“Are you safe? Our missionaries left three days ago and went to Holland.”
“Ja, ja. We had no problems. Fortunately, President Clark’s foresight in preparing for this during the summer proved fortuitous. President and Sister McKay heard tonight from the other mission presidents that all missionaries are now safely at their destinations.”
The door banged open and Lisa burst in. “Benji? Is it really Benji?”
Emilee motioned for her to come. “Alisa is here, Elder Westland. Just a moment.”
“Danke, Sister Eckhardt.”
As she handed Lisa the phone, she shooed the other children out. “Come, come,” she said softly. “Give Lisa some privacy.”
“But I want to talk to Benji, Mutti,” Niko wailed.
“Some other time, Liebchen. Not tonight. Now go.”
As soon as the door shut, Lisa leaned against the wall. “Oh, Benji. I’ve been so worried about you since we heard the missionaries were being evacuated.”
“There was nothing to worry about. Everything went like clockwork. Listen, Lisa. I’ve only got a few minutes. How are you? How are you liking university?”
“I’m loving it, Benji. Can I call you that now, since you’ll be released in six more days?”
He laughed. “It will take some getting used to, being called Benji again.” Then he sobered. “Um . . . Lisa, I have some not-so-good news.”
She stiffened. “What? Don’t tell me they’re extending you again. No!”
“Just the opposite,” he said quietly. “We have no idea how long it will be before we are allowed to go back to our areas. Everything depends on what happens with Germany and Czechoslovakia, which could be weeks. Possibly not at all if Hitler invades.”
“Papa thinks it will not come to war,” she said. “He heard that Prime Minister Chamberlain wants to come to Germany and confer with the Führer in person.”
“That’s what we heard too,” he said quietly. “But, Lisa.”
Something in his voice made her go cold. “Yes?”
“My release date was scheduled for the twenty-sixth of this month. That’s less than a week from now. The issue with Czechoslovakia is not going to be resolved that soon. So . . . President McKay released me as a missionary this afternoon.”
“Really!” she squealed. “You’re done?”
“Yes.”
“So how soon can you get here?” There was a deep silence on the other end of the line. “Benji? What is it?”
“Lisa, I’m sorry, but the First Presidency sent the order to evacuate to the American embassy and had them contact the mission presidents. As part of their instructions . . . um . . . no missionaries are to come back to either Germany or Austria until the situation is resolved.”
She jumped to her feet. “No! You’re not coming?”
“I can’t, Lisa. And I am so sorry. I’m catching an overnight train to Marseilles, and they have booked me on a ship to New York leaving tomorrow afternoon.”
Her mouth worked, but nothing came out as tears blinded her vision.
“Lisa! I have to go. Many others need to use the phone. I’ll write you as soon as I can.” He drew in a deep breath. “I am coming back. As soon as I can. I promise.”
“Oh, Benji,” she wailed. “Noooo.”
“I love you, Lisa. Don’t forget that. Auf Wiedersehen.”
There was a sharp click, and he was gone.
Dazed, barely aware of what she was doing, Lisa put the phone back in its cradle, slid down to the floor with her back against the wall, and began to sob, the tears hot on her cheeks.
7:54 p.m.
Lisa sat on the sofa, totally spent, with no more tears to shed. Her eyes were red and puffy, her cheeks stained. The handkerchief her grandmother had handed to her was damp and terribly wrinkled. The younger children had been sent to their bedroom and the house was quiet.
Finally, she raised her head. “Why, Mama? Is this Heavenly Father’s way of saying He doesn’t want us together? I mean, this has happened over and over and over. Is it a sign?”
“No, mein Liebchen.” Emilee put one arm around her.
Oma Inga spoke up. “Don’t forget. Heavenly Father brought him halfway around the world so you could be together.”
“Then why couldn’t He have delayed the evacuation even one more week?”
To Lisa’s surprise, it was her father who answered. He reached out and took both of her hands. “My darling, Lisa. I don’t understand much about God and how He works. But there is one thing I do understand.”
She sniffed as more tears threatened to come. “What, Vati?”
“I know now why He gave Oma and Mutti and you such strong feelings that you needed to go to Vienna with me. He wanted you to have a chance to say goodbye to Benji.”
Totally taken aback, Lisa stared at him for several long seconds, then she threw her arms around him. “Oh, Papa. Yes. That’s right. Thank you. Thank you.”
Hans turned to Emilee. “I think she has a right to know.”
Emilee, who was weeping openly now too, nodded. “I agree. Tell her, Schatzi.”
Lisa pulled free of her father, wiping at her cheeks with the back of her hand. She turned to her mother. “Tell me what?”
“You can’t say anything about this to anyone,” Hans said softly. “Not even to Jo. And especially not in your letters to Benji.”
“Why? What are you talking about?”
“The situation here in the Fatherland has reached the point where it is no longer safe for us to stay.” As Lisa’s eyes widened, he rushed on. “So our family, along with the Zeidners, have determined that we have no other choice but to leave.”
“Leave! Leave to go where?”
He reached out and touched her cheek. “To America, and more specifically, to Utah.”
She fell back, shocked into silence. Then one word. “When?”
“If all goes as planned, by Christmas you and Benji will be together again. And we will all be in a safe place.”
—————
Once Hitler had firmly entrenched himself as the dictator of Germany, he began a high-stakes game of poker with his former enemies, primarily France, England, and Russia. It began in March 1935. In 1921, when Germany defaulted on their payments of war reparations to France required by the Versailles Treaty, French and Belgian troops occupied parts of the coal-rich Ruhr Valley, near the German-French border. Two years later, at the height of the hyperinflation, France and Belgium extended the occupation. It was a massive blow to Germany’s already struggling economy and bitter resentment toward the treaty.
When Hitler came to power in 1933, one of his avowed promises was to restore German pride and reclaim her losses of land. By then, world opinion was swinging against France profiting so handsomely from Germany’s sufferings. In March 1933, the League of Nations, over French objection, voted to hold a plebiscite in the Ruhr on returning the territory to Germany. It was approved by 98%, which won Hitler enormous popularity from his people. Two years later, the last of the French and Belgian troops withdrew from the Ruhr Valley.
Emboldened by that victory, sixteen days later Hitler pulled off another fait accompli. One of the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles was that Hitler could have a standing army of no more than 100,000 men, a laughable amount for a nation of its size. Claiming that this prevented Germany from becoming a strong nation again, Hitler announced the institution of universal military service with the goal of raising an army of half a million men. Howls of protest went up from the other signatories to the treaty, but it was all bluster, and when Hitler blandly agreed that he would stop at half a million, the Allies grumbled a bit but did nothing more.
In March of 1936, he took an even greater gamble. Another highly valuable economic prize given to France after the war was the Rhineland, a highly industrialized area on th
e east side of the Rhine River, which formed the border between France and Germany. Totally contemptuous of the Allies’ political lack of will, Hitler ordered the army to occupy the Rhineland. Yet he was still nervous enough about this move that he told his generals that if the French Army showed any signs of marching against them, they were to immediately withdraw. Astonishingly, the French government dithered and howled but did nothing. These were areas worth billions of marks, not to say anything about the pride it brought Germany to have two of its most lucrative territories brought back into the Fatherland.
In light of these incredible political triumphs, Hitler announced a new propaganda strategy. To build a Reich to last a thousand years, all Germanic peoples, especially those that once belonged to the Second Reich, had to be reunited with their Fatherland. And, arm in arm with that dream was that of Lebensraum, the “living space” those people currently occupied. It had happened with the Ruhr Valley. It had happened again with the Rhineland. Why not something bigger yet? Why settle for slices of territory when one could reap a whole state?
Thus, in the spring of 1938, the independent state of Austria was no more. The Nazi military marched in and occupied the entire country without firing a shot. Hitler’s dream of Lebensraum had added thousands of square miles to the Third Reich, millions of Germans were back, and enormous wealth came with them.
Then, even as the Nazis were still consolidating their iron grip on Austria, Hitler was hungrily eyeing his next prey: the Sudetenland. And with it, though he was careful not to say this publicly yet, eventually the whole of Czechoslovakia with it.
On September 6, 1938, at a huge rally in Nuremberg, party expectations were high. Hitler’s demands for “justice” for the German citizens in Sudetenland had not been met. Would he use the rally to announce war? Rumors were everywhere that October 1 was ultimatum day. Tensions in Prague were high. Gas masks were being issued to their citizens. German citizens were rioting in the Sudetenland. Jews by the tens of thousands, knowing what would come with a Nazi takeover, were seeking a way out of the country.
But Hitler didn’t want a political resolution. The resolve of the Allies seemed to be finally toughening. Some were saying that there was no satisfying the appetite of the Third Reich. France and England were firing off warnings of dire consequences if he chose to invade. They were finally talking about going to war to stop him.
Or were they?
On September 13, Chamberlain sent an urgent message to Hitler asking him if he could come to Germany to meet with him. Not for Hitler to go to England. Hitler was so stunned by this invitation that he exclaimed to his staff, “Ich bin vom Himmel gefallen”—literally, “I fell from the sky,” an exclamation of stunned surprise. This was an unexpected but highly welcome concession from the British. Were they that desperate for a peaceful solution? Could he win all that he was after without having to invade?
Two days later, Chamberlain flew to the Nazi Party’s mountain retreat in Berchtesgaden to confer with Hitler, with the specific intent of persuading him to back down from the brink of war. Hitler immediately laid out his demands. The three million Germans in Sudetenland must be “returned” to the Reich along with their land, which had once been German territory. Germany would accept nothing less. To Hitler’s further astonishment, Chamberlain said that perhaps that would be agreeable, but said he had to consult with his cabinet, and returned to London and began drawing up plans for peace.
Ecstatic, Hitler promised that he would take no action until he heard back from the prime minister and went right ahead meeting with his generals preparing for war. That night he told his general staff to proceed with his plans to invade Czechoslovakia on October 1.
Realizing that they were about to become the proverbial sacrificial lamb, the Czech government desperately undertook negotiations with their allies, reminding them that they were obligated by treaty to protect their rights. In a masterpiece of understatement, the envoys for Britain tersely replied that if the Czechs insisted on invoking the treaty, Britain and France would “disinterest” themselves in the current negotiations. With no other choice, the Czech government capitulated. Chamberlain immediately had his staff request a second meeting with the Reichschancellor, offering that he would once again come back to Germany.
Hitler was astounded when Chamberlain announced that the Czechs had agreed to all of Hitler’s demands. But Chamberlain was in for a shock. The prime minister, who thought he had just accomplished an amazing feat of diplomacy, now met the real Adolf Hitler. “For me,” the Führer said, “to back down from going to war with the Czechs, they must begin a complete withdrawal of all military forces on September 26, two days hence.”
Shocked to the core, outraged, and humiliated, Chamberlain stayed on for another day to see if he could salvage the treaty. They were now just a week away from war. At the end of another exhausting day of negotiations, the Führer finally agreed to two “concessions” if the prime minister would accede to his other demands. One, he would extend the deadline for removing their military to October 1 (an irony since that had been the day he had set all along as the day to occupy Czechoslovakia). Second, he solemnly avowed to Chamberlain that the return of the Sudetenland resolved the last of the territorial disputes that Germany had with her neighbors.
Greatly relieved that he had almost singlehandedly averted a global crisis, Chamberlain stayed on one more day to sign an agreement that would come to be known as the Munich Pact. The two leaders cordially shook hands as they parted. Cheering throngs on both sides of the English Channel cheered their leaders, especially Chamberlain. War had been averted.
Chapter Notes
The events leading up to the sellout of Czechoslovakia are only summarized, and much detail is condensed or left out, but the key elements are included here.(see Shirer, Rise and Fall, 384–421; Spector, World without Civilization, 639–41; Kershaw, To Hell and Back, 330–42).
October 6, 1938, 10:18 p.m.—Zeidner Hideaway
Hans waited until Alemann had shut the “wall” and secured it, then they sat down, Hans on the settee, Alemann on the chair. “Sorry to bring you in so late,” Alemann said as he got settled.
“I don’t mind. Actually, with the traffic so much lighter by this time of night, I feel a lot better about it. And by the way, this street seems totally abandoned now. I see no lights when I come here.”
“The last family moved to Mannheim a few weeks ago. We have lots of people leaving, very few coming in. And it is an old, run-down neighborhood. Some people think it’s creepy.”
Hans chuckled. “That’s what Lisa said the first night we came here. So you decided this was a good place to build yourselves a hideaway.”
“Hey, remember, I’m the guy who can’t even hang a picture. I didn’t do this.”
“You hired someone to do it?”
“Wrong again. I bought it because it already had the hiding place in it.”
“I don’t understand. If other people know about it, is that good?”
“When we first came back, we bought a small home just a block or two from the synagogue. It’s not anything like our previous house, but it’s comfortable. We like it. Anyway, we’d been there about a month, maybe six weeks, when a man from our congregation pulled me aside one Saturday after Sabbath services. He asked if he could buy me lunch the next day, said he had something I might be interested in. I was a little surprised, but I agreed.
“His name was Katz, and over lunch he told me that his family was originally from Warsaw, Poland, which as you probably know, has a large Jewish population. When he was a boy of about six, there was a major pogrom against the Jews in Poland. Things got so bad they finally fled here to Munich in midwinter. He had an older sister who died of pneumonia along the way.
“So I’m listening and nodding politely, wondering why he’s telling me all of this. Then he says that he and his father, who were both journeyman carpenters, d
ecided to become contractors here. They started small, but in a few years became quite prosperous. One of the developments they did was here on Reichenbachstrasse.”
Hans perked up at that. “On this street?”
“Yes. He said they built all these homes. That was about twenty-five years ago.” He smiled briefly. “And still I’m thinking, ‘And why is this of interest to me?’ Richelle and I had checked out a couple of them that were for sale here, but we didn’t like the neighborhood. He said he knew that, and that was why he thought of us. But he had another offer for me. One that I couldn’t refuse. I refused. Said that I had no interest. He said that if I had no interest in what he was about to show me that he would pay me a hundred marks in cash.”
“And so you went with him.”
“Yeah, but not for the cash. He had my interest by that point.”
Hans suddenly straightened. “And it was this house?”
“Yes. After their experience in Poland, he and his father designed this secret hideaway and stocked it. And so I bought it on the spot.”
“Wow. Why did he pick you?” Then it hit him. “He knew who you were? Oh, that’s not good.”
“Turns out he had taken a couple of history classes from me the one year he attended university here. And somehow he recognized me in spite of the beard and long hair. But not to worry. He was selling because he’d had enough. He and all of his family have now emigrated to America.” Alemann sighed. “From the time we left here, Richelle had planned to come back and secretly reestablish contact with you and your family. But I wasn’t quite sure how to do it. I didn’t want you coming to our home, in case you were still under surveillance, and I knew I couldn’t go wandering around the university or our old neighborhood either.”
“And this is perfect,” Hans mused. “Deserted street. Run-down neighborhood. Boarded-up windows. So are we the only ones you have brought here?”
“Yes, so far.”
“So far?”
“Yes, and I’ll explain that in a moment. But first, has Lisa heard from Benji yet?”
Fire and Steel, Volume 6 Page 44
