Dance of Death

13. A Charite Doctor

Listening to foreign radio in 1943 was a lifeline. 

For Johanna and Lagi, each broadcast was proof that the Nazi juggernaut was finally teetering. In February, Germany had just suffered its most staggering military defeat when the Soviets encircled and crushed its forces at Stalingrad (today’s Volgograd). Around 800,000 Axis forces were killed, with another 91,000 captured (and fewer than a tenth would ever see home again). While the Red Army had over a million dead, Stalingrad was the beginning of a march that would take them to the centre of Berlin. The disaster was so vast for the Nazis it could not be covered up. Goebbels, for instance, was forced to stand in front of the Berlin Sportpalast and ask, ’Do you want total war? If necessary, do you want a war more total and radical than anything we can yet imagine? Now, people, rise up, and let the storm break loose.’

Otto Kiep

At the Friday meeting, where Thadden planned on passing on her information, Otto Kiep was enthusiastic about the collapse of fascism in Italy. He had been chief of the Reich Press Office. He had once had been dismissed as German consul general in New York for attending a public luncheon in honour of Albert Einstein. Thadden, 50, attended the circle with a friend nicknamed ‘Robby’, who was just 30. Irmagard Ruppel, daughter of Arthur Zarden who lived next door to Johanna, was uneasy. News that Thadden had just met him 24 hours earlier increased concern.