MUNICH
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1938
Crammed in the gallery of Munich’s Bürgerbräukeller, Peter leaned his forearms on the railing. Three thousand people filled the hall, with the “Old Fighters” from the early days of the Nazi movement seated below on the main floor and everyone else standing in galleries lining all four walls.
The room buzzed waiting for Hitler’s big speech for the fifteenth anniversary of the launch of the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. Every year the Nazis commemorated their failed attempt to overthrow the government that had led to the deaths of sixteen Nazis and four policemen. Hitler had been arrested but only served eight months in prison—time he’d spent writing Mein Kampf.
Peter’s armpits felt sticky. Not just from the warm room, but from the predicament of having Otto von Albrecht and his Students’ League friends to his right and George Norwood to his left. To keep Otto appeased, Peter had to talk like a Nazi—something he did not want to do in front of George, in case George mentioned it to folks back home.
Lord, help me speak out of both sides of my mouth. Peter cringed. It wasn’t right to ask God to help him lie. Yet lying was necessary.
When Otto had invited him, he’d declined. But when Evelyn said she’d be covering the late-night ceremony, he’d changed his mind. Then George had called to say he was reporting on the ceremony too.
What a mess. Around the corner in the gallery to his right, Evelyn watched with the press. She’d worn no red at all—gray from head to foot. With that passport, she needed to blend in. Her colleagues would protect her and vouch for her, but Peter felt better being present. He wore a navy blue suit to stand out for her in the sea of brown uniforms.
Otto leaned forward to catch Peter’s eye. “Did you hear about that awful shooting in Paris yesterday?”
Peter frowned. “I did.”
“Filthy Jew, shooting a German man.”
Otto’s friends muttered oaths, and Peter muttered an incoherent prayer.
Reading the newspaper article, he’d found some facts under the propaganda. Herschel Grynszpan, a seventeen-year-old German Jewish boy of Polish origin, lived in Paris. His parents were among the Jews forced from Germany into Poland the previous week. When the boy heard, he went to the German embassy in Paris and shot an official named Ernst vom Rath. The man clung to life in the hospital.
“The Jews would kill us all in our sleep if they had their way,” Otto’s friend Joachim said.
“Ja.” Their friend Helmut clenched a fist on top of the railing. “Something needs to be done.”
Peter glanced down to his own fists. The Nazis had already done something—many somethings. Laws after laws after laws, depriving the Jews of their livelihoods and freedoms, but the Nazis were never satisfied. Their hatred only grew.
George adjusted the knot of his tie. “I’m beginning to agree.”
Peter snapped his gaze to his friend. “With . . . what?”
“Think of the problems we have in America. Our economy is in ruins, and who owns the banks?”
“Right,” George said.
Peter stifled his alarm. His life depended on not showing his feelings.
George’s chin edged forward. “Don’t even get me started on the newspaper and radio and movie industries. You know who owns them all.”
“Could it be the Jews?” Sarcasm distorted Otto’s voice.
All the men laughed, and Peter wrenched his lips into the shape of a smile.
Otto clapped Peter on the back. “Peter’s going to change that.”
“What do you mean?” George asked.
Peter shot Otto a glare. His mission was secret. Even Otto wasn’t supposed to know. Otto’s gray eyes widened, and he gave a slight nod.
Peter turned a sheepish smile to George. “Otto thinks too highly of my future influence as a professor. But I will definitely tell everyone about my experiences here.”
“Good,” George said. “We have to counteract the lies in the papers. They manipulate what people hear, what people believe. They kick out clear-thinking men like me and sing the praises of hacks like her.” He flicked his chin in the direction of the correspondents.
Peter chilled, but he feigned innocence. “Who?”
“Evelyn Brand. She shouldn’t be here. She’s supposed to be gone.”
A kick in his gut. “Say, I know you don’t like her, but wanting her to get expelled? That’s too much.”
George sent him a strange look—anger shifting to surprise—then he glanced away. “That isn’t what I want.”
“I’m glad to hear.” But his friendship with George was at an end.
The band played. Arms shot out in salute, and voices sang, fervent and proud. Peter clasped his hands behind his back and sang not one word. Thank goodness, George did the same.
The speeches began, and Peter hated it all. Hated the pomp. Hated the role he played. Hated the hatred. If only he could escape the country when Evelyn did.
His gaze slid to her. She looked pale and quiet. It had to be difficult for her to feel helpless.
But in her crisis, she’d come to him. Of all the people she knew in Munich, she’d come to him. She’d embraced him and kissed him on the cheek. In any other circumstance, he’d have taken it as a sign to renew his pursuit.
Not now. Not when she feared for her life.
Across the void of the hall, she met his gaze.
Peter tapped two fingers under his chin, signaling her to keep her chin up.
The tiniest smile, and she glanced away.
More than anything, he wanted to draw her to his side forever. But to keep her safe, to show his love, he had to send her away.
MUNICH
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1938
The procession was so slow, Evelyn wrote out full copy as she walked, not just notes.
The clouds hung as low and gray as her mood. Hitler had just laid a giant wreath at the Feldherrnhalle, a memorial built a hundred years ago to honor Bavarian military leaders—now honoring street thugs gunned down by the police in 1923. Those thugs were entombed as martyrs at a shrine on Königlicher Platz.
She stuck close to the other foreign correspondents walking down the sidewalk under red-and-black swastika flags, as brown-shirted SA troops paraded down the street.
Across the road, Peter and Norwood kept pace with her. Once again, Peter’s nearness calmed her. Everything was upside down lately.
“Is that George Norwood?” Cal Monroe said in front of her.
Behind Evelyn, Bert Sorensen snorted. “Man doesn’t know he’s licked.”
“He’s freelancing.” Tony DeLuca of the Washington Times Dispatch screwed up his wide mouth. “The Nazi rags in the US need material too. I’ll bet the German-American Bund is his best customer, and that fascist Father Coughlin.”
“He’s smart to stay on the other side of the road,” Cal said.
“Smarter still to stay away from Brand.” Tony grinned back at her. “She’d run him through. Making us think she was Goebbels’s Girl.”
Evelyn heaved a mock sigh. “Alas. Here I am, armed only with a hatpin.”
The fellows laughed.
It felt good to be part of the group again. It felt secure. But that security was an illusion without her US passport. This morning she’d again debated which was more dangerous—the red-stamped passport or no papers. She’d decided to play by the rules and carry the passport.
To be safe, she avoided areas labeled “Juden Verboten”—no Jews allowed. Though she’d made an exception for the Putsch anniversary. She had a job to do. She needed the stories. Thank goodness, no one had asked for anything but her press pass.
The procession entered the expanse of the Königlicher Platz. As the band played “Deutschland über Alles,” SA, SS, and army troops marched in formation, black boots thumping the granite pavement.
Tomorrow morning the consulate general would be open again, and she could start the process to get a new passport. How long would it take? Meanwhile, she had to lie low and avoid the Gestapo. How on earth could she do her job well?
Evelyn groaned and took more notes. Her situation was no different from that of Herr Gold and the other Jews in Germany. Except they didn’t have the luxury of US citizenship to fall back on. Her situation was temporary, but theirs knew no end.
Cal nudged Tony with a scrawny elbow. “That Ernst vom Rath fellow had better pull through. These folks want blood.”
Evelyn glanced around at the strident faces. The German rags this morning had been so rabid she couldn’t read them. Violence against Jews had erupted in various cities the day before. What would happen if vom Rath died?
Next to the Führerbau, twin white mausoleums housed the sixteen coffins of the Putsch martyrs, and thousands gathered to pay homage. Evelyn and the other correspondents found the press area—but she lost sight of Peter.
Hundreds of black-uniformed SS men stood in rank by the neoclassical memorial, and a speaker sorrowfully intoned the names of the fallen over the loudspeaker. With each name, the crowd bellowed, “Hier!”—here!
The ceremony ended with the “Horst Wessel Song.”
Cal and Bert sang their own comic version in a low voice—Evelyn could only pick out cuss words and a double entendre. Enough to know she didn’t want to hear the rest. Not in her current mood.
When the crowd broke up, the correspondents headed out of the square.
Tony nudged Cal. “Hungry? Let’s grab a bite at Osteria Bavaria.”
Cal chuckled. “Hitler’s favorite restaurant? Sure. Let’s see if he shows.”
“Count me in.” Bert hailed a cab.
Evelyn would be left alone, and a strange panic squeezed her chest. “May I join you?”
“Sure, tootsie.” Bert winked at her and opened the back door. “But you’ll have to sit on my lap.”
For once, she’d consider an offer like that. “Nonsense. We can all squeeze in.”
A squeeze it was, and Evelyn perched on the edge of the seat, but she was in and safe.
“Say, Brand,” Tony said. “Tell us how you got that scoop at the Munich Conference.”
Cal pulled a newspaper from inside his trench coat and perused it. “Yeah, you scooped the world. Maids! Who’d have thunk?”
Evelyn allowed a moment to revel in her victory. “Only a woman.”
Bert Sorensen rubbed his knee against Evelyn’s backside.
“Say, Bertie.” Evelyn patted her hat. “Ever imagine the damage a hatpin could do? I’m imagining it now.”
Tony hooted. “Told you she’s a firebrand. Watch it, or you’ll get burned.”
Bert grumbled and jerked his knee away.
“Bunch of garbage.” Cal whapped the newspaper. “How these fellows can write this swill beats me. Look at this. They list a bunch of people beheaded as enemies of the state. They brag about it. Listen—Fräulein Magda Müller passed military secrets to foreigners, Herr Friedrich—”
Evelyn sucked in a breath. “Magda Müller? May I—may I see that?”
“Sure.”
Her stomach frothed as she scanned the article. No doubt but it was her Magda Müller. Evelyn had stopped meeting her many weeks before, but the girl must have found another reporter—or a Gestapo agent posing as a reporter.
Her head and her stomach swirled, taunting her, haunting her. How could she go to a restaurant and eat and banter?
She gave Cal his paper. “Say, fellows, I don’t feel well. I’m going to ask the driver to drop me at my place. It isn’t far out of the way.”
“What’s the matter, Brandy?” Bert lifted his pointy chin. “That time of the month?”
Evelyn glared at him, fingered her hatpin, and leaned over the seatback to give directions to the driver.
For the next few minutes, the conversation floated around her, not entering her ears, but she held herself together.
When the cab pulled in front of her building, Bert didn’t scoot out of her way. Evelyn climbed over him, and he fondled her bottom. She drove her high heel into his instep, making him yelp and the other fellows crack up.
She shoved open the door, dashed up to her apartment, and sank into an armchair with her head in her hands.
Magda. Poor Magda. Poor foolish Magda. Why hadn’t she been careful? Why hadn’t she followed Evelyn’s instructions?
Then she clutched her stomach and doubled over. No. No. It was Evelyn’s fault, not Magda’s. The Gestapo had been watching Evelyn—she was the one who put them on Magda’s tail. She’d as good as turned the girl in.
A chill sliced over the back of her neck, and she clutched it. If the Gestapo had followed Evelyn that day and found those papers, it would have been her under that guillotine and not Magda.
She moaned. “Lord, what have I done? I wanted a story, and I cost a woman her life.”
What if the Gestapo had tortured Magda? Surely they had. Had she told them about General Gerlach and the others who had plotted a coup? The plot had fizzled after the Munich Agreement, but the Gestapo wouldn’t care.
Germany needed the few remaining people who had courage to stand up to Hitler.
How many of those people had Evelyn condemned?