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“Now Comrades, who here wants some land?”



There was an affirmative cheer and loud clapping from the meeting hall of the Kaltenkirchen Land Administration Office in response to what Gerda had asked. She couldn’t help but grin.


The plaid suit and republican tricolour armband of the United Front’s new bureaucracy had made her feel uncomfortable at first but this was the sort of the task that she had spent over a decade working towards.

Before Rosa, before the KPD, even before working at the munitions factory in Essen, she had been a farmgirl. She didn’t have fond memories of her life from that time, the work was always endless and it was done for little reward. The fawning deference with which the tenants had had to treat the landowner as he robbed them of their own labour had always disgusted her. She had often got the impression her parents had felt the same way but were too trapped in the inertia of the system to do anything about it. Her grandfather had been the tenant before her father after all.

She had wanted to escape from that cycle and the war had provided such an opportunity to do so. Her parents had tried to block her from going to do war work in Essen, it wasn’t women’s work after all and she was needed at the farm. Gerda’s arguments appealing to their patriotism hadn’t had any effect and so the conversation had ended in her stating that she had no intention of marrying the boy from the next lot over and pumping out new tenants to bow to whoever inherited the estate.

Gerda hadn’t spoken to them since. She had considered writing to them on occasion but had always been brought to a pause when thinking what she would write. That she had had a child out of wedlock? That she then hadn’t married the father or indeed any man? That she was also a Communist? Leaving them in the dark about those faces was probably for the best but she could still do right by them now, and by her old self.

When she had heard that the United Front were carrying out a nationwide land reform initiative she had jumped at the opportunity to help organise it. For all her doubts about governing in coalition with the Social Democrats this was something practical she could do that would have a positive effect on the lives of ordinary labourers. And so here she was, Land Administrator for the district of Segenberg in Schleswig-Holstein, taking the land from the reactionary estates and handing it to those who worked it.

One such redistribution was happening today. She would take the farmers name and examine their accreditation and then Dieter, in the role of her assistant, would hand them the deeds to their new land. With Hamburg’s docks out of action Dieter wasn’t likely to get his old job back in a hurry and although there was a lot of work in the ongoing reconstruction of the city he had been happy to take the assistant role. She had had to educate him in a lot of the tasks demanded by secretarial work but he had learned quickly and it was good to be near him whilst on the job, she had even found a school for Rosa within the town.

The meeting hall was packed well beyond its intended capacity but Gerda could understand the excitement. There were more people than the seats allotted to those expected to arrive to claim their 100 hectares today. Then again she wouldn’t be surprised if their friends had also turned up to get an idea of the process before their turn came. She asked those who were registered for lots to come forward and many did remain seated as a queue formed.

The first few farmers had taken their deeds with the pleasant mix of excitement and gratitude she had gotten used to in the previous weeks. The next man in the queue came forward without any look of anticipation on his face however. If anything he looked annoyed.

Gerda was aware that some people were wary of taking part in the process, as if the land they were receiving was charity despite them working it for years. She gently asked the name for his name, trying to relieve the sour expression from his face. He gave it curtly and Gerda looked down the list to find it.

It wasn’t there.

“I’m sorry comrade but I don’t seem to have your name down here. Can I just make sure that you worked the Schulze estate?” Gerda felt embarrassed, the man was in a bad enough mood without exacerbating it.

“No.”

“We are only dealing with labourers from the Schulze estate at this session, if you will register then-”

“I’m from the Vogt estate,” the man barked at her, “and he isn’t on your list so there’s not much point in me registering is there?”

“Settle down Comrade, we can get to the bottom of this without that tone.” Dieter interjected sharply.

“There’s nothing to get to the bottom of, Comrade. Apparently he didn’t support the fight against your United Front. Well everyone who used to work for him knows how he was gonna send us off to fight and we told him to shove it. He laid us off and when your revolution came you didn’t even ask us about him. You saw the republic flag on his manor and said, “No problem here.” Well we’re here for our land, we’ve worked as hard as anyone else for it.”

There was a loud cheer from behind the queue. Those who had been sat were now on their feet. It appeared they weren’t just observers after all.

“Comrades, please,” Gerda stood and tried to bring the hall to order.

“I’m not your Comrade. ” The man snapped.

“Well then, Sir, you will appreciate the land reform we are carrying out across Germany is incremental. Those estates who actively sided with the Third Reich will be the first to go but that it is merely to avoid economic dislocation.”

“There we have it folks, economic dislocation.” A man shouted from the crowd.

“To avoid accidentally harming our national reconstruction,” Gerda shouted over him.

“Economic dislocation! That’s what goes for comradeship when it comes to the United Front!” The man stepped out from the crowd towards the table and Gerda cursed. Why hadn’t she realised Claus Heim was here?

Claus Heim, leader of the Rural People’s Movement and ubiquitous pain in the arse. Before the civil war they had taken the concerns of the local peasantry to a militant level, using tactics that ranged from civil disobedience to outright violence. Luckily this stunt appeared to have been on the more peaceful side of things so far but with Heim involved it was hard to know if it would stay that way

“Back to your seat mate,” Dieter said, standing up to face the older man.

“Sit yourself down, lackey. Don’t think I can’t take you.” Heim growled back.

Dieter didn’t reply but continued to stand, waiting to see how this would progress.

“We rose up when you rose up, fought the fascists and junkers alongside you, if it wasn’t for our movement warning you about the Hamburg flotilla you’d have had the Reichsmarine bearing down on you and you wouldn’t even have known it! This victory’s ours as much as yours but we are the only ones who appear to be being shafted in the name of your national reconstruction.”

“Oh come off it Claus,” Gerda shouted over the heckles, “we’re doing exactly what you’re asking for. You're just looking for a reason to throw your weight around but in doing so you’re holding up the common farmer from getting their due.”

“What do you know about the common farmer?” Heim sneered.

“I grew up on a farm, spent most of my life on one. I know what agricultural workers have had to put up with and if someone was in the way of improving my life for the sake of their own ego I’d want them to get out of the way and register like everyone else.”

Heim paused for a moment, staring at her, as if trying to discern whether she was telling the truth.

“Nah, you’re all city talk, your parents might have been farmers but you’ve as much connection to the land as a skyscraper. If you were one of us you’d show solidarity with your class. Everyone’s getting their land, not just a few estates you want to make examples of.”

He looked back at the crowd but the reaction was mixed this time.

“Now hang on,” a farmer from the queue protested, “everyone deserves their due but my family does work the Schulze estate. If my deed’s available right now I don’t see how it’s helping the rural folks for me to refuse it. Seems like only old Schulze would benefit from that.”

“Shut it,” the original complainer retorted before beckoning Heim to go on but more men from the original queue were now gathering around him.

“Much of what you say is true,” The protesting farmer said to Heim, “but we’ve worked under that bastard for too long to see you help him keep his land by splitting hairs.”

“This isn’t splitting hairs, it’s about what you said, everyone getting their due.”

“And I’ll get mine just now.” The man moved towards the table, trying to push Heim away but the older man stood firm. A scuffle broke out between them.

“This isn’t getting us anywhere!” Gerda protested but the original complainer had already pulled the farmer off Heim only to be accosted himself by other men, presumably from the Schulze estate. Another man who had previously been queuing patiently now darted for the deeds causing Gerda to instinctively grab them and hold them to her chest. To her horror she realised she was bearing her republican armband like some sort of shield.

“You’ve got my land!” The man shouted at her.

“You’ve lost the plot!” Dieter shouted back, he moved Gerda out of the hall whilst the fighting spread throughout the auditorium. Chairs began to fly before Dieter slammed the door.


They both stood there stunned, Gerda continuing to cradle the deedds in her arms whilst the riot inside the hall seemed to be intensifying.



“I don’t know about you,” Dieter finally said, “but I think I’ll go back to being a docker. Secretaries have it way too rough.”



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The poster is Junkerland in Bauernhand by Kurt Fiedler