Lavonne Mueller - The Patient Ecstasy of Fräulein Braun

“Enough about Corporal Rupp,” I said to General Keitel back then at the Berghof, a place where I could suck in the mountain air like the chilled dry brilliance of white wine. Still, I couldn’t help thinking of that ugly puff of hair between Rupp’s eyebrows like a tiny misplaced mustache.

Keitel looked around at the mountains trying to relax and began to hum the famous Viennese drinking song,

“General, you do know that song you’re humming was written by a Jew.”

“No matter, Fräulein. He must have had an Aryan moment.” But Keitel did switch to “Landsknechtlieder,” a folk song of German mercenaries in the middle ages. Then he stopped, grew rigid, and returned to the subject of Götz.

“Sometimes Götz wears desert goggles and a tartan scarf imitating Rommel. Other times it’s sunglasses and a field cap. And dubious hardware… like the bronze SA sports award.”

“I’m sure they’re proper medals, Generalmajor.”

“I understand one of Rupp’s aids has the specific job of fraying his caps so they look as if he just stepped out of the battlefield.”

“No harm in reminding everyone of his bravery.”

“He once took me to lunch. I know it was on purpose that he chose Eintopftag, one dish day. He did permit me to pay the bill.”

“Please, enough of Götz. What is happening with the war?” I was hoping the raw anger over Götz and the Berghof’s leisurely atmosphere would lead into a solid uncompromising conversation. Perhaps he would forget to speak to me as a mere woman in a patronizing manner.

“I was flown here by a peach-fuzz youth of 19,” the general grumbled. “A mere child. And we even have women shooting down planes as Flak Helpers using eighty-eight caliber antiaircraft guns. Women and children fighting—that’s a secret we must keep, Fräulein, from the world. What has this war come to?”

“And just what has it come to?” I asked.

“In Cologne, cathedral stained-glass windows are removed to underground safety. Citizens are encouraged to reinforce the basements of their houses and get rid of anything flammable in their attics. Still, more encouraging, word has arrived from Field Marshall Paulus at the Schweidnitzerhof Hotel. Our troops stood up well against Russia’s horse-mounted reconnaissance.”

Adi told me General Keitel never had a practical thought in his entire career. Keitel steers everybody’s thinking to the most impossible maneuvers in his worthless army cadet ways. But what can you expect from a von who cuts a sandwich with a knife and fork like a lamp chop?

“But why is Field Marshall Paulus at the Schweidnitz and not in Russia?”

“We’ve lost our fur coats, Fräulein.”

“How is that?”

“Seeing infantry soldiers shivering in cotton uniforms, the Führer told the general staff that the First Line can’t perform in cotton jackets and ordered all fur coats to the forward position. This order came in the form of a simple priority telephone message.”

“Understandable, Generalmajor. Our Führer is a retired corporal who once lanced the boils on his horse’s back.”

“I know he often becomes irritated with generals as myself. Yet the Führer has commented how grand it was to walk on one or two of the twelve avenues in Paris all named after Napoleon’s generals.”

“Yes, he does respect Napoleon.”

“And sometimes I think he listens to architects more than us. But the Russians tried conducting an army without rank at one time, and it was a disaster.”

“Of course, of course. He knows all that. But he stresses the humble quality.”

“Then how can he make that arrogant Ribbentrop ambassador to London? Why does he tolerate Ribbentrop dressing us up like something out of Lohengrin? And the Ribbentrop calling card has a swastika and a German eagle, along with seals from a Sturmführer, a Standartenführer, an Oberführer, a Brigadeführer, a Reichsführer SS, and Josef Goebbels. No wonder he’s called Ribbensnob.” Keitel sucked in his cheeks making a slight hiss in his officer’s club manner. “He places no chairs in front of his desk. I’m dealt with standing.”

“Perhaps you exaggerate.”

“Fräulein Braun, my cousin is an admiral who has to wear a fully braided uniform with a globe embroidered on each sleeve.”

“I see no harm in elegance, General.”

“Perhaps the toilet ladies in the Weapons Office Building should have braids and ribbons.”

“Who is to say they should not?”

“Such affectations are not visible at the troop level, my dear.”

“Anyway, much of that extravagance is the work of Frau von Ribbentrop.”

“So the old brandy merchant’s wife did it. That accounts for his saying the Benedicite before dinner in German which takes away all the beauty of the Latin. Well, I’m glad to say that being without rank, he and the wife are always seated in the lowest position at any table.”

“General, are you aware that Ribbentrop is missing a kidney?”

“It accounts for his watery eyes, no doubt. He’s ruined us by spending all his time with diplomats at the Romanisches Café while trying to pass as a real von, a title he’s only vaguely entitled to. He has no formal education. Imagine—ordering a family coat of arms and taking over Von Hindenburg’s old palace which he decorated for himself, whitewashing the windows as a precaution against snipers. He might as well call himself von Germany and be done with it.”

Adi told me that Keitel had private teachers while growing up and was coddled and spoiled. So why was he complaining about Ribby?

“I’m not complaining, Fräulein.” He showed me the scar on his left arm from a bomb splinter.

“Thank you for being so brave.”

“It’s in my blood.” Reaching dramatically into his pocket, he extracted a little piece of personal shrapnel as a gift. “Ministry records show that my ancestors fought with great bravery against the Tartars in Silesia in 1200. If you notice the coat of arms on my belt buckle, you’ll find a Tartar cap. In the library of my house in Munich on Zweibrucken Strasse, you’ll see a mention of von Keitel in a letter from Frederick the Great hanging on the wall.”

Keitel’s comments are like the orders he gives each day—cold, monotonous, a habit he’s formed that requires no effort in such weary times.

In these last stages of the war, vons are running from castle to castle clutching their velvet jackets, Meissen porcelain, and beaded bell pulls. Adi has no respect for vons who have not served on the battlefield for he is proud of being Germany’s Führer who never rose above the rank of corporal yet fought bravely. Older generals like Keitel in tidy lacquered helmets annoy him with their ego and set ways. If Adi can tolerate any generals at all, it’s the young ones like Manteuffel who have new and daring ideas and never wear a gold rosette in their lapel.

But with Frederick the Great on his wall, General Keitel has obtained some advantage.

“And are you keeping up with war news,” the general asked as he twisted his monocle with thin fingers.

“The Allies aren’t so clever. Recently, they hit a fertilizer plant,” I said proudly.

“Our fertilizer plants can be converted quickly into munitions factories, Fräulein.”

“We’re soon to have wonder weapons,” I announced to make up for my ignorance about fertilizers. “In Tegel, there’s a wonderful laboratory for experimenting with new explosives.”

“That is so. We now have a device that blows planes out of the air at certain altitudes.”

“And our techniques for sabotage? Are they not superior?”

“You have probably heard the Führer talk about funkspiele?”

“Our radio game,” I answered proudly. “We capture Allied operators and force them to deliver false radio message to lure the enemy into traps.”

“Yes. Very good. But of greatest importance is the rockets and extraordinary weapons we’re perfecting in Peenemunde.” Keitel squinted his knothole eyes protectively as if to keep secrets behind his gaze. “Streng geheim. Very top secret. And I tell myself, we resisted the Turks in 1683. We’ll resist again.”

“Bormann’s orderly found one of those big awkward Telefunken radios for me in a collapsed house in the Grunewald section. When there’s too much static on Radio Berlin, I listen to Major Glenn Miller’s Air Force Band broadcasting from London. “Deep Purple” is so lovely.”

“London!” he snarled. “That’s not permitted.”

“The Führer says you judge music by itself, not by the person who makes it.”

“That’s hard to do,” he countered. “In my youth I loved gypsy music, the sad thrilling strains of their czardas. But now…”

“When there’s nothing else, I listen to Radio Moscow.”

“Moscow! That’s forbidden, Fräulein.”

“I can’t understand what they say anyway. But please, Herr General, I long to know, will we take Moscow?”

“We’ll raze that blasted city and in its place build an artificial lake with central lighting. No one will hear the name Moscow again.”

“When? Oh, when?”

“We’re moving along the same road Napoleon took.” Useless information drooped from the general’s mouth like Blondi’s idiotic tongue.

But I’m alarmed. Admiration for Napoleon grew as Adi invaded Russia. Now he thinks Napoleon is a lion among decorative antelopes. Poor Napoleon, getting destroyed by the weather, never able to get his supply wagons through.

“I could never exactly understand just why… Why we invaded Russia?” I asked.

“Fräulein, even in the Middle Ages, our German knights always rode East. The Führer’s expansion plan has given officers a dignity more profound than during the Kaiser’s time. When we conquer Russia, we’ll go through Afghanistan and then into India.”