Page 18 of The German Mother

‘Thank you, Friedrich…a schnapps, please.’

The next morning, Minki woke up to find a note on her pillow:

This is my office number. Call me when you’re next in town.

Minki felt a twinge of sadness. These encounters with strange men were enjoyable enough at the time, but often left her with a sense of emptiness – an aching gap where love should have been. She wondered if she would ever call Friedrich again. He’d been a good enough lover, but she hadn’t felt any real connection. He was ‘in sales’, she remembered, and had no interest in either art or literature. Screwing up his note, she threw it in the wastepaper bin, and started to prepare for her interview.

Minki arrived at theDer Stürmerbuilding promptly at nine o’clock and was shown into the office of Julius Streicher, the newspaper’s editor and owner.

Bald, with a moustache and deep-set eyes, he was scribbling something in a notebook and scarcely looked up when she arrived. Not used to being ignored by men, Minki stood awkwardly opposite his desk, and coughed quietly to attract his attention.

Streicher looked up distractedly from his work. ‘Who are you?’

‘Minki Sommer,’ she replied, ‘I’m here for an interview.’

He frowned slightly, and studied his diary. ‘You’re a reporter?’

‘Yes.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, you’d better sit down.’

Minki perched on the edge of the chair, unnerved by Streicher’s mild hostility.

To her consternation, he resumed his writing, and it was some minutes before he put down his pen and closed his notebook. Leaning back in his chair, he studied his interviewee. ‘So, tell me…what experience do you have, Fräulein?’

‘I’ve been the diary editor of a local paper in Munich since I left university, and I edited the university paper.’

‘Mmm…Do you have any examples of your work?’

Minki opened her handbag and removed a sheaf of newspaper clippings, laying them in front of him. He flicked through the pages, smiling occasionally, and even laughing once or twice.

‘You write well, Fräulein. What are your politics?’

‘I don’t have any,’ she replied simply.

Streicher took a cigar from a box on his desk and lit it. ‘Oh, excuse me, do you smoke? Would you like a cigarette?’

‘Yes please.’

He opened a silver cigarette case and held it out to her.

‘Thank you.’

She took out a cigarette, but, as he leaned forward to light it for her, she noticed his hand shaking slightly. The man was clearly not as composed as he had at first seemed.

‘I want people working here who are up for the fight,’ he said with sudden passion. ‘When Adolf Hitler was arrested, the Bavarian state authorities shut my newspaper down. But I fought them tooth and nail, and now we’re back. If you work for me you need to be a fighter. I have no cowards on my team.’

‘That’s good,’ replied Minki, ‘I don’t think anyone could describe me as a coward.’

He looked her in the eye. ‘No…I don’t suppose they could.’ He took another puff on his cigar. ‘So, the job: I need someone to get the dirt on our enemies – politicians, liberals, Jews…those kind of people. It’s tough work – nasty sometimes – could you do that?’

‘I presume you mean, would I sleep with a man to get a good story.’

‘How you do it is up to you, but yes…something like that.’

‘As long as the pay is good, I get to write my own copy, and have my own byline – then I’d do pretty much anything. I’ve slept with men for far less.’

Streicher’s eyes widened with surprise.