TWENTY-THREE
Berlin—March 20, 1943
THE GESTAPO OFFICERS ANNOUNCED their arrival at the birthday party of Dieter Büssler with a prim knock at the door, as if already apologizing for bringing arrest warrants instead of gifts.
Their decorum was oddly appropriate, because in a sense they were invited guests. Kurt Bauer had tipped them off to the party’s details. No need to smash windows or batter down a door when you could catch the entire membership of the local White Rose gathered at a punch bowl.
Kurt had worked out the logistics for the raid with Martin G?llner during a four-hour conversation, a chat that proceeded more like contract negotiations between rival lawyers than an interrogation. At the time Kurt had been relieved by the air of civility. Later he wondered if it hadn’t placed him at even more of a disadvantage, because in the end he was no match for G?llner in the subtle art of give-and-take.
G?llner emerged from the confrontation with the names, roles, and contact information of every local member of the White Rose. Kurt came away with a few lukewarm assurances that had strings attached. The biggest of those—a promise to let his family hold on to its business empire—had never been in doubt to begin with, as G?llner well knew.
Would the Gestapo have discovered the White Rose names anyway, through interrogations elsewhere? G?llner implied as much to Kurt, but later told his superiors that he doubted it. The Munich interrogations of Falk Harnack and J?rg Strasser hadn’t yielded a word about White Rose activity in Berlin, although the two men would certainly be asked about it now, if only to double-check Kurt’s offerings.
For G?llner the most sensitive issue was Kurt’s insistence on serving a prison sentence along with his friends. No doubt the boy wanted to convince the others that he hadn’t been the rat aboard their sinking ship. He also wanted to assuage his guilt and impress his girlfriend. But incarcerating any Bauer would be a hard sell with G?llner’s superiors. He got them to go along only after convincing them that he could leverage the results of the family’s racial background check against Kurt’s father, Reinhard.
On the Saturday morning before the fateful birthday party, G?llner worked out the final details with Reinhard himself, face-to-face. Before telephoning to arrange the meeting, G?llner allowed Kurt to warn his father in advance. That meant he had to tell his father about everything, which turned out to be harder than telling G?llner. Reinhard was furious about his son’s foolish White Rose activities, not to mention the boy’s defiance in continuing to see Liesl against his wishes. But once he got over his anger he earnestly got down to the business of trying to work out the best possible deal for Kurt and the family.
The meeting was at the office of G?llner’s supervisor, on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse. G?llner relinquished the last of his precious coffee in order to display the proper hospitality. He assured the industrialist that for the good of the family—indeed, for the good of the country—his son Kurt would have to spend several months in Pl?tzensee Prison. Reinhard grimly assented.
The only other sticking point was the matter of Kurt’s girlfriend, Liesl Folkerts. Reinhard had no interest at all in protecting her, but Kurt wanted her freedom ensured. The complication was that she had already come to the Gestapo’s attention, from a nosy old charwoman who overheard Liesl telling a crude joke about Hitler at a charity sale of used clothing. As if that weren’t enough, a second woman had then witnessed her pressing a wool scarf on an elderly shopper while saying, “Please, take it. It’s not as if the government is going to help you.”
One of G?llner’s colleagues had begun building a dossier on the girl, a body of evidence that now had to be set aside in favor of the arrangement worked out with the younger Bauer. In exchange for this accommodation, Kurt agreed to enter the army three weeks after his release. The gesture was largely symbolic, as he would have been due to report on his eighteenth birthday anyway. Still, families as prominent as the Bauers had been finding ever more creative ways to keep their sons out of the military.
For G?llner, then, the hard part was done. The dirty work would be left to the four officers who carried out the raid. He would then help interrogate the suspects, although he figured they would have little to offer beyond what Kurt had already told them.
For Kurt Bauer, on the other hand, the worst was yet to come. He prepared for the birthday party as if for a funeral, keeping mostly to his room and moping the way his sister had after her broken engagement. He exited the house only once in the preceding days, to shop for a birthday present for Dieter. He found himself putting a lot of thought into it and wound up using nearly all of the family’s monthly clothing coupons to purchase a fine woolen scarf. Maybe it would keep Dieter warm in prison, he thought, little knowing the boy’s neck would need far more protection than a strip of cashmere.
G?llner had assured him the raid would be carried out with as little fuss as possible, but Kurt wasn’t convinced. When the evening arrived, he rode his bicycle to Liesl’s house to escort her there. He pinged the bell in hopes that he wouldn’t have to face her parents, but her father came to the door and beckoned him inside. Everyone was all smiles. By now Liesl’s parents thought of him as a polite and humble gentleman. He smiled thinly and said little. At least they wouldn’t have to witness the awful moment of their daughter’s arrest.
As they mounted their bikes, it occurred to him that the Gestapo might already have them under surveillance. He imagined officers hiding in the trees, watching with binoculars.
“Kurt, what’s wrong?” Liesl asked. “You’re so quiet. Has something happened?”
He blinked in confusion, wondering what to say.
“It’s my sister, Traudl,” he stammered. “She’s still so upset.”
Liesl laid a hand across his.
“I really do think your family is going to be okay. Cheer up. Tomorrow is the first day of spring. I even saw a crocus yesterday. Even the war can’t stop them.”
She squeezed his hand. He nodded grimly, and for a fleeting moment he considered telling her everything. They could escape through the forest, pedal to a train station to flee south toward Switzerland, crossing the Alps to safety. Just Liesl and him, enduring like the crocuses. But he knew she would never come, not if he told her. She would be furious, lost forever. Worse, she would try to warn everyone, and the evening would turn dangerous, even deadly. Pursuit and gunshots, shrill whistles and snarling dogs. They pedaled away in silence. By the time they reached Dieter’s house his mouth was so dry that he could barely swallow.
It was the first time he had met Dieter’s parents. Mrs. Büssler was like her son, showy and boastful in speech, reserved and cautious in manner, as if harboring a deep insecurity. Mr. Büssler was a quiet man with a pipe who seemed resigned to a secondary role in the household. As soon as the guests arrived he retreated to a back room with his newspaper.
Nearly everyone was there—seven of them in all, just as Kurt had promised G?llner. Helmut Hartert had recently been called into military service, and presumably would be dealt with elsewhere. Harnack was still with his army unit in Chemnitz. The idea that everything might go off without a hitch was both exciting and horrifying. In the ensuing small talk Kurt hardly knew what he was saying, and every few minutes he checked his watch, not knowing when and how the Gestapo would announce its presence.
After an hour, Dieter’s mother brought out a rather sad-looking ham that they must have been saving for a special occasion, plus bowls of potatoes and creamed spinach. She poured a jug of homemade wine into the punch. Kurt drank freely of it, and by the end of his third glass everyone began to seem cheerful and relaxed, so much so that he allowed himself to fancy that maybe G?llner had gotten the date wrong, or fouled up the address. Better still, maybe his father had somehow engineered a last-minute reprieve, using his connections to put a stop to this nonsense. They were only students, after all. Surely a man of such value to the war effort had enough clout to prevent the arrests of a handful of upper-class children? What were a few pamphlets when stacked against the might of the Bauer war machine? Kurt took his empty glass for another refill, his cheeks flushed with false hope. He even managed a smile for Hannelore when he noticed her watching him.
Then came the first knock. It sounded normal, even gentle, and at first only Kurt heard it. Perhaps it was a neighbor, or a family friend bearing gifts.
The second knock was firmer, but still not what you would call insistent. But when Dieter’s mother threw open the door, four men in black SS uniforms entered, three with guns drawn. The first one carried some sort of official-looking paper, and he spoke sternly as everyone else went silent. Liesl eased to Kurt’s side and took his hand.
“Frau Büssler, I am here to inform you that all of these young people are under arrest for crimes against the state.”
Someone dropped a glass.
“No!” Liesl cried.
“Stay calm,” Kurt whispered, finally able to muster some bravery now that he knew roughly what was coming next.
Dieter’s mother clapped a hand to her mouth. His father had appeared in the hallway, pipe in hand, too stunned to speak.
Christoph Klemm, always the boldest in the bunch, charged toward a window. One of the officers struck him on the head with a sidearm. There was a sickening crack, and Christoph slumped to the floor.
The group’s commander looked too thin for his uniform. It was baggy at the shoulders and the waist, and his belt had been tightened a few extra notches to hold up his bunched trousers. Maybe he, too, wasn’t getting enough to eat, or perhaps the fittest members of his unit had been sent to the front. Kurt felt oddly offended that they were being arrested by such a second-rate bunch. Or maybe he already knew he would vividly remember every detail of this moment—the shocked faces and deathly silence, the way that the shred of ham he had eaten seemed to be twisting in his stomach like a parasite.
“This needn’t be difficult,” the officer said. “All of you place your hands on your head and line up against the opposite wall.”
“Are you going to shoot us?” Dieter asked, almost in a shriek.
“Shut up, Dieter.” It was Christoph, rising unsteadily. His lower lip was bleeding, and a lump was visible below his right ear. He swayed a bit, still woozy.
Everyone moved toward the wall, Kurt following numbly as they crowded together, elbows bumping like antlers above their heads, a meek herd. Thinking about this moment in the abstract had been bad enough. Now, with the menacing black uniforms and Dieter’s mother sobbing uncontrollably, it was worse than he had imagined. Nor did it help that he suddenly found himself wondering whether his family could have toughed it out, even if he had taken no action. He was angry at himself. The heat boiled up in his cheeks, and he clenched his fists. Liesl noticed and whispered in alarm.
“Don’t try anything, Kurt. It’s not worth it. Maybe it will be nothing.”
“Quiet!” the commander shouted.
Kurt stared back at her, mute with rage and self-loathing. A hand shoved him roughly, and he fought down an impulse to strike back. It wasn’t that he feared retaliation. His real worry was that if he resisted, the commander would single him out, here and now, and reveal his duplicity to all. Then his efforts really would have gone for nothing.
There was a sudden sound of a body collapsing to the floor. Kurt glanced over his shoulder to see Christoph in a heap.
“Stay away from him,” the commander said mildly to Dieter’s mother, who had stepped forward in concern. Then, to his men: “Take him out to the truck.”
Hannelore turned abruptly and spat at one of the soldiers, who shoved her hard against the wall. She cried out in pain and anger. Kurt caught her eye, and for a second he was certain she could read his every thought, so he blushed and looked away.
An officer emerged from the hallway, shouldering roughly past Dieter’s father and holding aloft a small stack of White Rose pamphlets.
“These were beneath the boy’s mattress.”
Had Dieter really been so stupid? Hannelore shook her head and cursed under her breath. Shortly afterward the officers led them outside, where a military truck had pulled to the curb with its tailgate down and its canvas flaps open in the back.
“Climb aboard, one at a time,” the commander said. “Slowly and orderly, while keeping your hands above your head.”
Neighbors had gathered on the sidewalk. There was concern in their faces, but also shame. Guilt by proximity. You could almost sense them calculating what this might mean for their own prospects in the future.
Two soldiers with rifles climbed into the truck and closed the tailgate and the canvas flaps, plunging everyone into darkness. The truck pulled away. Kurt peered through the slit between the flaps and saw a passing tram. The only light visible was from the blue sparks in the overhead wires.
They were seated three to a side in the bed of the truck, with Christoph curled in the middle like a sack of flour.
“Where are we going?” someone asked.
No one answered.
The ride continued for twenty minutes. When they finally stopped, bright lights were switched on and someone shouted an order. It sounded as if a gate was being opened. The truck bumped forward. Kurt saw a brick wall topped by barbed wire.
“I know where we are,” Hannelore whispered. “Pl?tzensee Prison.”
Kurt had known this was their destination, but somehow it didn’t make the arrival any easier to bear. Liesl took his hand in the dark, and for the first time in days he was able to muster some courage. He even allowed himself to begin thinking about their future. Maybe this would be the low point, he told himself. In four months, perhaps five, the worst would be over. Make it through this ordeal and he would still have Liesl, trusting him, touching him. And surely they would still be together years later as well. If so, then it would all be worth it.
The truck stopped again. A guard threw down the tailgate and pulled back the flaps. They were staring at an open door leading into a brick cellblock.
His life in prison had begun.
THE FIRST LETTER from Liesl arrived a week later, five handwritten pages smuggled between their cells by a guard bribed with ration coupons from her family. It was Kurt’s first moment of joy and color in a drab world that had shrunk to the dimensions of his five-by-nine cell.
Kurt had entered a sort of hibernation. It hadn’t even occurred to him to try to communicate with the others—not that he would have been inclined to do so except in Liesl’s case. The less they knew of his guilty thoughts, the better.
So he passed the time reading books sent by his parents. He was mildly amused when his sister forwarded her worn copy of The Sorrows of Young Werther, which he was able to read with a certain detachment, taking comfort in the knowledge that he, unlike Werther, might still win his true love in the end.
At other times he stared longingly out his small, high window for hours on end. The view across the prison’s outer wall was of the Hohenzollern Canal, the waterway leading to the loading docks of the biggest Bauer factory. Sometimes he smelled the smoke from the factory as it drifted on the afternoon breeze. At least that meant it was still functioning—no sure thing judging from the frequency of the bombing raids. Almost every night now the sky filled with the beams of searchlights. Whenever the pounding of the explosions and the flak bursts finally stopped, there was always plenty of chatter from the other cells. Some of it was in foreign tongues, usually French or Polish. Kurt never tried answering, even when the words were in German.
Liesl, on the other hand, had obviously been working diligently to establish connections to all their friends. This was clear from the surprising wealth of information in her letter. Some of the news was hard to take.
Dearest Kurt,
I suppose by now that you, too, have suffered the awful and degrading experience of interrogation at the hands of our captors. Yesterday I was made to stand for five hours in the middle of a room while a guard watched through the door. I pissed into my clothes and nearly fainted. The only break they allowed was for a glass of water, but even then I was not permitted to sit down, and of course this only caused me to piss again. Afterward they did not let me wash or change clothes, so as you can imagine I am quite impossible to be around. Even the guard seems to grimace as he passes my door.
Unfortunately, I am told that they wish to speak with me again this afternoon, so who knows what the hours ahead will bring. I am told they have been similarly harsh and determined in their efforts with all of us, but suffice it to say that so fiar I have been steadfast in my refusal to speak at all about any activities other than my own, for which I have willingly assumed full responsibility as a matter of conscience. In my lowest moments I try to remember the words of Dr. Bonhoeffer. Truly, no easy grace remains for us now, so we must summon all of our faith and fortitude. I am confident that you are doing the same, and I wish you strength even as I send my love.
I am afraid that some of the others are of the opinion that Dieter must be to blame for our fate. They cite his carelessness in having kept the pamphlets at his house. Some of them have also remarked on the ease with which the officers entered his house, and the strange way that his father behaved that evening, as if he was ashamed to have anything to do with us. I suppose they see that as evidence he was already aware of what was to come. Perhaps they are right, but I have tried to keep an open mind. I have always found Dieter to be a sweet boy even though he is impulsive and has never been a careful planner. It is difficult to accept that he would have been a party to this without having revealed it through some false word or gesture. We shall see, I suppose.
Have you heard yet from your family, and your poor sister? One of my first thoughts after the terrible night of the raid was that this event would only make things worse for them, at a time when they can least afford it. Please send them my love, and, if possible, reassure me that they, too, have not been dragged into this awful abyss.
With all the idle hours now at my disposal, I confess to experiencing many moments of weakness when I try to imagine what will become of us. I do take some hope from the days that have already passed. The students who were arrested in Munich were tried and executed in only a day or two, and I believe that many of them were several years older than us. Perhaps the thinking here is that they will offer us a second chance. Or maybe I am being terribly naive in my wishful thinking, and their only intention is to drag out the process as long as possible. One of the others seems to think that we will be here for weeks, or even months, based on things that he has heard from his parents. It is the uncertainty which is hardest to take. My lowest moments seem to come when I dare to dream that we might still have a future.
All right, I must finish. The guard has promised to pick up this letter in the next hour just before the shift changes. Please stay strong, my darling.
All my love,
Liesl
As the days passed, Liesl’s notes continued, and Kurt always answered. He, of course, had not been interrogated since their imprisonment. But to cover for himself he wove elaborate descriptions of tough treatment and steadfast resistance, tales that were so deeply imagined that at times he almost believed them.
Word trickled in from the others. By the end of the second week he had received letters from everyone except Hannelore, although the only one he bothered to answer was Christoph, whom he had always admired.
Even poor Dieter sent him a message. It was obvious from his aggrieved and defensive tone that he had picked up on the suspicions of the others, and his shrillness only served to make him seem guilty. Kurt thought it best to say nothing at all on the subject, figuring that the whisper campaign and Dieter himself would do the job for him.
The third week brought devastating news from the outside. Dietrich Bonhoeffer had been arrested. Details were sketchy, and Kurt agonized that his own revelations might have somehow led to it. It might have been easier to take if Bonhoeffer had been jailed at Pl?tzensee, where he could have joined their network of secret correspondence. Instead, the authorities took him to Tegel Prison, just across town.
But events within Pl?tzensee soon reminded them that they had plenty to fear regarding their own prospects. On the evening of May 13, nearly eight weeks after their arrival, Kurt heard a stir of activity outdoors. He looked out the window to see a single file of prisoners casting long shadows as guards led them into a low building between the cellblock and the outer wall. He counted thirteen in all. It was just before 7 p.m.
For the next half hour, a series of barked commands issued from the windows of the low building. Some were followed by muffled cries, others by a great slamming thud, which echoed across the yard. Finally there was a brief period of silence, followed by a frantic spell of hammering. When that stopped, the door of the building opened and two guards emerged, carrying a wooden coffin. Two more guards followed with a second coffin. Thirteen bodies came out in all.
The next morning he got the full story from a guard, who seemed to relish explaining what all the fuss had been about. The low building was the Pl?tzensee death chamber. The sickening thunks had come from the slamming blade of a guillotine. The prisoners that weren’t beheaded had been hanged from hooks along a rear wall. The thirteen victims were members of a resistance cell known as the Red Orchestra, for its ties to the Soviets.
The next few months brought further killings. The peak came on August 5, when nineteen more members of the Red Orchestra filed into the death house. But the worst was yet to come. In mid-August, the news arrived in a note from Liesl: Their trials had begun. Kurt had to pretend that he knew all about it and that he, too, was going into the dock. But he could only imagine how horrible it was as he read the descriptions from the others, as each was led into the so-called People’s Court for trial and sentencing.
The worst and most vivid account was Christoph’s.
Our judge was Roland Freisler, the devil himself in his awful red robes. He wore a perched crown hat and saluted like a madman, as if pointing to the thunderclouds and awaiting their command. He hardly listened to a word I said. He just screamed and sneered and berated me at every turn. When the end came he shouted the verdict of guilty, and then his sentence, screaming to the gallery, “This beet must be uprooted and replanted! Yank him from the ground, then bury him in it!” That is his way of saying I am to be hanged ten days from now, on the 29th of August, along with Ulrich and Dieter, who I am ashamed to admit that I have sorely misjudged in this affair.
What is the word from you, and have you been to court yet? I await your news with equal measures of dread and compassion. I am determined to carry myself with dignity and defiance to the very end, and I am confident that you will do the same.
Your loyal friend,
Christoph
Kurt crumpled the note in anguish. In the following days word arrived that Klara and Hannelore had also been sentenced to hang, but not until September 5. Kurt considered writing that he, too, had been sentenced to death, to keep the others from assuming the worst. But if he did, Liesl would know later that he had lied to the others. Before he could think up what to say, the news arrived that Liesl had inexplicably—to everyone else, at least—been sentenced merely to five years in jail. The official explanation was that she was the youngest of the three girls. That gave Kurt the out that he had been seeking, because at seventeen he was the youngest of the males, and the Nazis had generally avoided executing underage suspects, as long as you weren’t a Jew. The beheading at Pl?tzensee the previous year of a seventeen-year-old boy—yet another pamphleteer—had led to a rare public outcry against the government.
Liesl, while overjoyed to hear his life had been spared, seemed to suspect that his family’s prominence must have had something to do with it. She concluded that this must have worked to protect her as well, because in her next note she asked, “Is there nothing your father can do for the others, or, at the very least, for Hannelore?”
He decided that the safest bet was to play along, so he replied, “With regret and no small measure of shame, I must reveal that my father has expended all of his possible influence, and I can assure you that even that did not come without many sacrifices, in light of what the government now knows about my family.”
Executions at Pl?tzensee always began at 7 p.m. On the day that Christoph, Ulrich, and Dieter were to be killed, Kurt lay on his bed waiting in dread for the groan of the downstairs door and the tramp of feet toward the death chamber. They were right on schedule. He couldn’t bear to watch, and when he heard Christoph’s voice, wavering yet loud, yell, “Our memory will outlive our killers!” he shut his eyes tightly and sobbed in shame. Then he clamped his thin pillow around his ears, pressing hard and humming like a boy afraid of thunder, so that he wouldn’t hear the shouted orders, the muffled cries, or the hammering of the coffin lids.
His humming wasn’t loud enough, so he began singing like a madman—old tunes from kindergarten, Christmas carols, whatever came to mind. And when he opened his eyes much later and dropped the pillow, which was soaked in tears and sweat, he saw that it had grown dark outside. His untouched dinner sat cold on a tray the guards had brought. The only sound was the twitter of a nightingale, tuning up for the evening. A half hour later an air raid siren wailed into action, and he listened for the distant drone of approaching bombers. On came the flak guns and the bomb bursts, and for a change he welcomed them. The searchlights seemed to sweep the sky clear of all the ill spirits that had been set loose from the death chamber.
For the next several days he ignored contact with everyone, even Liesl. At noon on September 3 he finally wrote her. He had just penned the salutation when there was a knock at the door. Guards never knocked, so he wondered who it could be.
“It’s G?llner. Your time is up.”
For a harrowing moment Kurt was convinced that their deal was off and that he was about to be led downstairs to the death chamber, where he would find Liesl already hanging by a hook. Instead, G?llner entered with a sheaf of documents.
“These are your release papers. Come downstairs. All you have to do is sign.”
He sagged in relief, not least because it meant he would not have to endure the executions of Klara and Hannelore. In his mounting guilt he had even begun to admire Hannelore’s reckless defiance.
“And Liesl?” he asked. “She is being released, too?”
“There has been a slight delay where she is concerned. Nothing to worry about.”
“What do you mean?”
“That’s why they sent me. To explain, so there will be no fuss. She will be coming out later, perhaps at midnight. Some sort of glitch with the paperwork. But, as I said, not to worry. You will have three weeks to spend with your lady love before going off to the army. Maybe she will volunteer for the nursing corps and you will see her at the front.”
Kurt wanted to punch him, but knew better.
“Come on. Your father is waiting.”
He stepped out the door of his cell with a feeling of immense relief. Then he saw a face watching from a small window in the opposite door. What if the neighboring prisoners had overheard G?llner? If Hannelore found out, she might still poison the well for him. He kept his head down and his eyes to the floor. Now that he was on the verge of freedom, he found himself reverting to old resentments.
Kurt’s father greeted him with a huge hug. It was the first time he had ever seen tears in the man’s eyes, and it moved him deeply. But he reverted to his skittishness as they crossed the prison yard toward the front gate. He could feel the eyes of the other prisoners on his back. Fortunately, no one called out his name. He hoped that Hannelore, Klara, and Liesl had cells facing in another direction, because surely they would misunderstand. Or, worse, they would understand all too clearly.
But he cheered himself with the reminder that by tomorrow at this time Liesl also would be free. She would have no choice but to write it off as some strange act of mercy or political influence. Hannelore might argue otherwise, but she would soon be dead. Not the best of circumstances for beginning the rest of their lives, but certainly preferable to the ghastly alternative.
The thought made him glance over his shoulder as he approached the gate. His last sight inside the prison was of the low brick chamber of death, with its guillotine and its hangman’s hooks. He shivered, and then stepped into freedom. Tomorrow he would begin putting all of this behind him.
Instead, of course, the bombers came once again that very night, and by morning Kurt was back on the scene, kneeling in the rubble, clawing at the smoldering bricks until he found her legs, and then her hand, still curled around the document that was supposed to have set her free.