About Josef Jaeger

Written by Jere' M. Fishback

Print Information:
392 pages / 97500 words / 5x8 trade paperback
ISBN: 978-1-60370-685-8, 1-60370-685-2

eBook Information:
206 pages / 97500 words
Available file types - html, lit, pdf, prc
ISBN: 978-1-60370-686-5, 1-60370-686-0

Genre: Historical

Age Range: 17 and up.

Josef Jaeger turns thirteen when Adolf Hitler is appointed Germany’s new Chancellor. When his mother dies, Josef is sent to Munich to live with his uncle, Ernst Roehm, the openly-homosexual chief of the Nazi brown shirts. Josef thinks he’s found a father-figure in his uncle and a mentor in his uncle's lover, streetwise Rudy, and when Roehm’s political connections land Josef a role in a propaganda movie, Josef’s sure he’s found the life he’s always wanted. But while living in Berlin during the film’s production, Josef falls in love with a Jewish boy, David, and Josef begins questioning his uncle’s beliefs. 

Complications arise when an old friend of his mother’s tells Josef that his mother was secretly murdered by the SS due to her political beliefs, possibly on Roehm’s order. Josef confides in his Hitler Youth leader, Max Klieg. Klieg admits he knows a few things, but he won’t share them with Josef till the boy proves himself worthy of a confidence.

Sample

The Bavarian winter of 1933 felt unusually cold, and it made my bike ride home from school miserable. I’d lost my gloves just after Christmas and Mother said she had no money to replace them, so my fingers turned to icicles while I pedaled through the cobblestone streets of Bayreuth, past the Margrave’s sandstone palace and its frozen fountain.

There had been great excitement at school. Radio broadcasts the day before reported a fire which had destroyed much of the Reichstag building in Berlin, and our morning newspaper carried photos of the building’s charred dome with plumes of smoke wafting from the windows below. My teachers grew testy and intolerant of student hijinks.

Before reaching home, I stopped at a newsstand to purchase an afternoon paper, a Berliner Zeitung, and I folded it under an arm while shoppers streamed about me, their heels clicking on the granite sidewalk. The sky was cloudy and getting dark and I wondered if snow might fall that evening. Excepting the evergreens, our town’s trees were barren and the grass in our municipal park bore an ochre hue. My breath steamed while I rubbed my palms together, shivering in my thin jacket, thinking of home.

Our flat felt chilly when I entered and I beat on the radiator with a wrench, causing creaks and rumbles in the pipes. I switched on an electric floor lamp and it cast shadows upon our smoke-stained damask wallpaper, upon our horsehair sofa and the yellowed lace curtains at each window. I kicked off my shoes and wandered toward the kitchen in my holey stockings, feeling the threadbare carpet lick the soles of my feet, rough as a cat’s tongue.
While boiling water for tea, I found three stale biscuits in the cupboard, then sat at the kitchen table. I spread my newspaper before me. The front page offered a photo of Adolf Hitler in front of the chancellery in Berlin. He wore a dark business suit and he clutched papers in his left hand, while his right hand jabbed the air, index finger pointing skyward. His brows gathered above his glaring eyes and a handful of dark hair fell across his forehead, lending him a boyish appearance.

The Chancellor said the Reichstag blaze had been an act of “arson.” I had to find our dictionary to determine the meaning of the word: a fire started with intent to destroy a structure and its contents. The Chancellor went on to say that a man associated with Germany’s Communist party had been arrested in connection with the incident. A photo of the stubble-faced culprit appeared at the bottom half of the page, along with his name in bold letters. The arsonist’s hair was tangled, his sweater collar torn, and a photographer’s flash reflected in his frightened eyes. A scab bulged above one eyebrow.

A separate story on the first page of the paper said the German parliament, recognizing a dangerous and perhaps revolutionary situation, had given Chancellor Hitler certain emergency powers to deal with the crisis. These were described in boring detail and I left my reading to brew tea. I returned to the table moments later, cup in hand, ready to enjoy my favorite section of the paper—the comics—when a knock came at the door.

My visitor was Konrad Hessen, a singer who worked with Mother at Bayreuth’s two opera houses. He was her favorite companion, a fat man from Frankfurt with a piercing tenor voice and a consistently sweaty, slick-bald head. The two weren’t romantically involved, but they enjoyed each other’s company, trading good-natured insults while they argued over who would pay the drink tab.

I wasn’t fond of Konrad, as he’d made it clear he didn’t like the company of children. Whenever he visited our flat, he had to turn sideways so he could fit his chubby physique through the front door, and once I’d laughed at the procedure, prompting Mother to send me to my room.

Konrad was a vocal member of the Communist party, and it made him a rare animal in conservative Bavaria. It was he who’d caused the artists in Bayreuth’s opera houses to join the National Performers’ and Musicians’ Union, an act which nearly cost him his positions at both venues. Only the intervention of his devoted fans—substantial contributors to the opera houses—saved him from the unemployment line.

Konrad normally appeared at our door around nine at night—my required bedtime—and it wasn’t a coincidence. His timing ensured he wouldn’t share my company; that Mother’s attention would focus solely on him. Often I’d wake after midnight, needing the toilet, and I’d hear the two of them deep in discussion, about what I didn’t bother to listen.

Once I’d asked Mother if Konrad was a big-shot in the Communist party and she laughed out loud. “He imagines himself to have a place of importance with the red boys,” she said, “but Konrad’s only task is singing The International at the start of their meetings.”

I shifted in my chair and asked Mother, “How come you like him so much? Do you want to marry him?”

“You’re talking crazy, Josef. If I want to get in bed with a man, I’ll choose one who doesn’t weigh one hundred fifty kilos. And Konrad wouldn’t be much of a father for you, would he? He’d soon have you buying him drinks with your allowance.”

Now, on this February day, Konrad wore his customary black overcoat with a beaver collar and he wheezed from his climb to our third floor flat. When he asked if Mother was home, I said she wouldn’t return from rehearsals until six. He nodded and asked if he might come in.

I stepped aside while Konrad performed his sideways entry, the bulk of his overcoat complicating matters, its buttons clicking against the door jamb. Joining me at the kitchen table, he made no attempt to converse. Rather, he pulled out his reading glasses and perused the front page of my newspaper.