes,’ Otto said solemnly. ‘I understand.’

Dagmar was looking at them both. A faraway expression in her eyes.

‘You should go, Otts,’ she said finally. ‘It’s nearly dawn. You have to get back to Spandau. They might accept you staying out all night but not all of the following day.’

‘Yeah,’ Otto said, ‘that’s right, I’ll have to hitch a lift… I’d better go.’

Dagmar put down her mug and hugged him.

‘Thank you, Ottsy,’ she said quietly. ‘You saved my life tonight.’

‘That’s what I’m here for.’

‘It’s what we’re both here for,’ Paulus added. ‘We’ll get you through, Dag. I promise. It looks like you’ll be staying here for a while, too, until we can make a plan. You can have my room and I’ll go on the couch.’

After Otto had gone, Dagmar and Paulus sat together in the darkened room for quite a long time without speaking.

Eventually Dagmar broke the silence.

‘Pauly,’ she said. ‘Hold me.’