He wasn’t sure how many workers would turn up for his meeting, but when he entered the cafeteria he was relieved to discover that over fifty workers had attended. Chances were that some of them had thought attendance was compulsory – the secretary had probably made it so – and weren’t too keen on anything other than getting home to their wives and children, but the meeting wouldn’t take long. He strode over to the jukebox, turned on a recording of one of Wagner’s longer compositions – the only music they were allowed in the factory – and turned to face his audience. Thankfully, he knew most of them personally.
And some of them have been grumbling over the increased hours, he thought. And about how little say we have in our own affairs.
It was a risk, he admitted privately; he could be sacked on the spot for trying to form a non-governmental union, let alone discussing what had happened to Konrad. His bosses might be pleased with his work, but they wouldn’t tolerate anything that smacked of worker power. It would threaten their grip on power…
“I’m sorry for asking you all to attend,” he said, curtly. Liana was too young to understand what was happening, but he had discussed his plans with Gerde and she’d agreed that they had to take the risk. “There is a matter I need to discuss with you.”
He took a breath, then pulled one of the leaflets out of his pocket and held it up. “This is true,” he said. “My son is one of the wounded. My son was shipped back home to a hospital somewhere in Germany – and they never told me what happened to him. Now, I find out through my own contacts that he will probably never recover. There is nothing I can do.”
A low rumble of anger ran through the cafeteria. Volker might have been an SS officer, once upon a time, but he was a popular and reasonable foreman who’d gone to bat for his subordinates more than once. None of his workers believed he deserved to lose a son…
“It gets worse,” Volker added, once several workers had added their own stories. “The demands on our time are likely to increase.”
He braced himself as he took the plunge. “I think it’s time to take our fate into our own hands.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Morgenstern Residence, Berlin
5 August 1985
Hilde Morgenstern would never have admitted it, at least not outside the privacy of her own mind, but there were times when she envied Gudrun and many of her other girlfriends. Their mothers might be strict, their mothers might insist that dinner and house chores came before their studies, their mothers might be willing to slap their faces if they talked back or disobeyed… and yet none of them came close to Frau Morgenstern for sheer overbearing obnoxiousness, let alone a burning desire to climb the social ladder until she was the mistress of Berlin’s social scene.
“Hilde,” her mother called. “Bring out the refreshments!”
Hilde groaned inwardly as she picked up the plate of homemade cakes and biscuits – she’d had to turn them out herself, while the foreign-born maids cleaned the house thoroughly even though there hadn’t been a speck of dust in sight – and carried them into the dining room, where her mother was holding court in front of a gaggle of middle-aged ladies who had money and time on their hands. They eyed her doubtfully as she passed the plate of cakes around, then resumed their discussion. Hilde was only marginally surprised to hear that the topic of the discussion was the leaflets.
“I’ve located seven families who have a son who has dropped out of touch,” one middle-aged lady said. Hilde had never tried to remember their names, if only because they came and went so quickly. “My husband says that one of the foremen at his factory has also lost a son, a son who was actually sent back to Germany – and no one told him!”
“Shocking,” Frau Morgenstern said. “And what are we going to do about it?”
Hilde found a seat and listened as the discussion raged around the table, genteel politeness mixed with a strange kind of fear and excitement. Frau Morgenstern and her friends did everything; they baked cakes for bake sales, they organised school trips for needy children, they even collected money for wounded soldiers or war widows. Hilde had long since learned to dread the days when her mother came up with another idea for poking her overly long nose into someone’s affairs; making friends had never been easy when her mother had seen Hilde’s friendships as just another foot in the door. She would have done anything to live on campus, as Sven and the boys did. At least she’d be a long way from her mother.
“We need to support the mothers and wives who have lost sons and husbands,” Frau Morgenstern said, finally. “But we also need to learn the truth about what’s actually happening.”
“The leaflet says that the government is lying to us,” one of her friends pointed out. She was someone important – her husband was a big wheel in the Ministry of Finance, Hilde had been told – and wasn’t particularly scared of the SS. “We need to force them to tell the truth.”
“So we need to get thousands of women to work with us,” Frau Morgenstern said. Her eyes were glinting with inspiration. “A full-sized protest movement, just like they have in America.”
Hilde swallowed. She had no way to know for sure what happened in America, but she did have a good idea how the SS would react to a public demonstration. The women would be greeted with clubs, whips and machine guns. And yet, would the SS dare to fire on German womenfolk when German men had been taught it was their duty to protect the women? The SS might start a riot or mutiny just by giving the order to fire.
“We already have strong ties to the Sisters of Mercy,” Frau Morgenstern added, after a moment. “There’s no reason we can’t use this to attract more people to the cause.”
And get yourself some more power, Hilde thought, cynically. You don’t give a damn about the dead or wounded soldiers, you just want to use their fates for your own purposes.
She scowled, inwardly. Her mother thought in terms of power and influence, rather than anything more feminine. No wonder her father spent as much time as he could at the office, working for the Ministry of Industry. When his wife wasn’t building her own power base, she was nagging her husband to work on his. Hilde was sure that her mother’s pestering had been what had turned her father’s hair grey before his time.
And yet, her mother’s concept might actually work. Frau Morgenstern sat in the centre of a spider’s web of tiny organisations, each of which might provide a core of women willing to help force the government to change. She smiled at the thought of her mother nagging the Reichstag – Frau Morgenstern was a hellishly efficient nagger – and then considered the possibilities more carefully. Gudrun and the rest of their tiny group might have started the ball rolling, but it was clear that events were already moving out of control.
Which is a good thing, isn’t it? She asked herself. We have to keep our heads down for a while, so if someone else takes up the cause…
She rose as her mother gestured to her, then hurried back into the kitchen to pick up the next tray of snacks. One of the maids was hastily pulling another cake out of the oven, her pale face marred where Frau Morgenstern had slapped her hours ago. Hilde felt a stab of pity – no one would give a damn if the maids were beaten to death – but she knew there was nothing she could do. The poor girls were Untermenschen. If they died while working in the Reich, her mother would just be able to get a couple more from the Reich Labour Commission.