Chapter Six Hundred Forty
4th January 1948
Berlin
Everything comes to an end eventually and Nessa had been enjoying some time with her father being totally unaware of her activities. She had disliked working in Kempten. Bavaria was far from Potsdam where Eugen worked so she had been looking for an excuse to leave anyway. Between the finder’s fee of three million Marks that Johann Schultz had insisted that she split with Martzel Ibarra for the recovery of the American uranium core and the stunning knowledge that she was very likely going to be a Nobel laureate, Nessa had never enjoyed as much financial or professional security. She and Eugen had been talking about starting a family and it had seemed like an appropriate time. At the end of November, armed with her latest medical tests she had requested that she be given a sabbatical which she had to be granted according to the very health and safety guidelines she had written. Just like that, Nessa never had to set foot in that awful, soulless place ever again. The offer of a Professorship at Berlin Technical University to teach Theoretical Physics was too good to pass up because it was what she had wanted to be doing anyway.
For all of December Nessa and Eugen settled into their new life and had enjoyed living in the Charlottenburg flat they had bought. It couldn’t last.
Then the night before Nessa’s mother had called and said that her father had caught wind of her departure from the nuclear program and was coming to Berlin to find out why she had done it. They were going to be in Berlin that afternoon and her father was not going to leave before he got answers. This was going to be difficult, there were many conversations that Nessa and her sister Sarah simply did not want to have with their father. This included their personal lives. Because for all his genius, Jacob von Schmidt still seemed to see his daughters as small children. While Sarah’s personal life would be decidedly harder to explain considering that her passions were of the Sapphic variety, Nessa’s current situation blew everything else out of the water.
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“Jacob, Esther” Eugen said as he opened the front door.
Esther greeted Eugen warmly, while Jacob glowered at him. He suspected that his daughter’s husband had something to do with Nessa’s current round of questionable decisions. Eugen’s tenure with Navy had ended the instant the shooting had stopped. Which also ended any authority that Jacob might have had over him, otherwise he might have been sorely tempted to send him to shoot one of his documentaries in Antarctica, just as local winter set in. It was a minor annoyance as Jacob bulled past him. Into the dining room where Nessa was talking with Sarah.
“What the Hell do you think you are doing with your career?” Jacob demanded, “Taking a job at the University when you are working at the cutting edge of scientific knowledge, that is nothing more than a massive step back. Just when you are finally getting recognition you deserve.”
“Career isn’t everything, Papa” Nessa said flatly.
Jacob stared at Nessa like if she had just grown a second head.
“You aren’t being sensible” Jacob said as he looked at Esther and Sarah to back him on this, only to have them demur. “What could possibly be more important than the work you’ve been doing?”
Nessa looked at him with an expression that he’d only seen in the past when she had a particularly vexing problem she was dealing with.
“I’m pregnant” Nessa said to him, “And that is more important.”
That explained everything, and it hit Jacob like a full broadside from the Fleet’s combined battle line.
“What…?” Jacob asked.
Wunsdorf-Zossen
Helene was watching television with Hans as he tried to explain the football game that they were watching when there was a merciful knock on the door. She had seen her brother play enough times to know the basics, Lothar had been a promising Defender before a knee injury had ended his career. Hans had played when he had been in school but had lacked the raw talent required to advance further than that. He’d discovered that he was a much better soldier. Besides that, for her watching Hans and the running commentary he was giving Manfred was a much better show than what was on television.
Opening the door, Helene saw a young woman standing there. “Are you Helene von Richthofen?” She asked awkwardly.
“Yes” Helene said guardedly.
“You don’t know me, but a mutual acquaintance said that I should talk to you” The young woman said, “My name is Sophie Scholl, by the way.”
“Does this acquaintance have a name?”
“Augustus Lang” Sophie said.
Helene sighed. She had only met Lang once. The former Chancellor’s politics had not exactly lined up with her own. At the same time the National Liberals who her father supported reminded her of a slightly less mature version of a joke from an American short film that involved something called the He-Man Woman Haters Club.
“You might as well come in” Helene said, “We can talk about why Lang sent you to my door step.”
Sophie followed Helene into the house, “This is Hans and Manfred” Helene said, “They will be consumed with the game for the next hour, so we can talk in relative peace.”
“Should a child be watching television?” Sophie asked, “I’ve heard it can be bad for them.”
“This is a compromise” Helene said, “Otherwise Hans would be up in Berlin at the games themselves with his Uncle Klaus and his crowd. A lot of drinking, swearing, smoking and fighting goes on, Manfred will be ready for that about the time he’s old enough to vote.”
Sophie found something about that amusing as she sat down at the table.
Helene put the kettle on the stove. “What do you have in mind?” She asked.
“Chancellor Lang said that you did a sit-down strike against the Luftwaffe that played a role in the creation of the Axillaries” Sophie replied.
“That gives me way too much credit” Helene said, “I wanted to be a pilot in a night fighter squadron and I eventually had to leave, and you wouldn’t believe who I had yelling at me over that.”
“Lang said that” Sophie said, “But he also said that you’ve a better handle on how things actually get done these days.”
“Did he now” Helene replied as she heard Hans bellowing at the television in the parlor and Manfred’s laughter, like father like son, she thought to herself. “What exactly did he say I do?”
“He said that you’re an activist of sorts” Sophie answered, “With the war over White Rose went its separate ways, I’ve been looking for something new.”
This girl had been a member of a pacifist organization? It explained a few things. “You’ll find I’m anything but a pacifist” Helene said, “I directed interceptors during the war.”
Sophie smiled at that, “Chancellor Lang told me that, I figure that someone who’s a real fighter would be perfect.”
“Wait until you meet my friends” Helene said.
“What?”
“Oh, forget it” Helene replied, “Tell me what you have in mind.”
