Saints and Villains

by Denise Giardina

  They climb the stairs to the first floor, pausing at window ledges and benches to leave little stacks of paper. The leaflet of the resistance. Sophie’s heart is pounding as they split up, head for staircases on opposite ends of the hall, race up to the second floor. They pause at doorways, glance around, drop the leaflets, hurry on.

  When they are done, they rush downstairs, out of breath. They look at each other and begin to laugh. Then Hans cries, “No, look, here are some more!” and points to an outside pocket on Sophie’s satchel where she has stuffed dozens of leaflets. “We mustn’t waste any!” And back upstairs they run, laughing, exhilarated by what they are doing, the audacity of it. They are just at the top again when the bell rings and doors fly open, but not before Sophie has the leaflets and flings them over the balustrade, where they flutter like white butterflies down to Medusa’s head three floors below. For a moment she has vertigo, feels as though she might slip over the railing herself, but she takes a deep breath and pushes herself away.

  Hans and Sophie are swallowed up by the mass of students flooding into the halls. They hold hands while around them people find the leaflets, cry out in surprise, or drop them in fear, or stuff them into their pockets. They follow the crush down the stairs to the ground floor, but when they reach the door their way is blocked by a janitor clutching a sheaf of leaflets. He grabs Sophie’s arm roughly.

  “You!” he cries. “And you!” to Hans. “You threw them from above. I saw you with my own eyes, didn’t I? You can’t get out, I’ve locked the doors.” Hans tries to pull Sophie from the man’s grasp, but a security guard appears, drawn by the hubbub. “Call the police! These two are under arrest!”

  FEBRUARY 19, 1943. Dietrich Bonhoeffer waits beside the Grunewaldsee. From time to time he glances at his watch. Because the weather is fine there are more people around, women walking in pairs, small children flying kites or pushing wooden boats along the water’s edge. Dietrich waits for three hours. Falk Harnack and his promised visitors from Munich never appear. At last, Dietrich turns and trudges home to the Marienburger Allee.

  In Munich the Gestapo ransack the flat in the Franz-Josef-Straße. They rip open cushions and strip books from their binding. They interrogate neighbors, and are led to the studio in the Leopoldstraße. They find paint and brushes. They find the mimeograph machine. They find names. Professor Huber. Willi Graf. Falk Harnack. Alex Schmorell, AKA Shurik.

  Shurik is a wanted man. His face is on posters going up all over Munich. A reward is offered. He goes the only place he knows to go, to Lilo.

  He has identification papers stolen from the body of a dead Russian laborer near the front, papers he has held on to for just such an emergency. He speaks Russian fluently, and thinks he can lose himself inside a labor camp. A hard life, but better than the alternative. Lilo helps him forge the papers, sleeps with him, sends him on his way with a warm meal.

  But just as he reaches the train station, the air-raid sirens go. He reluctantly follows the waiting passengers who jam their way down the steps into the shelter. It would not be wise, after all, to call attention to himself by trying to get away. He sits on a bench and tries to relax. Then he hears his name. “Shurik.”

  He doesn’t look up, pretends he hasn’t heard. But after a moment he glances furtively to his left. A young woman is staring at him. Marie Luise, a fellow student he seduced several months ago. He looks away, doesn’t hear his name again, tries to ignore the whispers and exclamations coming from the direction of Marie Luise. Until a man in a gray overcoat edges close and withdraws an identification badge from inside his coat.

  “Herr Schmorell, I believe? Hauptsturmführer Mohr of the Gestapo. The young lady was sure she recognized you. When the all clear is sounded, you will come with me, please.”

  Sophie Scholl knows nothing of this. She thinks Shurik has escaped, that he is safe. She does not know that Willi Graf and Falk Harnack and Professor Huber have been arrested. She and Hans are brought before Hitler’s favorite judge, Roland Freisler. He harangues the brother and sister, calls them scum, traitors, degenerates. Hans and Sophie stand silent.

  “How?” Freisler cries. “How could any German commit such heinous acts against the Fatherland?”

  Sophie looks up as though surprised at the question. She says, “Someone had to start.”

  FEBRUARY 23, 1943. Hans von Dohnanyi stands before the hearth at Sacrow, stares into the flames. Dietrich Bonhoeffer sits with his head in his hands.

  “Late last night,” Dohnanyi is saying. “Beheaded on the guillotine at Stadelheim, outside Munich. The girl went first. As a courtesy. Then her brother and the other students. And a professor from the university.”

  “Falk?”

  “They can’t place him in Munich on any of the days the leafleting and painting took place. He was always at his post in Poland. They’re suspicious because they found his name among the students’ papers, and then he’s Arvid’s brother. So, a life sentence in Dachau.”

  “And us?”

  “They’ve found no connection. How could they? There is none.”

  Dietrich looks up, takes off his glasses, and rubs his forehead.

  Dohnanyi watches him closely. “Is there?”

  Dietrich shakes his head.

  London

  February 1943

  THE RT. REV. George Bell was late in accepting that position which is the prerogative of a bishop of the Church of England—a seat in the House of Lords. As a man of the middle classes with more than a little sympathy for socialist programs, Bell instinctively bridled at automatic inclusion in such a bastion of privilege. It was the ever practical Hettie who pointed out that his club, the Athenaeum, was an equally exclusive old boys’ retreat and that he had never raised a moral quibble about joining it. “Because you enjoy your club,” she pointed out. “And the House of Lords, on the other hand, is an absolute bore.”

  When the war started he took Hettie’s advice, set principle aside, and accepted his seat in the chamber of peers and clerics. It was a larger pulpit, he decided, and one that might prove useful for advancing his concerns about the treatment of German refugees in Britain. The warmth of his personality made him many new friends; his persistent speeches on behalf of the refugees caused the members to shake their heads over their schedules and mutter, “Oh God, George again.”

  But there was no such good-natured consternation in late February when Bell was once more set to address the chamber, because word had it the subject would not be refugees at all. Bell, it was whispered incredulously, planned to take the government to task for the bombing of German cities. The bishop himself did not deny it—he was most anxious that the tenor of his speech be known ahead of time so that it might draw the widest possible attention. Nor was he surprised to receive an urgent summons, the day before the speech, to meet with the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace.

  Archbishop Lang was dying. Though the nature of his illness was not discussed in public, it was presumed that he had cancer, and that he would not live out the year. Lang was understandably sensitive about the subject of his imminent demise, and it was customary among his clergy not to remark upon the archbishop’s health unless he himself introduced the subject. He did so now, seated stubbornly at his desk, his back cushioned by several pillows.

  “A bad day today,” he said. The hard edge of his voice and the skin drawn tautly over his cheekbones left little doubt that he was in pain. “I’ll be brief for your sake and mine. This speech you plan to deliver to the House of Lords is extremely ill-advised.”

  “Yes,” Bell agreed. “I suppose Jesus got the same advice when he decided to go to Jerusalem.”

  Lang looked momentarily angry, then a spasm of pain wiped his face clean. He said, “George, you aren’t Jesus.”

  “No,” Bell said. “I beg your pardon.”

  “Spiritually arrogant, George. Bishop Temple has described you that way. And quite frankly, in this instance, I’m inclined to agree.”

  Bell wa
ited.

  “The general assumption for quite a few years has been that when I am gone, you will be named the next Archbishop of Canterbury,” Lang continued. “If you give this speech, you can forget about sitting at this desk. The see will go to Temple instead.”

  “That is most likely,” Bell said. “But it can’t be helped.”

  “Can’t it?”

  Bell leaned forward. “I had hoped I might have your support. A slim hope, I realize. But you are as familiar as I am with the teachings of the church concerning war. The killing of noncombatants is never to be allowed, and yet our bombers are specifically targeting civilian areas of German cities. I had hoped you might join me in expressing concern about the deaths of women and children.”

  “I am not at all disposed to be the mouthpiece of this concern of yours, because I do not share it. And when I am asked by the press to respond to this issue, as I surely shall be, that is what I shall say. You’ll stand alone, George.”

  “Women and children, Gordon. Old people. Sick people.”

  “German women and children and old people. The Germans started this war, and the Germans have certainly shown no compunction about taking the lives of British civilians.”

  “Jesus didn’t say we should do unto others as they do unto us.”

  The search for words sent shocks of pain from the base of Lang’s skull down along his spine. He shut his eyes. “We are at war. And I am no pacifist. Nor can you expect most Christians to be pacifists, and most especially you cannot expect pacifist behavior from the government which is charged with protecting us all. And my God, what of those brave young men who are dying every day in their airplanes just to keep you safe?”

  Bell bowed his head. “I have nothing but the utmost love and admiration for those young men. I baptized some of them, you know, confirmed them, counseled them, performed their weddings. I bury them, too, Gordon. Nothing I say will in any way condemn them. But their leaders should be sending them against military targets. I doubt that many of those young airmen enjoy burning people alive in the streets of Hamburg and Munich.”

  Lang shook his head. “Those young men will be appalled by your speech. They will feel personally attacked, and so they should. They know you don’t fight a war from a pacifist position.”

  “I’m not a pacifist. Have you ever known me to call myself a pacifist? And you know as well as anyone I have been consistently anti-Nazi.”

  “Then your position makes no sense,” Lang said. “How do you destroy the Nazis and the threat they present if you deny the means of that destruction?”

  Bell sighed. “I’ll admit the inconsistency of my position. But people have to come first, and they come first in different ways, depending upon the situation. We’re being consistent now, responding with the immoral methods the enemy has chosen first to use against us. When all is over, this country will be the worse off for having done that. The world will be worse off. When one is consistent, Gordon, there’s no going back.”

  Lang turned his head gingerly and stared out the high Gothic windows of Lambeth at the gray Thames. “There’s no reconciling our positions, George, and I’m growing very weary. I must leave you to make your decision.”

  “It is already made,” Bell said.

  He walked to the podium amid a low murmur. Every eye followed. Sir Robert Vansittart, who had clashed so often with Bell over the refugee question, had a conspicuous seat on the front row. There was only one half-friendly gesture when a man he vaguely knew as a retired naval admiral plucked at Bell’s sleeve as he passed. Bell paused, and the admiral whispered, “Every man here knows what you are going to say, and every man here wishes you wouldn’t say it. But of course, you must do your duty.”

  Bell nodded gratefully at this small kindness and pressed on through the thick still air of the upper chamber. At the podium he took his reading glasses from a coat pocket and set them on his nose, looked down at his notes, then up.

  “I have been fond of saying,” he began, “that every good sermon should contain a shot of heresy. It may be true as well that every good speech, in time of war, should contain a shot of treason.”

  There was a gasp, and the low murmur began again. He waited calmly for it to die down.

  “We are in the midst of waging a war for survival against a vicious enemy, the Nazi government of the Third Reich. As I hope you all know, I have been an outspoken opponent of the Nazis since their accession to power in Germany in 1933. I as much as anyone long for the day when this war ends, and it must end with the utter defeat and destruction of Adolf Hitler and his cohorts. But I must say to you, Hitler’s defeat will do no good if his legacy is passed on to us.”

  Mutters, and a few scattered boos.

  “Step by step, we on the Allied side have become numbed to what is right and wrong, so that which seemed unacceptable in 1939 or 1940 is now commonplace. The targeting of civilians for bombing was called barbaric when Hitler did it at the beginning of this war. And rightly so. Now we ourselves have taken on the mantle of barbarism as we return bomb for bomb, firestorm for firestorm, death for death. If we do not stop now, we shall never see an end, not in our lifetimes, not ever.”

  He was speaking more and more loudly to be heard over the rising cat-calls. He paused to catch his breath and cried, “Can we truly fight fascism with the methods of fascism?”

  The outcry was so loud he could no longer be heard. He stood for what seemed an eternity until the din subsided into a sudden, eerie silence. Bell removed his glasses and looked straight at his audience.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, “I am speaking to you as a churchman. The gospel is a gospel of redeeming love. Though all the resources of the state are concentrated on winning the war, the church is not part of those resources. The church must preach the gospel of redemption.”

  He stuffed his notes in his pocket. In a relentless silence broken by his own footfalls, he left the hall.

  Hettie tried to hide the newspapers from him but soon gave it up. Headlines and editorials in the Times, the tabloids, even the Guardian, called him a fool at best, a traitor at worst. The Archbishop of Canterbury denounced him, as did a host of other bishops, clergy, military chaplains. He tried to ignore the chilly disapproval he met, or fancied he met, as he went about his pastoral rounds in the diocese. For solace he turned to Sabine and Gerhard Leibholz. And of course to Hettie, who remained outwardly unfazed, even when her ladies’ book circle asked her to stop attending meetings.

  The only time he broke down was at the third anniversary of the Battle of Britain, when the dean of his own Cathedral of Chichester informed him he would be unwelcome at the memorial service commemorating fallen fliers. Bell nodded and turned pale, but said nothing. At home, when he tried to tell Hettie, he began to weep. She sat beside him on the sofa and cradled his head to her breast.

  When he could speak, he said, “I wonder if Dietrich listens to the BBC?”

  V-Mann

  March 1943

  DIETRICH WAS LISTENING to a report of the Bishop of Chichester’s speech on the BBC, along with Christel and Hans von Dohnanyi. They were in the Dohnanyi bedroom watching Hans pack a suitcase. He was to travel to East Prussia on the night train and wanted Dietrich to drive him to the railway station in Dr. Karl Bonhoeffer’s automobile. As a physician, Karl Bonhoeffer was one of the few civilians with access to petrol. But Dohnanyi’s position in the Abwehr meant he too had a car. Dietrich wondered why he was needed, but didn’t ask. Hans would tell him in good time.

  “Your friend the bishop is right,” Christel was saying. She had been doing volunteer work in the underground wards at the Charité, reading books in badly lit bomb shelters to children with shattered limbs and critical burns. The bomb damage in Berlin was still relatively light, but the Dohnanyi and Bonhoeffer families often spent the night in their own sandbagged shelters dug into back gardens.

  “Yes,” Dietrich said, “but the moral responsibility is ours. We started all this.”

  “The c
hildren didn’t,” Christel insisted.

  “No,” Dietrich agreed.

  Hans seemed to be only half listening as he took the folded clothes Christel offered him and arranged them in the small suitcase. “The blue socks,” he said. “The brown ones have a hole in the toe.”

  “You should have told me before,” said his wife. “I would have mended them.”

  “I kept forgetting,” Dohnanyi said absently. Then, “It’s also true, you know, that the bombing makes our task more difficult. Even people who despise Hitler are afraid to turn against him. They think he is their only protection.”

  Dietrich shook his head. “I’m sick of making excuses for the German people and for myself.”

  Dohnanyi looked up. “Are you?”

  “My dear, what are you doing?” Christel scolded. “You’ve shoved your clothes to the edge of the suitcase and left a hole in the middle. Everything will be wrinkled.”

  “I’m making a nest,” Dohnanyi said.

  She laughed. “A nest? Are you laying eggs, then?”

  “Precisely. A nest for this.” He opened the drawer that held his underwear and took out a small package wrapped in plain brown paper.

  “What is it?”

  “Guess.”

  “Soap,” Christel said. “Real soap. Not for some East Prussian mistress, I hope.”

  Dohnanyi groaned. “So little faith. But it’s a bad guess anyway. Why would soap need a nest of clothes?”

  “It’s breakable then,” Dietrich said. “A bottle. No, two flasks wrapped together, you can see where they meet. Liqueur, I’d bet.”