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IN THE WAY OF THE REICH
PAULA ASTRIDGE
OTHER BOOKS BY PAULA ASTRIDGE
KILL THE FUHRER
GOLDEN BOY
Woodslane Press Pty Ltd
7/5 Vuko Place, Warriewood, NSW 2102
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.woodslane.com.au
First published in Australia in 2011 by Woodslane Press
© 2011 Woodslane Press, text © 2011 Paula Astridge
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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
| Author: | Astridge, Paula, 1958- |
| Title: | In the way of the Reich / Paula Astridge. |
| ISBN: | 9781921683886 (pbk.) |
| Notes: | Includes bibliographical references. |
| Subjects: | Nazis—Germany—Fiction. Righteous Gentiles in the Holocaust—Germany—Fiction. World War I, 1914-1918—Fiction. World War II, 1939-1945—Fiction. Germany—History—1933-1945—Fiction. |
Dewey Number: A823. 4
Design and layout by Robyn Latimer
Cover design by Penelope Astridge
Printed in China
TO SUSAN
With thanks for the idea
‘There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast.’
- Charles Dickens
PROLOGUE
It was April 15, 1944, and Bucharest was burning. Bombed and beaten into submission by the last Allied aerial attack.
The jarring aftershock of their incendiary shells had left the city teetering on the brink of collapse, its charred remains standing in crumbling defiance of defeat. As if asphyxiated by the smoke and stench of death the streets had fallen silent. Their uneasy peace broken only by the sound of Mendelssohn’s Liebestraum drifting from a candlelit, third floor apartment. Its haunting melody floated out into the night air and settled over the city like a soothing balm.
Albert Goering sat at his piano with his friends gathered around him. Having gagged their party celebrations during the bombing raid, their inebriated voices now burst back into song, broadcasting, in baritone, a slurred Slavic rendition of the famous German song to those very few still left alive outside in the mood to listen.
It was not until its second verse that they were interrupted. From across the road, two strong male voices cut in, singing its lyrics out loud in German. Albert stopped playing, picked up his champagne glass and wandered out onto his terrace. There, on the balcony opposite were two Nazi officers. With their black, threatening uniforms and sober expressions, neither was in a partying mood.
But undeterred, he tackled them directly.
‘You two gentlemen are interrupting our private recital,’ he said in his cultivated German.
‘It is our duty,’ one of them immediately responded. ‘By right of that song’s German origin, it must be sung in German and German only. To sing it in another language at such a time is a sacrilege. As the German citizen you obviously are, you should know better.’
Albert casually stubbed out his cigarette, squashing its embers underfoot with much the same contempt in which he held these two men.
‘As a German,’ he replied, ‘I shall do whatever I damn well please.’
It was only the street-distance between them, the Nazi officers reasoned, that was giving this stranger the outrageous audacity to defy them. But at this point it must stop!
‘What gives you the right to address officers of the Third Reich in such a manner?’ the more senior of the two demanded. ‘Who in the Fuhrer’s name do you think you are?’
There was a short pause: a deliberate drawing out of the moment which Albert was determined to enjoy before he answered with calm, deadly assurance. ‘I think I’m Albert Goering.’
Both officers stopped short. ‘Are you any relation?’
‘Yes, our grand and glorious Reich Marshal, Hermann Goering, is my brother.’
Stunned into silence, the two officers could say or do nothing but fall back on that one tried and true safety net of theirs. They stood to rigid attention, clicked their heels and thrust out their right arm. ‘Heil Hitler!’
And to toast their salute, Albert lifted his champagne glass and said:
‘Hitler can kiss my arse!’
CHAPTER ONE
‘You’re my brother, for God’s sake. What are you trying to do, kill me?’
It was all that Hermann Goering could say to stop himself slapping his brother senseless. He was beside himself, his normally flushed, flabby face blanched white with rage.
This was the fourth time that he’d had to pull out all stops to rescue Albert from the Gestapo torture chambers. It was the fourth time, in as many months, that Albert had been arrested for getting in the way of The Reich. Not only by publicly slandering its leaders and purpose, but by committing the unpardonable sin of siding with the Jews and helping them escape extermination. Acts of supremely dangerous defiance that hit out directly at Hermann and threatened his position as Germany’s Reich Marshal. But it was worse that he was stupid enough to get caught out doing it.
‘What’s wrong with you? Do you hate me that much?’ Hermann demanded. ‘Or are you just getting some sick thrill from humiliating me in front of Hitler?’
‘I don’t hate you Hermann. I love you. I always have. It’s just that I don’t approve of your objectives or of what you’ve become to achieve them.’
Hermann answered with a contemptuous snort as he levelled his fat, ring-encrusted finger at his younger brother. ‘Well you can just thank your lucky stars that I am who I am. Otherwise you’d be dead. Who else would have the care or clout to save your miserable skin, and to do it