stopped me on my way home and took me in for questioning.”
Setting coat and bag aside, Sara cupped his chin in her hand and examined his split lip. “This is how police question people in Germany now? Did you tell them you were a journalist? Did you threaten to expose them in your paper?”
“That didn’t occur to me, but I don’t think it would have helped.”
“What did they want with you?”
“To find out whether I’m a Communist and if I have any information about who burned the Reichstagsgebäude.”
“How would you possibly know that?”
“They know I’ve written about strikes and protests and that I have contacts within the party. I suggested they check party membership rosters, and they acknowledged that they already had, and hadn’t found my name. I asked them if they considered the Berliner Tageblatt to be a Communist newspaper, and they admitted that it wasn’t.” He touched his cut lip gingerly with the back of his hand. “It’s possible that they don’t really think I’m a Communist, but were just using that as an excuse to intimidate me. Either way, when I didn’t confess, they let me go with a warning.”
“Some warning.” Sara ushered him to the kitchen, where he wearily dropped into a seat as she fetched him a cool, damp cloth for his lip. “Maybe you should get out of town for a while, just until things settle down. You could stay at Schloss Federle.”
“If the Nazis want me, they won’t overlook my relatives’ homes, even if it means going all the way to Minden-Lübbecke. I won’t put Amalie, Wilhelm, and the girls in danger.” He shook his head, wincing in pain. “I’m not going anywhere before the election. Every vote counts, and I’m not letting those fascists intimidate me away from the polls, or from this story.”
On the morning of March 6, the Weitz family learned that despite the Nazi program of intimidation, their firm grip on the media, and the fact that the SA and SS had been assigned to monitor the voting, they had not crushed the opposition. Although the Communists had lost about a quarter of their seats, they had held on to 288. And while the Nazis had won five million more votes than in the previous election and had gained 92 seats in the Reichstag, they claimed just under 44 percent of the vote, which meant that they still lacked a majority in the legislature.
But the next day, the National Socialists announced that they had joined forces with the German National People’s Party, forming a coalition that comprised 52 percent of the Reichstag—a majority, albeit a narrow one.
In the days that followed, more Communists were arrested, taken from their homes and workplaces and held without charges in makeshift prisons hastily set up to accommodate the overflow. Natan assured his family that he was probably safe, since he had already been questioned, investigated, and released, but, ever cautious, he asked friends and neighbors to let him know if anyone came by asking questions or demanding to know his whereabouts.
On the evening of March 9, Sara’s mother summoned them all together for an unusual midweek family supper. The cook outdid herself, inspired by the homecoming of her darling Amalie and by the presence of Baron von Riechmann, whom she was certain was accustomed to and expected the finest delicacies, despite the many times Sara had assured her that Wilhelm was one of the most amiable, unpretentious people she knew.
Dinner conversation was relaxed and undemanding, in deference to the two young children at the table. Only afterward, as the adults sipped coffee at one end of the drawing room while the girls played with their dolls at the other, did talk turn to politics.
“The military does not support Hitler,” Wilhelm assured them emphatically. “The generals despise him, and many believe Hindenburg betrayed them by appointing Hitler chancellor. General Ludendorff accused him of handing over our sacred German homeland to a demagogue, and he predicted that unimaginable suffering will result. He declared that future generations would curse Hindenburg in his grave for this action.”
Sparing a glance for her granddaughters, Sara’s mother turned up the radio slightly so their conversation would not be overheard. “I hope the general’s prediction of suffering is wrong, but I’m terrified that it isn’t.”
“We may not be through the worst of it, but Hitler’s coalition will eventually fall apart,” Sara’s father insisted. “The Nazis can sow hatred and violence, but they cannot govern.”