It's You (27 page)

German papers in the reception today, headlines shout that the German revolt is over. I read and reread the lines: “The attempt of the small clique of conspirators to seize power in Germany was nipped in the bud without difficulty . . .”

There are other reports swirling around Rome. The Stockholm press claims that the attempted coup took place at Obersalzberg,
during the regular afternoon staff meeting. The bomb apparently went off before Hitler had fully entered the room.

July 23, 1944

Had a message from the hotel reception that a Marion von Wartenburg telephoned. She didn’t leave a message. I tried to phone her back but there was no answer.

July 24, 1944

Haven’t been able to reach Marion yet. Afraid to call anyone else. Can’t get information here in Ascona. Want to call Missie but I don’t know where she’s staying. I’ve thought of ringing the Adlon—she might be there—and possibly they could get a message to her. Missie would know what’s happening. She’s very close to Adam, too, and would know far more than Clarita, whom Adam has shielded from the discussions, planning to protect her and the children. Am terrified though that I will just make things worse . . . can’t arouse suspicions. But don’t understand why Franz hasn’t contacted me. Makes me fear the worst. Please God, let me know he’s okay.

July 26, 1944

Reached Marion this morning. She was very calm on the phone, but very vague, referring to the past few days as “distressing events” and how Berlin was a very sad place right now. It wasn’t until the very end of the call that she mentioned that Peter and a number of others had been arrested July 21st and 22nd, and more arrests had taken place that day. The men were to be tried soon and she planned to attend Peter’s trial, if she’d
be permitted. Marion studied law, has a doctorate degree in law and training as an assistant judge. If she is not allowed in court, then the court is a mockery. But perhaps it is better if she stays away. Peter was Claus’ cousin and if the Gestapo apply
Sippenhaft
. . .

Marion doesn’t say that Peter is doomed, but it’s understood. He was too close to Claus, which makes me think of Claus’ older brother, Berthold. He is doomed, too. Now it’s impossible not to race through the list of friends who gathered this past year at Peter and Marion’s apartment. Are they all doomed, then?

Instead I ask about Franz.

Marion is silent a moment. “I’d hoped you’d have news for me,” she says. “Nobody has seen him in days.”

It’s as I feared. He’s either been arrested, or he’s . . . dead.

I don’t remember the rest that was said. My mind went blank.

July 29, 1944

Missie phoned from the Adlon. She sounded so cheerful during the call. She’s still working at the office but had a lovely lunch with the girls. Melanie is in the city on her own, which I grasp to mean that Gottfried’s been arrested. She chatters about nothing and yet in her chatter is everything. I tell her I’m very much on my own, too, so I hope she’ll have a cup of tea for me. She promises to call if she has news but it might be difficult since Goebbels has declared
Totaler Krieg
on those who are disloyal, and now that it’s all-out war, there probably won’t be opportunities for the girls to get together the way they used to.

I hang up and lie on my bed and wish, oh how I wish, I’d never let Franz put me on the train two weeks ago.

August 1, 1944

More arrests in Berlin today, Melanie among them.

August 4, 1944

Missie phones. She casually mentions an embassy dinner years ago where we first met and were introduced to Ambassador von Hassell. She’s only mentioned him because something terrible has happened to him. She doesn’t say that, but I know it. That’s how this works now. Every name, every friend, every connection is a casualty. What were we thinking, believing we could change things? What brash, naïve folly was this?

August 8, 1944

The radio and newspaper are filled with the news that eight Germans, including Peter, have been tried before the People’s Court and found guilty of high treason. All eight have been hanged already.

Peter’s gone. My thoughts are with Marion. I pray she’s safe.

I’m beyond heartsick. I feel physically ill. Can’t write more. This is a nightmare I’ll never wake from.

August 9, 1944

The Allied radio is giving names of others rumored to have participated in the July 20th attempt, including those not yet arrested or charged.

Don’t the Americans and British understand what they’re doing? They’re naming people who could be innocent. They’re
signing the death warrants with every name they mention. It is too much.

August 11, 1944

Still not well. Terrible cramping. Worried. Wish I could reach Franz. Need Franz. He should have never sent me here, away from him.

August 12, 1944

The Allies have captured France.

And I am bleeding.

August 16, 1944

Have returned to the hotel after five days at the hospital. There was nothing they could do. I have instructions to rest and stay in bed. I’m to be calm and not get excited. I am not calm, but I cannot imagine getting excited. I have lost the baby and there is still no word from Franz.

August 19, 1944

I go down to the hotel’s front desk and they help me phone Claudia. Claudia has not seen Franz in weeks . . . maybe longer. The last time she spoke to him was the day after he’d driven me to the train station. He’d stopped in at their apartment and stayed for dinner. It had been quite a nice evening. He’d told her he was hoping to join me in Rome for his medical leave sometime in August. She’d thought that perhaps he was already with me . . . ?

He’s not here, I tell her.

She is silent. There is nothing she can say.

August 20, 1944

Lay awake all night, wondering, worrying, talking to Franz. I told him about the baby. I told him I was scared. But most of all, I told him I loved him and would always love him.

August 21, 1944

The German news continues to contradict itself. The dates of the trials and executions are not consistent. It makes one hope. I’m afraid to hope.

August 22, 1944

Adam’s Clarita arrested now. She didn’t have a chance to see Adam, either, before her arrest.

August 23, 1944

The German news today published a detailed account of Adam’s trial and execution. He was executed yesterday without being allowed to speak to Clarita. Too heartsick to write more.

August 24, 1944

The news reports claim that the Allied forces have entered Paris. They say Paris will be liberated. I should be glad for Paris and yet I grieve for my friends in Berlin.

August 25, 1944

Missie called today, no message. I don’t know where to phone her. Afraid to phone her. Afraid to hear what she might say.

August 26, 1944

Rumors swirling that all those arrested are being tortured. I’m not surprised. Just sickened. Can’t bear this. I can’t. I’m afraid I’m going to lose my mind.

August 27, 1944

The nice young woman from hotel reception came to see me today. Her name is Fabiola and she told me that the staff at the hotel is worried about me as they haven’t seen me for a few days and they say in the kitchen that I do not order food. She asks if I am eating. I say I cannot eat. She asks if I’m unwell. I tell her that I am fine.

She leaves.

But I am not fine.

August 30, 1944

Maria phoned. She left a brief message with the hotel’s front desk:
Franz trial next week.

I immediately start packing. I must go. I must get to him.

There is no way to get to him.

August 31, 1944

No one who has gone to the People’s Court has been pardoned. No one goes to the People’s Court and lives.

But if Franz is executed, I don’t want to live.

Without him, there is nothing for me anymore.

September 2, 1944

Every day I wait for word from Berlin.

Every minute of every day I think about Franz. I pray for him. I pray for him to have strength. I won’t let myself think about what they have done to him. How they must have tortured him. I pray that he has been strong. That he has God.

September 3, 1944

I am ready to die. Ready to escape this madness.

September 4, 1944

Maria called late. She phoned from the Adlon. Trial postponed while they gather more evidence, but a dozen have been executed this week alone.

“That means there’s hope,” I say. “If they can’t build a case . . . if they need more evidence.”

“I wish that’s what it means. But usually a trial is postponed so they can conduct further interrogations.”

“Torture,” I say.

“I’m sorry.”

September 8, 1944

I pray now for Franz’s death.

I can’t bear to think of them torturing him. Knowing that he is probably suffering—

Hell.

This is hell.

September 15, 1944

They killed him yesterday.

They executed him along with Josef Wirmer, the lawyer; the lovely Chaplain Wehrle. Colonel von Üxküll-Gyllenband, and District President Michael Graf von Matuschhka. There were others, too. I just can’t remember their names.

Fabiola said I screamed when I got the news.

I don’t remember screaming. I don’t remember anything but Fabiola’s grandmother and mother putting me to bed and the grandmother and mother staying with me through the night, with the grandmother praying her rosary, praying to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

September 16, 1944

The staff knows Franz is gone. Murdered. They don’t ask why. There is no need. It is war. A war that doesn’t end.

September 23, 1944

Fabiola brought me some vegetable soup and some bread and sat with me while I ate it. I didn’t want to eat in front of her. I didn’t want to eat it at all but she’s afraid I’ll die in the hotel and that might make people ask questions. So I ate even though my stomach protested and we chatted and after she left I felt better.

September 27, 1944

Fabiola comes every day to sit with me to make sure I eat. She thinks I should walk in the garden with her, just a little bit as it is cooler outside in the courtyard, in the shade. My room is hot. It’s sweltering. I don’t want to walk but when I go outside with her, it is nicer. The stone walls of the courtyard have holes in them, exposing a garden on the other side of the wall. There is a headless statue in the neighbor garden. The head of the statue lies at its feet, the blank eyes of the goddess staring this way.

I can’t look at her. I wish someone would move her head. Do something for her.

September 30, 1944

Fabiola is actually the daughter of the hotel owner, who died a year ago. She has been helping her mother run the hotel since her father was killed. She was supposed to be married by now but her fiancé went to war and never came home. There are no young men left, she tells me. Just little boys and old men who wish they were dead.

October 1, 1944

Fabiola invites me to dinner with her and her mother. The mother compliments my Italian. She said it is very good, and that I have almost no accent. I tell her that I have an ear for languages and worked for a while as a translator in Berlin. This seems to be the opportunity signora has been waiting for as she asks about my family in Germany, and why I am here, and not there.

I tell her I have no one in Germany. I tell her that my husband is German but I am actually an American and met him when I worked as a translator at the US embassy in Berlin.

“But the US is at war with Germany,” she said.

“Yes.”

“And the Americans have invaded Italy. Maybe they can help you.”

“But I have given up my citizenship. I am now the enemy. If they capture me, I’d go to jail. A prisoner of war.”

“Maybe that’s not so bad if they sent you to jail in America, yes?”

We are still at the table but I start crying and can’t stop. Fabiola is upset with her mother for upsetting me, but that’s not why I’m crying. I’m crying because I gave up everything for Franz and Franz gave up everything—including me—for a coup that never had a chance.

But Fabiola doesn’t know why I cry, and even though she is my age, maybe younger, she hugs me and rocks me, crooning comfort as if I’m a baby.

It’s not until later I remember our conversation and her mother is right.

I need to find the Americans before the Nazis find me.

I
can’t sleep.

I am exhausted and overwhelmed and I wish I hadn’t read the entire diary sitting at the restaurant, reading by candlelight. The words, the warm night, the flickering flame, the dull glow of light on the page combined to make it intensely emotional.

Even after returning to the hotel and climbing into bed I feel overwhelmed. Claustrophobic.

It’s horrific, how Franz died.

It’s horrific how Hitler had them hanged so that it was an excruciatingly slow death. Such an evil, evil man. I’m disgusted and angry, and lying in my room, which is too warm for me on this hot night, I feel disgust towards everyone and everything in Germany.

Why didn’t more people do something? Why didn’t more people rise up and act?

I understand that many were broken and afraid. I’ve read how there can be a diffusion of responsibility, part of something called the bystander effect, where people in groups are significantly
slower to take action. They all figure someone else will do it. Or should do it.

Is that what happened in Germany?

Did Hitler seem good and helpful early on, and then later something of an egomaniac but for the most part, benign?

Did no one understand that Germans and Germany were in trouble before it was too late?

Surely there were people early on saying—hey, we’ve got a situation here.

Hey, this isn’t right, isn’t fair.

I cover my face with my forearm to stop the tears. It doesn’t work. I fall asleep crying.

• • •

I
oversleep in the morning. I’ve missed the breakfast buffet but I can get a coffee and some muesli and yogurt. It’s hard to eat. My heart’s heavy.

If I weren’t going home tomorrow, I wouldn’t go to the memorials today. I’d skip everything to do with the Holocaust and Third Reich and would make today a fun day. I’d go on a Spree River cruise, then visit the Bode Museum, and afterwards sit in one of the beer gardens that flank the river and listen to music and people watch.

I’d lift my face to the sun and breathe deeply and be glad for my health, and my family, and my life.

It’s too easy to take good things for granted. Too easy to be lazy and spoiled and self-indulgent.

I don’t want to be that woman who can’t ever be happy, or be oblivious to her blessings—stability, security, peace.

I lost Andrew—and my Mom—but I’m young. Whole. Alive.

I have the present and the future. I can choose my thoughts. I can choose to hope. I can choose to love, and to give—like my Mom—and to believe.

Even if one is confronted by evil, one can still choose differently.

We have free will. And a voice.

But I do leave Berlin tomorrow and I’ve promised Edie I would visit the Memorial to the German Resistance. I’ve promised to take photos for her and show her how they are finally honoring those who did try to do something—even if it took Germany twenty-eight years to recognize them.

Because I’m getting a later start than I planned, I swap the morning and afternoon itineraries and go to the German Resistance Memorial first, then Plötzensee Prison, break for a quick lunch, followed by an afternoon at Brandenburg Gate, Pariser Platz, and the Holocaust Memorial.

The man at the hotel reception desk suggests I either take the subway or a cab to the German Resistance Memorial Center at Bendlerblock, and then from there it would be another fifteen-minute car ride to the Prison’s Memorial, should I cab it, but he isn’t sure why I’d want to go. He thinks I might enjoy seeing all the award-winning new buildings at Potsdamer Platz—stunning, modern architecture—or visiting Berlin’s Botanical Gardens or one of the many famous museums, and having been an art major, he can suggest a few. I simply smile and step outside where the doorman flags down a cab for me.

As my taxi travels past the Tiergarten and the soaring Victory Column, I feel a flutter of nerves. I’m not sure what I’ll find at the memorial and I rather dread visiting the prison, but I go home tomorrow. I have a six a.m. flight out of Berlin, everything is wrapping up very quickly now. This week has passed fast. Hard to believe I’ll be back to work at Dr. Morris’ office in just three days.

At Bendlerblock on Stauffenbergstrasse—the government has renamed the street after Claus—I pay the cab driver, and approach the gray building that houses the memorial. The building is severe, and uninspiring, at least until I pass beneath an arch and enter a
courtyard where I’m confronted by a statue of a naked man. I read the plaque, and its translation.

Y
OU
DID
NOT
BEAR
THE
SHAME
Y
OU
RES
ISTED

It was here, on this spot, that Claus von Stauffenberg was executed.

I spend a few minutes just standing in the courtyard. It’s quiet, too, despite the warm day. If I listen closely, I can hear cars and traffic in the distance, as well as warbling birds, but the high walls of the courtyard make it feel so very private here. Private and still.

As I enter the museum and pick up brochures, I scan the leaflets and handouts, hoping to discover something about Franz. Nothing jumps out at me, but at least I have his real name now. Maybe armed with his full name, I’ll find a photo or mention. I really want to take pictures for Edie, so she can have something of him . . . a photo she can frame, a plaque she can read.

For an hour I silently tour the museum, reading each sign and studying the displays memorializing the individuals and groups who opposed the Nazis.

I’d read in one of the brochures that the memorial recognizes all who were part of the Resistance, that all who resisted—in whatever form—are given equal “respect,” but as you wander through the memorial it becomes painfully clear that there were not enough of them who opposed Hitler. There was not enough organization and cohesion among the Resistance to be effective.

The memorial tries to put a brave face on the past, and the facts, but it strikes me that there are no heroes here.

There was simply not enough done.

Those who tried to do the right thing were smashed. The Germans with a conscience were ineffectual. Weak.

After an hour of reading signs and studying displays, I speak to the director of the Resistance Memorial, summoned for me by the man at the front desk, hoping he might help me find something on Major Baron Torsten von Franz here.

I start to tell him I’m friends with Major von Franz’s wife, Edie, and the director interrupts. “Major Baron von Franz was married, but his wife’s name was Elizabeth. She was born an American.”

“Yes,” I say. “Edie was American and she met him when she worked at the American embassy.”

“That’s correct, but if you check with the American embassy’s records, her legal name was Elizabeth Doherty.” He smiles at me. “Everyone at the embassy referred to her as Elizabeth. From what we’ve gathered through interviews, Torsten called her E.D.—short for Elizabeth Doherty. It was his private name for her. I don’t believe anyone else used it but him.”

He gestures for me to follow him and he leads me to a wall with a number of black-and-white photographs. In the bottom corner, and smaller than the others, are a group of women with children on their knees and playing at their feet. “There she is,” he says. “With some of the other wives of the Resistance. They were, by all accounts, quite good friends.”

I read the caption beneath the photo.

(
LEFT TO RIGHT
) Garden party, May 1943. Marion Yorck von Wartenburg, Clarita von Trott, Elizabeth von Franz, and Nina von Stauffenberg with four of the five von Stauffenberg children. The fifth, Konstanze, wasn’t born until after her father’s execution.

I scan the photo, counting heads, since Elizabeth—Edie—is the third from the left, and I’ve always thought of her as fair, but in this photo she’s not blonde but brunette, her glossy dark hair
rolled and pinned on the sides, the back caught in a loose, romantic chignon.

She’s lovely and young and smiling. She had a regal profile even then—straight nose, firm lips, bright, clear eyes.

No wonder Franz loved her. No wonder she became his E.D. Edie.

My chest grows tight. My eyes sting. I smile at her. Lovely, fiery, independent Edie.

“Every one of these women lost their husbands, didn’t they?” I say to the director.

“They did,” he agrees. “And all of the wives in this photo, but Elizabeth, were imprisoned. Baroness von Franz was out of the country at the time of the coup and escaped prosecution.”

“Not in the US,” I tell him. “I’ve been told that on her return to the US in 1944, she spent a number of months in Texas at one of the German internment camps, before finally being released and allowed to join her sister in California.”

“I wish we had more on Baron von Franz. After the war, some families shared their experiences, but many didn’t, particularly those who lived in the Russian sector.”

“From what Edie said, his family was on the East German side.”

“This is the only photo we have of him.” He leads me across the room to another wall and another photograph, this time of young officers in uniform, including Claus von Stauffenberg, in the front. The caption dates the photo to 1938. “Torsten von Franz is in the back row, far right.”

I’d seen the photo before but the caption didn’t mention Franz so I hadn’t paid it more attention. It’s a candid shot. The young officers are all smiling and relaxed.

I’m disappointed I can’t see more of Franz but at least he is here, and he’s included. I lean closer, studying the lapel of his jacket, the line of jaw, the high cheekbone and wide brow. I can see a bit of fair hair combed neatly back. He’s not the tallest in
the group, but not small, either. From the corner of his mouth, it seems as if he, too, was smiling. His arms are behind his back, possibly holding his hat. Franz. Edie’s Franz.

The director tells me what I’ve already read, that after the July 20 assassination attempt, approximately seven thousand people were arrested by the Gestapo, with close to five thousand executed, even though very few of those were actually involved in the July 20 plot, carried out by Claus von Stauffenberg.

The high ranking officers, and those who’d agreed to serve on the new government once Hitler was gone, were hanged at the prison on meat hooks. In all, two ambassadors, seven diplomats, the head of the Reich police, three secretaries of state, two field marshals, nineteen generals, twenty-six colonels, and an unknown number of lawyers, teachers, aristocrats, and intellectuals were executed.

“Von Stauffenberg was executed here, the day after the attempt, in this very courtyard. This was once his building. His office. He was executed outside his own office.”

The director accompanies me for the next fifteen minutes, telling me about the history of the memorial and why it took so long to get something organized for the Resistance. “It’s only become acceptable to talk about the Resistance in the last forty years. Until then, most Germans believed that the members of the Resistance were traitors.

“Most Germans supported Hitler,” he adds. “And they struggled with guilt after the war. They felt shame. Shame that Germans followed Hitler, shame that Germans plunged the world into war, shame that there had been an alternative and they didn’t choose it. This code of silence is one of the reasons why widows of the executed Resistance members didn’t receive pensions until the 1960s. They were being punished . . . They were wives of traitors.”

And isn’t this what Edie said?

“In fact,” he adds, “there was no memorial, no tribute to the German Resistance until 1968.”

I thank the director for his time and go outside to take more photos of the courtyard. I touch the ground with the bronze lines set into the cement.

This is where Claus and the other officers were shot.

This is where the men were lined up . . .

This is where the soldiers stood to shoot them.

I shudder and stop the thoughts by focusing on taking another half-dozen photographs to show Edie, and then leave as soon as I’m done.

I have to walk several blocks until I can hail a cab. It’s another fifteen minutes until we reach Plötzensee Prison.

My heart falls as the car pulls up in front of the redbrick building. I don’t want to do this anymore. I’ve had enough of the past, and the memories.

I will just take a few pictures for Edie and then leave. It is my last day here. I want to do something else besides feel so much sadness and pain.

I ask the driver to wait for me. He will but he’ll keep the meter running.

I take pictures of the front of the prison. It’s still a prison today, but the back “shed” used for the thousands of executions during the Third Reich has been turned into a memorial.

I don’t feel any need to go inside the prison’s memorial.

I don’t need to see the meat hooks in the ceiling. They remind me too much of Andrew and his final moments.

I try so hard not to remember Andrew that way. I try so hard not to go there . . . but every now and then, I can’t help myself.

Was he calm at the end, or in agony?