by Lee Strauss
They made their way down the cobble streets towards home when a man in a ragged brown jacket turned the corner shouting, “Stalingrad has fallen! Stalingrad has fallen!”
“No,” Katharina gasped. “Can it be true?”
They rushed back to Emil’s house to hear reports on the state radio that the Soviets had indeed won back their city. The Germans had been defeated once again and there wasn’t enough propaganda that could hide this fact.
“It’s happening, just like the radio said,” Johann said stiffly.
“This means they were right about Germany losing horribly on the Eastern front,” Emil said. Now the worst had happened. Germany’s army had surrendered and for the first time Germans dared to doubt. The Fuehrer was wrong, we could lose the war.
One-sheet newspaper extras sold on the street the next day. The people were called to a national period of mourning.
Then on February 18, 1943, the minister of propaganda, Dr. Josef Goebbels gave a speech in the Sportpalast in Berlin. The whole school was called to an assembly to hear it on the radio.
Emil sat on the bleachers warmed by the energy in the room. The speakers crackled and hummed, then suddenly, the noise of thousands of soldiers and civilians cheering in the background while Goebbels’ authoritative voice declared Germany’s resolve to bring a glorious victory.
“Do you want total war?” he bellowed. Emil’s spine tingled with apprehension. “Do you want, if necessary, a war more total and radical than we could possibly imagine today?”
A thick lump formed in Emil’s throat. Did they really still believe they could win this war? Had they learned nothing of the Stalingrad tragedy?
“Yes, yes, yes!” The cheers of the crowd in Berlin were deafening, even through the school speakers. Then like those possessed, the teachers joined in, followed by the students, “Yes, yes, yes!” Tears of joy ran down their faces.
There were tears on Emil’s face, too, but his were of fear and sorrow. And great disappointment.
On the same day they learned the location of The White Rose group. Munich University. On February 18, 1943, the papers reported the news. Three students in their early twenties were arrested. Brother and sister, Hans and Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst. Hans and Christoph were medical students and Sophie studied biology and philosophy. And now they were prisoners of the Third Reich.
Then, only a short four days later, they were beheaded.
Emil, Katharina and Johann met in the loft when they heard the news. Katharina curled up and cried softly into her knees.
“We can’t keep going,” Emil said.
“Do you really think we should stop now?” said Johann
Katharina wiped her face with her sleeve. “If they got caught, and the Huebner Group got caught, what makes you think that we won’t get caught, too?”
Johann persisted, “But is quitting the answer?”
“What good did it do them? What good did it do Germany?” Emil countered. “Nothing, nothing at all.”
They were defeated. The death of the White Rose meant the death of their mission, too. Their resistance to National Socialism through flyer distribution was over.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
HEINZ SCHULTZ died in Russia.
The whole school went to his funeral. It was only thirty minutes long, because there were so many funeral services performed every day.
A Nazi ceremony was performed at the Town Hall. A large portrait of Hitler hung on the wall above the plain wooden casket. An SS officer said a few words, but Emil couldn’t hear him over the wailing of Irmgard and her mother.
It was the first time someone in their own circle had died fighting Hitler’s war. Moritz’s death was different. No one here, besides Emil, Johann, and Katharina, would ever call Moritz a hero.
The mood matched the weather, dark and brooding. Germany’s dying youth in the abstract was somehow palatable, an honorable sacrifice for the greater good. Not so when it was one of your own. Herr Schultz made no effort to comfort his wife and daughter. His own stoic face was carefully controlled.
Rolf stood resolute, and then made his way to the front to speak.
“Heinz was the finest specimen of the master race that could be found in the Reich. He was disciplined, strong and fearless. He loved his Fuehrer above all and proudly gave his life for the Fatherland.”
Rolf, tall and lean, stood earnestly in his Hitler Youth uniform. Emil couldn’t help but notice how worn and patched up it was. Much like his. Much like everyone’s.
“We must not let our loss be wasted with defeat!” he shouted, breaking the solemn quiet. “Heinz’s death must count for something, will count for something. He was an inspiration to us all, not to back down when things get hard, but to get up and to keep going. I, for one, will not lie down. I beseech you to stand with me.”
Herr Schultz started with light clapping of his hands. Others joined in until it was a raucous applause with everyone on their feet, hardly a dry eye in the place. Elsbeth applauded with special enthusiasm. “I’ll never forget you, Heinz,” she shouted.
Herr Bauer gave his students the rest of the day off.
“Before Moritz, I never saw a person die,” Johann said. They were heading back to the barn.
“I didn’t like Heinz,” Emil said, “but I didn’t wish to see him dead, either.”
“Now it seems like death is everywhere,” Johann said. “How long before it’s us, Emil?”
“What can happen to us? We’re too young to go to the front; the bombers are attacking big cities in the west. We’ll be okay.”
“You know, Emil, I love Germany. I really do.”
“Of course,” Emil said. “So do I.”
Johann studied him. “But will you die for it?”
“If I have to, but…”
“I think you’re wrong. We will have to fight. And when they call me, I’m not going to go.”
Emil swallowed hard. “But you love Germany.”
“Yes,” Johann said, glancing over his shoulder and lowering his voice so Emil could barely hear him. “But I despise its leader.”
Emil didn’t say anything. Would he fight in the war if called? He still hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“WE WILL win this war, yet!” Tante Gerta proclaimed. She was still rejoicing over Goebbel’s declaration of Total War.
Mother scrubbed potatoes at the sink, her back turned to Tante Gerta. Emil set the table for three, thankful that Tante Gerta always caught the 12:00 bus.
“It would be nice to eat something other than potatoes,” was all Mother said.
“At least you have plenty of those, and you should be thankful,” Tante Gerta scolded. Her good humor was over. And Emil was sure she got more than potatoes at her work, being the faithful Nazi that she was. She certainly hadn’t lost weight like the rest of Passau. Mother, in comparison, was a rail, her eyes sunken with dark circles.
“Oh, I am thankful, Tante Gerta,” she said. “Just saying, it would be nice.” Tante Gerta left for work in a huff. “And a bit of butter to fry them too, right, Emil? Wouldn’t that be nice?” Mother cast Emil a sly grin.
“Yes, Mother, it would,” Emil said. Then, to his surprise, she pulled out a scrap of material from her pocket and emptied a plop of butter from it, into the pan. Emil’s eyes widened, and a big smile spread across his face. The smell of potatoes fried in actual butter was intoxicating.
“Where did you get that?” he said.
Again, a sly grin. “You might notice that our teapot is gone.”
“You traded Grandmother Heinrich’s silver teapot for a spot of butter?” Emil didn’t know if he was happy or dismayed.
“There’s no tea anyway,” she said. “Besides, it's your brother's birthday. Go call him for supper.”
As always, they bowed their heads while Mother prayed over the food. With the addition of butter, Emil and Helmut added a hearty “Amen.”
“Happy Birthday, He
lmut,” Emil said, rubbing the boy's head. “I'm sorry I don't have a present.”
“That's okay,” Helmut said. “Butter is the best gift anyway.”
The next day a Hitler Youth leader and Herr Jäger, the official SS block commander, showed up at their door asking for Helmut. They didn’t waste any time, Emil thought.
Mother resisted. “What is the hurry? The boy only just turned ten yesterday.”
“Frau Radle,” the Hitler Youth leader, no older than Emil, replied. “Your son is only on loan to you. He belongs to Hitler, as do all of Germany’s youth.”
It angered Emil that this boy was so disrespectful to his mother.
Herr Jäger nodded in agreement. As the head of surveillance in their neighborhood his job was to manage the tongues of the Nazi faithful. As such, he found it his duty to pry. Anything the people said or did was subject to scrutiny and possible prosecution. It was rumored now that they had one spy for every forty people. That was why German folk now had a habit of looking over their shoulders.
“Your son,” the Hitler Youth leader said.
“It’s all right, Mother,” Helmut said, his eyes wide. “You know I’m all right.” To Emil, it sounded like a secret code. Helmut was reassuring Mother that he wasn’t about to fall for the lies he would be bombarded with.
Like they thought Emil had.
Helmut embraced Mother quickly and left with the officers.
“He’s a good boy.” Mother wiped away a tear. “A very good boy.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
THEIR LOSSES in Stalingrad along with all the losses on the eastern and western fronts led to a severe shortage of soldiers. News came of a new call to arms.
It seemed Emil and Johann had escaped front line duty, but they weren’t to expect a vacation. All children aged ten to fifteen were enlisted into the war effort. The younger boys and the girls would work on farms with food production and the older boys would run the Flak guns or help in the fields. That meant no more school. Their excitement about not having to deal with Herr Bauer anymore was short lived, as the students found out that long hours in the fields was a fate worse than half that time in the classroom.
For Emil it meant going to the flight school in Nuremberg where he was to train as a pilot when not manning the Flak.
He couldn’t believe he was actually going to attend flight school! Not glider camp, like last time, but actual flight school. Real airplanes—this was his dream. Despite everything, the war and all the troubles that came with it, he still longed to fly, and he decided to ignore the fact that they were calling him at nearly fifteen years of age because of massive pilot losses.
“We just missed being called into action,” Johann said grimly.
“Yeah?”
“So, what happens this summer, when we turn sixteen?”
“Maybe the war will be over by then.”
“Emil,” Johann said, shaking his head. “Sometimes you are very naive.”
He could be right about that, Emil thought.
He was visiting Johann’s farm, helping to plant the potato patch that most of the neighborhood got their potatoes from. The soil was dark, and as Emil attacked it with his hoe, the sweet earthy scent blended with the warmth of the morning sun to comfort and distract him. He didn’t even see her coming.
“Hello, Emil”
“Katharina?” His heart skipped a beat. “Hello.”
She smiled shyly and started hoeing the row opposite Emil. He found himself staring.
He recalled their “race” through the city square last winter and how, for him anyway, things between them had changed. He thought about her a lot. More than a lot, all the time. He stole glances at her when they had met at the loft, careful not to get caught by Johann, all the while pushing down those prickly growing feelings he couldn’t name, telling himself she was just one of the boys—nothing more. This war had made him an expert at pretending to be something he was not.
Over the last year, Katharina had morphed into a woman. Gone was the bony shouldered, flat-chested young girl he’d first met. Even with the current government imposed famine, she was soft and curvy. Every time Emil saw her he felt like he was seeing her for the first time.
“I’m going to miss you,” she said, surprising him.
“What?”
“I’m going to miss you when you go to Nuremberg.”
“Really?”
Now she was staring. What did she see when she looked at him? Emil was suddenly self-conscious. He was tall, and lean like all German boys and he was strong and athletic, the muscles in his arms and thighs all larger than the year before. He had started wearing his father’s shirts recently due to his shoulders getting broader, and using Father’s razors on his face. For the first time, Emil wondered if he was handsome.
Emil thought maybe Katharina was thinking that he was.
She cleared her throat. “I hope you will be okay there.” She didn’t go back to hoeing, just stood there watching him. She was only one row away, one large step. Emil swallowed.
“I’m just training at the flight school. It will be quite a while before I actually fly.”
“Will you write to me?”
Katharina wanted him to write to her. A burst of warmth exploded in his chest. “Sure,” he said, feeling a smile spread across his face.
She smiled back and returned to work. Emil experienced a strange emotion, then. He thought it might be happiness. Something he hadn’t felt in a very long time.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
THEY REALLY shouldn’t have been starving in Passau. The farmlands were not bombed out like in many other communities, yet, even with all the youth sent to help the farmers, they still had a shortage of food. This was partly due to crop loss as a result of an early frost, but it was also due to the fact that they were losing the war. All the nation’s supplies were being sent to support the war effort, so not only were the clothing and shoe factories not tending to the civilians, neither were the food trucks.
Families were given food-rationing coupons, but the stores were empty. Most of what they grew in Passau got shipped off to the soldiers in the east. All the train cars were used to take coal to the fronts as well, and there weren’t enough left to ship coal to the outlining communities. So in addition to being hungry, the people froze, too.
Hunger can make a person very irritable, Emil thought. Especially at the dinner table when all they had to eat was boiled potatoes, skins on. No butter anymore. And Mother still insisted on giving thanks.
“Dear Heavenly Father,” she prayed. “Thank you for this food. Please keep Peter safe and bring him home soon. Amen.”
“Mother,” Emil said, exasperated. “How can you keep praying and giving thanks? All we’ve eaten for weeks now are potatoes.”
“Emil, there are many people pulled into this ungodly war who are suffering much more than you. Be grateful.”
“I’m sorry, Mother.” Emil lowered his head and spooned in a dry mouthful of mashed potato.
“It’s okay. This war has changed us all.”
“I wish Father would come home,” Helmut said. Emil could see his brother’s jaw working to create enough saliva to wet the mush in his mouth so he could force it down. Helmut pinched his eyes together, and Emil understood the pain and fear he was fighting. He admired his little brother for putting on a brave front. He was just a kid.
Maybe God did hear Mother’s prayers, because the next day Father came home. It was late in the evening. Mother had returned from a sixteen-hour shift at the factory, and Emil and Helmut had returned home from their shift in the fields, the same field where Emil would continue to work until he left for Nuremberg.
Emil was lighting the fireplace when he heard the front door open. He turned around and there he was. Without thinking twice; he was in Father’s arms, along with Helmut and Mother.
“Peter, oh, Peter!” Mother cried. They pressed into him so hard that he almost lost his balance.
“Whoa,�
�� he said, laughing. “I’ve survived war duty just to be mauled to death by my own family!”
They gathered around the fire, the first time in fourteen months, as a complete family. Father looked worn and thin, but not as bad as some of the soldiers Emil had seen in town on leave. This was because Father worked in the offices of the war administration and not actually on the front lines.
“How long are you home, Father?” Emil asked.
“Only a week, son.”
Emil saw mother wince at that. They’d all hoped it would be longer.
“And,” Father sighed, “I’m not being re-assigned to my desk.”
“What do you mean?” said Mother.
“Things are not going well on the Eastern front. I don’t know what you’ve heard, but the casualties have been immense. I’m to join the army.”
“Oh, no,” Mother whispered. Her eyes welled up, but she swallowed hard, determined to stay strong.
“Who will take your job, then, Father?” Helmut asked.
“A capable older gentleman. He’s been pulled out of retirement to serve the Reich.”
Just a twinge of bitterness when he said “Reich”. Emil remembered how adamantly he’d been against Hitler and Nazism.
“I think it’s time for bed,” Mother said. “Peter, you must be exhausted.”
“No more than all of you. I’m so sorry you have to work so hard.”
“At least you’re home,” Mother said. “At least you’re home for now.”
Father was home on leave, and so, as long as he wore his uniform, no one could accuse him of being lazy just because he and Emil sat on a park bench overlooking the Danube River.
The sun poked through gray haze, long, spiky rays that bounced off the water.
“Beautiful,” Father said. “God is still in control of the weather.”
Meaning Hitler wasn’t.
“Father,” Emil said. There was so much he wanted to tell him, so much he needed him to know.
“Yes, Emil?”
