Sara and her friends had no answers and little hope, only questions, anger, and fear.
Chapter Thirty-four
March–May 1936
Mildred
Every day, reports describing in assiduous detail the budget priorities of Hitler’s regime crossed Arvid’s desk at the Ministry of Economics. Mildred marveled at the documents he smuggled home to copy and pass on to Alexander Hirschfeld and her own contacts at the American embassy, indisputable evidence that despite Hitler’s protests to the contrary, he was rebuilding the German military. Surely this intelligence would compel other nations of Europe as well as the isolationist United States into action, dowsing the smoldering embers of war before they ignited and scorched the entire continent.
In the first week of March, Arvid came home from work badly shaken. He drew Mildred away from the door and murmured, “Funds are being dispensed to the Wehrmacht in a way that can only mean Hitler intends to mobilize troops.”
Mildred felt a cold fist tighten in her chest. “Where?” she mouthed, barely breathing the word. “When?”
He shrugged and shook his head.
It was wretched having so little to go on, a handful of facts adding up to a vague, undefined threat. Mildred scanned the newspapers, seeking a careless aside that might inadvertently reveal the truth, but it was like hearing an ominous rumble of thunder, searching the skies for the storm cloud, and finding endless, unbroken blue.
Then, on March 7, Hitler sent thirty thousand German troops into the Rhineland, the territory between the Rhine River in western Germany and the borders of the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, and Switzerland. Even though Mildred had expected the army to move, she was still shocked by the egregious violation of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, which had banned Germany from establishing any military presence in the region and explicitly stated that the Allies would regard any violation as a threat to world peace. Six years after that, in 1925, Germany had joined France, Britain, and Italy in signing the Locarno Treaties, confirming the border between France and Germany, making permanent the demilitarization of the Rhineland, and declaring that if either France or Germany attacked the other, Britain and Italy would be required to assist the nation under assault.
A demilitarized Rhineland had been the single greatest bulwark maintaining peace in Europe, and now it was over.
Mildred waited anxiously to see how the nations of Europe would counter Germany’s aggressive move, but a month passed, and then another, and they did nothing but issue statements of condemnation. She imagined outraged, confounded men debating in council rooms in London, Brussels, and Paris—and when their anger was spent, throwing their hands helplessly into the air and deciding yet again to wait and see. Mildred could almost hear their rationalizations: Hitler had long regarded the imposed demilitarization as shameful and degrading to the German people. Perhaps occupying the Rhineland would satisfy him. Why put their own troops in harm’s way and jeopardize the peace and stability of Europe by provoking Hitler if he wanted no more than what he had already taken?
“He will always want more,” said Arvid as Mildred lay in his arms in bed one morning in early May, both of them reluctant to get up and face the day. “The Rhineland, the constant adulation of the people, the timid acquiescence of the great leaders of Europe—none of it will ever be enough to fill the void where his soul should be.”
Mildred imagined a dusty, echoing hollow in Hitler’s chest, empty of all compassion and empathy. Strange that such a cold, dark place should be the source of so much heated rhetoric and fiery hatred for the Jews. How much more would Germany’s Jews be able to endure? Only a few days before, Sara had turned up at the Harnacks’ flat tearful and distressed, having just been informed that Jews would no longer be permitted to sit for doctoral exams.
“I’ve worked so hard for so many years,” Sara had lamented, choking back tears, “and just when my degree is within reach, it’s snatched away. What am I to do now?”
Mildred had comforted her young friend as best she could, plying her withKaffeeundKuchenand offering pragmatic advice—to secure a copy of her transcript, obtain letters of recommendation from favorite professors, create a portfolio of her papers and research, and continue to read and study on her own so she would not lose ground while she arranged to transfer to a university abroad.
“Ambassador Dodd has influence at the University of Chicago,” said Mildred. “Martha would put in a good word for you with her father. I myself have contacts at the University of Wisconsin—”
“I can’t leave Germany now,” said Sara, startled out of her tears. Shaking her head, she took a handkerchief from her book bag and wiped her eyes. “You need me.”
She meant the resistance needed her, but she was clever enough not to say so aloud, not even in the presumed security of the Harnacks’ flat. “We could spare you for the sake of your future,” said Mildred.
“What future will I have if I don’t do my part to stop my country from hurtling toward its own destruction?” Sara gestured as if indicating the edge of a precipice. “I don’t see you packing up and heading back to America, even though all you have to do is buy a ticket and brandish your American passport, and you’re halfway home.”
Mildred shrugged noncommittally to hide her chagrin. Arvid alone knew that a month after the German army occupied the Rhineland, she had written to William Ellery Leonard, her former mentor at the University of Wisconsin, to inquire about joining the faculty of the English Department. His reply, regretful and yet oddly sanguine given her circumstances, described state budgets severely tightened due to the Great Depression, staffing cutbacks, and a surplus of unemployed academics. Unlike most scholars competing for scarce positions in academia, Mildred had not earned her doctorate, which put her at a distinct disadvantage. She seemed to have found her niche in Berlin introducing great works of American and British literature to Germans, he wrote condescendingly. Perhaps she should resolve to find greater satisfaction in that.
“Even for me, leaving wouldn’t be as easy as you might think,” Mildred told Sara. First and foremost, she could not bear to leave Arvid. In Berlin she had a job and a higher purpose in the fledgling resistance. If she returned to America, safer but heartbroken, she would be entirely dependent upon the generosity of her siblings until she found work—ifshe found work, when millions of others were unemployed and struggling.
Mildred was grateful for her job at the Abendgymnasium, which remained fulfilling despite the Nazi influence over the curriculum and admissions policies. Although the National Socialists constantly boasted about Germany’s miraculous economic recovery, the economy had improved only slightly under Hitler’s rule. It was true that many men had found decent jobs thanks to public works schemes like the National Labor Service—building roads, digging irrigation ditches for farms, planting trees—but the dramatically improved unemployment statistics Hitler boasted about were illusory. Women, who were not supposed to be working outside the home at all but attending to “Kinder, Kirche, Küche,” were no longer included in the official count of the unemployed. Although Jews had been driven from the workforce in vast numbers, they were not counted either because they were not considered citizens. The reinstatement of the draft had shifted many young men from the unemployment rolls to the military, and other men hired to work in the factories built to turn out equipment for the troops improved the statistics even more. Arvid, uniquely positioned to understand the real state of things, acknowledged that the economy had shown some genuine growth. “But to declare a swift and complete restoration, and to attribute it to Hitler’s financial genius?” He shook his head. “Propaganda, nothing more.”
Hitler lied with impunity, Mildred thought grimly one evening in early June as she walked to the Abendgymnasium. Why shouldn’t he, when he suffered no ill consequences, when his fanatical admirers disregarded all evidence that contradicted him? She wondered sometimes if the Führer believed his own lies, but she suspected the answer was much simpler, that he was ruthlessly calculating—
Her train of thought abruptly broke when, from a block away, she spotted two gleaming black cars parked in front of the Abendgymnasium, swastika banners on the front grilles and fenders. Two SS officers flanked the entrance to the building.
Ignoring the impulse to flee, she forced herself to approach with her usual smooth, brisk stride. Surprise inspections of schools had become commonplace. She had no reason to believe the Gestapo had come for her.
She greeted the officers with a demure nod as she passed between them. Inside, the halls buzzed with tension as students and faculty hurried between offices and classrooms, some pausing in alcoves to exchange furtive whispers, glancing nervously over their shoulders and swiftly dispersing. Mildred saw her own apprehension reflected in some faces, but others were lit up with the gleam of zealotry. Just ahead, a familiar burly figure emerged from the throng, an instructor from the History Department she knew to be no friend to the Nazis. “Einhard,” she said, catching hold of his arm, “what’s going on?”
“The SS received an anonymous report,” he said, looking warily past her to the students racing off to class as if he believed the accuser mingled among them—which, Mildred supposed, could very well be true. “An accusation of seditious teachings. We’re supposed to carry on as usual, but each member of the faculty will be pulled from class at some point and questioned. Those officers by the front door are there to remind us not to leave early.”
Mildred managed a smile. “How fortunate for me that I have a room on the ground floor, with accommodating windows.”
Einhard strangled out a laugh. “I might pay you a visit if this goes on too late.” He briefly rested a hand on her shoulder before hurrying off to the stairwell.
