Letter 16 / 17

21st January 1933 – Berlin Charlottenburg

Oh but I am angry! I am furious. You will never guess what this foolish wench is doing at the moment – I mean other than writing to you. I am waiting for the doctor, curse it! It’s a sad story. Yesterday I went out to hear Schnabel – with a young English woman – in the Philharmonie, and, walking briskly through the Tiergarten, I slipped in the snow. There was a frightful loud cracking sound, and now here am I with an ankle the size of a grapefruit, waiting for the doctor.

As you say why do you want to go to Stettin for a holiday? It’s a melancholy place – it is like a magnificent Elizabethan mansion that is furnished with the newest most modern deal furniture – Selfridges carpets (bargain basement) and a crowd of ‘old favourites’ on the walls. That is to say, near the station and the river one catches a glimpse of the old Stettin, but behind stretch innumerable cheap flats, all exactly like concrete boot boxes – and all the most exasperating colours – slate grey, pale green, salmon pink and smoke blue. Frightful. But I expect I am unlucky, and haven’t seen the real soul of the town. I wonder where it is, along the river? In the old warehouses? Not on the Hakenterasse or in the new Town Council buildings – which are the pride of the ordinary inhabitant.

Later. The Doctor has been. Fortunately he saw that I was a woman of iron determination and didn’t try to persuade me not to go to my rehearsal tomorrow. On Monday I have got to have the thing ex-rayed in case something is broken – so I shall be bankrupt, but I don’t care, I feel quite cheerful again and even have recovered my temper.

Letter 17 - 1st February 1933

What do you think of the new Riechskanzler? According to the crowd of small children – maximum age possibly 5 years – I am, or rather was, Hitler’s wife. A day or two ago I was making my laborious way home from the Hochschule – heavily overburdened and preceded by a nose reminiscent of Bardolph’s – supported on the right by an inadequate stick, when suddenly all the youthful population in the Englischestrasse rushed out of a side alley yelling “Frau Hitler! Frau Hitler! Da geht Frau Hitler!” at the thought of the welcome Mama would give to her new son-in-law I nearly collapsed from much laughter. But next day I gave up the stick, and apparently my position as Reichskanzlerin Hitler.

After a few days a sprained ankle loses its novelty. Every day I have to trail out to the clinic – where I sit with my foot in a cage of ultra violet light. One has to smile nonchalantly all the time for the honour of the British female – and I’m no stoic – not I.

Did I tell you I was going to play in a concert last Thursday? Well, I did – quite successfully – as a part of a chamber orchestra; and the charming organiseress has asked the whole bang shoot of us to a party next Saturday evening – and she with her head in plasters owing to inadvertently sticking the thing through the window of a motor – an accident, not absentmindedness.

I MUST tell you, I am going to be promoted in the Summer! I shall probably be playing flute in the Opera Orchestra. That at least means that I am third best flute in the Hochschule

Is it that I am complacent and dense, and am only just beginning to notice it – or is there an undercurrent of hostility here growing against the English? I know whenever I go to a Missionary meeting with the Dohnas (which is fairly frequently) the stories about the English illustrating their injustice and stupidity and cowardice outnumber those about the French by about 2 – 1 The old boy at the Clinic – actually thought that England was planning another war. It took me, very excited, and one of his country women, very firm – to convince him to the contrary.