“What happens now?” I asked.
“For us... God only knows. But you two go home. At once. You’re in luck. We have transport into town at three thirty. Make sure you’re on it.”
Gerda Hettich got up and shook Siggy’s hand. “My thanks for all you’ve done. It’s not been an easy time.” She gave a feeble smile. “You should have been here in forty-two and forty-three. Then it was quite something!”
“You’ve been the perfect boss,” replied Siggy, also close to tears. She’d grown to like and respect the chief secretary. “I hope all ends well for you.”
As we left, I whispered to Siggy that we should try and find Zoller. Say our farewells. And thanks. But he wasn’t in the guard’s office and no one seemed to know his whereabouts. We could only leave a message, before dashing upstairs to pack.
Not that packing involved very much. Even though we’d spent most of our time in Norway at Skaugum, it had never been anything more than a pied-à-terre. We’d arrived from Germany with minimal baggage anyway, so our departure this time involved nothing more than throwing a few belongings into a small suitcase.
As we swept down the driveway of the Crown Prince’s estate for the last time, I said, “So, no royal baby,” remembering how we’d joked about this possibility when we’d first arrived.
“Nah... and just as well.” Siggy grinned. “Horrible life. Nothing but handshakes, dreary receptions, and always having to say the right thing. But it’s been an interesting experience, staying here. Don’t suppose I’ll be able to live like a princess again.”
The bus dropped us in Drammensveien, a few minutes’ walk from my parents’ place in Erling Sjalgssonsgate. The war would soon be over. How would we cope with that strange phenomenon called peace?
CHAPTER 68
We didn’t have to wait long to find out. The next day, 7th May, came the ceasefire announcement. Although this did not officially come into force until midnight on the 8th, celebrations started at once. The whole of Oslo, it seemed, out in the streets, waving flags, singing.
I joined in myself for a while, but soon returned to Siggy, who stayed at home. Not only because she was German, more on account of her condition. Although she had now won her bet, that our child would be born in a free Norway, giving birth on a mob-happy street would not be a good idea.
Some people still feared a last stand by the Wehrmacht, but I was pretty certain the danger was past. With Terboven dismissed and Skaugum’s SS wanting home, there was no longer any stomach for a fight. Had we played any part in this? I was unsure. Still am. We had done our best to make sturmbannführer Zoller see sense. And, in the end, succeeded. I felt we had honoured our agreement with Gauleiter Richard Frunze. Whether things would have turned out differently without us, remains one of the many ‘what ifs’ of history.
Early on the 9th, a rumour swept the city. Terboven was dead. Had blown himself up. It was a while before I had the full facts. First hand from Vigeland.
Who told me the former reichskommissar had gone about his own demise in the same methodical manner he’d shown in life. First, moving the corpse of police chief Rediess, who’d shot himself the previous evening, to the bunker at the far end of Skaugum estate. Then masterminding his own suicide. Which had to be just so. Five canisters, filled with explosive – from an RAF drop meant for the resistance, which had gone astray – were hauled up to the bunker. He insisted on using the full amount, so as to leave no trace of his earthly remains. To be set off by a fuse, five metres in length, leading up to the bunker’s western entrance.
Just after 11pm he was seen leaving the house. At exactly 11.30pm there was a massive explosion. Vigeland and his colleagues arrived on the scene shortly afterwards. Outside the bunker they found a small bottle of brandy – empty. And some sleeping pills. The bunker itself had been blown to smithereens. Josef Terboven died just thirty minutes before that of his beloved Third Reich; the monster he’d served all his life.
CHAPTER 69
THE AFTERMATH. NORWAY 1945-46
Street celebrations went on for days. Everyone letting their hair down. Washing away five miserable years of occupation.
Someone suggested a formal photo for posterity. It so happened that Akershus fort, which sits on a bluff over Oslo’s downtown harbour area, was to be ceremoniously handed back to the Norwegians. So they dug up a German officer. And a photographer. With no home-grown celebrities yet on the scene, finding a suitable Norwegian was less easy, but they managed to twist the arm of one of our resistance leaders and put him on parade.
It has since become the iconic image of Norway’s liberation. On the right, the Wehrmacht officer, in full fig, giving a salute; on the left, standing stiffly to attention, is a man in civvies, in knickers. My old friend Vigeland! Who, I now discovered, had a name: Terje Rollem. A name I’ve never really taken to. When, in later years, our paths have crossed, I’ve always greeted him with a “Hei, Vigeland.” The reply: a grin and mock salute.
The euphoria lasted until our national day: 17th May. By then Oslo was full of friendly uniforms – a reassuring sight. This included Crown Prince Olav, our commander-in-chief, soon to re-occupy our old stamping ground, Skaugum.
I was about to join the celebrations when I became aware of a diversion. Something was up in Erling Sjalgssonsgate. Girlie talk between Mum and Siggy. Which soon became more intense. Mum muttering about Ullevål hospital, Siggy replying, rather sharply, “Wasn’t she a nurse!” They repaired to the bathroom, where, in an incredibly short time, it became clear an event had taken place. They reappeared bearing a bundle, the only visible part looking like a crinkly walnut.
“You looked even worse at that age,” said Mum, seeing my dubious look.
“In next to no time, she’ll have the boys drooling over her,” said Dad.
“She!”
“Yes, you have a daughter,” said Mum. “Safely delivered on 17th May. Our National day. What more could you ask from a wife?”
What indeed. I gave Siggy a kiss. She seemed remarkably composed. The phrase ‘like shelling peas’ came to mind, but I’m sure it can’t have been that easy.
“I thought we might call her Inger,” said Siggy. “A good name in Norway and Germany.”
Who was I to argue? Inger became the light of our lives. Especially so during those first months, when she gave Siggy a focus – someone demanding her full attention – during a very testing and frustrating time. Because after the party came the hangover.
CHAPTER 70
Every country occupied by the Germans turned on their collaborators with particular venom. Understandable at the time, but in retrospect seen as a darker side of their history.
Norway followed this pattern, with an orgy of arrests and investigations. My time at Skaugum marked me out as suspect, but Vigeland vouched for me, so nothing came of it. Most of the many thousands caught in this trawl were either not charged or quickly released.
Which still left a substantial number who’d had clear links with the hated regime. Where to draw the line? And what to do with the guilty ones? These were the questions that filled the newspapers and dominated discussions during the summer of 1945. The doves became known as ‘the silk front’; the hawks were ‘the ice front’.
First in the dock was the arch traitor: Vidkun Quisling. The prosecution wanted not only a guilty verdict, but also the death sentence. Even though Norway had abolished this in 1904. They backed their claim on a law passed, not in Norway, but by the Norwegian government in exile in London, which during the war had made treason a capital offense under military law.
After their flight from Oslo in April 1940, the government had passed what was known as the ‘Eidsvoll authorisation’, giving themselves the power to make laws for Norway wherever they might be. Such as London. Having been democratically elected by the people, they saw no reason to cede their powers to any usurper. So death sentences for war crimes were perfectly legal. Said the ‘ice front’, the hawks.
The ‘silk front’,
the doves, were not so sure. Especially when demands for death sentences started tumbling out of prosecution chambers like leaves in autumn. Not only must Quisling pay the ultimate price, so also must a whole throng of smaller fry.
The arguments raged throughout the summer. I found the whole thing deeply disturbing. Of course the guilty must be punished, but this was too much like lynch law.
Quisling was duly found guilty, and executed by firing squad in Akershus Fort. That was in October. They then turned their attention to the other suspects, a process which lasted a full three years. Dozens, mainly Norwegians but also occupation force Germans, were handed death sentences. Thirty-seven were actually executed. Not bad for a country which normally had no death penalty. Lawyers spent the following decades arguing the toss. Was this legal? Was it right? To little effect. You can’t bring the dead back to life. Not unless your name happens to be Jesus Christ.
CHAPTER 71
These war trials were the background, the macabre entertainment that kept us amused while we tried to work out what to do with our lives. We all had problems in common; an economy in ruins; continuing food shortages; how to resume what had once been normal life. But the junior Jespersens were in an unusual quandary. Were we Norwegian or German?
The legal position was clear. I was Norwegian by birth; Siggy Norwegian by marriage; her son, Benjamin, German; newly minted Inger, Norwegian. An administrative minefield, but first we had to decide in which direction to cross that minefield. Where did we want to live? Norway or Germany?
In fact, it was no decision. Although our marriage had started as one of convenience, it had grown into a real one. Especially after the arrival of little Inger. Siggy’s place was back at the Gasthol zum Löwen, with Benni Weiss to carry on the family tradition. My place was with them.
If anyone had told me, when we left Germany, that I would want to go back, I would have said they were crazy. In 1944 it had been any excuse to get out of the shattered hell-hole that was Hitler’s Reich. But things had changed. Hitler had gone. Germany, though still shattered, was now a clean slate on which to build a new nation. Could be exciting.
To urge me still further in that direction, I found, to my dismay, that I was no longer at ease in Norway. My own country. Willy Brandt had been right when he had warned about my mission. Contact with the hated enemy had been contaminating.
My parents had been wonderful, of course. And Vigeland had come up trumps, when questions had been asked about my Skaugum days. My really old buddies, people like Lars and Gudrun also welcomed me with open arms. As for Øyvind, the eternal student who might one day become a test tube doctor, he was so removed from the real world, he would have sunk a beer with me had I been Jack the Ripper.
But away from close friends, I sensed a certain... froideur. Finding a job might prove difficult. Especially as I had no qualifications.
So one night, when Siggy was sitting up in bed doing the midnight feed – Inger had become a mother’s milk addict – I said, “We’d better start thinking about getting back to the gasthof.”
She smiled. “I was hoping you’d say that. But didn’t want to rush you.”
Inger gave a burp of agreement.
“I’ll get cracking on it straight away,” I said.
A promise that was easier made than accomplished.
CHAPTER 72
I hadn’t realised we were stuck in the largest population movement in human history. Millions of people in the wrong place. There were German prisoners of war in allied camps, difficult enough to shift even from Britain, even more so for the half million or more who had been moved to the other side of the Atlantic. A mass migration reversal from Canada and America back to Europe.
There were allied POWs in German camps, all of whom had to be repatriated through a country in ruins; infrastructure almost zero.
Stalin had grabbed Poland’s eastern provinces, then arranged for her to be given large chunks of Germany in return, most notably East Prussia and Silesia. Everyone living there had to be moved: Germans out, Poles in. Whole nations in transit.
In Norway there were not only the 400,000 Germans we’d been so worried about, but also masses of other foreigners; slave labour brought in by the Nazis. Mainly East Europeans: Russians, Poles, Czechs, Baltics, many of whom didn’t want to return to their homelands, now ruled by another madman, Stalin.
So when I turned up at the office which handled these matters, I was met with incredulity. I was crazy to want to go to Germany. Even more crazy to believe I could get there.
I filled in the necessary forms and was told they’d let me know. Don’t phone us, we’ll phone you.
It was the most miserable period of my life. Waiting. Hoping. Marking time. I did a bit of language teaching: English. Which was just beginning its surge towards world domination. Although a bit rusty, my English was still in good shape after those years in the RAF. Certainly good enough for people starting from scratch.
I must have been a pain to my nearest and dearest, but they put up with me manfully. My parents had always got on with Benni, whom they now regarded as a son. They loved Siggy doted on Inger, and promised frequent visits once we’d established ourselves back in the gasthof.
Siggy also handled the wait far better than me. Much of her time was taken up with Inger, but she also resumed her Norwegian lessons. Became competent, if not fluent. She and Benni must have sounded strange to any outsider, mother rattling away in German, her son replying in Norwegian.
Because Benni had turned totally native and was, as always, taking everything in his stride. Nothing bothered him. We celebrated his seventh birthday just after the liberation. And were still there for his eighth. Not until October 1946, after a wait of fifteen months, were we able to leave.
The journey back deserves even less comment than the one out. This time it went via Stockholm, later through a Europe beginning to recover from its wounds. Slow, but reasonably sure.
After three days, we made it to our city station, now labelled ‘Hauptbahnhof’ in a script everyone could understand. No more Gothic. The tired old horse with the lopsided ears was also a thing of the past: probably dead by now. Instead we were able to hire a cab. Back to the Gasthof zum Löwen.
Home at last!
CHAPTER 73
GERMANY. LATE 1940s
It was autumn 1946, when we returned to the gasthof. Which we found much as we had left it. Irma had done a wonderful job keeping things ticking over; still heavily reliant on uniforms, of course, now British khaki instead of German grey or brown. But custom for all that. Our bread and butter.
Irma herself was a frustrated lady, her normally sunny disposition increasingly prone to irritable outbursts. Because her man, shot down over Kent in 1940, had been moved to the USA when British camps became overcrowded, and was still stuck in the people pipeline. Fortunately for all of us, Gunter finally turned up just before Christmas 1946 and peace reigned once more.
Mr. Irma (Gunter) had spent the war years profitably imbibing North American culture and was full of get-up-and-go. Unlike his poor relations in Europe, he had also spent those years being fed on piles of wholesome food. He was fighting fit, in his prime and ready for action. The two of them rapidly produced four children and were a major factor in putting our town back on the map. We remain the best of friends.
One of the first things I did on our return was to take a trip down the valley to see how our two ladies had coped. Both pretty well, it seemed.
Fräulein Schwarz, our little bunny-sexer, was chirpy and voluble, convinced that her berry-picking and rabbit-rearing had saved the country from starvation. It had helped, no question, even if not to the extent she imagined. So it was sad to see how the following years took their toll. That last year of the war had been Fräulein Schwarz’s finest hour. After that it was a gradual decline back to her previous condition: retirement in a houseful of dolls.
Hilde Sperrle was made of sterner stuff. Mentally, at least. Two years had done nothing to imp
rove her arthritis, but she was as sharp as ever. We talked over old times over a cup of coffee. Real coffee. And she gave me a more realistic assessment of the success of our rabbit breeding. In her view, well worth it.
When Hilde died, in the late 1950s, it was my job to repossess the house for the Weiss family and advise what to do with it. While there, I was overcome by a curious nostalgia. A dozen years ago, this was where I had made my entrance onto the stage of Germany. First with Daisy the cow, then with Hilde herself.
It was also the scene of my greatest secret: the death of Willi Weiss. Reliving the events of that traumatic day, I had another thought. Although I was confident Willi would never be found – even I would find that impossible, the same could not be said for my parachute and flying gear. Which had been hastily buried beneath a pile of stones, in a place easy to locate. Were they still there?
I took a stroll up the valley and had no difficulty retracing my journey from that morning of April 1944. Past the seized-up waterwheel; then to the meadow at the end of the valley. No one came here: it was the end of the world. Left turn, up the track to where the forest started. Surely the place I’d slept that first night, after being shot down?
And there it was! Undisturbed, after all these years. Parachute silk, electrically heated flying suit, Battledress blue uniform. I don’t like litter, so piled it all up to make a bonfire. But not before removing a memento: my Air Gunner brevet. The words of the recruiting officer came back to me: something like, “If you can shoot birds, Jespersen, you can shoot Germans. Much the same, except no feathers.” Instead of shooting Germans, I’d married one.
CHAPTER 74
THE LAST WEISS Page 25
