“But it is,” said another student, clutching her books to her chest. “What do we do now?”
At the moment Mildred had no idea if there was anything theycoulddo, but she would not discourage her students after they had turned to her for hope. “We go to class,” she said firmly, gesturing to the entrance. “We carry on as always, but watchfully. Your education is still as important today as it was yesterday.”
By sheer force of will, Mildred focused her thoughts and conducted the class as if it were an ordinary evening. Judging by her students’ expressions, they seemed equally divided between those who regarded the news of Hitler’s rise with dread and those who exultantly welcomed it. The latter snatched up their books and raced from the room as soon as class ended, while most of the former stayed behind. Mildred offered them what encouragement she could as they commiserated and speculated about what this sudden and dramatic shift might mean for the future.
When the class finally dispersed, she was surprised to discover Arvid waiting for her outside the front entrance. With him was his eighteen-year-old stepnephew Wolfgang Havemann, a law student at the University of Berlin. Arvid’s sister Inge had remarried the year before; Wolfgang was the son of her new husband, the concert violinist and conservatory professor Gustav Havemann.
“Wolfgang and I were walking by and we thought we would see you home,” Arvid said, greeting her with a kiss on the cheek.
“The university has been crackling with tension ever since the news broke,” said Wolfgang. “The Communists are going to protest Hitler’s appointment outside the Chancellery.”
“We thought we might go to observe,” said Arvid, “and to show the Nazis that not only the Communists oppose them.”
Mildred ignored a pang of apprehension. “Lead on.”
As they approached the Reichskanzlei, they found no discernible presence of the opposition, but only throngs of Nazi enthusiasts lining the sidewalks, men and women, jovial and menacing with their broad smiles and swastika flags. Most of them gazed up at a window on the second floor of the Reichskanzlei, their faces bright with eager reverence, while others craned their necks to look down Wilhelmstrasse.
At the sound of distant cheers and marching feet, Mildred seized Arvid’s hand and pulled him to a stop. Wolfgang too halted, and as the crowd stirred with excitement all around them, they glimpsed a red, flickering glow down the boulevard, steadily rising in intensity as it moved toward them.
“Fire?” said Wolfgang.
Arvid nodded. “Torches.”
Soon the marchers appeared, Brownshirts in front, torches held aloft, smoke rising to the winter sky. Then came black-clad SA, metal insignia gleaming in the torchlight. “Deutschland erwache!” someone in the crowd shouted, and another man took up the cry, and then on both sides of the street, voices rang out in song, “Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles!”
Row after row of marchers passed, faces stern and proud and triumphant, a flood of black and brown uniforms, torchlight and gleaming metal. Suddenly the voices swelled to a roar. When Arvid turned toward the Reichskanzlei, Mildred followed his gaze and discovered that a pair of tall windows on the second floor had opened and a man stood silhouetted against the bright electric lights blazing in the room behind him. She recognized him immediately, his slight stature and favored salute—right arm outstretched stiffly, palm facing down—straight brown hair parted low on the left and combed over, the unfashionable square of a mustache between his nose and upper lip.
“Meet our new chancellor,” Wolfgang muttered in disgust as Hitler saluted one section of the crowd and then another, drinking in their adulation.
“It doesn’t seem real,” said Mildred, sick at heart. She could not bear to watch the new chancellor beam and gloat, but the scene below his window was no better. Ordinary men and women, her neighbors and fellow citizens, cheered him with stunning fervor. All the while, the parade of SA and SS men went on, twenty thousand marchers or more, their faces proud and sinister in the torchlight.
“Mark them well, these men with their straps fastened and daggers polished,” Arvid said to his nephew, his gaze shifting from the new chancellor to the officers saluting him. “They’re bloodthirsty and capable of anything. You’ll see. With those torches they’ll first set Germany ablaze, and then the rest of Europe. They’ll have you in uniform before you know it.”
Wolfgang blanched. “Arvid,” Mildred chided.
“You’ll see,” Arvid repeated. He took Mildred’s hand and jerked his head to indicate she and Wolfgang should follow him out of the throng. They had all seen enough.
The next day, Mutti Harnack sent word that Arvid’s cousin Dietrich Bonhoeffer would be delivering an address on the radio the following evening on a special broadcast about Hitler’s unexpected appointment. As a Lutheran minister, Dietrich had been asked to offer a religious perspective.
On the evening of February 1, Mildred and Arvid invited their progressive discussion group over to listen to Dietrich’s address, which he had titled “The Younger Generation’s Altered View of the Concept of Führer.”
“If they expect my cousin to praise Hitler as a good Christian and admonish everyone to accept his appointment as the will of God, they’re in for a surprise,” said Arvid as he tuned in the station. As a crescendo of symphony music and the announcer’s smooth baritone marked the beginning of the program, he quickly joined Mildred on the sofa while everyone gathered around the radio.
They listened intently as Dietrich spoke, his voice clear, strong, and earnest as he acknowledged that a country needed a leader, but he questioned why German youth, in particular, vested all their hopes in a single charismatic man. “A Führer may be idolized by his followers,” Dietrich warned. “They, in their total devotion, can create a climate which exaggerates the Führer’s understanding of his authority. This must, at all costs, be resisted, or our leader will eventually become ourmisleader.”
“He already is,” said Paul Thomas.
A murmur of agreement fell silent as Dietrich continued.
“To be feared are those who think of the Führer as a higher being, greater than man, unconstrained and omnipotent. The Führer must know that instead, he serves the people.” Dietrich’s voice rose in intensity. “An individual is responsible to God above all. For most of us, this is obvious. But now there is a movement afoot to unseat God, a plot to install the Führer as the ultimate authority in our lives. Should this happen—”
A burst of static, then silence.
“What’s wrong?” asked Sara, alarmed.
Arvid leapt up to check the radio. “Nothing’s wrong with the set.”
“They must have cut off his microphone,” said Karl Behrens. “I hope that’s all they did.”
