Chapter 1 Shadows over the Brandenburg Gate
Shadows over the Brandenburg Gate
Berlin
It seemed like any other Monday for most Germans, but everything had changed irrevocably.
Despite the lack of snow, Christmas was definitely on its way.
Berliners made their way to work down the foggy streets.
The smell of coffee in Helene Nathan’s apartment finally penetrated through her sleepy brain and coaxed her eyes to open.
The librarian reached out and stroked the silky white fur of her cat, Kaiser, perched at the edge of the bed.
With Kaiser in arms, she headed to the kitchen and beheld the impressive profile of her fiancé, Derek von Sholtz.
She still could not fathom why that gorgeous man, with blond hair and deep green eyes from the Prussian aristocracy, had fallen in love with her, a plain-looking librarian, Jewish on her mother’s side, with thin lips, gray eyes, and red hair.
She had always been a romantic but had learned about love from books.
The novels of the Bronte sisters and Jane Austen had allowed her to fall hopelessly in love within the safety of cream-colored paper, a shade just lighter than the coffee waiting for her on the kitchen table atop the finely stitched tablecloth knit by her maternal grandmother.
Derek’s almond-shaped eyes followed her movements, and his straw-colored mustache arched with his sweet smile.
“How is my princess this morning?” he asked, his Prussian accent softened by affection.
Helene let a satisfied sigh slip from her lips as she tried to hold on to the moment forever. The year before, she had been
completely immersed in her work at the Municipal Public Library in Neukolln and in her goal to distribute literature among
the poorest areas of the city. Her life’s mission was to help children and adolescents discover more freedom and opportunity
in the pages of a book than they would ever be granted by the ostentatious constitutions men had written to govern them. At
a jazz concert one night, she spotted in the smoke-filled room a perfect Aryan who would have been right at home at a meeting
of the NSDAP, the Nazi Party. When he came up to talk and she learned that he was an avid reader, she wondered if that boy
had been born to love her. Helene’s parents always told her that her ridiculously high standards would turn her into a spinster.
Yet this young Prussian was proof that every human being has a kindred soul waiting for them somewhere.
Derek had arrived in Berlin only a few days before they met.
With the altercations over political instability at the time, his superiors had transferred him to a cavalry regiment in the capital.
He was studying among the country’s military elite at the Prussian War College, though it functioned somewhat in secrecy given the Allied injunction against Germany having a modern, powerful army.
“I, for one, am sleepy,” Derek said with a yawn. “We were up late talking with Lena and Gabor, and you know I can’t seem to
function on less than eight hours.” He took another sip of coffee, and the pleasantly bitter taste chased his sluggishness
away.
“Me, too,” Helene said. “I should leave soon, but I want to enjoy these moments with you, watching the city wake up.” Her
gaze on the square outside marked the shortening of the shadows and the dissipating of the fog. Her hands were freezing, but
Kaiser, stretched beside her, acted like a heating pad, as did the steaming mug of coffee.
Their window allowed an impressive view of the Pariser Platz and the Brandenburg Gate. The apartment was another of life’s
unexpected gifts. Helene had inherited a comfortable sum when her paternal grandmother passed away the year before. Helene’s
father had been a member of Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg’s administration, serving as secretary to the vice-chancellor,
Clemens von Delbrück. That was as high as he could go in his career, since he was married to a Jewish woman. Helene’s mother
came from a family full of influential Orthodox rabbis. When she walked away from that branch of Judaism, the family was initially
furious. The support she lost from her family was doubly compensated by the warmth and affection doled out by her new husband’s
mother, Richelle. Helene still teared up over the loss of her grandmother and silently thanked her every day for making it
possible to live in that apartment.
“Sometimes I think the world would be better off without us,” Helene mused. Her gray eyes were troubled like clouds before a storm. So far in life, only her love for Derek had managed to introduce optimism into her outlook.
Derek cocked his head at his fiancée. Her philosophical ruminations often puzzled him, though he listened enraptured as she
waxed eloquently about literature, history, and politics.
“I’m talking about peace and calm,” she clarified. “The world seems to be calmer and happier when human beings are asleep.
Everything’s balanced then. Look at Kaiser. He seems happy. He has no ambitions or worldly desires.”
The cat, who had hopped down from her lap, was now licking the bowl of milk with his eyes closed, as happy as he was every
day, his little brain unconcerned by the shadows looming over the country.
Helene lamented the fact that almost no one understood the massive amount of energy she spent each day to seem normal. Derek
got it, though. In fact, he loved her peculiarities, her unique ways of thinking.
Just then they heard a knock at the door. Derek slipped on his mess jacket, went to the recently revarnished door, and opened
it without even asking who was calling so early.
Lena burst in, waving a newspaper. After a quick glance at Derek, she went straight to the kitchen.
Helene smiled but did not get up from her perch. She knew Lena von Bülow’s moods. When her strong-willed friend was riled
up, it was best to let her blow off all the steam she needed to.
The outburst began with, “Good God, those pigs have won again! The country is lost!” Lena’s arms swung about, the pages of
the newspaper flapping like a flock of paper birds as she prattled on with her shrill analysis.
Derek sidled by, avoiding the windmill. “Well, I’m heading out.” He gave Helene’s forehead a quick kiss and asked, underneath the volume of Lena’s diatribe, “Dinner tonight?”
Helene’s face tingled at the brush of his lips. She was still unaccustomed to the feel of skin that was not hers. “I hope
so, sweetie. I’ll call you from the library to let you know for sure.”
Derek nodded into his cap and stopped at the door to slip on his boots and coat before heading out into the cold city morning.
Lena frowned after him. When the door clicked shut and silence returned, she paused for breath before she took a seat by Helene.
“I still don’t get why you’re with him. He’s a Prussian officer—an aristocrat—and he works for those reactionaries.”
Helene shrugged. “What can I say? Fire and ice attract; love can’t be planned. ‘Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine
are the same.’”
“It’s a bit early to be quoting Emily Bronte, don’t you think?” Lena snorted. “All those romantic novels have softened your
brain.”
Helene smiled, and Lena showed her the headlines. The leftist newspaper Vossische Zeitung had the results from yesterday’s elections on the front page.
“See, the Nazis keep winning! They did lose thirty-five seats, but they’re still the most voted party in Germany. And look—a
full thirty-three percent of Germans agree with Adolf Hitler’s ideology. This is madness! The world would be better off without
all these fanatics.” Far from talking herself down, Lena was only growing more bewildered.
“Give me a second to get dressed, and let’s head to the library. The skies are gray enough without the Nazis putting a damper
on the day.”
A short trolley ride would take them to Neukolln, which had been a charming area until the end of the nineteenth century.
Now it was a dirty, poor, working-class neighborhood of some three hundred thousand people.
Ten years prior, the first public library had been opened there, but its existence was not enough to get books into the hands of the impoverished masses of the neighborhood, who had only the most basic level of formal education.
Helene worked tirelessly to help every child and teenager in Neukolln learn to read and write and have access to books.
Since 1929, disagreements between the Nazis and the KDP, the Communist Party of Germany, had grown more and more tense, and the city streets seemed ready to erupt.
Out on the sidewalk, Helene and Lena could not help but notice the heightened excitement of the SA, the Brownshirts. Their
posture seemed to indicate they were celebrating their paltry victory, though getting the conservative parties to work together
with someone like Hitler would be a monumental task. Helene paid little attention to the National Socialist underlings, but
Lena, who feared no one and nothing, sent the Brownshirts a steely glare.
“Cut it out, Lena. You’re just asking for them to come over and slap you,” Helene said.
Berliners were used to political ups and downs, and this day they scurried unaffected to their jobs. For the majority, it
was a typical Monday: Christmas was coming, along with a long and cold winter, and everyone was fed up with politics. The
crisis of 1929 had cut the legs out from under the already battered German economy, and most people just wanted peace and
a plate of hot food to heat.
Helene studied the streets as they rode.
She loved her city and never wanted to live anywhere else.
The Nazis considered Berlin the epicenter of German degradation and had yet to win the hearts of its inhabitants.
Yet they were more and more accepted in the working-class neighborhoods and twice already had made threats to the library’s employees.
With the victory of yesterday’s election, Helene feared that things would be even harder for her and Lena’s work.
Some of their colleagues took issue with the fact that a woman was in charge of the Neukolln library, but Helene was proud of being one of the few female librarians in the country.
She shook her head to clear her thoughts and ran her hand up the trolley bar. “No more about the elections. What about the
materials we need for going to the south side?”
Lena shook her head. “I really don’t think it’s a good idea to go today. It’s too risky. The Nazis and communists are likely
to be at it, for sure.”
“Which is exactly why we’ve got to go. If books can’t rein all this in, what can?”