*

The bigamy case loomed. Erich was back and forth to Nürnberg to see his solicitor and sometimes I was required to join him. The time had come to accept the reality of a court hearing.

‘There’s a possibility of a prison sentence,’ our solicitor told us gently.

‘How can that be?’

‘We have to accept what might be,’ said Erich, squeezing my hand. ‘We have to be prepared for every eventuality.’

‘There’s also a very real chance that your marriage will be declared null and void.’

I gasped in horror. ‘Our children would be illegitimate! After everything we’ve been through.’ I squeezed my eyes shut, willing the tears away. I couldn’t bear to think of it, the shame to my beautiful daughters and the taint to their names. ‘How can the court make innocent children suffer for something that has nothing to do with them?’

‘I’ll make it right,’ Erich whispered to me.

The weight of a prison sentence now lay heavily on me. My thoughts tumbled around and around as I tried to see how I would manage with Erich in prison. How would I cope if my marriage wasn’t recognised?

Vati and Mutti offered to take Greta back to München with them to allow me to concentrate on the court case. My mother had been most kind and supportive, much to my surprise.

‘Greta can come to live with us until Erich’s court case is over or for as long as you need,’ she wrote in a hastily penned note she had sent with Vati one day. We still had no telephone. ‘It will be a pleasure to have her. Vati can’t wait to spoil her rotten but I’ll make sure she has her naps and eats properly. I know how difficult this is for you, my darling girl, but Vati and I are here for you. With one less to worry about, you can concentrate on Erich’s case and the best possible outcome.’ I let Greta go with my parents, knowing she would have a better time with them. I felt terribly guilty at the relief of only having to manage one child among the challenges Erich and I faced.

A few days before the court date in July, Erich and I were lying in bed, both restless, unable to sleep.

‘It will be all right,’ Erich whispered into the darkness.

‘How could she do this?’

He wrapped his arms around me. ‘It’s done now. She can’t hurt us any more.’

‘We’ve done nothing wrong. We don’t deserve this.’

‘No, my liebling, we do not but you know the world isn’t fair.’ He kissed me on the back of my neck. ‘We’ll get through this, as we’ve got through everything else.’

I shifted restlessly in his arms, turning to face him. ‘Everything will change after this.’

‘The solicitor believes we will be okay. There’s no evidence of wrongdoing on our part. If the worst happens, I doubt it will be a long prison sentence. You’ll go home to your parents with the children until I’m released.’

‘But—’

Erich kissed me, a kiss of promise. ‘I love you. I will not abandon you. I will not leave you and the children, no matter what. You are my life. It will be all right, I promise.’

I nodded, shaking with fear. I couldn’t help it. How could I live without him, even for a little while?

*

She was in the courtroom. Looking respectable in a tired, dark dress, she carried an air of martyrdom, like a fur stole worn with pride. She was smug and self-satisfied, just as I had imagined. Playing the victim. As if Erich and I weren’t also victims of the circumstances we had found ourselves in. ‘Marriage wrecker,’ her expression seemed to say when she looked at me. I wanted to march across and slap her, wipe that smirk off her face. Instead, I stared ahead and ignored her.

Erich sat next to his lawyer. He was all alone. Although it made me proud to see him calm and composed, it made my blood boil to see him sitting there at all. He was the kindest, most gentle, generous man and did not deserve to be accused of anything. I should have been by his side as his wife. I wanted to climb onto the judge’s bench and scream across the court room that this was ridiculous. Instead, I took a deep breath, twisted my fingers through the folds of my skirt and behaved as the decorous, upstanding young wife I needed to be.

The prosecutors, aldermen, the judge and chairman of the regional high judiciary sat before us with stony faces, giving nothing away.

The legal jargon used by the prosecutors, quoting articles of recent changes to the law, and test cases relating to this matter, not only bored me to tears, but made me furious at how this very human misfortune was reduced to a cold and calculating battle of words. It took all of my willpower to stay attentive, be the support Erich needed, strong and unruffled like he was, to never betray my emotions.

It was when Erich stood in front of the court that I nearly cracked. He began reliving his experiences, the helplessness and horror he had endured in 1945, when Inga and the children had fled before the Red Army, when he thought they were dead. His stormy green eyes, deep as the ocean, held my gaze as though I was his lifeline. I held my breath, my heart beating madly, wishing I could tell him to stop, pull him away, and put an end to his pain. A lesser man would have crumbled but he had done it, told his story, told the truth.

The faces of the aldermen and the judges remained impassive.

Every day I saw Inga’s face and the way she looked at me, as if I was dirt. When I heard her testimony and the difficulties she had gone through, I felt sorry for her and the children. She had been a victim of circumstance as much as we had, I realised. We had all suffered.

Then it was my turn to testify. My stomach had been tying itself into knots all morning. I hadn’t been able to eat a thing. The walk to the front of the room seemed the longest of my life, even longer than on my wedding day. I tried to keep a dignified and poised demeanour, while my head began to pound in time with my heart.

‘Please state your name,’ said the prosecutor. He was tall and thin with a face like a weasel. I knew he meant my maiden name as my married name was the one in question here, but the idea set my teeth on edge.

‘Charlotte Elisabeth Katharina Augusta von Klein,’ I said, clasping my hands tightly on my lap, unable to control my trembling.

And so it began. I described how I met Oberinspektor Drescher in 1943 when I began work as his secretary and continued to the events of early 1945, when Erich learnt of the death of his family. Although I was telling the truth, I found answering the prosecutor’s questions more and more exasperating, the sneer on his face almost unbearable. Every time my gaze darted across the room, I met the accusing, aloof stares of the aldermen and judges.

‘Did you intend to trap Herr Drescher into making promises of marriage, despite your knowledge that he had a wife and children already?’ the prosecutor asked in an emotionless voice.

‘No, I did not,’ I responded calmly, desperate to rise from my hard chair and throttle him.

‘Did you and Herr Drescher plan your escape from Riem airpark and your flight to Bad Windsheim as a means to prevent detection of a marriage you intended to enter into, knowing his wife and children lived in Elend?’

I couldn’t look at Erich. I knew I’d see the outrage and pain I felt reflected on his face. Instead, I stared at the back wall, drew myself tall and focused on my family. I was above the prosecutor’s pettiness.

‘No, we did not.’ I only wished I could explain the situation, how difficult those times were, how much we deliberated and agonised over the actions we took but Erich’s lawyer advised us to answer the questions as simply as possible. He would do the rest.

‘Why did you marry Herr Drescher? Did he induce you to do so?’

‘We fell in love at Riem. We had both suffered terrible loss. When Erich took me home to my mother in Windsheim, something he had promised my father he would do, our love blossomed. I married him willingly. He never forced me to do so.’ I stared, unflinching, at the prosecutor and he stared back unrelenting.

All this was true. Our love affair, if you could call it that, never happened until after Erich learnt that his family had perished. We had agreed not to mention my first pregnancy, much to my relief. It would only hurt Erich’s case. Nobody knew about it except for my mother, aunt, uncle and the midwife. My family would never talk, besmirching the family name, and the midwife had since died. The burial plot of our boy was unmarked.

Part of me waited on tenterhooks for the prosecutor to ask about our son. I wasn’t sure I could keep my composure if he did, but the question never came.

‘I have no more questions,’ said he finally, looking thoroughly frustrated.

I stepped down and returned to my seat, hoping everyone saw a young wife and mother, composed and wronged, innocent of any wrongdoing. I didn’t dare look at Erich, in case I betrayed my relief and distress. I wanted to shrivel up and die, airing my personal life for the world to hear, especially her, devastated that she had made Erich live through his pain yet again. I prayed that it would be over soon.

As the prosecutor summarised the details of that fateful time from February to July 1945, he turned the events of that chaotic period into acts of suspicious behaviour, making out that Erich wilfully abandoned his wife and children so he could marry me. We were prepared for this line of attack, seasoned by the solicitor, but I noticed the slight slump in Erich’s shoulders; he was a family man and I could only imagine what a blow this was. I found it difficult not to jump up and declare our innocence.

It was time for our case to be put forward. Erich’s defence presented the results of his psychological assessment, aired to the court.