Berlin, 24th December 1929
LAWYERS did not work Christmas Day or Boxing Day in Germany, and the office was open only until lunchtime on Christmas Eve.
Meyer looked forward to his time with his family over the next few days. He would be able to look after Anna and Greta while Klara made preparations for Christmas lunch. But tonight was what he was most looking forward to. For the first time since arriving in Berlin, Manfred and Klara Meyer were going dancing.
A thin layer of snow lay as a sheet across the city, and Meyer could not help himself from scraping some up and forming it into a snowball before realising that he had no-one to throw it at. The cold from the snowball was beginning to penetrate his leather gloves, so he tossed it carefully into a wastepaper bin several metres away, hearing silent applause as it successfully toppled over the edge of the bin to rest amongst the day's discarded items. A woman herding two young boys along the street towards him saw this small triumph and smiled at Meyer, knowingly. Meyer smiled back and wished her a merry Christmas.
Meyer had taken to using the tram each day to get home, but today he wanted to stop by Wertheim department store on Leipziger Platz. He would get the tram home from there.
Meyer could see the sign above the door of the famous store across the street. There were some women looking in the windows, which were full of expensive dresses, hats, and shoes, pointing at the clothes which they were admiring. However, the windows which housed the toys had small crowds of children pressing up against the glass, dreaming of owning the toy trains, wooden boats, and tin soldiers, or the immaculately decorated dolls' house, miniature pram, and rocking horse.
Meyer crossed the road, making his way between the cars and trams. He only just made it across the street when an open-backed truck sped past, spraying the bottom of Meyer’s trousers with dirty slush. Meyer cursed and watched as the truck with the red flag of the Communist Party held proudly high by one of the men in the back rounded the corner, heading out of sight. Meyer looked down at his feet and trousers and brushed off what he could from his clothes, realising that it would be easier to clean once it had dried.
His temper didn’t last. He shrugged and smiled at the women who had watched him being sprayed by the truck. They laughed when he wished them a merry Christmas and suggested that communists would be missing out on getting Christmas gifts from him this year.
It was warm and friendly inside the department store. Ribbons and pine branches decorated the entrances of each department, and a Christmas tree dominated the elegant atrium, sitting just in front of a statue of Caesar. A huge, sun-faced clock shone down on Meyer from the second floor balcony. It was nearly two o’clock. He wanted to be home by four to give himself time to change before taking Klara out for a meal and dance. First, though, he was going to buy her a Christmas present.
The store was busy. The stock market crash didn’t seem to have affected the fortunes of Wertheim's. He made his way through the Christmas shoppers to the mahogany stairs at the rear of the atrium, where a brass-framed board indicated the location of each department. He checked the list and found that the jewellery department was on the first floor. Meyer skipped up the stairs until he was faced with a choice of direction; ahead hung various colourful women’s hats, and to the left, past the wood-panelled wall, lay scarves and gloves. He wandered slowly around the side of the atrium until he managed to pick out the glass cases which held the jewellery, near the huge windows on the side of the building.
It took him twenty minutes to find something that he thought would be perfect for Klara and which was in his price range. He asked one of the assistants behind the desk to see the silver oval locket, which hung on a delicate silver chain. A slim, rather stern-looking older woman, the assistant opened the locket with her thin fingers to let Meyer see that there were two holders within, which would be perfect for tiny photographs of Anna and Greta.
“Is this for your wife, sir?” she asked.
“Yes, we have two young twin girls and I am certain she would like something which would remind her of their first Christmas,” he replied, taking the necklace in his hands. It was perfect.
“It is made here in Germany, from German silver,” the assistant announced proudly.
Meyer wasn’t sure if this was a marketing tactic she was employing to encourage him to purchase the item but he liked the simple design, which caught the light and made it sparkle. He nodded, agreed that it was good that the necklace was of German manufacture, and told the assistant that he would take it. Her sternness dissipated immediately.
“What a lovely choice, sir. I am sure your wife will enjoy it for many years to come. Would you like me to wrap this for you?”
“Yes please,” said Meyer, “I am sure you will do a much better job than I would be able to.”
“Of course, sir,” she replied, as she returned the necklace to its box and began to fold brown wrapping paper around the present. As she wrapped, carefully folding the edges of the paper and securing the package with a crimson ribbon, she extolled the qualities of German design.
“The French, of course, think that they are the masters of jewellery design. While the English, well, what can I say...”
Meyer’s eye was caught by movement outside the window. It was snowing again, but this time it was large flakes that were gently floating from the sky, frolicking in gusts of gentle wind. It was beautiful, but he hoped it would not last too long or his night of dancing may be jeopardised.
He noticed that the assistant had nearly finished wrapping the box, so he reached into his breast pocket to retrieve his wallet.
“...the quality of the German silver is very high. And we know who made a profit from all of this during the war. Thank you, sir. Please come over to the cash register.”
Meyer paid for the necklace and carefully placed the wrapped package into his coat pocket before heading back towards the grand mahogany staircase. He was sure that Klara would love it. It would be the first piece of jewellery he had bought her apart from her wedding ring.
He made his way back through the atrium until he stood at the doorway. He watched as the large flakes meandered through the air to rest gently on the pavement outside. He decided he would be taking Klara dancing that night, even if he had to carry her through the snow. Meyer tightened his scarf, buttoned up his coat, and pulled on his gloves before exiting out into an almost silent street.
Despite the traffic and the people making their way along outside the store, there was very little sound. The snow was muffling everything. The near-silence seemed magical to Meyer.
He checked the road before crossing, not wanting a repeat of his close shave with the communist truck, and headed for the tram stop. As he waited for the next tram, he noticed how the snow seemed to steal the colour from the city, leaving a beautifully accurate pen and ink drawing of the buildings.
It was not long before he was seated on the top deck of a tram slowly making its way across Berlin. He had to wipe the condensation from the windows to see out, although there was not much to see through the heavy snow. He thought about that evening instead.
Meyer and his wife had first met at the Eden dancehall in Leipzig and had continued to meet up there almost every weekend. They had both been surprised by just how much they had in common with each other. They had both grown up in middle-class homes on the outskirts of the city, albeit, almost at opposite sides of Leipzig from each other. As with all German children, their childhoods had been dominated by the war, and both Meyer and Klara had lost their fathers in the trenches, Meyer’s father on the western front and Klara’s in the east. Both had brothers who had fought in the war. Klara’s had only been at the front for a few months before the Armistice.
There had been some resistance to the relationship at first from Klara’s mother and her older brother Karl, although this became much less when they found that Manfred Meyer also had a Jewish father. Even though they were not orthodox Jews, Klara’s mot
her wanted her daughter to marry into the faith, saying that was what her father would have wanted, even though Klara could never remember her father being very Jewish at all. It was her mother who took her to the synagogue and Karl who accompanied her to the evening dances, although this was an excuse to allow him to meet friends in the city’s beer cellars. This allowed Klara a certain amount of freedom. As long as she didn’t leave the dance hall until her brother arrived, she was free to dance with Meyer all evening, every week. After the dance, Meyer would wait with her outside the hall until Karl arrived, when he would dutifully hand her over to her brother’s care without even a kiss. Klara always glanced back at the last moment before turning the corner, and Meyer would wink at her which would always make her laugh.
This continued for several months, until one night, when Karl did not turn up to take Klara home. It was mid-summer, and Meyer waited with Klara in the balmy evening, relishing every extra second he got to spend with her as they waited for her usually punctual brother to appear around the corner. Klara began to get worried after only ten minutes since Karl was always on time and was even sometimes early, waiting for her at the bottom of the steps of the hall.
After half an hour, Klara was frantic. Meyer tried to calm her by suggesting all sorts of scenarios where Karl may have been held up, but his powers of persuasion were not yet that of a lawyer. After an hour of waiting, Meyer told Klara that he would need to take her home. He told her that he was sure that Karl was alright but something had stopped him from coming to meet her. It was more likely that her brother was already at home and, if not, if he did come to get her this late from the dance hall, Karl would realise that she would have been taken home by him. Klara agreed, and Meyer had her take him by the arm as they headed for the tram stop.
Klara’s mother greeted Klara with surprise and Meyer with suspicion when they arrived at her home. She peppered them with questions. Where was Karl? Why were they so late? Who was this boy bringing her daughter home?
Meyer had assured her that he had only brought her home because Karl had failed to turn up, and they were so late because they had wanted to give Karl a reasonable amount of time to arrive. But as with Klara, Meyer could not persuade her mother that something dreadful had not happened to Karl.
While they waited, Klara’s mother had spent the time asking Meyer all about himself and his family. He told her all about his father and his brother being lost in the war and all about his mother and her delicious cakes. Meyer had noticed a spark of hope in her worried eyes as he mentioned his Jewish roots.
It was just as he was being asked about his plans for a career that there was a knock at the door. Klara and her mother had rushed to the door to find Karl outside, covered in blood but not badly hurt. Meyer had helped clean him up as he told them what had happened.
He and his friends had been in a beer cellar that they frequented each week, when some rabble from a Freikorps had come in. Although Karl and his friends had found a corner away from the main bar, one of the Freikorps men had spotted him.
Karl was a handsome young man, very tall, with dark hair and eyes. Along with these features, his olive skin and long nose betrayed his heritage, and insults began to be thrown his way. It didn’t matter to them that Karl had fought on the western front and his father had died fighting the Russians, all that mattered was that Karl looked like a Jew. Just as his friends had convinced Karl to leave with them and find another bar, more men arrived, this time from a different Freikorps. Karl was soon forgotten as insults were traded between the two groups of men.
Before long, a fist fight broke out between them. Karl and his friends tried to leave through the brawl but then someone produced a pistol and shots were fired. Karl’s friend, Werner, was shot in the arm, but Karl picked him up and, holding his good arm over his shoulder, had managed to get him out of the beer cellar and into a taxi and took him to hospital. This was where he had been and it was Werner’s blood that covered him.
However, Meyer had noted that Karl had a scrape on his chin and bruising around his ribs. His knuckles were also swollen on his right hand.
For a few minutes, Meyer had been left alone with Karl. He mentioned, quietly, what he had noticed. Not the sort of marks you would get escaping from a fight, more like ones which one would get from being actively involved in it.
Karl had nodded and asked Meyer not to mention this to either his mother or his sister as he did not want them to worry. It was a few months before Meyer found out what had actually happened that night.
Meyer had bid them all a good night now that everyone was safely home. He was heartily thanked by all of them, especially Karl, for bringing Klara home that evening. After that, Meyer was welcomed with open arms at the Steinmann household.
Meyer’s eyes flicked open. He had dozed off. He rubbed the misted window with his hand, making his black leather glove shine with condensation. At first, he thought he had missed his stop, as he didn’t recognise the street. Then he saw the fire station and relaxed. There were still a few minutes before he was at his stop.
His hand felt for the present in his pocket. He just wished that he had pictures to put in the locket for her, but no matter, they could get portraits of the babies in the new year.
Meyer carefully made his way down the stairs of the tram, wet from melting snow, and waited for the tram to stop. When it did, he jumped from the tram and started the short walk to his apartment building. The snow was still falling in huge flakes, and he listened to the crump of his feet as he plodded through the snow. The muffled rattle of the tram had gone, and the street was almost soundless except for the call of the newspaper-seller outside his door.
“Chancellor Muller announces budgetary constraints!”
“Merry Christmas, Paul,” greeted Meyer to the paper-seller.
“Ah, Herr Meyer, merry Christmas to you.”
Meyer took one of his papers and dropped a few coins into the seller's hand.
“More good news?” Meyer joked, as he scanned the front page. “Keep the change Paul.”
The newspaper-seller thanked him as Meyer disappeared into his apartment building.
He ran up the steps, pulling his key from his pocket and opened the door to his apartment. It was warm inside, and the smell of baking awakened his hunger. He realised he had not had anything to eat since breakfast.
“Klara?” shouted Meyer.
His wife appeared suddenly from the bedroom, with her finger held against her lips, closing the door behind her.
“Hello, darling, the twins have only just gone to sleep,” she whispered, then took his hand and led him through to the livingroom.
“Frau Fischer will be over at six. I’ll feed the girls before we go out, and we should be okay for at least three hours.” she continued, with a wide smile on her face. “I have looked out a dress for dancing. Where are we going?”
“Ah, well I thought we could go to Clärchens Ballhaus. It is on Auguststrasse and the tram takes us straight to the door. It has great music and a restaurant attached,” he replied.
“Manfred, that sounds delightful. I am a bit worried about the snow, though.”
“Klara, if I have to carry you there through snowdrifts, I will make sure that we go dancing tonight.” Meyer then fished out the box from his pocket.
“I have a Christmas present for you,” he said, holding up the wrapped box for her to see.
Klara made an excited gasp. “What is it?”
“You will have to wait until morning, no opening until then!”
“I have something for you, too,” she said. Klara then scurried away before returning with an equally beautifully wrapped box.
“You have to wait too,” she teased, before her laugh infected them both.
Christmas was an unusual time for Manfred and Klara Meyer. Both were from Jewish backgrounds, but Meyer had celebrated Christmas to a certain degree since neither of his parents were practisi
ng Jews and it helped him fit in with his gentile neighbours and school friends. His family decorated their house, had a Christmas tree, and exchanged presents with each other.
Klara, on the other hand, had not celebrated Christmas before. She was from a much stricter Jewish household, and the idea of celebrating a Christian festival was seen as ridiculous, although her father always gave her and her brother a small gift each on Christmas day as a reward for being ‘good Jewish children’.
Klara and Manfred shared another belief though. They were both atheists. Klara’s scientific background and Meyer’s father’s belief in socialism had removed any faith in the Jewish, or any other religion. So it was a surprise to Klara when, on their first Christmas since having met, Meyer had bought her a Christmas gift. When she questioned Meyer jokingly on whether he had secretly converted to Catholicism or whether it was a purely capitalist Christmas he celebrated, he gave her a letter to read.
She had opened the envelope, which was dirty from fingerprints and slightly torn at the corner due to the letter inside being taken out so often over the years. There was no stamp, but the franking on the letter showed the Imperial German crown and was dated 1915. The letter inside was addressed to Manfred, who would have been ten years old at the time, and his brother Nils, who would go to France the following year. It read:
‘My dear boys,
I have had a letter from Mummy telling me what good boys you have been and what a help you are to both your mother and your grandmother. Thank you very much for your own letters, they are a constant comfort to me and I read them over and over again when I am missing you all.
Manfred, to answer your question, the food is very nice, lovely black bread and bratwurst with potatoes and gravy. It is always lovely and hot as the weather has been particularly cold recently.
Nils, it is difficult as a soldier on the front line to determine which way the war is going, but I can tell you that we have been making good advances along the line. If you can, talk to Herr Koch about machine gun training. I think that this would be the best position to try to get when you join next year, but hopefully the war will be well and truly over by then.
But I am writing to tell you of a wonderful thing which has happened here on the front line. In case you did not know, the Kaiser had Christmas trees sent out to all the troops at the front so we could have a little bit of home comfort.
We decorated the trees and put them up above the parapet. I fully expected the enemy to shoot them down, but instead, when we sang Christmas songs, they joined in the singing! I could hear them clearly across no-man's-land. It was wonderful. Then some of our boys, who had worked in England as waiters before the war, got up out of the trench and walked over to them, hoping to swap cigarettes and wine for chocolate and whisky.
When I could hear them talking I couldn’t stop myself from laying down my rifle and joining them. I ended up talking to a Scotsman from a place called Glenfinnan. We managed with a little bit of English and a little bit of French to have a great conversation. He also has a wife and two boys at home waiting for him. I also found out that he did not much trust the French or like the English any more than I did! We had a good laugh about that!
I even heard a rumour of a football match being played between German and British soldiers further up the line. Can you imagine that boys? Enemies putting down their guns and playing a game instead! But the next morning the big guns started shelling again and the war was resumed.
The whole experience has heartened my confidence in the human race and shown that the proletariat are capable of working together in peace, as I have always known.
If Christmas can stop a war, then everyone should celebrate! It was the best Christmas present I could have ever wanted.
With all of my love,
Papa’
After she had read the letter, Meyer had asked her to open the present. It was a book by Erich Maria Remarque, ‘All quiet on the Western Front.’