Fire and Steel, Volume 6

by Gerald N. Lund

  Papa asked Mama who had let this stranger into our house.

  So, almost one year later, here is my follow-up report to you. In addition to my studies in school, my gospel learning, and my piano practice, I am spending more time with my family. Often after my younger siblings are asleep, Mama and Papa and I will just sit around and talk. I love that time together. Hans Otto and I have become especially close. I love him to death because he makes me laugh all the time. He is so full of life and always has that huge grin on his face. And he’s a terrible tease. But down deep inside, he’s got the most tender heart and sweet spirit. Being in Hitler Youth Camp together has drawn us even closer than before. His current dilemma is that he is desperately smitten with a girl named Gisela, and she barely knows he exists. So we are working on that. He is eleven now and will get the priesthood next year. I can hardly believe that. Enrika is seven and will be baptized next year. Nikolaus is spoiled rotten because everyone adores him, me especially. Anyway, time with family is very much a part of my life now.

  As always, Mama and Papa send you their best. So do the Zeidners. With their girls gone they are quite lonely, and we have started switching off Sunday dinner with them each week. Papa is nearly through with his master’s degree in German history. He hopes to finish his thesis this summer. We are all so proud of him.

  You probably heard or read about Germany occupying the Rhineland back in March of this year. Hitler has long promised to get that border area back for us, and in March he did just that. I’m sure you heard the great rejoicing throughout the country. But what I wanted to share is this. In one of the after-dinner conversations with Papa and Alemann, Alemann said something that really surprised us. He said that he viewed the whole thing as a Vorzeichen. I looked it up in my German/English dictionary to try to explain it to you, and I think the closest equivalent would be a sign of something calamitous about to happen. Don’t say anything about this next part to anyone, but Alemann has a contact in Berlin that feeds him inside information. According to this source, Hitler took a huge gamble when he said he was going to annex the Rhineland and bring it back into Germany, because our former enemies—France, Belgium, and England, particularly—had warned him that any attempt to reclaim it would trigger immediate military retaliation. But France is going through a lot of political upheaval right now, and Hitler didn’t believe the French people had the stomach for military action. So he ordered his generals to move in and occupy the area.

  According to Alemann’s source, Hitler was so nervous about it, he gave the army orders to immediately withdraw if the French moved in any way to resist them. The French bellowed and blew off a lot of steam, but did nothing but dither. And with that, England backed off too. So Hitler got away with it. And this was the part that Alemann said was a Vorzeichen. It was not only a huge political victory for Hitler—it was something far more ominous. Europe’s response to Hitler’s boldness proves that they have no stomach for military conflict, to the point that they are eager to appease the Third Reich by giving in to Hitler’s demands. Alemann says that will only embolden him further.

  One of Hitler’s big themes now is the need for Lebensraum, or living space. He says that for the German people to achieve their destiny and become a Reich that will last a thousand years, we must gain back lands occupied by Germanic-speaking peoples, which were shamefully given away over the last century by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He’s thinking that would include all of Austria, the Sudetenland, large parts of Poland and Czechoslovakia, and the Ruhr Valley. The fact that some of these are independent nations makes no difference in his mind. They belong to Germany.

  So Alemann’s point was that not standing up to Hitler over the Rhineland will only embolden him to keep on demanding more land. And at some point, France and England and others will say, “No more.” But by then, he will be strong enough to take them by force. I was listening intently as he shared all of this, and I felt a deep chill. Another major European war? That is a grim prospect to contemplate.

  Well, as usual, Benji, I have rambled on too long and must close. It is almost ten thirty now. I think of you often and pray for you daily.

  With warmest regards,

  Lise (I love your nickname for me.)

  P.S. One piece of good news that the Zeidners shared today while they were here for dinner. Erika and Leyna finish their final exams on Tuesday and are coming home for two weeks before they have to return for summer term. I am so excited to see them again. I haven’t seen them since Christmas.

  August 22, 1936, 3:40 p.m.—

  Hitler Youth Camp, Bavarian Alps

  Lisa waved as she saw her family’s car turn into the parking lot. “There, Hans Otto,” she said, nudging her brother. “There they are. Let’s go over here where it’s not so crowded.” She stepped off the sidewalk and raised both arms and waved again. Then, as the car turned in her direction, she shouldered her purse, picked up her two bags, and started off. Hans Otto already had his single suitcase and was trotting ahead of her.

  There was no sidewalk and no curb where they stopped, but also no one was parked and loading there. Lisa set her luggage down as her father pulled the car up. Hans Otto was waving vigorously, clearly more anxious to see them than he had let on.

  When the doors opened, Lisa was surprised when only her parents got out and she saw that there was no one else in the car. “Hello, darlings,” Emilee called, hurrying toward them. Hans Otto didn’t wait for her to cross the distance. He hurtled forward. “Mama, Mama!” he cried, nearly knocking her off her feet as he threw himself into her arms.

  Lisa smiled. No more pretense about not missing his family at all. She walked up to join them and she and her mother embraced. Her father had gone around to the back of the car and was opening the trunk. “Where are Rikki and Niko?” Lisa asked, not trying to hide her disappointment.

  “On their way to Switzerland with the Zeidners,” her mother replied.

  “What? No! For how long?”

  “Two weeks,” Hans said as he came over and picked up both of her suitcases.

  “No, Vati,” Lisa cried in dismay. “I was so anxious to see them. I’ve missed them so much”

  Emilee smiled mischievously as she touched Lisa’s cheek. “I know, I know. So, what if you do see them in. . . .” She turned to Hans. “What would you say, Schatzi? Four hours?”

  “If we don’t make any long stops.” Hans was grinning broadly.

  Lisa stared at them both, perplexed. Then it hit her. “We’re going to Switzerland too?” she squealed.

  Hans Otto was taking his suitcase to his father. He stopped. “We’re going to the chalet? Yippee!” he shouted at the sky.

  Then another thought came and Lisa turned back to face her mother. “And will Erika and Leyna be there?”

  “Of course. Their school doesn’t start until the same day yours does.”

  To Lisa’s surprise, she realized that her eyes were suddenly burning and hot streaks were going down her cheeks.

  Emilee came over and took her daughter’s face into both of her hands, wiping at the tears with both thumbs. “This is your father’s way of saying thank you for coming to youth camp.”

  Lisa spun around and raced to her father. He opened his arms and she threw herself into them. Laughing, he whirled her around and around in circles. “Thank you, Papa. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  August 23, 7:13 p.m.—Adelboden, Switzerland

  Erika Zeidner wiped her hands on her apron and then hung it up on the hook near the pantry. “Mutti,” she called over her shoulder, “Lisa and Leyna and I have finished the dishes. We’re going to go for a walk.”

  Hans Otto, Enrika, and Niko burst out in almost one voice. “Can we go? Can we go?”

  Lisa went to the entryway, locked eyes with her mother, and shook her head. “We’re going down to the waterfall. That’s too far for them.”

  “Ha
ns Otto, Richelle and I are going down to the pond to feed the swans. You three come with us.”

  Richelle nodded. “We need someone to carry the bread.”

  Hans Otto had been prepared to put up a fight, but the swans were good too, so he nodded.

  Smiling happily, the three older girls turned and disappeared.

  7:41 p.m.—Engstligen Falls, near Adelboden

  The waterfall was about a mile south of the Zeidners’ chalet, and an easy walk along the riverbank to get there. This late in the summer, the river’s flow was less than a third of what it was in the spring, and the sound of the falls was muted. For a few minutes, they debated about going down a precipitous path to get to the bottom, but they really hadn’t come to explore, so they found a grassy spot on the riverbank, spread out a blanket, and settled in to talk.

  “All right,” Erika said, “tell us everything. How is Benji doing? How is he liking Berlin? Did he really get to be a translator at the Olympics?”

  Lisa shook her head. “He was actually an usher in the section where the Americans were seated, or a host, as they called it. But the Olympic Committee chose him and the other missionaries specifically because of their fluency in German. Since they were hosts, German people stopped them all the time to ask them questions. So they had to be ready for either language.”

  “That seems so strange to me,” Erika commented. “They won’t let Benji come down and see your family, only a couple of hours away, but they let the missionaries go all the way up to Berlin to watch the Olympics? That doesn’t seem right.”

  Laughing, Lisa understood her point. “Well, all the missionaries didn’t get to go. Only eight or ten of them. Remember how the International Olympic Committee just added basketball to the games for the first time? Somehow the government found out that our missionaries had played a lot of basketball back in America. Basketball has never been much of a thing here.”

  “Ja, ja,” Erika nodded. “I heard about this. They asked some of the missionaries to put together a team and be their coaches, right?”

  “That’s right. Then when the German Olympic Committee saw how fluent the missionaries’ German was, they asked President Welker if they could serve as referees for the basketball games.”

  “But you never said Benji was one of those that coached.”

  “He wasn’t,” Lisa replied. “But the committee asked President Welker if he had others who could help.” She shrugged. “And President Welker chose Benji to be one of them.”

  “No surprise there,” Leyna said. “His German is superb.”

  Erika was nodding now as well. “Ja, that makes more sense. So did he get to watch the long jump competition between the American Jesse Owens and Luz Long? That was incredible. They broke four or five Olympic records between them!”

  “It’s true,” Lisa replied. “I’m sure you heard that Hitler was livid when a black man beat our German long jumper. He wouldn’t even go down and award the gold medal to Jesse Owens.”

  “So awful,” Leyna said. “But I was moved to tears when Luz Long went over and helped Owens when he was doing something wrong in his jump, and that stopped Owens from being disqualified.”

  “Yes!” Erika exclaimed, her eyes shining. “Then did you see how afterwards, Owens and Long stopped and talked to each other? Then they walked to the locker rooms arm-in-arm, with the whole world watching. I was bawling. Luz showed the world that we’re not all like the Nazis.”

  Lisa nodded soberly. “Benji said it was an incredible moment and that many, many of the Germans were on their feet applauding the two of them wildly.”

  They fell silent, each lost in her own thoughts, then Erika spoke again. “So does Benji like being in Berlin?”

  “He’s not. President Welker transferred him and his companion out the day after the Olympics. Guess where he is now.”

  “Back in Dresden?” Erika guessed.

  “Think Mozart, Beethoven, and Haydn.”

  Erika drew in a sharp breath. “Austria? But I thought it was a German mission.”

  “German-speaking,” Lisa said. “It’s called the German-Austrian mission and takes in the eastern half of Germany and all of Austria.”

  Leyna looked perplexed. “So they teach only half of the people in Germany?”

  “No,” Lisa chuckled. “The Swiss-German Mission covers the west half of the country and the German-speaking parts of Switzerland. Anyway, Elder Baker is still Benji’s companion, but only for another week. Then two new elders will come in. Elder Baker will take one and go to Vienna. Benji will stay in Salzburg.”

  “I love Salzburg,” Erika said dreamily. “How lucky he is.”

  They all had been to Salzburg—Lisa only once a few years before, the Zeidners numerous times—so they began talking about what they most loved about the city. When the conversation lagged, Erika turned to Lisa. “Tell us about Hitler Youth.” She gave her an impish grin. “Tell me and Leyna all that we’re missing.”

  Lisa punched her softly on the shoulder. “No! This is a lovely night. Let’s not ruin it.”

  “I really want to know,” Erika said earnestly. “We’re actually feeling guilty that we’re here while you’re there. Please tell us about it.”

  Lisa started to shake her head, then changed her mind. “All right. I’ll tell you one thing that I really am excited about.”

  “What?” they asked as one.

  “I only have one more year.” She held up her index finger and shook it at them. “One! And then I’m done. And that’s all I have to say. Your mother tells me there is a private boys’ school in Bern. So, let’s talk about boys.”

  Chapter Notes

  Germany was awarded the 1936 Olympic Games before Adolf Hitler had come to power. Many around the world demanded that the games be moved somewhere else, but that created too many problems. The Nazi Party saw it as a wonderful opportunity to showcase themselves to the world. They came up with several new innovations, including the idea of carrying an Olympic torch from Greece to Berlin, eventually taking it into the stadium and lighting the Olympic flame. That has been done every Olympics since.

  Someone in the German government did indeed approach the mission president and ask if some of his missionaries would put a team together and coach it. Four of those were asked to referee the other basketball games during the Olympics. How additional missionaries came to be invited to help is not known, nor is it clear how many there were in total. It is the author’s assumption that they were used as hosts/translators (see Church History and the Fulness of Times, 522; Mormonism in Germany, 86; “The Rise of the Nazi Dictatorship,” 71–72; Building Zion, 135).

  In one of Jesse Owens’s qualifying rounds in the long jump, he overstepped the mark twice. Carl Ludwig (Luz) Long, his strongest competitor, stunned the audience when he came forward and gave Owens some advice on what he was doing wrong. Owens went on to beat Long and take the gold. He won a total of four gold medals in the games. Owens and Long continued their friendship long after the Olympics. Much later, Jesse Owens said of Long, who was killed during the war: “Luz was my strongest rival, yet it was he who advised me to adjust my run-up in the qualifying round and thereby helped me to win. You can melt down all the medals and cups I have and they wouldn’t be plating on the 24-carat friendship I felt for Luz Long at that moment.” (www.olympic.org/news/jesse-owens-jumps-for-gold).

  January 21, 1937, 6:00 p.m.—Central Library, Ludwig Maximillian University, Munich

  As the first chimes of the grandfather clock in the main foyer of the library began to sound, Hans Eckhardt looked up. “Six o’clock? Already? Where does the time go?”

  Alemann Zeidner grinned. “Time flies when you’re having fun.”

  Hans pulled a face. “You call this fun? I call it pure torture.”

  “Hey! You’re the one who wanted to do your thesis on the Spartacan Revolt.”


  Hans turned and looked down the aisle toward the main reading room of the library, which was mostly full. Then he turned back and eyed the stacks that towered five or six feet above their heads. “This place is a labyrinth. Like something out of a Gothic novel.”

  Alemann chuckled. “Of course it is. Like every good university library should be.”

  Hans sighed. “Maybe someday I’ll grow up like you and actually come to love this place.”

  6:07 p.m.

  As they made their way past the tables and desks in the main reading room, neither Hans nor Alemann spoke. Except for the soft rustle of turning pages or a whispered conversation between students, the hall was silent. Hans glanced out the high arched windows to his left and saw snowflakes floating gently downward in the light of the streetlamps outside. “It’s snowing,” he noted. Alemann nodded, having already seen it.

  All of a sudden, Alemann stopped and Hans nearly bumped into him. He was staring at the front entrance, which was still twenty or thirty yards away. Puzzled, Hans went to say something, then he heard it too. The low sound of the marching of feet, dozens of them. All around the hall, heads were coming up and a buzz of sound erupted. People started to get to their feet. Through what little he could see of the front entrance, numerous dark shapes were moving past it.

  “What is it?” someone called out. Others hushed him. Virtually everyone was standing now. Then suddenly the inner doors of the main entrance burst open and three men in hats and overcoats rushed in, dappled with snow. Hans instantly recognized all of them. The first was President Bernt Huber Berghaus, president of the university. Behind him was one of the members of the board of rectors, one of the twenty-four men that helped the president govern the university. The third man was Dr. Jürgen Eberhardt, dean of the College of Social Sciences. Their dean.

  When he glanced in their direction, Eberhardt pulled up short, clearly shocked to see them here. President Berghaus raised both hands in the air. “May I have your attention, please!” He already had that, so he gave a second command. “Quiet, please!”