Slaves of the Swastika by Kenneth Harding

couldn't stop himself. Now again the whistle sounded and it was very close to them. Max, who was at the curbside of the sidewalk, glanced to his left and there was a police car with the lights flashing, and a man in a brown uniform with a swastika armband was gesturing to him and calling out in an angry voice, “What the devil's the matter with you, fellow? Can't you hear a whistle? Don't you know that means to stop? Secret Police! Just stand where you are, the two of you!”
    Max cast an imploring look at his sweetheart, who bit her lips and imperceptibly shook her head and said, “Don't panic now, for God's sake, Max. We've done nothing, we were just visiting Kathy, and that's all.”
    The man who had accosted Max Dornburg now got out of the car, and from the back seat two Plainclothes men emerged as well. They were both stocky with bowler hats and overcoats against the raw October afternoon. The SS soldier wore sergeant's stripes, and he turned his head to confer with the two other men, who both nodded. He then went up to Max Domburg and said, “Your papers, schnell!”
    Max fumbled in the pocked of his coat under his thick overcoat and drew out his identification. The SS noncommissioned officer seized it, scowled at it, handed it to the two men who in turn examined it. “And the girl?” the sergeant demanded.
    “Why, she's my fiancee, sir,” Max Dornburg said politely.
    “Speak when you are spoken to. All right, you,” the sergeant jerked his thumb at Trudy, “let's see what you've got to prove who you are. And make it fast, girlie!”
    “Why, I'm a student at the university, that's all,” Trudy said in a clear brave voice, “I'm afraid I didn't bring any papers, sir, but everybody knows me. My professor can vouch for me, my name is Trudy Heinzelman, and I five at 38 Kirchevasser Boulevard.”
    “Where did you two just come from, girl?” the sergeant demanded.
    “Max and I were visiting our friend Kathy Flichtsen, in that house back down the street, sir,” Trudy explained. “She's a student too. We had some other friends there too. We were just talking about a composition we had to do, and about the work ahead in our class, that's all.”
    “I see. Wait a bit, there's another couple!” The sergeant suddenly raised his voice and turned, for down the street came Erich Luvrow and his girlfriend Eva Jung. “Those the ones you mean, girl?”
    “Yes, that's Erich and Eva,” Trudy said as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Just the same, her mouth felt terribly dry and her mouth felt clammy and her heart was beginning to pound as bad as Max's.
    The two plainclothes men now went down the sidewalk to intercept Erich and Eva and to demand their identification papers. Trudy pricked up her ears and tried desperately to hear what was being said to her friends, but she got only an unintelligible mumble. Meanwhile the sergeant hadn't finished with her: “Pay attention when I'm talking to you, girl! That's the trouble with you damned intellectuals, you forget that there is a war on and that the Fuhrer expects you to be patriotic citizens too in return for your schooling! Now then, who lives with you at home, at the address you just gave me?”
    “My father and mother, sir.”
    “Any brothers in the service?”
    Trudy shook her head. The sergeant eyed her with a mocking little smile, and he suddenly flung at her: “Do you know about Till Eulenspiegel?”
    Trudy hadn't been prepared for so abrupt a transition in the questioning; consequently she hesitated for a tiny but fatal moment, and her cheeks flushed as she wet her lips with her tongue and then stammered, “Why, isn't that the name of an orchestral work by Richard Strauss?”
    “Very good, I congratulate you, Fraulein,” the sergeant jeered. “But you waited just a bit too long to think that one up, didn't you? Oh, it's clever, I'll grant you that! I think you'd better come along down to Gestapo headquarters, Trudy.”
    “Oh please—I've