On Desperate Ground (9 page)

“Sister, I apologize for the error,” Elsa said, somewhat formerly. “
Feldwebel
Brunner had greatly improved so I took him off the list for therapy. Perhaps the typist missed it. I thought a long walk with his cane would help build up his strength. I sent him to pick up extra rations for us.”

Anneliese let a discrete gasp escape her lips as she took in the hidden meaning behind Elsa’s words. Wehrmacht soldiers on temporary leave from the hospital, but not discharged from it, could draw their own rations from the local Berlin garrison commissary. Some did this to supplement the hospital menu, but once in a great while a good man like Jost Brunner would do it for an entirely different reason.
 

Before the two women could exchange any further words,
Herr Doktor
Hubert Kappelen approached them, accompanied by the SS officer.

“Sister Anneliese,
Fräulein
Klein, allow me to introduce
Sturmbannführer
Otto Hettstedt. The
Sturmbannführer
was injured in last night’s terror bombing.”
Sturmbannführer
was the SS rank equivalent to a major in the regular forces.

“Heil Hitler!” snapped Hettstedt, as he clicked his heels and gave a lazy half-armed Nazi salute, bowing slightly towards the women. He was a short, pudgy man and the finely tailored uniform did little to hide his well-fed form.
 

“Heil Hitler!” responded Sister Anneliese loudly, with her substantial arm fully extended. “I trust the
Sturmbannführer
was not seriously injured?”
 

“No, Sister,” Hettstedt said, looking directly at Elsa as she stood. A smile crept up the sides of his mouth as his gaze wandered from the light brown hair falling across her forehead, to her bright blue eyes, over her full mouth, and downward to her breasts. Elsa willed her breath to remain calm and returned Hettstedt’s look.
 

“As a matter of fact,
Fräulein
,” Hettstedt continued, ignoring Sister Anneliese. “I was just returning from a late night meeting at
Prinz Albrecht Strasse
.” At the mere mention of the combined SS and Gestapo headquarters, he puffed out his chest, looking around for the effect it had on his listeners.
 

“
Sturmbannführer
Hettstedt is in the Reich Security Main Office,”
Doktor
Kappelen interjected. “
Amt
IV, I believe you said?”
Amt
IV was the SS department grotesquely titled Investigation and Fighting of Enemies.
Doktor
Kappelen already knew that Hettstedt worked out of
Amt
IV, Section B1. Section B1 investigated “Political Catholicism”, and Hettstedt was responsible for activities in the General-Government area of occupied Poland.
 

“Yes, and I am sure you must not be enemies of the state, otherwise I would not be walking out of your hospital!”
 

Hettstedt laughed at his own joke, the others joining in dutifully. Having center stage with his small audience, Hettstedt gave his version of a morale-boosting speech, keeping his eyes fixed on Elsa.

“You are doing heroic work here. Healing our comrades from the front and allowing them to once again defend the Reich is a holy duty, a duty for which St. Ludwig’s is ideally suited.”

Elsa half listened as Hettstedt droned on. She thought how much his soft, fat body contrasted with the rail-thin, sunken-cheeked men who came to the hospital from the front. She wondered if one day soon they would walk out of the hospital and directly into the trenches as the front lines moved closer to Berlin. Looking at Sister Anneliese, Elsa saw her hanging onto every word with rapt admiration.
 

“And so, I must not detain you any longer. You have done well to return me to my work so quickly. The Reich thanks you. Heil Hitler!”

This time Hettstedt gave the full-armed salute, not to be shown up again by Sister Anneliese’s enthusiastic response. The group gave the required salute and Hettstedt withdrew his arm a moment before the others and grabbed Elsa’s outstretched hand, kissing it in what he undoubtedly saw as a romantic flourish.

“Until we meet again,
Fräulein
Klein. Sister,
Herr Doktor
.”

 
The
Sturmbannführer
turned on his heel and left the room, full of self-importance, certain he had inspired the medical staff. He mentally made a note to return again, perhaps in his official capacity. It would be good to demonstrate to his superiors that Catholic organizations under his jurisdiction were actively contributing to the war effort. That nun certainly was a fine example of how a religious person should act. She saluted like a stormtrooper. And the
Fräulein
, he would like to see her again, in a more private setting. Despite the pain in his shoulder, Hettstedt left the hospital humming as he considered the benefits of an office with the
Prinz Albrecht Strasse
address. It made the young ladies tremble, which is exactly how Otto Hettstedt liked them.

As Hettstedt cleared the door, Elsa muttered a quick excuse and ran to the women’s washroom. Once inside, she leaned back against the door, her hands shaking, and tried to calm herself. She felt her skin flush, then retched violently into the sink. Splashing her face with cold water, she waited for her breathing to calm before she rejoined the others.

“By the Holy Father, Sister, you laid it on thick with that one,”
Doktor
Kappelen said in a low voice, half in admiration and half in disbelief. “I could not wait to get rid of him, especially after our new guests arrived last night.”

The doctor quickly glanced around the room to be sure no one else was listening, a reflex action by now. Saint Ludwig’s harbored a dangerous secret, one that in these trying days would earn all concerned a bullet in the back of the head. Saint Ludwig’s Hospital of Berlin treated Jews. Hidden Jews. Throughout the city, by ones, twos and in small groups, sympathetic friends, opponents of the regime, and religious conspirators hid Jews. No one knew exactly how many, but there was always a need for medical treatment. With the increased bombing that the city had seen over the last year, the hidden Jews of Berlin now needed treatment for wounds, burns and broken bones as well as for normal illnesses and the effects of malnutrition. With food rationing restricting the diets of Germans with official papers, there was little sustenance for anyone without proper documentation.

No one could remember how it started. Early in 1943, before the Wehrmacht had taken over, there were whispers of secret visitors to the sealed tuberculosis ward, an area of the hospital certain to stifle the curiosity of those who could not be trusted. As some of the sisters and staff realized what was occurring, they offered their help to Sister Anneliese. Elsa was among them. They provided medical care, food and emotional support to their secret patients, for those who came to them were often paralyzed with fear at being outside their safe havens, without papers or protection.

As the bombings brought more civilian casualties to Saint Ludwig’s, Elsa conceived of a plan. Taking identity papers from those who died, she saved them for a Jew who matched them in age and appearance. It was a slow process, but Elsa had provided eleven hidden Jews with Aryan identity papers by the time the Wehrmacht took over the hospital. It was then she had her great inspiration.
 

Over three hundred civilian beds were to be cleared within a short time. Elsa had gone to the Wehrmacht general who had delivered the orders to the hospital, and demanded transport to the country for one hundred priority civilian patients. She informed him that they would not survive in Berlin in their condition and that they must be taken to the countryside. At great expense to the hospital, she would assign each patient a nurse’s aide to accompany and care for them. These aides, of course, must also be issued priority travel papers. If the Wehrmacht would not cooperate and was willing to let her patients—some who were Party members—die, then she would have to inform the appropriate authorities.

Within a matter of days, Elsa had priority travel documents for one hundred patients and one hundred companions. Word went out through the underground network of hidden Jews for able-bodied women to come to Saint Ludwig’s. If some of the nurse’s aides were painfully thin and white-skinned, no one noticed in the confusion of the move, and the peaceful Bavarian countryside was soon home to one hundred recuperating Berliners and their novice caretakers.

Following the military takeover of the hospital, the Gestapo ran security checks on the entire staff. One doctor and one janitor disappeared. Then one of the nurses denounced a doctor for “defeatist” comments. He was taken away for three weeks, returning with a limp and speaking to nobody. This had a chilling effect on Elsa and her circle of conspirators. Their euphoria vanished as they realized that death not only came from enemy bombers in the sky but from their own countrymen’s grip on the ground as well.

“Come with me,” Elsa said to the sister as she returned from the washroom, her face a pale white.

The two women walked through the emergency ward, full of victims being treated after the night’s bombing raid. They went two flights up and into a little-used corridor with a room marked ‘Supplies’ at the end. Elsa pulled a key from her pocket and opened a cupboard door. It was empty. She knocked twice, sharply, on the wall. Grabbing the molding along the edge, she slid it sideways. Inside, the meager light from the supply room revealed two huddled forms, shielding their eyes against the light, shivering in the cold of the unheated hiding place.
 

“Don’t worry,” said Elsa to the two girls, holding up a finger to her lips.

The girls nodded, eyes wide, as Elsa spoke to Sister Anneliese. “Twin sisters, thirteen years old. Their apartment was bombed out and everyone in it was killed. Their hiding place was destroyed. What should we do?”

The older woman knew exactly what to do. She pushed past Elsa and opened her arms wide.
 

“Children,” she whispered.
 

They fell into her arms sobbing as she rocked them back and forth.

Of course, Anneliese. You always go to the heart of the matter,
Elsa thought to herself.
But what will we do tomorrow?

With the two girls in the Anneliese’s care, Elsa walked slowly back to her office, drained by the events of the night and the morning. She nearly collided with a smiling Jost Brunner.
 

“Elsa, wait ‘til you see what I brought! Sausage, cheese, and chocolate!”
 

Jost stopped as he looked into Elsa’s wan face.

“What’s the matter, child? Why so sad?” 
“Oh, Jost, I don’t know how much longer I can bear it.”
 

She leaned forward and hugged him, arms around his broad chest, a tear slowly drifting across her cheek.

“There, there, now,” he soothed, patting her on the back with his one free arm while the other held his sack of rations. “Now, let me tell you one thing. That fiancée of yours has gotten us all out of some pretty tight spots. He won’t get caught out there,” he gestured with his arm. “And my leg is doing much better. As soon as you send me back, I will let him know he needs to get home.”

“I do worry that you’re not there to look after him,” Elsa said with a smile, wiping her tear away. “I wouldn’t want him to do anything stupid. Dieter can be so stubborn.”

“My dear, I will not get involved in a lover’s quarrel,” Jost said lightheartedly, trying to lift Elsa’s spirits. He turned and walked with her down the corridor, limping slightly, an arm around her shoulder. “Now, I spent all morning drinking awful ersatz coffee with a supply sergeant in order to talk him out of these extra rations. Here, take this chocolate and give it to those kids you have stashed around here.”

He gave her a wink, and Elsa felt the tears well up again in her eyes. Wanting Jost to think he had cheered her up, she held them back. All she really felt was an overwhelming, weary sadness that for all his good deeds, Jost Brunner might soon be put up against a wall and shot.

CHAPTER SEVEN

13 February 1945

Reich Chancellery
 

Berlin, Germany

In the month since his assignment to Guderian’s OKH staff, Colonel Johann Faust had proved himself invaluable, preparing detailed and timely reports on Russian strength and intentions along the Eastern Front. He spent many late night hours working alone, pouring over maps and writing in a notebook that he stored in a safe during the day. When asked by other staff what he was working on, Faust coldly declined to reply, and the questions soon stopped.

Such behavior, along with his caustic tongue and confident belief in his own opinions, did not make him a desired companion for the few off-duty hours the officers were allowed. Everyone at OKH headquarters in Zossen, a small town south of Berlin, was overstressed and overworked, and few cared to spend any more time than necessary with Faust. A close-knit group, they were intensely loyal to General Guderian, and Faust was too much of a loner to become part of the General’s informal circle.
 

As the staff filed out of the headquarters building to the line of staff cars waiting to take them to Berlin, Faust saw his status reflected in the travel arrangements. Guderian rode in the first car with his Chief of Staff, General Walther Wenck, along with his adjutant, Major Freytag. Faust traveled with
Hauptmann
Boldt and several junior offices in the second car, glad at least to not be relegated to the last vehicle, with the security detail. He felt a dangerous comfort in their company. Part of him missed the connection with fellow officers that he had eliminated from his life. But he could not chance it, could not let his guard down for a moment’s relaxation. He had no wish for them to glimpse his inner torment through a careless comment or question. Indeed, it might be dangerous for them to get that close. So he cut himself off from their closeness and comradeship, deliberately treating them with austere aloofness.