The Willow Wren

was all very proper.
Mama was glad for this help because Papa was busy with his job and on top of that he had become much more involved in the Party. I am of course talking about the Nazi Party. For a time he was away almost every night and every weekend at meetings. I do not know when he joined, but I have no memory of a time when he was not a member, and I do know that he had originally joined the SA, the Sturmabteilung, which translates as “storm detachment.” They were better known as the Brownshirts and were the Nazi Party’s street fighting goons before Adolf Hitler became chancellor in 1933. I had no particular reaction to his Party membership in the early years. It was simply part of who he was, no different than his profession or his taste in suits. Moreover, it all seemed profoundly boring to me. The real-world implications of a political affiliation only became clear to me when that real world forced itself into my life during the coming war.
Incidentally, the Brownshirts had brown uniforms because these were cheaply available after the First World War, having been ordered in mass quantities for Germany’s former African colonial troops. The colour brown then became the colour of the Nazi movement, much as red is associated with communism. It is impossible to imagine Papa as a street fighting goon, but his membership in the SA speaks to the passion he must have felt, and it dates his membership to before my birth because the SA was thoroughly purged in 1934 by Hitler in the so-called Night of the Long Knives, after which the SS superseded them.
Papa’s Nazi membership was not exceptional. Many people were Nazis. Remember Hitler was democratically elected. Mind you, he did not get a majority of the votes, but he did receive a solid 44 percent of them and then used some tricks to leverage that to obtain full power. Papa was a lawyer and many of the professional class and the middle class supported the Nazis. The upper class saw them as grubby upstarts and looked down their noses at them, and the opposing socialists and communists were strong among the working class, but the great bulge in the middle saw Hitler as the best path away from having twenty beggars at your door every day. Mama did not agree, however.
This argument comes back to me now. Maybe I have the exact words wrong — I would have only been about four years old — but my memory astonishes me these days. I was playing in the hallway outside the living room. I can picture the red Persian runner on the dark wooden floor. Its pattern served beautifully as roads for my little wooden cars. The door to the living room was closed. These houses had doors to every room so that they could be individually heated. Through the door I could hear my parents talking, but I could not understand what they were saying, nor did I particularly care to. Then Mama’s voice became louder, and I could not avoid hearing anymore.
“Do you really need to be doing Party work all weekend, Wilhelm?”
“You know I do.” Papa used a very sharp tone. I pictured him answering from behind his newspaper.
“Don’t snap at me. It’s a reasonable question. You are hardly ever home on the weekend anymore. You are becoming even more of a stranger to your children.” Mama was trying to sound calm, but her voice crackled with the electricity of barely restrained fury.
“You know very well why I am doing this. Why I must do this.”
I heard a newspaper rustle. I was right!
“Must?” Mama laughed, but it was a sardonic laugh. Even at that age I knew that people could laugh when something was not funny.
“Yes, must!” Papa was shouting now.
“Okay, you feel you ‘must’ be in this Party. You have told me many times. I don’t agree, but I accept. Accepting is what I ‘must’ do. But all weekend, every weekend? Really, Wilhelm?”
“Don’t exaggerate. It’s not all weekend, every weekend. But this weekend is especially important. Reich’s Minister Göbbels is coming on Saturday, and it is my privilege to help show him what we are doing here in Leipzig for the people!” My father used the expression “das Volk,” which meant something more than just “the people.”
“Ha! That idiot!”
I crept closer to the door. Then there was the sudden slam of what sounded like Papa’s fist hitting the table and I jumped, almost giving myself away with a little yelp.
“Show respect! Göbbels is a great man! And ours is a great cause! You have your job here and I have my job there. I do not question how you run this house and you will not question how I help to run this country! This is the best I can do. You know that with my stiff leg if war comes I will . . .”
“If?” Mama interrupted, shouting now too. “If war comes?! Are you mad Wilhelm? It’s when war comes! When! Those friends of yours — Göbbels and the rest — will not stop pushing until somebody pushes back. And that means war. When, not if.”
“I don’t agree. The Führer is showing the world our commitment and our power. They don’t dare challenge Germany. They become more degenerate by the day, while we become stronger. And if you are somehow right and there is war, it will be quick because we will win. We lost in 1918 because we were stabbed in the back by our own people! Socialists, communists, bums, ne’er-do-wells! The Führer is ensuring that will never happen again.”
“Wilhelm, listen to yourself.” Mama was quieter again, but I could still hear her well enough. “You have read Tacitus and Cicero, Goethe and Schiller, Shakespeare and Milton. These clowns can barely read the side of a soup can. These are not your people. These are not your thoughts.”
“You are wrong, Luise. You don’t