He gave a short, bitter laugh. ‘And when it is—when the Ivans capture it—God help the city’s Fräuleins inside it, because they’ll be looking at one fate, and one fate only.’

And he made a coarse, ugly gesture with his fist.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Berlin, April 1945

‘I’m going to Spandau,’ Lotti said, pulling on the boots she always wore when cycling. ‘I’m sure Claus is there, not in the Ruhr.’

It was early morning and through the closed windows of their apartment distant artillery fire could be heard. It was a sound far more terrifying than the familiar noise of British or American bombers. Artillery fire meant ground troops and, as it was common knowledge in the city that the British and the Americans were still forty-five miles away on the wrong side of the Elbe, ground troops meant the Red Army.

‘You can’t cycle to Spandau in this!’ Ilse stared at her in disbelief. ‘The Russians are only a bus ride away from the eastern outskirts! Artillery shells will soon be falling in the city centre!’

‘And when they do, Russian troops will no longer be a bus ride away. They’ll be in the city centre too. We have to have protection, Ilse. We have to have a gun and the only person I know who will be able to give us one, is Claus.’

Ilse blanched. Rumours as to what could be expected when the Russians captured the city had been rife for days. Some women were secreting razor blades in their handbags. Others were hoarding aspirin for suicide attempts.

‘What will happen to Claus when the Russians arrive?’ she asked, fear for his safety superseding all the hostility she had felt towards him for so long. His position as a key Nazi industrialist who openly flaunted social contact with men like Göring, was something she had always abhorred, but her abhorrence had hardened into revulsion with Nicholas’s execution. After that, it would have been impossible to have ignored, or to have pretended not to see, the gold Hitler-autographed swastika pin in his jacket lapel and she and Lotti had avoided all contact with him.

Now, with the Russians on Berlin’s doorstep, only the fact that he was her brother seemed to be important and no matter how fervently she hated all that he stood for, she didn’t want to see him shot or marched off to Siberia.

‘I don’t know.’ Lotti’s voice was grim. ‘If he’s any sense he’ll abandon the factory and head towards the American advance as fast as he can. That way, he stands a chance of keeping out of Russian hands. It may be something he’s already done. If he has, it means I’ll be coming back into the city empty-handed.’

Though the weather held a hint of spring in the air, she shrugged herself into her army greatcoat. With the Russians now so near, there was a lot to do before she and Ilse found themselves hunkered down in the middle of a blazing battle. For one thing, they needed to amass every scrap of food they could. Bread was still available, but it wouldn’t be so for much longer.