Resistance Women

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  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 our misleader.”

  “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.”

  Mildred gasped.

  “I’m sure Dietrich is fine,” said Arvid, but the strain in his voice revealed his uncertainty.

  It was not until the following day that Arvid was able to reach his cousin and find out that he was safe and unharmed—and furious. Unaware that someone in the station had switched off his microphone, he had continued for another five minutes, warning the German people not to imbue Adolf Hitler with the qualities of a religious icon.

  “Dietrich is determined to get his whole message out, so he’s arranging to have it published,” Arvid told Mildred afterward. “He’s already begun work on a new essay arguing that Christians have a moral and religious obligation to defend the Jews from persecution.”

  “I hope he changes a lot of minds, and quickly.”

  “Dietrich isn’t alone. Others are speaking out, and we must too, before we lose our opportunity. We must uproot Hitler from his new office now, before he digs himself in too deeply.”

  But all around were signs that they were running out of time. Two days later, Chancellor Hitler tightened his grip on his newfound authority by convincing President Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag and set a new general election for March 5.

  Alarmed and outraged, socialists and Communists joined forces to oppose the move. Mildred and Arvid were among two hundred thousand demonstrators who gathered at the Lustgarten on the frosty night of February 7 to protest Hitler’s appointment, bearing torches, chanting slogans, singing songs of unity and peace. Shivering in the cold, Mildred was nonetheless heartened by the sheer numbers of protestors filling the plaza, people like her and Arvid and their friends who recognized the danger of the fascist surge and refused to be swept up in it. Some Brownshirts stood about in clusters on the edges of the protest, glaring malevolently, but on that night, greatly outnumbered, they refrained from their usual violence.

  It was a triumphant, hopeful protest, but in the days that followed, the SA arrested thousands of political enemies, mostly Communists, dragging them off to makeshift prisons on the slightest of pretexts. By the middle of February, violence in the streets of Berlin surged as Brownshirt mobs attacked members of the Catholic Center Party and trade unionists as well as their usual targets, Communists and Social Democrats. Some politicians appealed for calm as the election approached, but many prominent officials were strangely silent.

  “Everyone knows the Nazis are responsible for the violence,” Arvid said. “No reasonable person wants more of this. Surely the German people will vote Hitler and his whole party out of office.”

  Mildred hoped he was right. The situation was untenable, and in the end, reason and common sense had to prevail. The March 5 election was their chance to get the political situation back on track so they could focus on the economy, on jobs, and on helping the poor.

  Then, late in the evening on February 27, just as Mildred was yawning over a pile of student essays and contemplating going to bed, the wailing of a fire engine drew her and Arvid to the cupola windows. Another siren joined the first, and then another, until the cold winter night itself seemed to shriek with alarm.

  Off to the northwest the horizon glowed red, and when the wind gusted, it carried the scent of burning. Arvid wanted to go out to see what was ablaze and whether Neukölln was in any danger, but Mildred would not allow it, fearing riots or worse. “Check the radio,” she urged, but the few stations still broadcasting at that hour played music as they did on any ordinary night.

  Mildred and Arvid lingered near the windows, watching and listening past midnight, until the quieting of the sirens and the absence of fire trucks on Hasenheide convinced them that the fire had been contained. Exhausted, they went to bed and dropped into restless sleep.

  In the morning, they learned that the source of the smoke and flame was the Reichstagsgebäude, now a smoldering ruin on the edge of the Tiergarten.

  Chapter Ten

  February–March 1933

  Sara

  The distant wail of sirens woke Sara in the early morning hours of the last day of February, but after a moment of disorientation in which the sound grew fainter and faded away, she drifted back to sleep, trusting that the unknown danger was too far off to harm her family.

  When daylight broke, she learned that she could not have been more wrong.

  The morning papers delivered the shocking news. While they slept, the Reichstag building had gone up in flames. Within three hours of the first alarm, firefighters had brought the fire under control and determined that the cause was indisputably arson. Without any evidence to support his claim, Hitler had blamed Communist dissidents for the blaze. He had quickly convinced the ailing President Hindenburg to issue an emergency decree granting him unprecedented powers—ostensibly to enable him to find and apprehend the culprits, but in truth to eliminate the Communists as political rivals.

  By early morning, Hitler had already exploited his new authority by ordering the police to arrest more than four thousand Communists. Civil rights guaranteed by the Weimar Constitution were suspended indefinitely. Banished overnight were the rights of habeas corpus, the inviolability of residence, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom from censorship, the rights of correspondence privacy, the right to property, and the rights of assembly and association. The official definition of treason now included the production, dissemination, or possession of written material that called for strikes or other uprisings.

  “We must warn Natan,” said Sara’s mother, blanching. “He’s always been too outspoken for his own good. He may unintentionally write something that was tolerated yesterday but is treasonous today.”

  “Unintentionally?” echoed Sara. “I think it’s more likely he’ll do so on purpose.”

  “Sara,” her father chided, with a surreptitious look that begged her not to upset her mother. To his wife he added, “I’m sure Natan is well aware of the new regulations.”

  “I doubt Natan will call for an uprising, but we can’t expect him to stop writing about Nazi outrages,” said Sara. “A free press is fascism’s most dangerous opponent. That’s why Hitler wants to discredit and silence it.”

  “I wouldn’t expect Natan to stop reporting the truth,” her mother replied, “only to be more circumspect.”

  “Our Natan is brave but also clever,” Sara’s father said, taking his wife’s hand. “He won’t be intimidated into silence, but he won’t recklessly provoke enemies either.”

  Sara thought it took very little to provoke the Nazis, but as she watched her mother fight back tears, she kept the observation to herself.

  In a frenzy of activity leading up to the March 5 elections, leftist newspapers were banned, and new National Socialist newspapers
and magazines filled the vacant spaces on newsstands. The Nazis tightened their control on state radio, filling the airwaves with party propaganda. With the freedoms of speech and assembly eliminated, it was a simple matter for Hitler to ban political rallies for any party but his own. Communist and Social Democrat politicians hardly dared set foot outside their own homes for fear of attack or arrest.

  Since the night of the Reichstag fire, Sara and her parents had seen Natan’s byline in the Berliner Tageblatt several times, but Sara’s parents became increasingly worried when he did not come by the house or phone. When Amalie told them that he had canceled a night out with Wilhelm, apologizing and blaming the frenetic pace of his work, Sara decided to stop by his apartment after classes to check in. She would get dinner started, study until he came home, and catch up with him while they ate. She doubted he had enjoyed a nourishing meal or a good night’s sleep since the Reichstag burned.

  On the night before the elections, Sara let herself in with the spare key, calling out her brother’s name as she opened the door. His apartment was dark and silent, the stale air suggesting that no one had crossed the threshold in days. She turned on the lights, picked up the mail that had collected on the rug after tumbling through the slot in the door, carried the groceries to the kitchen, and began washing and chopping vegetables.

  Before long, she had soup simmering on the stove and had settled down at the kitchen table with her books and notes. It was difficult to focus as twilight descended and her brother still had not appeared, but eventually she became engrossed in her studies.

  It was almost midnight when the door opened and her brother walked in, his hair and clothes disheveled, his lower lip cut and bleeding.

  “Natan,” she exclaimed, bolting from her chair. “What happened?”

  He let her take his satchel and help him out of his coat. “The police stopped me on my way home and took me in for questioning.”

  Setting coat and bag aside, Sara cupped his chin in her hand and examined his split lip. “This is how police question people in Germany now? Did you tell them you were a journalist? Did you threaten to expose them in your paper?”

  “That didn’t occur to me, but I don’t think it would have helped.”

  “What did they want with you?”

  “To find out whether I’m a Communist and if I have any information about who burned the Reichstagsgebäude.”

  “How would you possibly know that?”

  “They know I’ve written about strikes and protests and that I have contacts within the party. I suggested they check party membership rosters, and they acknowledged that they already had, and hadn’t found my name. I asked them if they considered the Berliner Tageblatt to be a Communist newspaper, and they admitted that it wasn’t.” He touched his cut lip gingerly with the back of his hand. “It’s possible that they don’t really think I’m a Communist, but were just using that as an excuse to intimidate me. Either way, when I didn’t confess, they let me go with a warning.”

  “Some warning.” Sara ushered him to the kitchen, where he wearily dropped into a seat as she fetched him a cool, damp cloth for his lip. “Maybe you should get out of town for a while, just until things settle down. You could stay at Schloss Federle.”

  “If the Nazis want me, they won’t overlook my relatives’ homes, even if it means going all the way to Minden-Lübbecke. I won’t put Amalie, Wilhelm, and the girls in danger.” He shook his head, wincing in pain. “I’m not going anywhere before the election. Every vote counts, and I’m not letting those fascists intimidate me away from the polls, or from this story.”

  On the morning of March 6, the Weitz family learned that despite the Nazi program of intimidation, their firm grip on the media, and the fact that the SA and SS had been assigned to monitor the voting, they had not crushed the opposition. Although the Communists had lost about a quarter of their seats, they had held on to 288. And while the Nazis had won five million more votes than in the previous election and had gained 92 seats in the Reichstag, they claimed just under 44 percent of the vote, which meant that they still lacked a majority in the legislature.

  But the next day, the National Socialists announced that they had joined forces with the German National People’s Party, forming a coalition that comprised 52 percent of the Reichstag—a majority, albeit a narrow one.

  In the days that followed, more Communists were arrested, taken from their homes and workplaces and held without charges in makeshift prisons hastily set up to accommodate the overflow. Natan assured his family that he was probably safe, since he had already been questioned, investigated, and released, but, ever cautious, he asked friends and neighbors to let him know if anyone came by asking questions or demanding to know his whereabouts.

  On the evening of March 9, Sara’s mother summoned them all together for an unusual midweek family supper. The cook outdid herself, inspired by the homecoming of her darling Amalie and by the presence of Baron von Riechmann, whom she was certain was accustomed to and expected the finest delicacies, despite the many times Sara had assured her that Wilhelm was one of the most amiable, unpretentious people she knew.

  Dinner conversation was relaxed and undemanding, in deference to the two young children at the table. Only afterward, as the adults sipped coffee at one end of the drawing room while the girls played with their dolls at the other, did talk turn to politics.

  “The military does not support Hitler,” Wilhelm assured them emphatically. “The generals despise him, and many believe Hindenburg betrayed them by appointing Hitler chancellor. General Ludendorff accused him of handing over our sacred German homeland to a demagogue, and he predicted that unimaginable suffering will result. He declared that future generations would curse Hindenburg in his grave for this action.”

  Sparing a glance for her granddaughters, Sara’s mother turned up the radio slightly so their conversation would not be overheard. “I hope the general’s prediction of suffering is wrong, but I’m terrified that it isn’t.”

  “We may not be through the worst of it, but Hitler’s coalition will eventually fall apart,” Sara’s father insisted. “The Nazis can sow hatred and violence, but they cannot govern.”

  Natan frowned. “They don’t have to be competent leaders to do a lot of damage with hatred and violence in a short amount of time.”

  “Son, please,” his father said. “You’ll upset your mother.”

  “Will you all stop worrying about upsetting me?” Sara’s mother exclaimed. “Of course I’m upset. I’d be a fool not to be.” She fixed her husband with a firm look. “My dear, I cannot agree with you that Hitler and his Nazis and these dreadful times are going to fade away like a bad dream if we’re simply watchful and patient. I believe we should be realistic and plan for the worst.” She inhaled deeply and squared her shoulders. “Perhaps we should consider emigrating.”

  “I don’t want to leave Germany,” Sara broke in, thinking of the university, her study group, and Dieter.

  “We won’t have to,” said her father. “The rabbis assure us that if we mind our own business and prove ourselves law-abiding citizens, the crisis will pass.”

  Her mother sighed. “And so the discussion ends before it begins.”

  “You won’t have to emigrate,” said Wilhelm, taking Amalie’s hand and looking around at everyone. “I’ll do everything in my power to protect the family. You must know that.”

  “I know you mean well, Wilhelm, but what do you think you can do?” asked Natan. “Being married to a Christian might protect Amalie for a while, but she and the girls are still Jews, and—”

  His last words were drowned out by the radio as the musical program was interrupted for a news bulletin. Sara listened with rising alarm as the announcer reported that the Communist delegates had been declared invalid. When the new Reichstag opened, they had not been seated.

  “How can one party simply declare that members of an opposing party weren’t really elected?” asked Sara, bewildered. “The votes were
counted and the results were published. Everyone knows what really happened.”

  “The Nazis command the police,” said Natan, rising. “They have the Brownshirts. God help us all if they ever take control of the military. Please excuse me, everyone, but I have to call on a few prominent Communists I know. Perhaps they’ll contradict that report.”

  “It’s too dangerous to go out now,” his mother protested. “Wait until morning.”

  Natan paused halfway to the door and gave her a rueful grin. “Mutti, you know I have a job to do.”

  Wilhelm stood. “I’ll come with you.”

  “I appreciate the offer, but the people I intend to see won’t tell me what I need to know if I bring a Wehrmacht officer along.”

  Frowning, Wilhelm nodded and sat down. Amalie immediately clasped his hand in both of her own as if to hold him there.

  “Then I’ll come,” said Sara, bounding to her feet.

  “I’m sorry, Sara, but Mutti would never forgive me if I let you tag along.”

  “Indeed I would not,” their mother said.

  Grumbling under her breath, Sara too dropped back into her chair, exchanging a quick commiserating look with Wilhelm. All they could do was wait for news, stay calm, and hope for the best.

  Natan returned two hours later, grim and somber. Not only had the Communist delegates been forbidden to take their seats in the Reichstag, but warrants had been issued for their arrest. Those who had eluded capture had fled the country or gone underground.

  Chapter Eleven

  March 1933

  Mildred

  From the moment the crackdown on avowed and suspected Communists began, Mildred feared for Arvid’s safety. His publications and lectures made his academic interest in the Soviet Union’s Five-Year Plan a matter of public record, and his recent travels there and the founding of ARPLAN provided more evidence against him. People often erroneously assumed he was a Communist until he set them straight, but the National Socialists were unlikely to give him the benefit of the doubt.