Everything comes with practice. Loyalty change of zone speed rash enthusiasm in the precision of translation at nineteen and plus. Plus what exactly? Ah so you had reached the age to help the German war-effort some while before it collapsed. What did you do? You will excuse these questions Fräulein but in view of your nationality we must make sure of your undivided loyalty total ignorance dissidence change of heart let us see now until the age of sir, at that age one has no loyalties. No? One does a job any job to the best of one’s ability. Yes yes of course we understand but one does one’s job, also, as an instrument. Had you thought of that? In view of your French upbringing however and the strong recommendation from the plane as it leaps up and down the holes of air wind storm that lurch into the mouthpiece the passengers in grey-blue dark olive-green and khaki hold on to the metal bench or each other not to get thrown across the fuselage to the opposite metal bench with passengers in dark olive-green khaki grey-blue the round ribs all exposed as if inside the skeleton of a dark olive monster. Du liebes Kind have you not flown before, there, komm mal her his arm right round a little storm only a little storm soon landing outside Hamburg as the plane lurches down the steps of air above the squares of grey façades so much less squat than the rubble behind them. You don’t mind my calling you Du liebes Kind Fräulein? His arm right round a hole of air his nose long slightly broken and the mouth quite thin which says please call me Siegfried.
Everything comes with practice. Living in the requisitioned room in Hanover sparsely but better than others having access to allied goods sold at a profit. Catching colds in open jeeps with Flight Lieutenant This or Captain That and sometimes also Siegfried according to the type of prisoner interrogated and curing colds at the unpressurised height of two thousand metres eardrums blocked from any voice offering anything not ordered half-desired feared or longed for on the way to München where die Alte Peterskirche barely stands in stark broken façades around its rubble heap and on to Dachau full of German civilian prisoners or the Schloss code-name Dustbin outside Frankfurt full of ex-high officials who can help reconstruct the history of devastation Dorf by Dorf day by day from the enemy point of view.
Diversion. Umleitung. Achtung Road Repairs now entering the British Zone with a flow of rash enthusiasm speed change of loyalty love hope so much less squat than the collapse behind it. Well but you see, sir, reading English newspapers at the AA, the A.A.? sorry the German Foreign Office one learnt to follow the war from the enemy point of view. The enemy. Ah yes, you mean us. And did you also learn to adopt our point of view? Bluffing a little, looking up unknown words in the dictionary hidden inside the drawer to hide the fact that one had merely passed a test in English learnt at night in Köln air-raid shelters in order to obtain the Dolmetscher Zulage which means that you may now draw 80 RM extra per month on your salary as Assistant Censor. Mes chers parents. J’espère que vous allez bien. Lieber Hans, lieber Helmut, lieber Horst. Sehr geehrtes Fräulein. Dienstverpflichtung. Which means that you have obtained a transfer to the Auswärtige Amt in Berlin, Presseüberwachungsabteilung Ausland (PA) Auslandspresseländergruppe Nord where you will work as wissenschaftlicher Hilfsarbeiter and read about the shelving of the plan to dismember Germany into the smallest possible pieces based on the old principalities and dukedoms in favour of four zones, the Battle of the Bulge, the five hundred sorties by Flying Fortresses hardly encountering any defence from the remains of the Jagdruppe belt scattered in Central Germany dropping their load vertically down despite the anti-aircraft vertically up making no difference upon Cologne Berlin Hamburg Kassel Dresden Leipzig Nürnberg where the old wooden houses by the river burn like ideas none of which deserves a moment of validity in revenge resentment humiliation pride of conquest über alles and longing for the end.
Founded in 1040 by Henry III Duke of Bavaria and Emperor of Germany, Nürnberg, made a free city of the empire in 1219, retained its independence until 1806. Destroyed in 1127, rapidly rebuilt, it lay on the great European Trade Route to the Mediterranean and grew in importance. Here Wallenstein defeated Gustavus of Sweden in 1632. Nürnberg also produced the Hohenzollerns, one of the ablest families of Europe. As Burgraves of Nürnberg they had thrived in the imperial favour and on the customs dues of a prosperous city. Today it has become the centre of the National Socialist Party and has given its name to the famous Nürnberg Decrees of 1935. The Fuehrer held a most important rally here last year. Natürlich you have passed. I always knew you would Liebchen, congratulations.
In the imperial dukedom of Bavaria and near Nürnberg die Baronin sits by the narrow darkening window of the Schloss overlooking the Pegnitz. Dankeschön Tante Frieda and in French too, top marks. Ah well that need not surprise us Liebchen and no doubt it will come in useful but German history, well, what a triumph. After all your father, wherever he may have vanished, did come from Bavaria, like so many good things these days, our good government for example began here as you know.
— Yes, Tante Frieda.
— Well now we’d better get back to Schiller. You have not yet satisfied me that you understand the Swiss and Austrian political background of Wilhelm Tell. You should feel grateful my child that I take so much trouble with your German education now that you cannot go back to France.
— Yes, Tante Frieda.
— And incidentally I heard you mispronounce Heil Hitler when we met the von Berlinghausens in the Marktplatz the other day. You said Hell Hitler. Now if you meant hell bright, the witticism, though ungrammatical, can pass. But I suspect that now you have started English at school you meant something quite different. And if you did you might get it correct for in English you would have to say To Hell Hitler which might not pass quite so easily even as a so-called witticism would you not agree?
You must forgive these questions Fräulein but in view of your French upbringing we must make sure of your undivided loyalty let us see now until the age of Herr Oberstleutnant at that age one has no loyalties. Ja-ja ich verstehe and your father you say disappeared? You don’t know? You never really knew him? Hmm. However you lived with the Baronin gut-gut until you went to University on a scholarship last year and ja, you selected to study French, French and Provençal? Now why did you do that? You must have realised at the time that it could hardly come in useful in the war-effort. Hmm. Yes well I see you joined the Bund Deutscher Mädel at fifteen gut-gut. And I assume you have not heard at all from your mother in France Fräulein even through the Red Cross? Now how do you feel about that? Herr Oberstleutnant one must do a job, any job, to the best of one’s ability. Man muss? Do you feel so impersonal Fräulein about the Vaterland?