by Murray Pura
“How are you then tonight, guv’nor?” asked the driver as he edged into traffic.
Edward stared at the trucks and cars and wagons that streamed back and forth and watched men and women mingling on the sidewalks and in front of the shops.
“Never better,” he replied.
The end of June, 1934
The Hartmanns were still in hiding when the baron arrived at midnight, his Luger in his fist as he hurried up the ladder into the attic where the family was waiting. Seeing the gun, Albrecht immediately stood up in the cramped space.
“So you’ve finally come to do what you planned all along?”
The baron’s face was hard and sharp. “I had to shoot my driver.”
“What? Why?”
“Before he shot me. I also had to shoot the man and woman who have been keeping you here.”
Albrecht’s face tightened. “I never heard the shots.”
“I had the Luger under a pillow.”
“What on earth are you doing, Baron?” asked Catherine, her arms around Sean and Angelika. “Why are you on this killing spree?”
“We are betrayed. Herr Hitler has begun a purge of the Brownshirts and the Communists and everyone else he perceives as a threat to his grip on power. My driver said he had been ordered to execute me because I was hiding Jews. But his shot hit the car door. Mine hit him in the throat. When I left the car I saw the man of the house peering through the window. He aimed a rifle at me but I ducked out of sight. I thought he had mistaken me for Gestapo. But I heard him shout to his wife to get the other gun and go to the back door and shoot von Isenburg. I entered through the outside cellar door and came up into the hall behind the woman. I snatched a pillow and placed it over the Luger and shot her as she turned. You heard nothing but the man did. He rushed into the hall and I shot him as well.”
Catherine shook her head. “Why have they turned against you? Aren’t you still SS?”
“Someone has suggested I’m harboring Jews and spiriting them out of the country. It did not come from Hitler or the Reichstag. It was one or two individuals spreading the word to others. But whoever they are, they know what I’m doing and where our safe houses are. If they were able to persuade my driver, they have a great deal of influence indeed. I trusted him with my life.”
The baron was white. He put the Luger in his trench coat pocket and sat down on a trunk.
“People are being murdered all over Germany tonight. I’m no threat to Hitler’s power, nor is he killing SS. Someone is using all the bloodshed and mayhem to cover up my own death. I don’t believe this has anything to do with Hitler’s purge. It has to do with stopping what I’m doing. Someone doesn’t want me getting you out of the country. Someone doesn’t want you to live, Albrecht, or continue to write your books against the Third Reich.”
“But we’re not Jews,” protested Catherine.
“They used that to stir up the people they informed. To get them good and angry at me.”
“Wouldn’t using Albrecht’s name get them angry enough?”
“No. Not if they’re unaware of his books or that they were burned. As for the anonymous books and pamphlets that have been distributed across the country, no one knows he’s the author of those except the SS. It was better for those hunting us to say I was protecting Jews who had been charged with crimes against Germany. That’s something the simplest people understand. That’s something they feel duty-bound to bring to a halt.”
“Who have all these people with their attics and cellars thought they were protecting?”
“Refugees from Communist persecution. They understood they were keeping you from harm at the hands of left-wing death squads.”
Albrecht stared at the baron a long time.
“Catherine and I have talked about you. Gerard, you make no sense. Every day we’re expecting a trap. Why should you rescue us? Why should you help me survive and write more books against Adolf Hitler? You are SS. You think he is the savior of Germany. Yet here we are, less than fifteen miles from the Swiss border, and it is you who have brought us here.”
The baron looked at his hands. “It was necessary to fool everyone. To make everyone believe. Even you. I am where I wish to be. Deep inside the Nazi organization, trusted by my fellow SS, I have been close enough to Herr Hitler on several occasions to pull out my Luger and shoot him through the head. But the time is not yet. Brutal as he is, Hitler is still the only one capable of bringing our nation out of the bones and ashes of the war. In two years our athletes will be winning gold medals in Berlin. He will give us back an army and air force and navy. So long as this trend continues I am his bodyguard. Yet I remain his executioner. If he crosses the line and is bad for Germany, I kill him. In a few years it will be even easier for me to do than it is now.”
“But you are discovered.”
“I told you. None of this is the doing of Berlin. Berlin is not hunting the SS. It is only a few. These few who turned my driver and the household here against me are using the purge as a smokescreen.”
Albrecht sat back down. “Who is it? Who has done this to you?”
The baron continued to study the veins and creases on the backs of his hands. “I am tempted to take you across the border tonight. On my authority. But who knows how far this person’s reach extends? The border guards may have been alerted. A person will come to this house in the morning. Probably a carload. The perpetrator of all this will be in the car or will have told those who arrive what to expect and what to look for. In either case, I will find out who is the source of all my trouble—by direct confrontation with the individual or by questioning those who drive up. I will get a name one way or the other.”
He lifted his head. Seeing the pinched faces of Sean and Angelika he smiled. “I am sorry for all your weeks of running and hiding, my dears. I’m sorry I’ve frightened you with my gun and my stories. I am your friend and your uncle even though for some time it hasn’t seemed that way to you or to your mother and father. But trust me, I will get you across the border, and you will soon be in your chalet in Pura. First, however, you must catch up on your sleep. I’m going to guard the house while you rest. No one will get past me. In the morning we will have a good breakfast and be on our way. All right?”
Neither Sean nor Angelika responded.
The baron got to his feet. “I will be downstairs. A car will come in the morning. It will come very early. They would have expected a phone call from the driver or from the husband and wife. Now they must find out for themselves what has happened.”
He reached into his pocket, brought out the Luger, looked it over, and tossed it to Albrecht.
“You may need it. Who knows? I will do my best.”
The baron climbed down out of the attic, closing the trapdoor behind him.
Albrecht leaned back, closing his eyes, the Luger in his right hand.
“Do you believe what he says?” asked Catherine.
“I don’t know.”
“What do you think is going to happen in the morning? Do you think these people he spoke about will come?”
“I don’t know that either.”
They are praying for us. I know my mother and father are praying for us. Perhaps even my brother Edward is praying for us. Lord, please open a way. Please take us safely over the border.
Catherine looked up as Albrecht returned to his blanket. “How are the children?” she whispered.
“Sleeping,” he whispered back. “Thank God.”
“I’ve been praying. And I’ve been thinking about all the others who must be praying for us even though they don’t know where we are or what’s happening to us. Surely it will make a difference. Surely the prayers will save us.”
Albrecht didn’t reply.
She put a hand on his shoulder. “Sometimes it seems prayer hardly does a thing. Is that what you believe?”
“I believe prayer moves heaven and earth. But I confess I have no idea how it works. One time God will intervene quickly in respon
se to prayer. Another time nothing happens for years. Other times people who don’t even pray or have faith are rescued.” He put his arm around her. “But I am grateful others are thinking of us and praying for us. It can’t hurt. And really it is our only hope. Heaven alone knows who is behind this betrayal. But whoever they are they must be very close to the baron to be aware of all the details of our escape route. And to be able to turn a trusted friend such as his driver? No, they are good friends and colleagues. What a shock to him.”
Catherine put her head on his chest. “Do you trust him?”
“I don’t. On the other hand, if he’d wanted to kill us he could have done it in Tubingen. Why bring us all the way to the Swiss border to put a bullet in you or me? As strange as it seems, I think he really does care about the children and us. It’s almost as if he’s forming his own underground movement, a sort of resistance to the Nazi regime, something to use if the Third Reich doesn’t do what he believes is right. One day he probably will be hiding Jews if it gets worse for them.”
“I’m afraid, Albrecht. I’m frightened about the morning. I’m afraid of who is going to come here and what will happen to the children.”
“Shh. Don’t let your fears get the best of you. The baron is a tough old bird. He can more than handle himself. I suspect it will be unpleasant for him once he discovers who the traitor is. But he will have steeled himself for that. He is one of the old guard, a kind of Otto von Bismarck. Blut und Eisen—blood and iron. He will be more than ready to face whatever comes his way over the next few hours.”
She gathered up the front of his shirt in her fingers. “I feel like ice.”
He kissed the top of her head. “We are going to make it. Be strong.”
“What if a dozen men come here? The baron can’t fight them all. They’ll overwhelm him and kill all of us.”
“They won’t. I won’t let them.”
“You won’t let them? You abhor violence—you always speak against it.”
“I do abhor it. But when men of violence come to do violence to my wife and children, and there are none to stand in their way—no police, no soldiers—then I must stand up to them, mustn’t I? I’m obliged to see myself in the position of a soldier or police officer bound to preserve civic order. God has raised me up to do what others have been ordained to do but who are unable or unwilling to do it. I am your police, Catherine. The baron and I are your army.”
“How strange it is to see you holding a pistol. I don’t know whether I feel better or worse about matters with your finger on a trigger.”
“We’ll get through this to the other side, Catherine.”
“I’d like to believe you.”
“Try to rest now.” He kissed her briefly on the lips. “Let me hold you. That’s my job right now. Yours is to dream.”
“I don’t think I’ll be able to dream.”
And when Catherine did wake up she couldn’t recall a dream, just colors of gray and white.
She propped herself on one elbow. Albrecht wasn’t at her side. She got to her feet in the dark attic and moved as quickly as she could toward Sean and Angelika. They were still asleep. She sat by them a moment. Then she went to the trapdoor, opened it, found the ladder had already been swung open, and climbed down. She went through every room in the house but couldn’t find her husband or the baron.
Through one of the kitchen windows she saw the baron’s tall blonde daughter, Eva, emerge from a black car and run to him as he came around the side of the house. She was in a white blouse and black skirt and wore a red swastika armband high up near her right shoulder. Carefully Catherine opened the window wider.
“Papa! Papa! Thank God you’re safe!”
“What made you think I was in trouble?” asked the baron.
He didn’t put his arms around her as she kissed him on the cheek.
“Why—I knew you were trying to get the Hartmanns out of the country of course. All this killing is going on, this purge. So I feared the worse.”
“The killing is still going on?”
“Yes, yes. I was afraid the Communists or Jews had retaliated against you.”
“Why, my dear? Why should they care about me? Why are they concerned about my trying to get the Hartmann family to Switzerland? Why should they wish to stop it?”
Eva drew back and looked at him. Her hair hung down in two large pigtails.
“Papa, are you cross with me? I had to make sure you were all right. I knew you would be at this safe house last night. I called and called but no one answered.”
“I heard the phone ring. Who is in the car with you?”
She looked behind her. “Oh, a few men, just to make sure I would be safe and to assist me if you were in some sort of difficulty.” She turned back to him with her brightest smile. “Thank God you are alive and well. Where are the Hartmanns?”
“Inside.”
“And Ernest Schultz? And his wife?”
“You remember their names? They were only one house in a long string of houses.”
“But I keep a list.”
“I never told you their first names.”
“Well, I found out on my own.” Her tone sharpened. “I don’t understand why you’re interrogating me. I came here because I was worried to death. I’m your daughter.”
“My daughter, yes. And the Reich’s daughter.”
“Of course the Reich’s daughter.” She stepped back from him. “Where are Ernest and Rosa Schultz?”
“I had to kill them.”
“What?”
“I had to kill Walter as well.”
“What are you talking about? He’s been your driver—and your friend! I don’t believe you—what’s wrong with you?”
She kept moving back toward the car.
The doors swung open and men began to climb out.
The baron had both hands in the pockets of his trench coat. “Walter told me you had recruited him. That you told him I was a traitor to Adolf Hitler and to Germany. A man who defended Germany’s enemies and gave them every encouragement possible.”
Catherine watched Eva’s face change instantly into a snarl of lines and ridges.
“What else could I have told him?” Eva screamed. “Albrecht Hartmann writes poison! He writes hate! And you help him! Our Führer is beautiful, he’s a gift from heaven, a blessing from God, and you permit Hartmann to malign him and skewer him and spread lies about him! Shame! You’re as much a traitor as he is! How can I call myself your daughter anymore? How can I cherish you as my father! Traitor, traitor, monstrous traitor!”
She threw herself flat on the ground.
“Kill him!” she shrieked. “Kill him!”
The men yanked guns out from under their long coats.
The baron didn’t take his hands from his pockets. Both erupted in flame and smoke, and bullets struck the car and its men again and again.
Another car suddenly raced around the side of the house and skidded to a stop behind the baron. He turned in surprise as gun barrels poked out of its windows. Catherine had one hand to her mouth and the other clutched her stomach. But before the guns were fired, the windows of the car shattered, and bullet holes perforated the side of the vehicle. The noise of a machine gun banged through the kitchen, coming from somewhere beyond the baron and aimed squarely at the second car.
My Lord, what is this? What is happening?
Stunned, unable to move or look away, Catherine watched. Moments later her husband crawled out from behind a cart of manure. The gun in his hands was much smaller than a rifle, and its barrel was dotted with holes. It was still pointed at the car. She was unsure if any were still alive in the vehicle, and she realized that Albrecht was unsure as well. But no one got out or fired back. Her husband edged up to the car, gun still trained on it, and glanced through its windows. Only then did he appear to take his finger off the trigger. He looked at Catherine, still watching from the open window.
“They are all dead,” he told her, raising his vo
ice. Then he walked toward the baron, his face as white as bone. The two men stood and looked at each other.
“A Bergmann MP Thirty-Four,” she finally heard the baron say. “Where did you get that?”
“It was in a closet with several shotguns.”
“I only found the pistols—in the pockets of the husband and wife.” The baron stared at him. “I did not expect you to fight.”
“ ‘These are the times that try men’s souls…Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered.’ I have to do my part. Such are the times we live in.”
They both looked at Eva, who remained lying in the dust. Tears cut across her face.
“You swine,” she hissed. “You ugly, stinking swine. I hope God strikes both of you dead.”
“Nein. He struck your friends dead first,” replied the baron. “Gestapo?”
“Yes, Gestapo. True Germans, and they will be missed. Their comrades will hunt you down and kill you.”
“They won’t. The Communists will be faulted for this. Fighting back against Hitler’s purge.”
Eva shrieked and jumped up, clawing at her father’s eyes.
He slapped her across the face with an open hand. She stopped, a look of shock on her face. He slapped her again with a pistol. She fell and he caught her in his arms. Catherine saw a tear moving out of one of his eyes.
“We must get you to the border now, Albrecht. We must risk it. I don’t know if the Gestapo contacted the closest border crossing. In any case we will go to one farther away. I have papers authenticated by the SS. You must get your family up and into my car.”
“What about the dead?”
“I will leave them as they are and phone in a Communist attack.”
Catherine left the house and walked out to Albrecht and the baron. They watched her come. She hesitated a moment, looking into their eyes. Then she put her arms around her husband’s neck.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry we had to come to this place of choosing in our lives. I’m sorry you had to do this.”
“Yes, you’re right, it was a choice. If I had not made it you and the children would be at the mercy of men who have no mercy.”
