Dieter. “There you are,” Mildred cried, relieved. “We thought we’d lost you.”
“We decided we’ve had enough fun for one day,” said Greta, eyeing Dieter suspiciously as she stepped around him and tucked Sara’s hand in the crook of her elbow. “Time to go. Our fellows are waiting.”
“Sara, wait,” Dieter implored. “Where can I find you?”
“You can’t,” Sara said as Greta led her away. “Don’t try.”
They hurried to meet Adam and Arvid at the exit, where they had stationed themselves in case Sara passed or was dragged out by storm troopers.
“He knows your name,” said Mildred as they left the exhibition.
“Yes,” Sara replied shakily. “I knew him . . . quite well, before.”
“Will he report you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Are you sure?” asked Arvid. “Your life may depend on it.”
Greta scowled at him, but Sara knew he did not mean to frighten her. “He won’t,” she said, more firmly, and she was suddenly sure of it.
Before they went their separate ways, they conferred quietly, disheartened by all they had witnessed. They agreed that the exhibition probably would convince a great many Berliners that the Reich’s attack upon the Soviet Union had been justified, and that the ongoing war, as costly and destructive as it was, deserved the staunch support of the German people.
A few days later, after Harro, Libertas, and others had toured the exhibition, several members of the group met at the Harnacks’ apartment to discuss if the resistance should respond, and how.
“This Nazi sideshow is dangerously effective,” Harro warned. “We know it’s all lies and distortion, but the vast majority of viewers have been conditioned to believe anything Goebbels tells them. We have to undermine the credibility of the exhibition before it becomes fixed in the public mind as proven fact.”
“How do you propose we do that?” asked Adam.
“A sticker campaign. Nothing could be easier. We have a rubber stamp set and wax stickers. All we need is a powerful, concise slogan to convey our message. We’ll post stickers throughout the city, on walls, telephone booths, public transport, and especially over the posters advertising the exhibition.”
A few nods and murmurs of approval went up from the group, but Sara saw Arvid and Adam exchange looks of exasperation.
“Protests of this sort can be counterproductive,” said the playwright Günther Weisenborn, who had joined Goebbels’s Reich Broadcasting Company in July 1940 and within a year had worked his way into the company’s innermost circles. “It would draw more attention to the exhibition while doing nothing to prevent people from seeing it.”
“We’d be making an important statement,” said Harro. “We’d show the Nazis and the public that the voice of opposition has not fallen silent in Germany.”
“Our lives are worth much more than a statement,” said Arvid. “You’re asking us to take a substantial risk for little potential gain.”
Back and forth the argument went, with Harro insisting that they could not allow the lies of “The Soviet Paradise” to go unchallenged, and Arvid, Adam, and several others remaining adamantly opposed. Eventually Harro declared that he was determined to carry out the Zettelklebeaktion alone if necessary. Arvid and Adam realized they would never dissuade him, but they refused to give the operation their blessing.
As the meeting broke up, Harro invited anyone who wanted to help to accompany him to plan strategy. Several of the younger members of the group left the apartment with him, including the radio operator Hans Coppi and his wife—and Sara. Harro’s operation seemed no riskier than the leafleting campaigns she regularly undertook, and she knew how to maneuver safely in the blackout. If their stickers convinced one wavering Berliner to become more skeptical or if they gave the Nazis even a moment of disquiet, it would be worth it.
Within a day, a young couple in Harro’s resistance group printed up hundreds of stickers, a mocking echo of Goebbels’s promotional ads for the exhibition:
Permanent Installation
The NAZI PARADISE
War Hunger Lies Gestapo
How Much Longer?
On the night of May 17, Sara and the other volunteers met Harro at the designated spot in an alley a block away from the Lustgarten. Clad in his Luftwaffe uniform and carrying his pistol, Harro divided them into teams, assigned them to zones, and distributed bundles of stickers. Sara partnered with her friend Liane Berkowitz, the nineteen-year-old half-Jewish daughter of a Russian Jewish symphony conductor and a famed singing teacher. After receiving their assignment from their team leaders, the groups dispersed through the city, moving out in concentric circles with the exhibition hall in the center, stealthily plastering their stickers