The Nazi Officer's Wife by Edith H. Beer Read Free Book Online Page A

if that happened, Germany would be forced to enter Austria and destroy this idea by military might. That was a direct threat, a preface.
    The chancellor fended them off for a while but soon saw that no one would help him and resistance was useless. On March 11, 1938, as Pepi and I were walking through a working-class neighborhood—holding hands, leaning on each other’s bodies, a warm column of love in the cold, darkening night—someone leaned out of a window and said, “Von Schuschnigg has resigned.”
    That was complete silence in the street.
    Pepi held me. I whispered into his neck: “We have to get out.”
    “We’ll wait and see,” he said.
    “No, no, we have to get out now,” I said, pressing myself against him.
    “Don’t give way to hysteria. It could all be over in a week.”
    “I’m afraid …”
    “Don’t be. I am here with you. I love you. You are mine. I will always take care of you.”
    He kissed me with such passion that I felt my whole body grow warm and light. What did I care if politicians disappeared and nations prepared for war? I had Pepi, my genius, my comfort, the rock who had replaced my father.
    The next day was the golden wedding anniversary of my mother’s parents. The whole family was planning to go out to Stockerau to celebrate. We had presents, cakes, wine, and toasts prepared.
    But we never made this happy journey, because the German Army chose that same day to march into Austria. Flags were flying.Martial music played. The Nazi radio station—which had become the only station—roared with victory, and thousands of our friends and neighbors and countrymen gathered on the boulevards to greet the Wehrmacht with wild joy and tumultuous cheering.
    On April 10, 1938, more than ninety percent of the Austrians voted “yes” to union with Germany.
    A socialist friend, whose father had been executed by Nazi assassins, wanted to organize protests against the Anschluss and tried to recruit me for the underground. He told me that I could get a different name, belong to a cell, and deliver messages.
    For the first time, I saw the practical wisdom of political activism. “Yes,” I said, pressing his hand as a promise. “Count me in.”
    But Pepi said no. He told me it was irresponsible for me even to think of such a thing, because now I had a widowed mother and young sisters who depended on me. What would happen to them if I were arrested?
    So I told my friend that he would have to work without me. Like a good little girl, I did what Pepi Rosenfeld said.

O NE OF THE first things the Nazis did was to distribute 100,000 free radio sets to the Austrian Christians. Where did they get these radios? From us, of course. Right after the Anschluss, the Jews were required to turn in their typewriters and their radios, the idea being that if we could not communicate with each other or the outside world, we would be isolated and more easily terrorized and manipulated. It was a good idea. It worked well.
    The man the Germans appointed to eliminate the Jews from Vienna was Adolf Eichmann. His policies became a model for making the whole Reich Judenrein —“cleansed of Jews.” Essentially he made us pay as much as possible to escape. The rich had to sign over everything they owned; the less rich had to pay such exorbitant amounts for tickets out that families were often forcedto choose which of their children should go and which should stay.
    Gangs of thugs in brown shirts owned the streets. They drove around in trucks, flashing their guns and their swastika armbands, hooting at the pretty girls. If they wanted to pick you up or beat you up, they did so with impunity. Anybody who resisted was beaten or killed or taken away to Dachau or Buchenwald or some other concentration camp. (You must understand that at that time, the concentration camps were prisons where opponents of the Nazi regime were detained. Von Schuschnigg was in a concentration camp; so was Bruno Bettelheim for a time. The inmates