Episode 19. Sunday night, 2 August 1936
As Katrin and I huddled together in the cold darkness of the cell into which we had been cast, I couldn't help but think that this had been the longest and most horrible day of my life.
The disaster had begun when my attempt to slip poison into Goebbels' cup was spotted by Horst, who put a stop to it. From there things went downhill rapidly as I was taken to Goebbels' sex cave, stripped naked, tied to a bed and raped by the little monster himself, and then hauled off to Gestapo headquarters in the dead of night to be water-tortured. Luckily that ended when Horst intervened and I thought that perhaps the worst was over, but then they brought in poor innocent Katrin, and some Nazi SS bitch decided the Apollo showgirl was in cahoots with me and that torturing the two of together would yield results and further her career in the SD.
She and her minions had hauled the two of us to an interrogation chamber and had us strung up naked together and flogged half to death ... and when that wasn't enough, she had us whipped while straddling a horse, cruelly equipped with rows of jagged teeth along its crossbar. Tied back-to-back over the horse, Katrin and I reacted to each lash. Twisting and bucking, we continually jostled one another, causing the teeth to tear and rip at our privates.
That was just too much. Katrin was truly innocent and I had grown weary of holding out. What was to be gained? It was clear that this monstrous woman would never give up until she beat what she wanted to know out of me. The sharp tearing pain from the teeth digging into my labia made me want to faint. I could already feel streams of warm blood trickling down my inner thighs. Every effort to find a more comfortable position resulted in more discomfort and pain.
So I called for a halt, declaring my willingness to talk. Beaming with self satisfaction, and lording things over Horst ... who clearly appeared to be her rival and who always seemed to want to help me, at least in small ways ... Brunhilde began firing questions. I answered her questions quickly and truthfully, wanting desperately to get off that horse and be free of its wicked sharp teeth.
Throughout the questioning, I repeated over and over that Katrin had not been part of the plot and argued that she should be freed. Brunhilde seemed not to care. Horst stood off to one side and dutifully took notes in a small pocket notebook.
Satisfied that she had dragged everything worth knowing out of me, the SS matron finally had her assistants take us down. We were given small gray prison shifts to wear ... with half the buttons up the fronts missing ... and dragged upstairs to a small room on the ground floor, where a bespectacled, stern-faced magistrate with a swastika armband listened wearily to Brunhilde as she recited the charges laid against us.
Nothing was said in Brunhilde's presentation about Katrin's innocence, and when I protested, Brunhilde had me silenced by one of her crew with a blow to the stomach that left me doubled over on the floor gasping for air. I looked around for Horst, hoping he might intervene, but he had disappeared. Desperately, my voice no more than a rasp, I inquired where Sturmbannfuhrer Horst von Hassel had gone off to, adding that he would corroborate my contention that only I was guilty of the charges, and that Katrin should be freed.
My insolence earned me a clout on the side of the head, and the terse response that the Sturmbannfuhrer had other duties, and had left to make some telephone calls.
With the presentation of the charges complete, the magistrate had risen from his chair and, without any deliberation, pronounced Katrin and I guilty of capital crimes against the Reich. Banging a gavel, he decreed that we be executed by hanging at noon the next day, Monday the 3rd of August, 1936, at Plötzensee Prison.
We were promptly escorted to the cell blocks deep in the subterranean bowels of the building, and tossed into a cell.
"Enjoy your last night together, ladies," chortled one of the guards. "Your transport to Plötzensee will be here to fetch you at 0700!" With that the reinforced iron door to our cell was slammed shut, and the bare light bulb overhead extinguished.
As we huddled together, shivering in our thin gray shifts, I realized I hadn't eaten since yesterday evening. I was hungry, sore all over from the brutal flogging, and feeling a lot of intense pain from the cuts and tears left by those awful teeth.
"I am so sorry to have dragged you into this," I murmured to Katrin. "You did nothing to deserve it."
"Perhaps more than you think, Barbara," she replied softly, drawing closer to me. "You see, I work for Max, and know Klaus well ... very well. We are all opposed to the Nazis. You are one of us, and what you tried to do was very brave. I'm am proud to have played a small part, and would do it all again, given the chance."
She put her head on my shoulder, and I ran my fingers through her tangled blond hair, combing it out gently for a minute or two. Then I leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. I felt her body turn toward mine and her hand fingering the lone button that held the front of my shift together. It popped open, and her warm hand began to explore my body, starting with my breasts. She ran her finger around my tumescent nipples, and then began tracing the raised crisscrossed welts left by the whipping. I wiped a tear from my eye, and reached over to open her shift. She turned toward me further, raised herself on to her knees so that she was straddling my legs, and held my head in both hands. Then she leaned into me until our lips met in a kiss ...