Her Hidden Life

by V. S. Alexander

  ‘Blondi,’ Eva said. ‘I keep my dogs away from her. I would never allow them to mix.’

  ‘Blondi has puppies?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh yes, he had her bred. I think there are five. I don’t pay that much attention to them.’

  We stopped in the narrow corridor between two doors. The scent of diesel oil and disinfectant hung in the air. ‘Everything is within walking distance here,’ Eva said, and tried gamely to smile. ‘The closet is next to my bedroom. Unfortunately, so is the bathroom.’ She opened the closet door and peered inside. The light was on. There was room inside for a small chest of drawers and a rack for her dresses and furs. She thumbed through the rack and said, ‘Pick out a few. I’m sure I won’t need them all.’

  ‘Really, I shouldn’t.’

  She touched me on the shoulder. ‘Magda, we all know what’s happening. Let’s make the best of it. Take them as a gift. If they don’t fit, I’ll have them altered. Believe it or not, I can even work a needle if I have to.’

  I thanked her but felt guilty looking at her clothes. I stepped inside and peered at the rack. Ten beautiful dresses, mostly navy and black, were gathered on hangers. They were all monogrammed with an EB on the collar. I inspected them one by one until I got to a beautiful white gown, the one she had shown me at the Berghof.

  ‘You can’t have that one,’ she said. ‘I’m wearing it soon on my wedding day.’

  I jumped back as if I had touched fire. ‘You’re getting married?’

  Eva laughed and her voice sounded like sparkling champagne. ‘He held out as long as he could, poor thing. Now he has no choice but to marry me.’ She giggled like a schoolgirl. ‘You must come – be a witness. Perhaps my Matron of Honor.’

  I shook my head, astounded at the thought.

  ‘No, really, you must. Who can I ask here? One of the women in his SS guard? They all have faces carved from concrete. A nurse? One of his private secretaries? They’re just as bad as the SS.’ Cupping her hand over her mouth, she stifled a laugh. ‘I shouldn’t make fun.’ She grabbed my hands and squeezed them. ‘Please tell me you’ll consider it. My wedding would be incomplete without a Matron of Honor.’

  ‘You’re very persuasive,’ I said. ‘Thank you for asking. Of course I will.’

  In reality, all I was thinking about was how to murder Hitler. How ironic it would be to kill him on his wedding day, the ‘happiest day’ of his life. But how would I do it? It would take much more planning than just thinking about it. And what to do with Eva? Kill her, too? No. There would be no need. Once Hitler was dead the remaining members of the Reich would spring into action. The SS would come for me and I would be gone soon after. In a way, I felt sorry for Eva for being such a fool. I could see how she drew people to her with her kind dispensations, her invitations to celebrate life in the midst of war. Men and women were flattered to be part of her social circle, to perhaps get close to Hitler; however, her experience must have been as shallow and hollow as having tea in the sun on the Berghof terrace. I was convinced she knew nothing of the massacres, the concentration camps, the atrocities committed by the Reich. She was not stupid. Her greatest fault was that she was blind to everything except her own perception of life.

  I took three of the dresses – two black and one dark blue – and said good night. Eva accompanied me to the staircase and the SS checkpoint that led back to the Vorbunker. Before we reached it, she looked back in the direction of her room. ‘Poor, poor Adolf,’ she said. ‘They’ve all deserted him. He’s all alone now. He only has Blondi and me.’

  I thanked her for the dresses and left her in the passageway. On the way to my room, a woman wearing an expensive silk dress appeared in the corridor. Three young girls dressed in a similar fashion accompanied her. They stared at me as if I were a specter. I must have looked a fright in my surgical gown, unkempt hair and plain face. Later, I asked Cook who they were. ‘Don’t you know?’ she asked with astonishment. ‘That’s Magda Goebbels and her children. They’re here to ride out the storm.’ Her husband, the Propaganda Minister, was also in the bunker, but I hadn’t seen him. Cook told me that a few days earlier he had read a proclamation of his allegiance to the residents of Berlin. A printed copy of it lay on a kitchen table. I picked it up:

  I call on you to fight for your city. Fight with everything you have got, for the sake of your wives and your children, your mothers and your parents. Your arms are defending everything we have ever held dear, and all the generations that will come after us. Be proud and courageous! Be inventive and cunning! Your leader is amongst you. He and his colleagues will remain in your midst. His wife and children are here as well. He, who once captured the city with 200 men, will now use every means to galvanize the defense of the capital. The battle for Berlin must become the signal for the whole nation to rise up in battle.

  The madness had descended deep into the earth.

  One evening I asked Cook what day it was. She told me April 28. I had no idea how to tell time other than by asking people. There were no clocks or calendars on the walls. The hours in the bunker vanished in a monotonous litany. I’d left my wristwatch and suitcase in Irmigard’s apartment after the attack. I thought of her family and wondered whether they were alive. I prayed that they were.

  Here, all six of Goebbels’s children, five girls and a boy, were in the bunker. The whole family had been personally invited by Hitler. Since my first spotting, I had come to notice them more often. They seemed a game lot, and stood out from the crowd of usual officers and staff. The eldest daughter appeared more reserved and sulky than the rest. I assumed she missed her freedom and her friends because she was older. Life inside the bunker was less of a game for her than for the younger children.

  That evening, the Goebbels boy wandered by me in the corridor. From his appearance, I judged him to be about eight or nine years old. His hair was darker than his sisters’ and I spotted the resemblance to his father, particularly in his thin lips. He was growing into a lean young man, although he still carried some childhood softness around his belly. He brandished a wooden revolver at me and asked me where I was going. He was pretending to be a soldier, but his severe tone undercut the playfulness of the game.

  ‘Who are you?’ I asked, knowing all along.

  ‘I asked you first,’ he said. ‘Do you have your identification papers?’

  ‘You only have to ask the Führer. He will tell you who I am.’

  His eyes widened and he holstered his gun. ‘You’re a friend of Uncle Adolf?’

  I would never claim that I was Hitler’s friend, so I answered, ‘I work for him.’

  His shoulders drooped. ‘Everyone works for Uncle Adolf. I have no chance to catch spies or traitors. Did you see the man they dragged in today?’

  I squatted against the wall to be closer to his face. ‘No, who was he?’

  ‘Eva Braun’s brother-in-law,’ he said proudly. ‘He worked for Uncle Adolf, too, but they demoted him. He was drunk. Maybe they’ll shoot him.’ He smiled.

  I’d heard that Eva had a sister and that she was married, but I knew nothing more about the man. I pointed to his toy weapon. ‘Where did you get your gun?’

  He took the painted replica out of the holster and handed it to me. ‘I’m Helmut Goebbels and my father gave it to me. He ordered me to protect my mother and sisters while he works with Uncle Adolf. My father is very important.’

  I looked at the realistic ridges on the grip, the sight, the trigger, of the replica. I handed it back to him and said, ‘You’re doing a good job for your father.’ Then, it struck me that I might ask him an ‘innocent’ question of importance. ‘Are there other guns like yours in the bunker?’

  His eyes narrowed and I wondered whether I’d given myself away. ‘Well … because you work for Uncle Adolf, I guess I can tell you.’

  The walls rocked from a muffled explosion. They’d become more prominent within the past day. When I had first arrived at the bunker, I’d heard nothing. The Russians were only a few block
s away from the Chancellery now and the shelling was constant. Helmut looked to the ceiling and the teetering lightbulb overhead.

  ‘My mother says the Red Army is coming. It makes her sick to her stomach. She tells my sisters that we may have to leave the bunker soon. That makes them happy, especially my oldest sister. She wants to go home, but I know my mother will never leave Uncle Adolf.’ He patted the gun at his side. ‘This doesn’t shoot bullets, but my father said he would give me a real gun if I needed one.’

  Another shell shook the walls. They were dropping on the Old Chancellery over our heads.

  Helmut continued, oblivious to the artillery. ‘I’ll have a gun. Ever since the traitors tried to kill Uncle Adolf, he doesn’t allow guns around him. Only a few SS men have them. He knows they are loyal.’

  I could have questioned his naïve assertion that Hitler’s staff was unwavering in their loyalty, but I left it alone.

  Down the corridor, near the stairs that led downward to Hitler’s bunker, a stooped figure shambled by like a hunchback. Helmut saw him, too, shouted his name and darted after him without another word to me.

  The figure stopped and turned. I gasped, looking into the face of evil. He’d aged a lifetime since I had seen him. His shirt was falling out from the waist of his pants. His hair shone gray in the dim light, his face lined with dark ridges. He stopped, turned his head toward me and stared. The light in his eyes had vanished. His left arm shook. He didn’t raise a hand or smile in acknowledgment. I wondered if he could see me at all.

  His grotesque face terrified me. I wondered if I really needed to kill him, because, in actuality, he was already dead, a walking corpse holding court in his tomb. He grabbed Helmut’s shoulders and ambled away, using the boy like a cane.

  That evening, as I lay on my cot, I wondered whether I should give any more thought to killing Hitler. After seeing his ghostly figure in the corridor, I knew his time was short. However, there was nothing in my religious upbringing that would cause me to lose sleep from murdering a tyrant. I had been raised Lutheran, but my devotion was lax. My father rarely went to church; my mother attended sporadically on Sundays and on religious holidays. I sometimes went to church with my mother, but only because she wanted me to go. I had little desire to be instructed in the ways of religion. Some satisfaction would be gained, posthumously of course, of having my name in history books as the ‘woman who killed Hitler.’

  That night, Eva tapped my shoulder. I had fallen into a deep sleep, despite the reoccurring blasts, and her touch startled me. She carried a torch. I rose up on my elbows and asked in a groggy voice, ‘What’s the matter? Is something wrong?’

  She shook her head. Then I saw the tears in her eyes. ‘My brother-in-law is dead. The security forces took him up to the garden and shot him. I begged for his life, but Adolf wouldn’t hear of it. He called him a “drunken, womanizing fool.” My sister is about to give birth, but it made no difference. I said, “You are the Führer.’’’ She sat on the edge of my cot and hung her head. ‘Poor, poor Adolf. They have all deserted him; they have all betrayed him. But it’s better that ten thousand others die than he be lost to Germany. My sister will have to live without her husband.’

  A spark of life returned to her eyes. ‘Adolf and I are to be married in about an hour. You must dress. I want you to be there, Magda.’

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘A few minutes after midnight. Come as soon as you can. We are to be married in the small conference room. I’ll let the guard know you are invited.’ She rose from my cot and stole out of the room.

  I climbed out of bed and reached underneath it for the box that held my things. I’d not had a real bath in days, only given myself quick splashes of water from the kitchen faucet. The only bathtub was in Hitler’s apartment and only he, Eva and the Goebbels family were permitted to use it.

  I pulled out one of Eva’s blue dresses and put it on. It fit well enough that I could wear it. I washed at the kitchen sink, making myself as presentable as I could for the wedding. A butcher knife glinted on the counter and I considered taking it, but then discarded the idea. I had no way of concealing it. Besides, I didn’t know how many people would be at Eva’s wedding or how close I’d be able to get to Hitler.

  I left the kitchen and walked through the darkened canteen to the passageway that led to Hitler’s lower bunker. At the bottom of the stairs, the SS guard let me pass after I told him my name. I noticed he wore a holstered pistol. I went past the conference room where Hitler held his daily briefings and found myself at the door of the smaller room. Neither was large; the more expansive of the two contained a table in its center. I pictured the generals and officers crowded around it as Hitler issued orders for his crumbling offensives. Everyone knew Berlin was falling. The Führer was an ‘emperor with no clothes,’ but no one laughed at him. What little power he had was near its end.

  The door stood open. Eva saw me and waved me in. She was wearing the white dress she had shown me a few days earlier. Her face was reddened with blush and she looked somewhat pretty, although nothing like the woman of her carefree days at the Berghof. Hitler, attired in a dark suit and matching tie, sat in a chair looking glum and preoccupied. He wore the Party pin on his lapel. Goebbels, with his thin, mousy face, stood nearby, his hands folded in front of him. His expression was as stern and uncompromising as I’d seen in all the pictures taken of the Propaganda Minister. The skin underneath his eyes was lined with black from lack of sleep. Martin Bormann, looking like a bulldog, occupied himself with a paper that lay on the table. It was the marriage certificate for Adolf and Eva.

  Hitler nodded at me but did not speak. I stood next to Eva. She grabbed my left hand with her right in a strong but cold grip. I looked down at my fingers and noticed the silver wedding band given to Karl and me by the Führer on our wedding day. Eva wore no such ring.

  Soon an SS man appeared at the door accompanied by a grubby man dressed in civilian clothes. His jacket, shirt and face were streaked with dirt. Goebbels introduced him as Herr Wagner, a Berlin Councilor and a member of a fighting unit not many blocks away from the bunker. Goebbels had pulled Wagner from the streets to conduct the wedding.

  The civil ceremony did not take long. Hitler and Eva swore they were of Aryan descent and had no hereditary diseases that would make them unfit for marriage. Hitler signed the certificate and then handed the pen to Eva. I watched as she started to sign her name as Eva Braun. She laughed, slapped her hand in jest and then wrote: Eva Hitler, born Braun. The couple kissed quickly and then took turns shaking hands with everyone in the room. Hitler said nothing to me as he took hold of my hand. No words were needed. His vacant look and weak handshake told me everything I needed to know about his condition.

  ‘I am so happy, Magda,’ Eva said to me as she led me to her husband’s private apartment. This room contained a sofa and small table. A pretty Dutch still life hung on the wall. Hitler’s desk was also in the room and above it was a portrait in an oval frame.

  Eva pointed to the picture of a stern-looking older man in a powdered white wig with a starburst silver medal pinned to his dark waistcoat. ‘Do you know who that is?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Frederick the Great,’ she said. ‘Adolf stares at it for hours, as if the old warrior is talking to him.’ She sighed. ‘Pointless. All of it is pointless. A dead King of Prussia cannot save the Reich. How I wish he could.’ Her eyes filled with tears.

  Hitler walked into the room followed by his small entourage. Eva wiped her tears away and stood by him. I wanted to express my hatred, my overriding wish to see him dead. Despite my loathing, I was struck by his precipitous personal decline. Perhaps it was the late hour, but he had always worked late into the night; perhaps all his illustrious illusions had finally shattered. He was a noxious shadow of his former self. His chalk-colored face sagged from his months of living underground. His wrinkled suit and stooped gait mirrored the collapse unfolding over us. As the Reich’s leader crumbl
ed underground so did Germany above.

  Others appeared at the door, including Cook, Frau Goebbels and the secretaries, all invited by the groom. The room grew warm from the bodies crowded inside and I moved away from Eva and Hitler to be closer to the passageway where I could breathe.

  Hitler’s valet brought champagne and the guests drank a toast to the bride and groom. A small gale of laughter and clinking of glasses died, and everyone looked to the Führer. He sat on the couch eating a piece of iced cake. Crumbs fell from his mouth onto the lapels of his suit. Eva frowned but said nothing to chastise him, as she would have in her days at the Berghof.

  When he finished eating, he said, ‘Now is the time to remember better days.’ He wiped his fingers on a champagne towel and leaned back against the couch. ‘My life has always been devoted to Germany and the Party. How wonderful it was in the early days when every man, woman and child rose up in pride to answer the call of National Socialism.’

  Everyone’s eyes, except Bormann’s, glazed over. We were in for a long harangue about the ‘good old days’ of the Party and reminiscences of the Führer’s rise to power. He talked for nearly an hour. No one could do anything but hold their champagne glasses and listen as he pontificated about his youth, the glory of the early years and the terrible fate now befalling the Nazis. Finally, he lowered his head and stared at his hands. His guests remained silent, waiting to be dismissed.

  He took another piece of cake and put it on a napkin in his lap. ‘There is one final thing to say on my wedding night.’ He paused. His watery eyes took in everyone in the room. He shook his head as if he could not believe the cascading decline of his power, the shells exploding over his head, the destruction of his ‘lightning-war’ army, was happening to him. ‘It’s over,’ he finally said. ‘National Socialism is dead, never to be revived. Who would have the courage to lead such a movement but me?’ His lips parted in a sardonic smile and he stared at Goebbels and Bormann in turn. They stood unflinching under his gaze.