to make the most of the limited space. The front windows offered wonderful views of the mountains, and plenty of room remained on the bookshelves for the new volumes they hoped to acquire in the years to come. After a few days in Jena, Mildred and Arvid embarked on a second honeymoon to the Black Forest, where the loneliness of their long separation soon faded to a distant memory.
In autumn, Mildred began her doctoral studies at the University of Jena. Once again her life was satisfyingly full, her days devoted to study, her nights to her beloved Arvid. She missed her family in America, but the Harnacks made her feel so welcome that she could not complain of homesickness.
Then, on a beautifully clear, vividly hued autumn day at the end of October, Arvid found her in the garden studying in the afternoon sunshine. “I’m sorry, Liebling,” he said grimly, handing her a newspaper. “Bad news from America.”
As she scanned the headlines, her heart plummeted. The stock market had crashed, losing more than three billion dollars over the span of two days.
She steeled herself. “Arvid?” With his academic training and expertise, he would know as well as anyone on Wall Street what this meant for her country.
He held her gaze and shook his head. She knew then that much worse was yet to come.
Chapter Two
October 1929–July 1930
Greta
In her last letter from Wisconsin, Greta had told her family not to meet her ship in Hamburg, but when she disembarked and took her first few unsteady paces along the pier, she felt a pang of profound loneliness and wished they had ignored her instructions. All around her, couples embraced and families greeted long-absent loved ones, while she walked alone, a suitcase in each hand.
From the station office, she telegraphed her parents to let them know when to expect her and hurried to catch the train to Frankfurt an der Oder. As the train carried her nearly four hundred kilometers south and east, she watched the scenery speeding past the window of her second-class carriage, curiously moved, marveling how her homeland had changed so little during the two years she had been studying abroad though she had changed so much.
Hours later, the train jerked to a halt at a station near the Polish border. “Frankfurt an der Oder,” the conductor announced, sending a thrill of expectation up her spine. She gathered her belongings and descended to the platform, where she was immediately swept up in a strong embrace. Startled, she dropped her suitcases. “Hans,” she exclaimed. She kissed her brother on the cheek, breathless. How well he looked, tall and sturdy, his blue eyes bright and cheerful, his hair darker and curlier than she remembered.
“Welcome home, little sister,” he said, seizing the handles of her suitcases and heading to the exit from the platform. “You’ve gotten thin. Couldn’t you find any good German food in Wisconsin? Mutti will want to fatten you up.”
Greta’s stomach rumbled in anticipation. “She’s welcome to try.”
“She’s planning a dinner party for tomorrow night,” Hans said as he led her through the crowd to the street. “Just the family and a few neighbors, and all your favorite dishes.”
“I hope she won’t go to too much expense.”
“You know Mutti. She’ll haggle with the butcher and trade mending work for bread with the baker and Papa will boast about her shrewdness until she blushes.”
Greta laughed and agreed, tears of happiness pricking her eyes. She had missed joking with her brother about the endearing quirks of the people they loved, which included their mother’s frugality. Mutti had a gift for making something nourishing and delicious from meager ingredients, a skill her family extolled as a moral virtue while tactfully overlooking that it was born of necessity.
Throughout the wretched, tumultuous years of the Great War, Greta’s parents had kept poverty at bay through relentless effort and sheer force of will. Greta’s father was a metalworker in a musical instrument factory, and her most vivid childhood memories involved watching him roll out gleaming sheets of brass, placing patterns upon them, and meticulously cutting out intricate pieces from which he shaped cornets, flügelhorns, and tubas. Her mother was a seamstress who took in piecework, mostly clothing and blankets for an upscale department store in Berlin.
As soon as Greta had been old enough, she had helped earn her keep by polishing shoes, but her parents had emphasized that education came before everything but the church. They had scrimped and sacrificed to afford their children’s tuition at the