“For the fight, we all stand prepared!”
Freedom, the Viennese sang—they were finally free from bondage. As if they’d been caged up.
Max’s stomach turned at the thought of Nazis descending upon their beautiful city today. Vienna’s elegant streets, with their budding tulips and gilded facades, darkened by the shadow of Adolf Hitler, the old cobblestones contaminated by the boots of his henchmen.
Dr. Weiss had sent Max a telegram while the Dornbachs were at Lake Hallstatt, asking him to visit after the parade. If only he could retrieve the man’s daughter as well and retreat to the lake.
Much had changed in Austria in the past four weeks. Luzi Weiss and her family, no matter how much Max begged, would never receive an invitation to the Dornbachs’ summer home, even if Frau Weiss and Max’s mother were old friends. Dr. Weiss’s father was Jewish and so were both of Frau Weiss’s parents.
This hatred of Jewish people already ran deep in Vienna, but the Nazi Party and their blatant anti-Semitism had been bannedin Austria until last month. Now with Chancellor Schuschnigg’s arrest, everything had tipped on its head.
Much of Vienna was celebrating this new alliance with Germany, the new Führer a savior of sorts. As the general director of the Mercur Bank, Max’s father was expected to celebrate as well—front-row seats for the Dornbach family when Hitler ascended to Hofburg Palace for his victory speech today.
Max refused his father’s offer for a seat of honor, but he’d promised to attend the parade. School had been canceled, businesses closed, so Austrians could crowd the streets as they waited for the Führer to make his grand entry. A much different entry than when a penniless Hitler had attempted to attend the art academy here thirty years ago.
“Stay away from the parade,” he told Frederica as he brushed the dust off the knees of his trousers. “Too many stomping feet.”
Max moved toward the boulevard, standing in the back of the crowd, trying to block out the rancid chant in a city that prided itself on beautiful music.
Couldn’t they see that fighting alongside Hitler would imprison them all?
“He’s coming,” someone shouted.
Cheering replaced the song, and his heart sank further. Awoman next to him began crying, joy instead of sorrow streaming down her cheeks. This new chancellor was worshiped in these streets as if he were a god. But a god of what? What virtue did hebring?
Reconciliation, some might say. Hitler was able to verbalize like no one else the anger many Austrians already had toward the Jews, a hatred that had been boiling for centuries.
About eight hundred years ago, Jewish refugees had arrived inthis city, and over the centuries, they’d been repeatedly expelled, welcomed back, and then expelled again, their synagogues burned as they fled. Not until the last century were Jewish residents finally given full Austrian citizenship. Many Jewish families had garnered wealth and prestige among their fellow Austrians in these years, but not everyone celebrated their achievements. Many, the jealous ones, wanted to expel them again.
A motorcade of open cars crawled up the boulevard with uniformed men marching solemnly beside the vehicles. And then Hitler was there, in the front seat of a Mercedes-Benz, grand marshal of the parade with his black hair slicked back under a brown hat, an awning of a toothbrush mustache over his lips, the sleeve on his overcoat outstretched as he saluted the soldiers lining the streets. His mouth was set in a firm line below the mustache, ahairline crack in the face of stone.
Austrian hands waved in unison as he passed, hailing high even as they sank low to worship the German Führer who’d promised salvation for Austria.
“Salute, Max.”
Max glanced over his shoulder to see Ernst Schmid, his chest drowning in a black suit coat as if he were going to the orchestra instead of a street rally. Ernst was a year younger, still more boy than man with his short hair sticking out in all directions in spite of a generous coating of hair oil.
Max didn’t reply, but his arms stiffened at his sides, hands in his pockets.
Ernst’s arm was fixed forward like the others, but his eyes remained on Max. “Heil Hitler,” he barked as Hitler saluted the crowd.
Max still didn’t move. The motorcade passed by, and the crowd followed after it, clamoring toward Heldenplatz to hear Hitler speak.
“Heil Hitler,” Ernst repeated, this time to Max.
Max’s hands burrowed deeper into his pockets. “Heil Austria.”
Ernst stayed beside him as people swarmed toward the plaza, and he eyed the rucksack slung over Max’s shoulder before glancing back out at the street. “It’s time for you to grow up, Max.”
“I don’t need to cling to a man like Adolf Hitler to make me feel important.”
Ernst sniffed, appropriately offended. “Why didn’t you salute our Führer?”
“You’re not my superior, Ernst, and he isn’t my Führer.”
“He is all of our Führer.” Ernst’s rigid chin inched up. “And in time, I will be superior to you.”
Max shook his head, disgusted. The man was the son of the Dornbachs’ former housekeeper in Vienna. Frau Schmid had been released about three years ago for stealing, but Ernst had hated Max long before his mother’s dismissal. Ever since they were children, Ernst had tried to torment Max, stealing things that were his. Max wondered still if Frau Schmid’s purported theft had really been Ernst’s doing, his mother taking the fall.
