The Girl from Berlin: War Criminal's Widow

by Ellie Midwood

  “Why don’t you go inside the house?” he finally said. “I want to go for a ride.”

  “Where are you going?” I whispered.

  “I don’t know yet. I just need to be alone. Please, go.”

  I understood. I nodded several times and opened the door.

  “Heinrich, I’m so sorry!” I said once again, already on the street.

  “Close the door, will you?”

  I closed the door and watched my husband drive away. What if he never comes back? What if he never comes back to me? I pressed my hand to my mouth trying to stop uncontrollable sobbing. My husband, my confidante, my best friend, my co-conspirator might never want to see me again, and it was all my fault. For a moment I regretted that Ernst hadn’t shot me.

  _______________

  Our housekeeper Magda left a long time ago after serving me dinner, which I hardly touched. All of a sudden the silence of a big house made me feel so abandoned and alone that I secretly started hoping for another bombing raid by the British, so I wouldn’t have to stay here all by myself.

  It was long past twelve, and Heinrich still hadn’t come back. I tried to read a book but couldn’t concentrate and kept re-reading the same line because my thoughts were constantly drifting off. Sugar, the little white Maltese, who Ernst brought right after my old dog Milo had been killed by a revenge seeking Rebekah, jumped on my lap and curled into a little warm fur ball. At least she still loved me.

  After the clock struck two, I went upstairs to the bedroom. I still had to be up for work in the morning, and hoped that maybe Heinrich would talk to me there. If he’d want to talk to me at all. But Heinrich came back even before I fell asleep. I sat up in my bed as soon as I heard his steps on the stairs, both happy and afraid at the same time. Happy that he was here with me again, and afraid that he might have stopped by just to pick up several shirts and to let me know that he’d be living someplace else before we got an official divorce. My heart skipped a beat at that last thought.

  Heinrich opened the door and stopped in the doorway. I thought of turning the lamp on, but then decided not to.

  “Did I wake you up?”

  “No, I wasn’t sleeping.”

  He paused for a moment, and then walked up to the bed and sat on its edge.

  “Do you remember when we just got married I told you that if any other man touches you, I’ll kill him?”

  I stopped breathing. I think that he saw the horror reflected in my eyes even in the dark, because he smiled and shook his head.

  “No, I didn’t kill him. Even though it was my initial thought. I actually drove up to his house and even took my gun out, but then I thought that it wouldn’t change anything.” Heinrich brushed the hair off my face. “And you got scared. Didn’t say anything, like a good spy, but I still noticed.”

  I lowered my eyes. What was the point in denying anything if he could read me like an open book?

  “Just answer me this, Annalise, and please, answer honestly: do you love him?”

  I was dreading that question, and this time kept my mouth shut as I would have during the worst interrogation in the Gestapo jail. Because I knew that the answer would break my husband’s heart.

  “You do, don’t you?” I wished that he would scream and break everything around us, instead of looking at me so sympathetically with his kind eyes. I didn’t deserve any sympathy. I hated myself. “I know you do. I saw how you two look at each other.”

  “Heinrich, no.”

  “I don’t blame you, Annalise. It’s not your fault. It’s all my fault. I got you involved into all this. If it wasn’t for me, you’d never put your life in danger working for the counterintelligence, if it wasn’t for me, you’d never have to get involved with the RSHA and all those monstrous people inside, you’d never have to see what’s going on in the camps, you’d never have to sacrifice yourself for me. It was me. I agreed with Ingrid that you should become friendly with Kaltenbrunner, I kept pushing you right into his arms; I should have known that no information is worth it… It was all my fault.”

  “No, Heinrich, don’t say that.” Crying again, I took his face in my hands. “It’s not your fault, you didn’t make me do anything. It’s me, I’m the horrible, horrible person, I’m the horrible wife, I never deserved you, Heinrich, you’re too good for me…”

  “You don’t know what you’re saying.” Heinrich gently wiped the tears from my face. “You’re an angel, Annalise. I’ve never seen a girl who’d risk her life for somebody else like you did so many times, for me, for Adam, for your parents, for the people. You, like nobody else, deserve to be happy. Even if it means with somebody else.”

  “Heinrich, please, don’t say that…”

  “Do you want me to give you a divorce?” He asked me so kindly that I broke into hysterical sobs even more. “Do you want to be with him? I know that he’ll divorce his wife for you too. And then you can be together and… happy.”

  “But I’m happy with you, Heinrich! Please, don’t do this to me, please don’t leave me!”

  “I’m not leaving you, silly, I’m setting you free. So you can be with the one you love.”

  “I love you, Heinrich!”

  “But you love him too.”

  “No, I love you more! You’re my husband, I can’t live without you!” He was looking me in the eyes, and I wouldn’t let go off his hand. “You always know when I’m lying and when I’m not. You know that I’m telling the truth. Please, don’t leave me.”

  “I know, sweetheart. I know.” Heinrich gently pressed me to his chest, and I wrapped my arms around him as tight as I could. “I’d never leave you unless you wanted me to.”

  I never thought that it was possible to love two men at the same time. And yet I did.

  I took a deep breath and said, “I’ll stop it with him, I promise.”

  “No, you can’t, not at least till the end of the war,” Heinrich said flatly, as if we were discussing another operation and not my relationship with another man. “Now, especially that he knows all about our counterintelligence work, we need to have him as a friend and not as an enemy. Just pretend that nothing’s going on, will you? I don’t want to know anything.”

  I nodded and buried my face in his uniform jacket. My Heinrich, my angel, he still loved me after all I did.

  Chapter 2

  My Erni turned out to be much less tolerant. Perhaps because he was an impulsive Austrian, unlike Heinrich, who was more reserved, with his Northern German emotions, or perhaps because he was again drinking that day, after reading the news from the Eastern front; I still don’t know. I helped him carry the paperwork to the garage, but then he let his driver go and asked me, no, actually told me to go home with him. Maybe he was lonely and upset again, he wouldn’t tell; he didn’t like sharing his emotions with anybody.

  He didn’t make me stay all night with him; I never told him that Heinrich knew about us, and Ernst finally let me go, even though with visible reluctance. He was getting more and more possessive of me, and very jealous even of my lawful husband, despite the obvious absurdity of such a situation. But that’s just the way he was, my Erni, he wanted it all or nothing.

  Another reason why he was craving my company so much was the conversations we had started having recently. We would have dinner, and after he would let his housekeeper go, we would go to the living room, where he would sit in front of the fireplace and smoke non-stop, and I would sit by him in a chair with my legs under my seat, and listen to what he had to say.

  Ernst had a lot to say, about the situation on the front, about the extermination program, about the prisoners of war, about the Einsatzgruppen and the possible ways Germany could get out of the war without too many losses. He had all those thoughts before, but surrounded by the same soldiers, who were blindly obedient to the Führer, he wouldn’t allow himself to even look into things. He kept following orders even though he knew deep inside that they were wrong and unjust, but still put his signature on another stack of prote
ctive custody orders.

  “I will never forget that look that you gave me when you first saw what I was signing.” He smiled bitterly and lit another cigarette. “It was the mix of utmost disgust and despise. I wanted to shoot you right there. And then shoot myself. You have very expressive eyes, you know.”

  I never thought that it mattered to him, my looks or my judgements. He couldn’t explain it either, and would only get angry when I’d ask him why. I stopped asking; he didn’t like anybody trying to get inside his mind. So, I just sat by his side quietly, and listened.

  “If we get in contact with the Allies now, if we offer them peace on our terms, they won’t open the second front, there will be no need to.” Ernst got up and started pacing around the room, which he always did while contemplating on something in his office. “The Soviets… I don’t know what their demands will be, but I’m sure whatever it is, it still won’t be as bad as an absolute defeat, towards which we’re moving slowly but imminently. But who can speak on behalf of the whole nation except for the Führer? He will never agree to that, and had already ordered to execute any person suspected in defeatism or negotiations with the enemy. What can be possibly done in this situation?”

  Ernst stopped and looked at me at a loss. More than anything I wanted to help him and give him the right answer, but he was right through and through: nothing could be done while Hitler was in power.

  “On the other hand, if we can’t talk to the Allies openly yet, maybe we can do something else.” He looked at the fire again and rubbed his chin with a pensive look on his face. “We can start small. Let’s say, stop the persecution of the church. And we definitely have to stop the extermination of the Jews and the Soviet prisoners of war. The Allies will never forgive us that.”

  “How are you going to stop it?”

  “I’ll talk to Reichsführer. Or maybe even the Führer,” Ernst answered simply.

  “You’re not serious, are you?” I raised my eyebrow at him.

  “I have never been more serious in my life.”

  “So let me get this straight: you’ll walk up to Reichsführer Himmler and say, ‘Hey, I was thinking, why don’t we stop killing Jews and Bolsheviks?’ If he doesn’t send you to the mental institution or order to execute you right away, he’ll ask, ‘Why?’ To that you’ll say something like, ‘Oh, no reason. I started sleeping with a Jewish girl, and you know, they’re not as bad as the Minister of Propaganda Dr. Goebbels portrays them as being. You should try it yourself.’ Is that what you’re saying?”

  Ernst laughed.

  “I had something a little different in mind, but I like your idea better.”

  “You’re joking again, and I’m speaking seriously. You’ll put your life in great danger if you do something like that.”

  “I won’t. They all know by now that the Chief of the RSHA Kaltenbrunner is an insane and uncontrollable eccentric, who drinks too much and doesn’t always think what he says. In case Reichsführer gets too mad about my ideas, I’ll just apologize the next day and blame it on bad French cognac. He’ll understand.”

  “I don’t want you to get in trouble,” I repeated again.

  Ernst walked to my chair and sat beside me on the floor, smiling from ear to ear.

  “It’s very nice to know that you care so much about me.”

  “Of course I care.”

  “Would you get upset if they decided to execute me?”

  “Ernst! Why would you even say that?”

  “Would you cry on my grave?”

  “What is it with you today?! Stop saying such horrible things!”

  He laughed again and pulled me down by my waist until I was sitting on his lap, wrapped in the familiar smell of his cigarettes, cologne and woolen uniform.

  “I’m just teasing you, Annalise. I solemnly swear to you right here and now that no one will even catch me alive or execute me, neither our Gestapo, nor the Allies. They can’t kill me, I’m Ernst Kaltenbrunner. I’m too handsome and too much fun, they won’t dare!”

  I smiled at the playful expression on his face.

  “Erni… Why do I love you so?”

  _______________

  The say don’t speak of death not to attract it. And that’s exactly what Ernst had done by all his ‘execution’ talk immediately prior to our trip to the Czech Republic for the inspection of the new diversionists training camp. Naturally, when we were just making our way to the Protectorate on the private plane, we had no idea that a simple inspection of Otto Skorzeny’s new favorite ‘playground’ would put our lives in danger. Or maybe Heydrich, whose assassination was carried out in this very country under our control, decided to exact revenge from the underworld… However, we both didn’t believe in the underworld, only in the living and the dead, so, such a possibility was highly unlikely.

  As soon as we landed in a small military airport, we were cordially greeted by Otto – Ernst’s fellow Austrian and his most loyal friend, who insisted that we head to the training camp immediately. He was talking non-stop in the car and could hardly contain his excitement; he was proudly explaining what great results he had achieved only in a matter of weeks in turning the young and unexperienced soldiers into deadly machines, ready to strike at the very heart of the enemy’s positions.

  It was Ernst’s idea to set up the same training program, which the British were using for quite some time on Churchill’s orders, and rumors had it that that very program was responsible for training the two agents responsible for Heydrich’s death. Having planned the former Chief of the RSHA’s assassination, neither Ernst nor I cared too much who was training the two Czechs, we only needed them to carry out their mission.

  However, after the deed was done, the British program remained a big pain in the neck for the external intelligence department. As soon as he took over the RSHA, Ernst came up with the idea to at least create the same pain in the neck for the British, if he couldn’t stop the program itself. As expected, he handed the administration and the training of the recruits to his most trusted friend and the most dangerous diversionist in the Reich, Otto Skorzeny. The 6 foot 2 Otto, who even resembled Ernst with his mane of dark hair and scars on the left side of his face from the student dueling years, couldn’t wait to prove that his boss made the right choice.

  Inside the training facilities, which consisted of several warehouses and a big field separated into different obstacle courses, Ernst requested that the trainees would continue their routine without interruption to salute him and freeze at attention, which they were prescribed to do. He didn’t care for all that ‘pointless saluting’ too much; all the Chief of the RSHA wanted was efficiency.

  “We actually surpassed the British in both training and productivity.” Otto handed Ernst a file with statistics for three months, the period during which he had successfully trained and infiltrated over a hundred agents into different countries. “We’re using more techniques, varying from surviving in the most extreme situations to killing an armed opponent with bare hands. And I’m especially proud to report that seventy percent of the agents, who had already carried out their missions, stayed alive and ready for new commands. Just to compare, the mortality rate amongst the British agents is eighty five percent. They’re basically training them to complete the mission and die, but no one informs them of that.”

  “Otto, I knew you wouldn’t disappoint me!” Ernst patted the beaming diversionist on the back, causing several envious looks from the officers escorting us. The Austrians (Otto made sure that almost all the commanding officers were of the same decent) worshiped their former SS leader Dr. Kaltenbrunner, and they all, including Otto, harbored the same desire – to receive the praise of Dr. Kaltenbrunner. “We don’t want those young men killed, we want them alive and working, so, make sure that the mortality rate stays the same or even lower than now.”

  “Jawohl, Herr Obergruppenführer!” Otto gladly clicked his heels and invited us for a special demonstration of staged training scenarios that mimicked real life
situations, played out by the camp trainees.

  I had to admit that I was quite impressed with the strength and agility of the future agents, throwing themselves under cars, which drove past them, and planting the bombs under the bumper without hurting themselves, climbing almost flat walls and even successfully balancing on the thinnest ledges blindfolded. Ernst and I clapped when one of the men quickly disarmed his three opponents, using only his hands and quick, precise movements. I was very surprised that women were also participating in the program, and I had to give them that, they were on the same level as men, and some even better.

  “It’s very convenient to have female agents,” Otto went on to explain. “Mostly they expect men to carry out actual diversions. Women’s role so far has been limited to posing as a sexually attractive bait or a radio operator at the most. No one expects to see one of these pretty girls actually fight off a man, so we have a big advantage here. Would you mind a little demonstration?”

  Ernst decided to tease his friend, who was so self-assured in his success, and came up with a better idea.

  “Perhaps she can use me as part of her demonstration?” He nodded in the direction of one of the girls, waiting for her superior’s command. “Let’s see if they’re really as good as you say. If she can disarm me, I’ll personally raise your funding by fifty percent.”

  “Are you sure?” Otto whispered inaudibly, making sure that no one from the entourage heard him. “I mean… they’re deadly, these women!”

  “I think I can handle a girl,” Ernst sneered back at him.

  Otto shrugged and motioned a young and very fit girl to come close, as Ernst took the ammo out of his gun. She looked determined not to disappoint her commanding officer, but at the same time seemed unsure as to whether she would get herself in trouble by accidentally hurting the Chief of the RSHA if it came to that.

  Ernst gave her an encouraging nod, while pointing an empty gun at her chest. “Go ahead, with all you’ve got.”