Characters of "Cold Victory" : Alexandra "Alix" von Feldburg

 Alexandra "Alix" Baroness von Feldburg is the daughter of a German diplomat and the widow of a leading member of the German Resistance to Hitler. Readers of my novel about the German Resistance, Traitors for the Sake of Humanity, will recognize her. She returns in "Cold Victory" in her capacity as a lawyer, who has made her reputation assisting the prosecution at Nuremberg.

 

In this excerpt, she arrives in Berlin for the first time since the war and is confronted with her memories. 

Alix had lived through Bomber Harris’ ‘Battle of Berlin’ — on the ground. For the second half of 1944, when she was on the run from the Gestapo after the failed coup attempt of 20 July, she had spent much of her time hiding in closets and behind false walls, cowering in cupboards and lying under beds sometimes for hours. She was wanted for treason and had been given refuge by courageous men and women who allowed her to hide in their apartments, sometimes for only a few days, sometimes for a couple of weeks. Yet she had to keep moving, and without being registered at any residence, she could not appear in the air raid shelter without arousing suspicion. Staying above ground during air raids, on the other hand, became so dangerous that she decided to leave Berlin. She went first to a pig farm near Dessau, where she had disguised herself as a slave labourer for almost four months. From there, she made her way to Braunschweig where she had been able to turn herself over to American troops in the closing days of the war.

Her last memories of Berlin were of a city in flames. She had intentionally planned her escape from the city during an air raid because the raid disrupted normal traffic patterns and distracted the attention of the authorities. She had hidden herself aboard a supply train bound for the Western Front. The Allies targeted railheads, and the Reichsbahn did not want their precious cargo of munitions to be found by the RAF bombers. So, the train had crawled out of the city at a pace intended to be too slow for detection from the air. That had enabled her to climb aboard unseen — and prolonged the agony of uncertainty as the bombs rained down.

Yet for all the destruction she had witnessed on the ground, she was not prepared for the carpet of destruction spread out before her as they flew toward the city centre. Before they had reached the worst-hit areas, however, they banked to the right and started to follow the Havel. David shouted above the engines that it was time for her to return to her seat and put her seatbelt on. Alix obeyed in a daze. She'd underestimated how traumatic a return to Berlin would be.

Now she found herself wondering if she could cope. She had told Christian from the start that she would not set foot in the apartment house where she had lived with Philip and where he had killed himself. Christian had arranged for her to live somewhere else. But if she was in Berlin, didn’t she have an obligation to find out what had happened to her parent’s home? Both her parents were dead; her mother had died of heart failure while working in a munitions factory early in 1945, and her father had been shot for desertion during the assault on Berlin. However, her sister Grete was living with relatives in Marburg and her brother Rudi had returned from Soviet imprisonment without his legs; he was in a rehabilitation centre near Kassel. They might want to live in the family home in the future or they might want to sell or rent it — if it was still standing. To find out if it had survived, she would have to visit her childhood neighbourhood and face the memories….

And then there was the Bendlerblock where she had worked so many long, hard and yet rewarding hours. There she had met and forged friendships with the most determined and unwavering opponents of Hitler’s criminal regime — Generaloberst Beck, General Olbricht, General von Treschow — and Philip. Someone said there was a small memorial in the courtyard, marking where Olbricht, Stauffenberg and the others had been executed. She felt she ought to lay a wreath or at least a rose on that spot — yet dreaded the thought of treading the cobbles where such honourable men had been shot without trial. How could she stand where their blood had flowed, cooled and then been scrubbed away by some indignant and ardent supporter of Hitler?

Or what if she had business with subsidiary organs of the Allied Control Council and had to visit the building where the so-called “People’s Court” had held kangaroo trials of those involved in the coup attempt? Where Roland Freisler and his fellow Nationalist Socialist ‘judges’ and lawyers had taunted, ridiculed and condemned her beloved Uncle Erich and so many others because they wanted to restore the rule of law and protect human dignity and rights?

As the tyres squealed under her feet at landing, Alix had a moment of panic. She didn’t want to be here!

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HISTORICAL FIGURES IN "COLD PEACE" -- COLONEL FRANK HOWLEY

 In the post-war era, no Western figure was more consistently or more vehemently maligned and insulted by the Soviets as Colonel Frank Howley -- and Howley was proud of it. He earned Soviet ire and the love of the Berliners -- 'though not always his superiors -- for his words and deeds as the American Commandant of Berlin 1945-1949. Without doubt he was one of the more colorful -- and controversial -- historical figures involved in the Berlin Airlift.

Nothing in Howley's background ordained him for the role he was to play in Berlin's history. Born in Hampton, New Jersey in 1903, Howley attended Parson's School of Fine and Applied Arts. He spent time time studying business and art at the Sorbonne in Paris before obtaining a BS in Economics from New York University. He then worked as an advertising executive, establishing his own firm in Philadelphia the 1930s, which proved highly successful despite the depression. Somewhere along the line he taught himself five languages, but not notably not German.

However, he also volunteered for the Army Officer Reserve Corps in 1932 and in 1940 was called to active duty. Initially, he commanded an Air Corps ground school, but he was not interested in flying and transferred to the cavalry resulting in a transfer to a new assignment as operations officer of the cavalry school at Fort Riley, Kansas.  By 1943, he had been promoted to lieutenant colonel and was serving as the Executive Officer of the Third Mechanized Cavalry, then stationed at Camp Gordon, Georgia. 

It was while here that he was involved in a motorcycle accident in which he broke his back and pelvis. After five months in hospital, he was released but was not rated fit for active duty with a combat unit. He was instead given the option of retiring or taking an assignment in the Civil Affairs division, which was responsible for re-establishing civil administration in occupied territory in the wake of anticipated Allied battlefield victories. Howley chose the latter and the task before him was enormous. It has been described cogently as "...to sweep into newly liberated territories and impose order on chaos, repairing shattered infrastructure and feeding starving civilians."

After training in the U.S. and the U.K. Howley landed in Normandy four days after D-Day as head of a mixed British-U.S. unit designated A1A1. Working with French liaison officers, Howley's team got the civil administration of Cherbourg working within days of its liberation. His success here lead to him being given responsibility for the same role after the liberation of Paris, and he entered the French capital on the heels of the fighting troops now in command of a unit of 350 officers and men. Here his success not only earned him the Legion of Merit, Croix de Guerre and the Legion d'Honneur, it also drew the attention of General Dwight D. Eisenhower's staff. Howley was asked to head the U.S. military government in Berlin, nominally as deputy to a figurehead who was a more senior combat officer. 

Clearly, taking control of restoring civil infrastructure in Berlin would be different from his role in the liberated French cities since the population was presumed to be hostile and Berlin was to be shared with the other Allies, including the Soviets. Decisions were to be taking jointly and unanimously.  Even before entering Berlin, Howley worked hard the establish rapport between the designated British and American teams, initially facing considerable prejudice on both sides against the other. By the time both parties reached Berlin, however, the tensions had been replaced with mutual respect and friendship.

Dealing with the Soviets was another matter. First, they did not take part in the same training, and second, they made plain their disinterest in cooperating even before Howley arrived in Berlin. Having selected a team of roughly 500 men based on qualifications and after spending months training them, he was abruptly informed at the border to the Soviet Zone that he would not be allowed more than 35 officers and 175 men. Even more tellingly, this reduced force was not allowed into Berlin but led to Babelsberg just short of Berlin and interned in a compound guarded by gun-toting Soviet troops. The next day, the whole column of American retraced their steps to Halle.

On June 30, roughly two weeks after his first attempt to reach Berlin, Howley's convoy of administrators sweep into Berlin in the wake of the agreed occupation force -- which encountered no opposition from the Soviets on the route in only to discover that the Russians had so thoroughly plundered the barracks they were to occupy that not a toilet or light-fixture remained; the American troops, including Howley's detachment, had to camp in the woods. On the first reconnaissance of the American sector, Howley's men also found the evidence of Soviet industrial sabotage on unfathomable scale and brutality, using crowbars and bull-dozers to demolish rather than dismantle industrial plants producing sophisticated equipment and leaving the removed tools and machines to rot and rust in the rain. By the end of that first day, Howley knew who the enemy was -- and it wasn't the defeated, traumatized and starving population of Berlin. It was the Soviets. 

From that point forward, Howley never deviated from his position that the Soviets were not to be trusted and could not be won over as friends, they were adversaries and had to be treated as such. The logical corollary of such a position was to start favoring and advocating on behalf of the Berliners under constant attack from the Soviets. Howley employed every tactic he could get away with to back the democratic elements in Berlin and to expose the machinations of the Soviet Military Administration and their puppet German Communists. He consistently reported to the press Soviet attempts to bribe and coerce voters. Wisely, he established a radio stations controlled by the U.S. military government, Radio in the American Sector or RIAS. In addition, independent newspapers were encouraged and allocated paper. Nor did Howley shy away from flooding Berlin with items desperately needed from bicycle tires to shoes and glass in an effort to demonstrate U.S. wealth and generosity in the days prior to the election. Yet, the Soviets were confident of victory and the West despondent when the Berliners went to the polls on 20 October 1946. 

The Berliners, however, delivered the Soviet's a catastrophic defeat with the Soviet controlled "Socialist Unity Party" taking less than 20% of the vote. It was probably this fact that encouraged Howley to take an increasingly aggressive stance in his dealings with the Soviets. Forced to argue with them ad nauseam in Kommandatura, Howley is recorded saying things like:

"You lie. You always lie, and no matter what you are going to tell me it's not going to be the truth." [Giles Milton. Checkmate in Berlin. Holt, 2021, 136]

But then, the Soviets are recorded saying charming things like the only time to kick an old lady was when she was down -- in response to Howley's arguments that the old and infirm should receive extra rations. [Milton, 136] 

In recognition of his competence, Howley was promoted to Commandant (no longer deputy to a carousel of changing official superiors).  Meanwhile, the Kommandatura increasingly became a battlefield of words and exchanged insults. Howley recorded in his diary the suspicion that the Soviets were seeking to provoke a crisis. The Soviets had already walked out of the Allied Control Council on March 20. The Soviets had imposed a blockade on the Western sectors in the first four days of April, and a Soviet fighter had harrassed a British passenger aircraft on April 5, causing a collision and crash killing all on board the next day. On June 16, at 11:15 pm after thirteen hours of haggling that was going no where, Howley turned his seat over to his deputy and excused himself. Describing his behavior and "hooligan," the Soviet's used his departure as an excuse to break up the Kommandatura and stormed out.

But the more the Soviets insisted in describing Howley as a "hooligan," "terrorist," "black market knight," "dictator," "cowboy," or "rough-rider from Texas," the more the Berliners loved him. He appeared the only one who shared their outrage over Soviet bullying. To be sure, Howley's style had not won him friends in Washington and his relationship with the cool and restrained General Clay were also often testy and strained. "Howlin' Mad Howley" was a epitaph applied as much by his Western colleagues as his Eastern adversaries. Yet whether one liked his style or not, he was the American who reassured the Berliners that the Americans weren't going home when the crisis came on June 24. 

Countering Soviet propaganda broadcasts depicting panic amoung the Allies, Clay to the air and declared both that his wife was NOT packing their silver and the Americans were ready for Soviets if they tried to cross into the American Sector. His tone, as usual, was belligerant -- and, also as usual, he spoke without first consulting his superiors. But his combative tone and uncompromising assurance of going no where was exactly what the Berliners needed to hear. It was perhaps his greatest moment.

Ironically, with the Soviet blockade, Howley's role was immediately diminished. Precisely because Berlin had moved from the periphery to the center of the international stage, Howley and his counterparts were overshadowed by more powerful actors. The Military Governors, above all Lucius D. Clay, became the eyes, ears, and spokesmen of their respective governments on the ground. But even they were only reporting back to -- and following instructions -- from their respective governments. When all was said and done, it was Truman and Attlee, not Clay or Robertson, much less Howley and his counterparts, who made policy for Berlin during the Blockade and Airlift. 

Yet Howley remained at his post until 31 August 1949, roughly two and half months after the Soviets ended the Blockade but before the Airlift came to a close. The Soviets marked his departure by publishing a long article in the Communist news media in which Howley was portrayed as largely responsible for the entire "Berlin Crisis." He was blamed for single-handedly destroying four-power government by walking out of the Kommandatura for no reason. The article concluded that: "Howley is leaving his post at a time when western Berlin's policy of isolation discloses more and more clearly a complete bankruptcy." [Milton, 306] 

On his return, Howley left the army and returned to civilian life where he was named Vice Chancellor of New York University. He died in 1993 in Warrington, Virginia. 

Howley is a minor character in Cold Peace.

HISTORICAL FIGURES IN "COLD PEACE" -- Ernst Reuter

 In late August 1948, the Western Allies believed Stalin had signaled via diplomatic channels a readiness for compromise on the "Berlin crisis." The military governors were given instructions to meet again in the Allied Control Commission and hammer out the details of an agreement in the first week of September. Historians would later characterize the resulting negotiations as nothing more than the usual Soviet tactics of misleading and bamboozling their counterparts, but at the time rumors of a "break through" were rampant. It was at this moment, when the West seemed eager to "do a deal" with Stalin that Ernst Reuter threw down the gauntlet and forced the West to respect the wishes of the Berliners.

Speaking before a crowd of roughly 300,000 Berliners assembled in front of the Reichstag, Reuter called out:

Today is the day on which not the diplomats and generals speak and negotiate. Today is the day on which the people of Berlin lift up their voice. ... It is time for the world to see what Berliners really want. And we say clearly: in all the deals and counter-deals we don't want to be a trading object!

You cannot exchange us, you cannot trade us in, and you cannot sell us!

People of the world, look to this city and recognize that this city and its people cannot be sacrificed! People of the world, do your duty and support us not only with the roar of aircraft, not only with the transport of goods, but also with a steadfast and unwavering commitment to our common ideals -- ideals which alone can secure our future and yours! People of the world, look to Berlin!*

It was a decisive moment. Thereafter, no one in Washington or London dared to "do a deal" that did not take the will of the Berliners for freedom from Soviet oppression into account.  It was also a decisive moment the transition of Germany from an enemy to an ally. But just who was Ernst Reuter and how did he come to be the spokesman for Berlin

Technically, on the date of Reuter's speech, 9 September 1948, Ernst Reuter was the elected but "unseated" mayor of Berlin. He had been elected in June 1947, but the Soviets simply vetoed the election and would not allow him to take his seat as mayor. Elections did not hold any weight in the Soviet Union... 

Reuter's colleagues, however, respected him and continued to defer to him. Then in December 1948, after the city had been torn in two by the blockade, Reuter won re-election by a huge margin and although the SPD had taken 64.5% of the votes, formed a coalition with the other democratic parties to rule Berlin jointly through the crisis -- much as Churchill had done in 1940.

Yet there is irony in Reuter becoming the voice of freedom and democracy in the face of Soviet aggression because as a young man Reuter had actively supported the Bolshevik Revolution. At the start of WWI, he had been a pacifist, but was drafted. Serving on the Eastern Front, he was wounded and taken prisoner by the Russians. He was still in captivity when in October 1917 Lenin and Trotsky launched the Bolshevik Revolution and Reuter formed a Soviet among the prisoners to support the revolution. Thereafter he was named a "Peoples' Commissar" to help form the Volga Commissariat for German Affairs.

He soon returned to Germany, however, where he joined the Communist Party and advocated revolution for Germany as well. This put him in conflict with the party leadership at the time and despite Lenin's patronage he was expelled from the Communist Party. He briefly joined the Independent Socialist Party and then returned to the Social Democratic Party to which he had belonged before the First World War. 

In 1926, Ernst Reuter was given responsibility for Berlin's transportation system by the Berlin city government. He consolidated the transportation systems into a single organization the Berliner Verkehrs Betrieb (BVG) and introduced a number of efficient innovations and extended the subway network. From 1931 to 1933, he was mayor of Magdeburg. He was elected to the Reichstag in 1933 and immediately fell foul of the Nazis. He was interned in the Concentration Camp at Lichenberg for two years. On his release, he went into exile in Turkey.

Reuter was appointed to the faculty of the University of Ankara and there founded the school of urban planning. At the end of the war, he returned to Berlin and in the first post-war election was elected to the Berlin City Council with responsibility for transportation again. He was elected mayor a year later and re-elected (as noted above) in 1948 and again in 1951. He was acting Lord Mayor of Berlin at the time of his sudden death from a heart attack on 29 September 1953. 

Yet the bare resume of his life explains neither why the Soviets were so afraid of his influence that they vetoed his election nor how he rose to so effectively embody the spirit of a free Berlin in the post-war era. Reuter's influence must rest on a powerful charisma that inspired and motivated others. 

* Translated and condensed by the author based on the original text of the speech in German.

BRIDGE TO TOMORROW: COLD PEACE -- Meet Karl Liebherr

 Karl Liebherr is a necessary character. In a book about the Communist attempt to take control of Berlin and drive the protectors of democracy out, there has to be at least one enthusiastically Communist character.

 

 Excerpt 1:

“How can you represent “the people” if only 10% of the population votes for you?” [Karl's father asked.]

“Because we are on the side of progress!”

“How does destroying our industrial capacity further progress?” The elder Liebherr wanted to know.

“The Soviets suffered immeasurably in the war. They have the right to reparations!” 

“Agreed! Even the Americans agree. The Western Allies invented the idea of reparations after the last war, remember? No one is questioning the right of the Soviet Union to reparations, but there must be limits — a clear point at which they stop. Furthermore, Germany has to have a way to pay them.” Slowing down to add emphasis to his words, Jakob Liebherr declared. “For the last two years, the Soviets have been systematically vandalizing or dismantling our factories, power plants, laboratories and workshops. In doing so, they have destroyed our ability to manufacture industrial products and thereby our ability to earn the currency with which to pay them the reparations they want.”

“Don’t be a capitalist stooge!” Karl shot back. “You are saying that reparations should be paid from profits. Profits are theft. The Soviets are securing reparations by taking from the capitalists the means of production and so enabling the Soviet Union to become a great industrial nation.”

“That might have been true if the factories they dismantled here were being rebuilt and operated in the Soviet Union — which they are not. Furthermore, even if they did re-assemble the factories, the price would be the impoverishment of Germany, making it perpetually dependent on hand-outs from the West.” Jakob dropped his voice. “That, Karl, might be in the interests of the Soviet Union, but it is not in the interests of Germany or the German people.” 

“Defending the Socialist Motherland is in the interests of all working people,” Karl countered, more flustered by his father’s calm than his earlier anger. 

“That’s what they taught you in the Lubjanka, Karl. It is not your own brain or heart speaking.” Liebherr pinned his son to his chair with his eyes.

After several long seconds, Karl broke free. He jumped to his feet. “How do you know what is in my heart and brain?” 

His father gazed at him unwaveringly. Karl spun about, grabbed his coat and without bothering to put it on plunged out the door, slamming it behind him.

One of the striking things about Berlin during the Blockade and Airlift is that the Berliners did not vote "for the banana" -- unlike what happened forty years later. When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, the residents of East Germany turned their backs on Socialism because they wanted a higher standard of living. They wanted a Mercedes Benz (or at least a Volkswagen) rather than a Trabbi. They wanted the internationally recognized and powerful D-Mark, not their aluminum currency that was worthless on the exchange markets. They wanted Levis and Legosteins, Barbie Dolls and, yes, bananas. That they also got a well-functioning democracy with rule-of-law on top of all that was just the icing on the cake.

In contrast, Berliners in 1948/49 were willing to endur hunger and hardship for the sake of democracy. As one of the put it: 

It is wonderful to live in a city that prefers death to slavery, that has decided to suffer more deprivations rather than dictatorship. [Ruth Andreas-Friedrich quoted in Richard Reeve's Daring Young Men, Simon and Schuster, 2010, 178]

The struggle for the "hearts and minds" of Berliners that took place between 1946 and 1949 included a great deal of material bribery on the part of the Soviets. The Soviet Military Administration and their puppets the Socialist Unity Party shamelessly offered better rations, jobs and housing to those who were politically loyal. It introduced a new currency at exchange rates that were not the same for all, but beneficial to political friends and ruinous to political opponents (or anyone suspected of harboring doubts about Socialism). Yet the salient point is that this bribery did not work.

At the height of the Blockade when residents of West Berlin were living on rations providing just 1,600 calories a day consisting of powered potatoes, powered vegetables, powdered milk and eggs, and canned meat or fish, just 3.3% of the population registered to draw Eastern rations which offered fresh milk, fresh eggs, fresh potatoes and fresh fruits and vegetables.  

Mayor Ernst Reuter expressed the position of the Berliners eloquently when he feared the Western Powers might decide to withdraw from West Berlin in exchange from Russian concessions elsewhere:

Nobody can barter us. Nobody can negotiate us.  Nobody can sell us...People of the world! Do your duty and help us not just with the [Airlift] but rather with the steadfast and invincible vow to our common ideals.[Reuter's speech of 9 September 1948, translation by the author]

The Battle for Berlin of 1948-1949 was not a clash of arms or economies but of ideas. And that is the reason why at least one character in "Bridge to Tomorrow" had to express the ideas with which the Soviets tried to seduce and confuse the Berliners. Karl is that character.

Yet he isn't a marionette either. Actually he is a victim. Conscripted into the Wehrmacht as a 18 year old, he was taken prisoner on the Eastern Front. There he escaped the horrors and the death around him by embracing Communism and "drinking the cool aid" offered by his tormentors. Karl has been "brain washed" in one of the most notorious centers for torture in human history: the prison of the KGB, the Lubjanka. And sometimes, just sometimes, a flicker of emotion can undermine his devotion to the Party and Stalin.

Excerpt 2:

“Don’t go to this Assembly, Vati!” Karl ordered.

“What do you mean?” His father asked astonished. “I’m a member of the City Council. I voted last night on the decision that is to be debated today. Of course, I must attend.”

“It’s a waste of time!” Karl countered. “By going, you only make a public spectacle of yourself! You will be photographed by the press, and everyone will know where you stand.”

“I’m not ashamed of where I stand, Karl.”

“This is like voting against Hitler’s Enabling Law all over again, isn’t it?” The way Karl asked the rhetorical question made it sound like something shameful.

Jakob, however, was proud of having voted against Hitler’s Enabling Law. “Yes,” he answered steadily. “There are many parallels, which is exactly why I intend to go.” He started for the door, but his son blocked his way. 

“Don’t you remember where your vote against Hitler’s Enabling Law got you?”

“Do you think I can forget two years in a Concentration Camp?” 

“Apparently you can! And the worst of it is that you never give a thought to anyone but yourself and your image! You don’t care about the consequences of your grandstanding for Mutti and me, do you?”

“Oh, so that’s what this is all about,” Jakob scoffed. “You think my public opposition to the SMAD might hurt your career in the SED. Well, I’m sorry, Karl. You’re a big boy now. You’ll have to deal with that yourself.”

“I can! I’m not worried about myself! It’s Mutti, I worry about. You honestly don’t give a damn about what happens to her, do you? No, of course, not! Just like in ’33! All you think about is your public image!”

“Karl! How dare you talk to your father like that!” Trude reared up.  

“Dare? It’s past time that someone stood up to him! I watched you suffer while he was in the KZ!” Karl told his mother furiously. “I watched you cry in despair. I watched you beg neighbours and relatives for help. I watched you humble yourself before the Nazis and try to play ‘nice little Hausfrau’ in the hope—”

Trude slapped her son hard. “Stop it! I’m not proud of what I did, but you have no right to judge me!”

“I’m not judging you!” Karl shouted. “I’m trying to stop it from happening all over again. Don’t you see? Are you both idiots? The SMAD has issued a decree and they will enforce it. The SED will enforce it. The police will enforce it. The Red Army will enforce it. Why do you have to go through this puppet theatre of defiance?”

“You think a meeting of the City Assembly is ‘puppet theatre’?” His father asked back. He did not raise his voice, yet he asked the question with acute intensity. He spoke slowly and deliberately, the apparent calm of his voice underlining the depth of his shock and outrage.  

“What else is it?” Karl shot back unintimidated. “Such quaint institutions have no place in a Farmers and Workers State. The Vanguard of the Proletariat knows what is best and should be obeyed without this bourgeois charade of democracy.”

“In that case, we can at least go on record as standing up for the Four-Power Agreements that the Soviets themselves signed.”

“Why?” Karl insisted. “What difference will that make? Four-Power government is dead. The Western Powers have ripped it up in favour of protecting the interests of their monied classes.”

Jakob refused to discuss his son’s Soviet disinformation. “Our stand will show the world that we know what is at stake and that we care about liberty.”

“Vati! I’m warning you not to go!” Karl was still shouting. He sounded enraged, but something in his tone had subtly changed. Both his parents recognised it. Jakob’s eyes locked with his son’s, and he saw terror in them. His son was afraid for him.