The Girl from Berlin: War Criminal's Widow

by Ellie Midwood

  Ernst reached into his pocket and produced two passports, one of which he handed to me. It had my picture in it, but a completely different name.

  “Erni, what is it?”

  “It’s our ticket to the new life, sweetheart! We’ll cross the border as husband and wife, we’ll board the submarine prepared by Otto and his people, and in just several days we’ll be bathing in sunshine in our new house in Bolivia! Come on, pick your bags and let’s go.”

  I looked at the passport again, absolutely unprepared to hear what he was telling me. I never thought that his future plans in any way included me, and that’s why it was even harder for me to answer him.

  “Ernst, I can’t… What about Heinrich? I can’t leave him like that… He’s my husband after all. And what about your wife and children? You can’t leave them either.”

  “Sweetheart, I know it’s hard, but think about us and our baby. You love me and I love you, we’ll start a new family over there, we’ll get married and live happily with our children, we’ll forget it all like a bad dream… Annalise, look at me.”

  I couldn’t. Because it wasn’t right. Because I’d never forgive myself if I did it to Heinrich and to Ernst’s children as well.

  “Annalise, sweetheart? Look at me. Let’s go, angel, there’s nothing left for us here, come with me, and I promise to make you so happy that you’ll never remember all these horrors.” He slightly pulled my hands, but I just kept shaking my head biting my lip in order to fight the tears away.

  “I can’t.”

  “What do you mean you can’t? Don’t you love me?”

  “Of course I do, but nothing will ever be the way you think. It won’t be us living happily ever after in some beautiful country house, we’ll have to live in hiding for the rest of our lives, don’t you understand? The people from the OSS will never stop looking for us. We’ll have to constantly move, hide, sleep with guns under our pillows waking up at every noise, suspecting an agent in every new neighbor, afraid to speak to people in the streets because our accents will give us away… And that’s the life you wish for your child? Constantly running from one place to another? Not be able to make friends because their parents might find out who we really are? Do you think it will be fair? And what if the people from the OSS do find us, then what? Have you thought of that? What would happen to our baby then, if we both get arrested?”

  “But… Annalise… I can’t leave you here. It’s you and me, like it’s always been. I go wherever you go, remember?”

  I remembered, of course I did. I hid my wet face on his chest, suppressing the sobbing as hard as I could. His hands, so loving and familiar, were gently rubbing my back and hair, as he was covering the top of my head with kisses.

  “Come with me, liebe,” he was whispering softly into my ear, making it a million times harder to say no. “We’ll figure something out, I promise. Just you and me, because that’s all we need, each other. I’ll be the best husband, I swear. And a good father too, I will devote all my time to you and our baby, you’ll see how happy we’re all going to be, just say yes, dear, please, I’m begging you.”

  Why is he doing this to me? Why did he decide to torture me this way? Doesn’t he understand that shooting me would be more merciful than asking me for the only impossible thing I couldn’t do for him? I was crying openly already, trying to gently push him away before he’d talk me into it.

  “I can’t, Erni, love, I just can’t. Take your wife and children with you and go with them, you’ll be very happy with them too—”

  “I don’t love my wife, I love you, I want you to go with me.”

  “Ernst, please, don’t make it worse.”

  “I’m not leaving without you.”

  “Yes, you are, you have to, you can’t stay here, you know that you have to go. Go to Austria, take your wife, write your children into your passport, and leave.”

  “I won’t go without you.”

  Stubborn as always, I smiled through bitter tears and looked into the eyes of the man who I loved more than anything in life. I finally understood it, just there and then. And it was because I loved him so that I had to push him away. Because otherwise the Allies would execute him as soon as they entered Berlin. He wouldn’t go without me, because that’s how it was between us, I go wherever you go.

  “I can’t leave my husband. I’m staying here with him.”

  The most difficult words I’d ever had to pronounce echoed from the empty walls and lingered in the air between the two of us. And then it was just dead silence and excruciating pain reflected in his gaze, before he looked away, took both passports and slowly walked inside the living room. I followed him and gasped, when he threw them both into the burning fireplace.

  “What are you doing?!” I screamed and rushed to grab a stick to save the documents, but Ernst gently but firmly took the instrument from my hands and pushed the passports even deeper into the flame. “How are you going to get out now?”

  “I’m not. The plan was good only with you in it. I won’t go anywhere alone.”

  “Ernst, sweetheart—”

  “I knew I shouldn’t have come here.” He smiled softly and sadly at the same time, wiping the tears from my wet cheeks. “I don’t know what I was hoping for. I thought that maybe you’d change your mind…”

  He put both hands on my belly and slightly stroked it.

  “Bye, my little one. I’m sorry for leaving you like this. I hope you will forgive me one day. I haven’t seen you yet and will probably never have a chance to hold you in my arms, but know that I will always love you.”

  He leaned and kissed my belly with such tenderness that I bit my lip, so that the physical pain would distract me from the emotional one, which was ripping my heart in tiny pieces. It didn’t help a bit.

  “Will you kiss me goodbye at least?” Ernst straightened out and managed a pained grin, which was just a faint shadow of the ones I used to love seeing on his pretty face.

  I stretched my hands to him and dug my fingers into his overcoat when he covered my mouth with his for the very last time. Never again will he hold me like this, never again will he scratch me slightly with his unshaven cheek, never again will I feel his warm breath on my lips, never again will I feel so close to him, never again will I see him…

  I didn’t want to open my eyes when he moved away from me in a desperate attempt to stop the time or to at least capture that very moment forever.

  “Goodbye, Annalise.”

  The last two words he whispered to me, then he turned around and headed to the door.

  “No,” I mouthed silently and right away covered my lips with my hand not to say it out loud. He left, and I had to grab the wall, suffocating with tears, because I didn’t feel steady on my feet anymore.

  Chapter 9

  The earth itself was shuddering from the never-ending roar of the artillery. Whoever didn’t leave the building or weren’t thrown to defend the quickly collapsing city, stayed inside and were busy barricading every staircase and every window. The Red army was only streets away now.

  While Heinrich was moving a huge wooden desk to the window in his now useless office, I was bringing all the guns and rifles previously stored in one of the rooms here, on the fourth floor. That’s how our morning started that day.

  “Why am I even bringing all this ammunition here if you’re not going to use it?” I tiredly sat on his chair and rubbed my back, which was hurting from carrying too many heavy things that I by no means should had been carrying in my situation.

  “I am going to use it, only not on people.”

  Passing me by, Heinrich quickly pecked me on the cheek and affectionately petted my belly. He picked up a box with ammunition and carried it to the window.

  “What do you mean?” I winced at the particularly loud explosion nearby.

  “I’ll be shooting in the air and not at the soldiers.” Heinrich checked his position again and, making sure that we were relatively safe and protected by the high flo
or and the massive table, sat by my side right on the floor. There were no more chairs, they were all used to barricade the entrances.

  “They are Russian soldiers, I wouldn’t care if you shot all of them.”

  The interview, given by one of the victims of those soldiers, if they could be called so, telling how she, her young sister and even their sixty year old mother were raped while other several women were crucified naked on the barn doors, was still vivid in front of my eyes. Someday in the beginning of April, when Heinrich took me to the movie theatre to distract me from everything going on, it was the first thing I saw, because the German national news would always inform people first about the situation on the front and only then start the movie. Needless to say, I didn’t want to see anything after those news.

  And now that wild Russian horde was right next to us. I instinctively put my hand into the pocket where I kept my gun. I had no idea how we were going to stand till the arrival of the Americans, but one thing I knew for sure: I’d shoot myself before they’d get me. Without a blink I’d do it.

  “Don’t be like that, they are people too, they have families back home waiting for them. Why would I shoot them now that they’re already here and knowing that this fight will never be won? I would have come out to them right now, but my own colleagues will execute me in a second as a deserter. So I’ll be shooting in the air pretending that I’m protecting the building.”

  “What about me?” Maybe it was my hormones, aching back or lack of sleep and food, but his love for the humanity started to get on my nerves.

  “They won’t hurt you, you look like you can have a baby any time now, they’d be afraid to even come close to you.” Even though Heinrich was smiling, I wasn’t sharing his attitude towards the problem. “Don’t worry, darling, I wouldn’t let anything happen to you. As soon as I have a chance I’ll go out and talk to them, I’ll explain to them that we’ve been working for the allied counterintelligence and tell them the names of our superiors. They won’t hurt somebody who was helping their allies.”

  “How are you even going to speak to them? You don’t speak any Russian as far as I know.”

  “Some of them speak German.”

  I was very skeptical about that statement as well, but decided not to argue. If he survived all this time doing his counterintelligence activities right under the all-seeing eye of the almighty Gestapo and never got caught, he must know what he’s doing. I lowered my hand and took my husband’s hand in it.

  “We’ll be fine, you’ll see.” He slightly squeezed my fingers. “Too bad that our expectations that the allied forces would enter Berlin first didn’t become a reality, but we’ll get through it. I promise to you, we will. We have to, we have this little one to take care of.”

  I covered his hand that he’d put on top of my very round belly with mine and tried to smile. Several weeks ago, when I couldn’t fit into my old uniform skirt anymore, I had to start wearing a simple black dress and some old black SS-Helferin uniform jacket, which Heinrich found somewhere in the RSHA storage, on top of that dress to make it look like uniform while still fulfilling my duties within the walls of the RSHA. Now it was still on me just to keep me warm.

  “It’s ironic, isn’t it?” I voiced my last thought because we had nothing else to do but talk. This way the gunfire outside didn’t seem so loud. “Now, after my people endured so many sufferings and have finally been liberated, at least those who survived, I will maybe die here on the very last days of war, in this uniform and in this building, which was the house of the Gestapo that was sending all those people to death in millions… And everybody will be thinking that I’m just one of the Nazis, and will leave me laying in the street and won’t even bury me…”

  “Why would you even say something like that?” Heinrich exclaimed in genuine disbelief.

  “Because it’s a very strong possibility, that’s why. Or have you never considered the possibility that we might actually get killed?”

  “I have. But one of the great German generals once said, if you think of getting killed, you’re not a good soldier. You can’t have fear, because fear paralyzes. You have to go into fight knowing that you will survive.”

  “Wise words. Who was the one saying them?”

  “Erwin Rommel. Personally to me, during our very short meeting of which I will always have the warmest memories.”

  “Uh, Rommel… Yes. He was indeed a great man and a great general, with such a strong heart and such love for his country. Not to the Reich, to Germany. Everybody loved him. Churchill even prohibited using his name in press and mass media because he was so feared in Britain.”

  “Yes, it’s true.” Heinrich smiled dreamily at his memories. “How could Hitler come up with the idea that such a patriot could be a part of that July plot?”

  “I don’t know.” I held my breath for a second, listening to the screams outside. No, the language was still German, which meant that the Soviet troops hadn’t broken the street barricades yet. “Ernst tried to save him, even after Hitler’s order to arrest him.”

  “He did? I didn’t know that.”

  “He asked me not to tell anyone.”

  “Oh… I understand. What happened, he couldn’t make it in time?”

  “No. He had prepared fake papers for General Rommel, clothes, contacted loyal people on the border… But when he arrived to pick him up to drive him to the Austrian border, from where Otto was supposed to take care of him, Rommel had already taken the cyanide, which Himmler had sent to him with his adjutant. Himmler warned him that if he didn’t do that, he’d be stripped of all his ranks and awards and tried like a regular criminal. Rommel was too noble and too proud to risk being captured and becoming a subject of public humiliation.”

  “How could Hitler do something like that with his most loyal and most talented servant?” Heinrich shook his head. “But it’s good to know that Ernst tried to help him. I didn’t expect that he’d do something so risky.”

  “He was doing a lot of risky things, it’s just he was lucky enough to never get caught.” I smiled. “I wonder if he made it safe through the border…”

  “Of course he did.” Heinrich suddenly laughed. “It’s Ernst, nothing will ever kill that guy! He’ll be smoking and drinking for the rest of his life and outlive us all in the end.”

  I laughed too, genuinely, for the first time in the past several days. Yes, that’s how he, Ernst, was. Reckless, stubborn, unpredictable and impulsive… I prayed that Heinrich was right when he was saying that Ernst would outlive us all. I would love that.

  “Thank you for staying here with me.” Heinrich’s voice interrupted my thoughts.

  He kept kissing my hands and repeating the same phrase that day, when Ernst left and I didn’t go with him. Ernst never said goodbye to anyone in the RSHA, and his disappearance remained a secret from the staff for several days. Heinrich only found out that the Chief of the RSHA had left Berlin from Otto, just a few hours after Ernst’s departure; needless to say that my poor husband thought that the Austrian took me with him, and rushed to our house to find me staring blankly into space, sitting on the same spot for God knew how long.

  He kneeled in front of me and started thanking me for my loyalty, asking for forgiveness for dragging me into his spy games and risking my life, promising that he’d take the best care of me from now on, that all this would be soon over with and we’d start a new life, together, in New York.

  It was like some twisted deja-vu, only a different man was repeating the same words. I forced myself to look into Heinrich’s eyes then and to sternly remind myself that it wasn’t a ‘different’ man, it was my husband, who I loved and swore my faithfulness to, who I promised to share all good and bad with, in health and in sickness, until death do us part. He would be the only man in my life from now on. That’s how it was supposed to be from the very beginning.

  “Of course I stayed with you, silly.” I softly traced my fingers on Heinrich’s unshaven cheek. “You’re my husban
d.”

  “I was seriously afraid that you’d leave with him.”

  “I would never do that to you.”

  No, I wouldn’t do it to him. I did it to my Erni instead. And to myself.

  _______________

  “Annalise, ammunition!”

  Wiping the sweat off my dirty forehead, I tried to drag the heavy box from the hallway, but couldn’t move it further than several inches. The gunfire was inside the building now, the Russians only two floors lower. Heinrich was lying next to the makeshift barricade at the side entrance, while several other officers were trying to keep the main staircase in their hands.

  “Heinrich, it’s too heavy for me!” Moving along the wall and squinting from all the concrete dust and light smoke, I kneeled on the floor behind my husband.

  “Here, take this rifle and keep shooting, and I’ll get the box.” Heinrich quickly backed down from his position on his all fours and handed me the weapon. “Don’t stick your head out, please!”

  In the past few hours I lost count of all the times the bullets were whistling so close to me that I thought that the next one would definitely hit its aim. I don’t remember when the last time was that I straightened out in the full sense of that word. I learned not to react to the three dead officers, who their colleagues moved to the wall so their bodies wouldn’t be in the way, even though I gasped in shock when I saw the first one open his arms in some helpless gesture and fall to the floor just several steps away, his grey uniform jacket quickly soaking in dark blood. Heinrich yanked me away from the line of fire then, otherwise I’d still be standing, unable to move, until the Russian sniper got me next.

  Following my husband’s advice, I fired my rifle one time after another without even aiming, just to keep the Russians away. He told me not to shoot at them anyway, even though I highly doubted that they would be as merciful to us when they grabbed us at last, and it was only a question of hours. There was the whole army taking street after street outside, and only seven of us left on the fourth floor. Seven out of twenty four, the number that we started with this morning. I did not see how the others died and didn’t hear them either; we just figured that they were dead because they stopped answering to us and their rifles couldn’t be heard anymore from the offices they made into their positions.