WHEN I FIRST ARRIVED IN THE BUNKER, I called my mother every day. She’s in Munich with my sister, Gretl, who is pregnant. Shelling has become bad in Munich, even damaging the Excelsior Hotel. Mutti has her own chair in a nearby shelter and wears her platzkart on her sleeve to be allowed entrance. Desperate and down to a few cigarettes, she has to use them as money. Forced to sew one of father’s undershirts as the bodice of her dress, she also sleeps in a kitchen curtain. She has to wash in an old wine vat thirty years old when she can’t reach Cousin Gerda’s office to take a shower, hot water being available only in government buildings. She resorts to “black butchering” by having my cousin, Gottfried, kill a cow that’s not registered and has to cook it slowly and in small pieces on a spirit lamp full of eau-de-cologne. Even though she lives in the upper class neighborhood of Bogenhausen, Mutter says she’s one of the “snake women” who continually stands in snaking lines every day to get bread. When she lost all electricity, I sent her our Bunker candle stumps so she could remelt them. Even doing that is impossible now.
“Did not Adolf claim he would never make the same mistake as the Kaiser had in World War I by fighting on two fronts? He condemned two fronts in Mein Kampf. That much I’ve read. Now people say der Führer has declared war on us as well,” Mother writes. “Is this what our Messiah for the next two thousand years has given us?”
I have to remind Mother that America is fighting on two fronts, also. How can Roosevelt send enough ships to both the Pacific and the Atlantic? Her disrespectful prattle annoys me, and I insisted that she write me more patriotically.
I now rely on letters delivered by Adi’s officers as I can’t get through to Mother on the phone. Occasionally a runner or one of the generals brings me news. Mother is anxious for Adolf to work harder to bring about the solution to this war. “The poor Volk are being killed. Children in the streets are chewing their thumbs and fingers, biting out skin, cannibalizing themselves. Women eat the starch used for ironing. Your Aunt Irmela is called a “bombing wife” because she continues to live in the ruins that were once her home after the thousand-bomber attack on Cologne. And I’m using stalks of potatoes as writing paper.” Not that she doesn’t trust Adi. Like everybody else, she wants a quick solution and is panicky. Adi’s been very good to her. It would take pages to list the gifts he’s given her—flowers, silver, perfumed soap. And before the war, she would visit the beer hall where Adi had his putsch and got a bullet in his arm. She never passed that beer hall without tossing a flower at the door and whispering a tender “heil.” She used to make his favorite Schaumschnitten with two inches of whipped egg whites as well as cauliflower custard, and both were carefully packaged and promptly delivered by Adi’s private Ju 52 transport plane. But her last annoying message expressed dismay that Adi talks about the breeding of dogs at a time like this.
At dinner yesterday, as Adi drank his usual glass of Fachingen mineral water and banana milk, he told us it’s best for a female canine to breed two days after ovulation.
Josef Goebbels, who is certainly good at human breeding, slurped his red pepper soup while giving instructional glances to the orderly serving us. “How can you calculate that?”
“With patience,” Adi said, faint red trickles on his lips.
Magda, who always likes to impress the Führer, remarked that it’s best not to breed at the first heat.
Adi stood up and pushed his plate away in irritation. “What are you suggesting?”
“Nothing. Oh, nothing, Mein Führer.” Magda compulsively tapped her front teeth with a fork.
“I’m careful with Blondi.”
“Oh, yes, Mein Führer.” She twirled a curl of hair on her finger nervously.
“Blondi was nearly two years old when she had the pups. She was well into her second heat.”
Goebbels tried to change the subject. “The Russian colossus began at the Neisse River. That’s where they pushed us back, and we lost contact with our 8th Korps.”
“There were thousands of ova present in Blondi’s second heat,” Adi announced.
“I never in the world meant to imply disrespect for Blondi’s ovulation.” Bowing her head, Magda stood. She was so distressed that later she stayed up all night to copy a picture of Blondi in a petit point velvet book cover for Adi’s volume of Johann Gottlieb Fichte, his favorite philosopher.
“Ja. Ja. Let us continue eating.” Moving his plate closer, erect and rigid on the edge of his chair, Adi coldly fixed his eyes on the dish of beets, eyes that were intense and circled with black by the monsters of duty. This was a red meal, apples, radishes, peppers, and ruby cabbage. Everything was blazing and vibrant.
“Then that stupid Göring let his Luftwaffe Fighter Wing desert the air strip at Lansdorf,” Goebbels continued.
Magda added: “Göring, wearing that silly felt hat with a white badge on it that looks like a price tag.”
“Yes, the very Göring who pointed his marshal’s baton at me and boasted I could call him Meier if even one little enemy plane bombed our capital.” Goebbels sniffed.
“We can now forget Meier Göring,” I said.
“I’ve dismissed the traitor,” Adi added, letting Goebbels continue with his bluster that would go on and on in a babble of self-indulgence but gave Adi time to eat radishes in a military 35 chews per bite.
“I believe airmen, as a rule, are idiots. Even more than sailors whose ships are only floating gun platforms.” Goebbels puckered, as if his lips couldn’t stand to part with such elegant wisdom, as though even words were as precious and guarded as the Bunker itself.
“Ships do not conform to the laws of nature. Look at the shape of a fish and the design of a ship. Has the Navy learned nothing?” Adi paused for he wanted to test the effect of his words.
“Yes, you’re so right. Still, pilots are the most idiotic people on earth. Who standing on firm ground can pity them,” Goebbels fretted.
“Pity? I admire them. No fighter pilot—ours or the enemy’s—will shoot a pilot who is bailing out. Such chivalry is glorious,” I said, not letting them know that I learned this from Göring.
“Mere dramatics,” Goebbels offered.
Adi, however, agreed with me.
“Now paratroopers are another matter,” Goebbels added. “Early in the war, they were helpful in surprise attacks.”
“I love their song.” Magda began singing. “Rot scheint die Sonne… the sun at dawn shines so red…”
“And what about our ramming squadrons?” I asked. “Ramming their planes into the enemy. To almost certain death?”
“Fanatics,” Magda said.
“My wife is right. Fanatics are high-strung killers and are often not accurate. We need the cool skilled soldier.”
Adi continued with his lecture. “All canine ovarian follicles release their ova at the same time.” He forked a large oval beet into his mouth. Food often had a faint layer of concrete dust, and I saw a hint of it now on Adi’s tongue. But it only made his breath beautifully misty.
“At the same time? How marvelous.” Magda poured more water into the Führer’s glass. The hand-painted pitcher with shiny black eagles had a broken spout.
“Spontaneous ovulation. It has a fertile life span of four days.”
“Four days. How marvelous,” Magda cooed with red lipstick bites of equally red cabbage.
“To hell with the Russians and all our generals who keep insisting that we go after Moscow,” Goebbels abruptly screeched. “Destroy the enemy first! Then go after their capital!”
“Generals are inept,” Adi shouted. “They know nothing about the economics of war. Nor are they brave. Were Frederick the Great’s grenadiers ready to die? They loved life as well as we do. But Frederick was correct in asking them to die for their country. Just as I am right asking Germans to do the same.”
“Oh yes! Richtig!” Magda screeched.
“I refuse to have another Rommel where everything depends on his personality as a leader. Rommel never discussed anything with officers of his rank,” Adi announced.
“Richtig,” Magda bellowed.
“He felt all that was necessary was to lead from the front. That way he and his men would be responsible for each other,” Goebbels snarled.
“Is that so bad?” I sounded prim, but that’s what I believe.
“It’s not enough,” Goebbels barked. “Do you know… He claimed a new word. ‘Rommeln.’ To Rommel. A verb meaning to stage a daring attack. He even encouraged his fans to change the Autobahn to the Rommelbahn.”
“And the only idea he ever had was filling up his units with silly dummy tanks,” Magda offered.
“Oh, yes,” Goebbels added. “His soldiers in Tripoli planted dummies on Volkswagen chassis.”
“I did hear it deceived the enemy about Rommel’s strength.” I was using the information I overheard from the map room.
“He had trucks drag tarpaulins to kick up desert sand and give the illusion of troop movement. He put propellers on trucks to do the same. He even placed straw dolls in observation towers for the enemy to shoot at. All the time crying that we didn’t give him enough equipment. Rommel! A true idiot. Good generals do not disappear at the head of their leading columns leaving subordinates to their own initiative. Then he complained Russia soaked up too many of our supplies. Russia! Don’t get me started on that. Where is the dignity in fighting those stupid Ivans sucking on sunflower seeds, spitting them out like damn birds,” Goebbels groused.
“You know the Führer doesn’t like that kind of language. And certainly not demeaning comments about birds.” Angling her head in a sharp little twist toward Josef, Magda’s smile once aimed at the Führer vanished quickly as she faced her husband.
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