The Girl from Berlin
Standartenführer’s Wife
Ellie Midwood
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
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The Girl from Berlin: Standartenführer’s Wife. Copyright © 2015 by Ellie Midwood. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
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www.elliemidwood.com
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Designed by Melody Simmons
Prologue
Nuremberg, 1946
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After signing in the third (and the last) book, Heinrich Friedmann was finally admitted to the prisoner. The measures of the security in the prison (and the place of confinement of the man he was about to see) were unprecedented, he noticed to himself, but again, they were aimed not at some regular inmate but the highest-ranking SS officer, the Allies had been lucky enough to catch alive.
After an MP Officer had opened the door to the holding cell, Heinrich couldn’t help but notice how much the man had changed. He didn’t look like the SS leader who even Heinrich Himmler feared just a year ago; neither did he look like a “gas chamber expert” as the British media had so easily pronounced him. No hostility was left in him; on the contrary, it seemed like he was genuinely happy to see his visitor. Heinrich smiled back at the man and firmly shook his hand.
“Friedmann, of all people, I was expecting you the least. But I’m very glad you came to see me. Sometimes they just leave me here for days. Even my doctor doesn’t want to talk to me if I’m not borderline dying.”
Heinrich smiled but shook his head disapprovingly.
“You’ve lost a lot of weight. Don’t they feed you here at all?”
“They do. I’m not really hungry most of the time.”
They both paused for a second. Then Heinrich, as if remembering what he came for, took some papers out of the folder and put them on the table next to the prisoner’s bed.
“This is all I could get. Translations of your negotiations with the Red Cross, witnesses’ statements, some orders stamped at your office… Well, your attorney will explain everything to you in detail, he’s already working on the originals.”
The man sadly smiled at the papers.
“I don’t even know why you bothered, Heinrich. They already told me they’re going to hang me no matter what. Pohl’s dead. Müller’s dead. Himmler’s dead. I’m the one who has to pay the tab when everyone’s left the table.”
Heinrich Friedmann took a deep breath and thought of saying something, but at the last moment changed his mind. What was the point in consoling him now? He was right, his fate had already been decided, and even if God Almighty himself would come down from heaven and bear witness to the man’s defense, they would still execute him. Because they had to. Because somebody had to pay for the atrocities of the whole top of the former Reich.
It wasn’t that the man was innocent, not at all. And he certainly was guilty of the crimes he was accused of. But Heinrich was one of only a few people who could understand him, and although he could not justify his actions, he could feel sorry for him. After all, Heinrich was a German as well, and more than that, he took the same oath of loyalty as the man did. They were former SS brothers, but still on the opposite side of the tracks.
“She would be happy to know that I did whatever I could to help you,” Heinrich finally said. The man just nodded and looked at the concrete floor.
“How’s the boy doing?”
“He’s doing great.” Heinrich’s expression lightened right away, and a genuine smile played on his lips. “But growing too fast. He just started getting up on his feet not too long ago and already he’s running around like crazy.”
The man smiled too, but his brown eyes remained sad.
“You’re going to take good care of him, right?”
“Of course I am.”
“Thank you. For everything.”
Heinrich just nodded, and both men remained silent for a minute, thinking of what would have happened to them if the war hadn’t started if it didn’t change their lives so much if they hadn’t been forced to make the decisions they had made. What if… but whatever happened – happened, and both knew that nothing else could have been done for the both of them.
They started talking. Heinrich knew that it was probably the last time he’d see the man alive and wanted to tell him as much as he could, and not as a nemesis, as he used to consider him not too long ago, but as a brother. With their Nazi uniforms long gone they could finally leave the war, with its terrors and broken lives behind, and once and for all come to peace with each other. Each wiped a tear at some point and finally, when nothing else was left to say, they grabbed each other in a last tight brother’s embrace.
Heinrich was already leaving, but at the last moment, already after shaking the man’s hand, said, “Maybe you want to write her a small note? Just… you know… to say goodbye?”
The man was silent for a moment and then hesitantly shook his head.
“I don’t think I should.”
“Just a small note. She doesn’t have anything left from you, and that note, I know for sure, she will keep and cherish for the rest of her life.”
The man finally nodded.
“I guess you’re right.”
He sat at the table, took a pencil in his hand and raised his eyes to Heinrich.
“I don’t really know what to say.”
“Just write, ‘To Emma. Ernst.’ That’ll be enough for her.”
The man looked at the paper a little longer and wrote a couple of sentences. Heinrich didn’t look at the paper even though he knew that all the prisoner’s correspondence was checked by an MP. But he wouldn’t dare read it. It was between the two of them. After the man had finished writing, he folded the paper in two and handed it to Heinrich. They exchanged their final handshakes, and Heinrich left with a very heavy heart. For some reason, a survivor’s guilt was taking over him.
The MP Officer at the first checking point opened the note without hesitation and smirked after reading it. Heinrich cringed inside. All of them openly expressed their hatred towards the prisoner and never missed a chance to pick on him.
“‘Thank you for seeing the good in me that even I thought didn’t exist anymore. You are the only woman who knew the real me, and for that, I will be forever grateful to you.
To Emma, the only woman I’ve truly loved.’ Oh, please! Again the show for the judges? I swear to God; this guy is desperate!”
“It’s clearly not for everybody’s eyes,” Heinrich replied with a hardly masked animosity.
“Of course it is. He knows that we check his correspondence and tries to make an impression of almost an angel fallen from the sky! Nobody’s buying his bullshit here. Who is it for anyway?” The MP Officer turned the note and looked at the name on it. “‘Emma Rosenberg, personally.’ Never heard of her before. Another girlfriend?”
He was already returning the note to Heinrich when he suddenly stopped and looked at the name again.
“Wait, isn’t Rosenberg a Jewish name?”
“It sure is.”
“But… it means he was in love wit
h a Jewish girl?”
“Yes, he was. And not only were they in love, they have a son together. Ernst Ferdinand Rosenberg-Kaltenbrunner.”
The MP Officer’s face became very long, much to Heinrich’s pleasure.
“The guy who gassed millions of Jews had a son with a Jewish girl?!”
“Yes.”
Heinrich took the note from the shocked MP’s hands and put it in his inner pocket.
“Good day, Officer.”
“Wait! Do you know her?”
Heinrich turned around and looked the MP Officer straight in the eye.
“Yes. She’s my wife.”
Chapter One
Berlin, 1929
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My father always said that I was a strange girl. When all the normal children were excited to go to school to learn something new and, what’s more important, to play with their friends, I would quite often skip my classes and run away to practice my dancing on one of the sunlit squares of Berlin, not too far from my house. This time our housekeeper, Gryselda, who was just coming back from the grocer with the shopping bag, saw me working on my pirouettes and almost had a heart attack.
“What do you think you’re doing goofing around when you’re supposed to be studying, Fräulein? And how did you even manage to run away when your mother took you to the class herself?”
“She only took me to the porch, Gryselda. As soon as she left, I left too. I don’t like all those children and don’t want to be friends with them! Besides, I don’t need to study. I’ll be a famous prima-ballerina when I grow up.”
Unfortunately, my argument didn’t have any effect on the old woman, and I was taken to school once again, but this time my “guardian” made sure that I actually entered the class.
I couldn’t help myself. I didn’t like other children. They were noisy, obnoxious, disorganized, and most of the time acted like a bunch of monkeys in the zoo. And no matter how much my father encouraged me to participate in their savage games, I much more preferred the company of the grownups, whether it be my parents’ guests, Gryselda, our family doctor, Dr. Kramer, or my father’s law students, who were occasionally stopping by to work with him on some cases.
I especially loved our family dinners when we had visitors over. My mother would dress me up like a little doll and remind me a million times not to play around with my food and not to ask our guests any silly questions. The first accusation was quite insulting for me as I was always a perfect eater unlike my big brother, Norbert, who was always either feeding our dog Milo under the table or trying to build a fort from the chicken bones on his plate.
As for my “silly questions,” I didn’t think they were silly at all. It was 1929 and everybody was talking about this new, infamous Nazi leader, Hitler, so my curiosity was quite justified. After all, not every new political leader gets their party banished in Berlin, so I wanted to know what all the fuss was about. The adults seemed to be quite concerned about that man, and even though I was only nine, I was listening very attentively to every word they were saying. I somehow sensed that in the near future it would concern me in some strange, inexplicable way.
My father confirmed my suspicions later that year, when, for the first time in my life, he had “an adult” conversation with Norbert and me; for the first time he spoke to us in his study and behind the closed doors, and we’d never before seen him so serious.
“My dear children, I want you to listen and listen good. This is a very serious matter, and you are not to talk about it with anybody else, do you understand? The safety of our whole family depends on that. I’m not worried about you, Annalise, you hardly speak to any children; as for you, son, you are never to mention what I’m going to tell you today to a single living soul, do you understand?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Do you remember how I used to tell you bedtime stories about your great-grandparents?”
“About how they came to Berlin from Poland because the government didn’t want them there?”
“Yes, my little princess, I’m glad you remembered it so well. But now I want you to forget that it ever happened, agreed?”
“I don’t understand, Papa…”
“You will, with time you will, girl, just forget that we’re Jewish. You remember how I told you that the Polish government took all of your great-grandfather’s property? And he had a lot of money, he was a jeweler and a very successful one. Luckily for us today, your great-grandparents were smart enough to adopt German names and converted to Protestantism when they first came to this country in order to never lose their possessions again and for you to never be oppressed like they were.”
“But you can’t technically convert to the other religion according to the Jewish law, can you?” Along with a lot of qualities, Norbert shared my curiosity and never missed a chance to ask “silly questions.” The unfair part was that he was five years older than me and, unlike mine, they weren’t considered that silly anymore.
“You’re right, Norbert, technically you can’t.”
“Does it mean we’re still Jewish?”
“That’s exactly what I want you children, to forget, once and for all. If someone asks, we are not Jewish, never were; we are multiple generation Germans, we are descendants of the Aryan race and good, faithful Protestants. Deal?”
“Is it because the Nazis don’t like the Jews?”
“Yes, son. And I’m afraid, after what happened in New York with their stock market crashing, people will turn to them and will start listening to all their sickening ideas.”
“But it happened in New York, what does it have to do with us?”
“People got scared, Norbert. Germany finally just got back on its feet after that devastating war, people were finally working and starting to get wealthy again; the economy was strong and nobody needed them. And now people realize that the Nazi Party might be the only option that will keep Germany afloat. They got scared, son, and sometimes that’s the fastest way to disaster.”
I didn’t like my first “adult” conversation. I never imagined it to be the way it was. But we promised our father to keep our mouths shut, and we did. Besides, for New Year’s I got a new pair of pointe shoes and a beautiful blue tutu that I was wearing without taking off for days, and I completely forgot all about the bad feeling I had after the talk with my father. But I still didn’t like the Nazis and involuntarily scrunched my nose every time someone mentioned them.
I remembered my eleventh birthday for two reasons: just a couple of weeks prior I got accepted to the advanced ballet school I was dreaming about, and as a present for my big day my mother had one of our huge closets remodeled into my own personal little ballroom with mirrors along the wall and the barres to exercise with. I couldn’t be happier when I first saw it.
The second reason was a sad one. While Gryselda was preparing the dinner, my mother and I were setting the table for my birthday party (everything that included art, etiquette, and good manners was my biggest passion, and nobody could put together silverware better and neater than me). I was folding the napkins with such enthusiasm that I didn’t even hear my father enter the room. But what I heard coming from my mother instead of her regular happy greeting surprised me to no end.
“What is that thing on your lapel, Richart?”
“It’s my Nazi Party pin. Could you make me a drink, please?”
“I will not make you anything until you tell me why you even thought about bringing that thing home, let alone ‘proudly’ wearing it on your jacket?! What does it mean anyway? You belong to the Nazi Party now?”
“Ilsa, please, I’m begging you, I had a very difficult day at work, please, make me that goddamn drink and then I’ll answer all your questions. Hello, my little princess!”
“Hi, Papa!”
He gave me a hug and kissed me on both cheeks.
“I swear to God, you’re getting tinier and tinier every day I see you! Aren’t you supposed to get bigger?”
“I am getting
bigger! I’m getting taller, if that’s what you mean, Mama measured me today! But I can’t get fatter because our new teacher yells at the girls who, as she says, eat too much. She says our partners won’t be able to support us during the dancing if we’re too big.”
“What is she talking about? You’re only children, you need food to grow!”
“I eat my food, Papa. What’s that?” I couldn’t help but notice the little golden pin on my father’s lapel with the Nazi Party symbol on it. Obviously, this little thing was the reason Papa got in trouble with my mother.
“You know how doctors and lawyers need diplomas to practice what they do, princess? And that without those diplomas nobody would take them seriously, and they wouldn’t be considered specialists?”
“Yes.”
“Well, this little pin is Papa’s new diploma. Very soon, without this little pin, no matter how good you are at what you do, you won’t be able to get a good job or keep your practice, baby. It’s like a high school diploma, but for the grownups, and soon it’ll be mandatory for everyone to have one.”
My mother, who was standing all this time at the door with my father’s cognac in her hand, just shook her head and silently passed it to him.
“Don’t insert your wild ideas into our daughter’s head, please!”
“It’s not my wild ideas, Ilsa. It’s just the way it is.”
“Don’t you think you’re exaggerating? Mandatory? It’s not like they’re taking over the whole of Germany!”
“They are the second biggest political party in the country, Ilsa, and most of the upper class are the ones who are funding them. So, yes, I would say they are taking over the whole of Germany.” My father, who wasn’t really a big drinker, finished off his glass in one gulp and continued in a much milder voice. “I didn’t really have a choice, Süße. I spoke to my partner, Kauffmann, and he advised me to join them sooner rather than later. He has friends in the Party, and he told me that it will only be getting worse. Their whole idea is that who’s not with them is against them. Do you know what I saw today on my way home? A young, well-dressed man panhandling on the sidewalk. Maybe he used to be a plumber or a factory worker, who knows? And now he probably doesn’t have any money to feed his children. I’m only trying to protect my family here and make sure we always have bread on our table even when the rest of the country is starving. That’s the least I can do.”
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