The hottest topic was the Americans, who had just entered the war. From what Kurt could gather, the consensus from the corridors of power on Wilhelmstrasse seemed to be that the Yanks wouldn’t make much of an impact for at least a year, and by then the war would be over.
One of the few topics he hadn’t heard discussed was why the German advance on Moscow had suddenly stalled. Too risky, he supposed. Yet here was this slip of a girl named Liesl daring to proclaim that she was sick of uniforms and then openly questioning the nation’s war fever. Kurt was enchanted. Then again, he was predisposed to enchantment, having just spent ten minutes maneuvering himself into position to speak with her.
And on at least one count he genuinely agreed with her: These sorts of parties weren’t to his liking. Coming here had been his father’s idea. It was yet another session in Reinhard Bauer’s crash course in the social dynamics of wartime commerce, a tutelage that had begun just after Kurt’s sixteenth birthday. Already he had endured weeks of formal introductions, factory visits, and ministry auditions.
This week had been typicaclass="underline" Monday, coffee at the Bosch Works in Kleinmachnow. Tuesday, lunch at the Ministry of Armaments. Then a Wednesday train ride to the city’s northwest reaches for a tour of the Rheinmetall-Borsig factory, followed by Thursday’s engineering tutorial on metallurgy and Friday’s luncheon with accountants at the Red-White Tennis Club, where his father was appalled to discover that the ballroom had been commandeered as a barracks for the crew of an antiaircraft battery, newly positioned on the back lawn.
To close out the week they had come to the Stuckart party, where Kurt was expected to feign a politely casual air and exude holiday cheer even as he strived to make an impression. The Stuckarts lived only a few blocks from the Bauers’ home in Charlottenburg, and Kurt had sweated beneath his starched collar as they walked the darkened streets of the blacked-out city. Hard to believe that only two winters ago he had been among the crews of teen boys daubing the neighborhood curbs with luminous white paint to help people find their way in the dark. It was a Hitler Youth project, speaking of silly uniforms. Kurt’s group had also helped the neighbors build sandbagged new exits from their basements, which had been converted to bomb shelters.
At least Kurt’s father hadn’t insisted that he wear the annoying Hitler Youth lapel pin. Kurt had left that behind in a dresser drawer. Good riddance. Nothing was more certain to mark you as a juvenile if you happened to meet some attractive young woman.
It wasn’t that Kurt didn’t sympathize with his father’s need to display loyalty. That would always be an issue for the Bauers. Reinhard blamed himself, tutting that he had waited too late to join the Nazi Party. He had then compounded his problems by dropping the aristocratic “von” from the family name. As acts of appeasement go, it didn’t exactly rank with Neville Chamberlain at Munich, but it was nearly as ineffective. Party hacks still mistrusted them as Hohenzollern blue bloods, and their peers now dimly regarded them as slumming opportunists, little better than Jews in their grasping zeal for reichsmarks.
Not so long ago, Kurt would have welcomed his status as an industrial debutante. He had once longed for the day when, like his forebears, he would be counted on to make big decisions affecting the livelihoods of thousands. But that sort of trust had been reserved instead for his older brother, Manfred, and for years it had been Manfred who got the grooming and the testing. Manfred tagged along on corporate retreats into the fresh air of the Hartz Mountains, and on collegial weekend hikes into the piney depths of the Grunewald. When war seemed imminent, Reinhard fretted over whether to press for an officer’s posting for Manfred in the Wehrmacht or to instead finagle placement in some safer endeavor that would still offer the badge of national service.
Then along came the blitzkrieg. Like everyone else, Reinhard watched the grainy newsreels of hapless Poles with their lances and horses, and then the fleeing Frenchmen in medieval helmets. He concluded that the rest of the war would also proceed in this “easy” fashion, even as patriotic obituaries soon began filling the newspapers. And so, to Manfred’s delight, Reinhard steered his elder son into the officer corps.
He should have known better, of course. It was like putting all of your money into a stock at its peak value. Two months after Manfred departed for the front lines, the Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union. By the time of the first snowfall it was apparent that the stock price was falling, although up to now everyone had been too stunned to even whisper about selling. So, with Manfred indisposed for the indeterminate future, Reinhard decided he had better begin preparing Kurt, just in case.
The boy at least had a head for math and physics, and he was also a whiz at English. And with so many students gone off to war he had been able to enroll in university a year ahead of schedule. But it soon became clear to Reinhard that Kurt had been left to his own devices for too long. He had developed an unfortunate appreciation for literature and music, plus a certain dreaminess that meshed poorly with the no-nonsense mentality of high commerce. It was making for a rocky transition.
Kurt, then, had walked to the party with an air of resignation, and when a Stuckart servant held open the leather blackout curtain in the foyer and took his overcoat, he braced himself for a trying night.
At least Erich would be there. Erich Stuckart, son of the party’s host, was an entertaining schoolmate always good for a few laughs. Kurt immediately spotted the long, horsey face, just like his dad’s. Erich, too, wore a suit—boring pinstripes in midnight blue. It might have made him resemble the Gestapo wraiths if not for a bright red necktie, which Kurt saw now was pinned with a tiny gold swastika. His father’s doing, no doubt, because Erich’s first order of business was always devilment and drinking, an agenda that already showed in the high flush of his cheeks.
“You’ve escaped your father. Well done!” Erich said. “I’ve run my own gauntlet of government types. Dad’s idea, of course. But hopefully I’m through for the duration.”
“I got lucky,” Kurt said. “The minute we walked in he was cornered by some state secretary for economics having a wet dream about the subject of Reichsbahn rolling stock.”
“There’s the only rolling stock I’m interested in. Check out the caboose on that one.”
Erich tipped his glass toward a passing woman whose dress was several sizes too tight.
“This clothes-rationing business is simply the best,” he said. “My mother’s seamstress tells her that most women now are rehemming their skirts instead of buying new ones when the edges start to fray. A few more years of war and everything will be mid-thigh. So here’s to the plucky Red Army. Long may they hold out in their rat-infested dachas.”
Kurt snatched a dripping champagne glass from a passing tray.
“Nice spread you’ve got, speaking of rationing.”
“Shellfish aren’t covered, you know, so the oysters were a breeze. The ham and champagne are straight from Paris. The only problem was that everything was sitting in some warehouse west of town, with no trucks and no gasoline. Dad had to find three droopy Poles to lug it here on handcarts. They covered everything with blankets the whole way or they never would have made it through Spandau. People took one look at the sad sacks pulling the load and probably figured it was a mound of horse manure. So drink up. This could be your last bubbly for months. Or at least until your sister Traudl’s wedding.”
“He hasn’t even asked her yet.”
“Oh, he will. All the SS men are getting hitched. It’s all the rage before going to the front. You better brace yourself for a lot of stupid background checks. They go back six generations, you know. All very silly.”