The German Wife

Lizzie Miller, her father, and her brother, Henry Davis, work together on the family farm to plow the fields. Lizzie’s father assures them that rain will come soon, but Lizzie is skeptical. As they ride the tractor back to the house, Lizzie and Henry discuss the problem of cows getting stuck in the mud. When they get to the cows, the three work together to free them from the mud, and Lizzie suggests that they sell the cows. Her father refuses, and Henry urges Lizzie to be more optimistic.

Unable to sleep that night, Lizzie hatches a plan to solve the cow problem. The next morning, she works all day to spread the mud out from the pond. However, her work proves unnecessary, as the pond dries up shortly after.

After getting the children into bed and freshening up, Sofie sits with Jürgen at the kitchen table. Germany has lost the war, and the two talk about its prospects for recovery from Nazi control. They discuss their daughter, Laura, who stayed behind, “more loyal to the Nazis than she is to her family” (25). Sofie remembers the American men who came after the fall of Berlin to take Jürgen away. In his absence, she gave birth to Felix by herself and raised money to care for their three children by renting out most of their house in Berlin.

Jürgen tells Sofie that he was initially a prisoner in Berlin and then was a prisoner in Texas. After the Americans recognized his scientific and linguistic ability, he was given more and more freedom and eventually allowed to write to Sofie. The government agents promised Jürgen that his past would be erased, and he was given permission to bring his wife and children to the US. Jürgen tells Sofie that he feels like he’s been given a second chance to be a good man and live a good life, perhaps making up for what he did in Germany.

While Sofie unpacks, she finds photos of her older children, Jürgen’s late aunt, and her best friend, Mayim.

In Berlin, before the war, Sofie meets her friends Mayim and Lydia for lunch with the intent of telling them about her pregnancy. There is tension between Mayim and Lydia because of Mayim’s family’s recent financial problems. When Mayim excuses herself after Sofie’s announcement, Lydia makes an antisemitic comment about Mayim and her family, which makes Sofie uncomfortable.

Lizzie waits impatiently for Henry to finish tuning up her car so that she can attend the welcome picnic. She and Henry agree that the German immigrants brought in as part of Project Paperclip are a potential danger, and Lizzie thinks about the tension it’s caused in her marriage.

Lizzie and her father survey the freshly plowed field, and her father insists that the rain will come, even though there’s been a drought for three full years. Henry wants to take his girlfriend, Betsy, on a date, but his father tells him that there isn’t any money for gas. As Lizzie and Henry walk together back to the house, they discuss the family’s dire financial situation and wonder if they’ll have to sell the tractor. At dinner, their father tells them that the crops sold for less than usual this season. When Henry suggests selling the tractor, their parents tell them that they owe more on the tractor than they could get from selling it. Their father tells them not to worry and that he’s meeting with the bank to get a line of credit.

The next day, Lizzie and Henry are plowing while their father is in town. Lizzie thinks about how much she loves farming. She doesn’t want to marry but worries that she may have to do so to continue with the life she loves. When her father gets home, her mother tells her that the bank refused to give them a loan, as the farm is no longer valuable enough to serve as collateral. Her mother tries to reassure her, telling the story of her sister, Elsie. Elsie was stillborn, and Lizzie’s father built a bench on the property to honor her.

At the welcome picnic, Sofie is initially excited to meet new people and see her children make friends, but when the German women recognize her from their shared time in Germany, they find reasons to move away from her. She meets Avril Walters, a local who seems genuinely friendly.

After the bank denies the loan, Lizzie’s father closes himself up in the bedroom. Henry takes the initiative and asks for a loan from his girlfriend’s father, a local judge, in exchange for agreeing to stop seeing Betsy. Henry insists that this money will turn things around and save the farm.

Lizzie arrives at the party, still bothered by her brother’s comments about the German immigrants. She gravitates to the women she knows and complains about the German families and the risks they may pose. Sofie approaches and confronts Lizzie, arguing that the segregation in Huntsville is akin to the Nazi attitudes that Sofie and people like her failed to fight. Lizzie vehemently responds, demanding that Sofie tell her whether she knew about the camps. They cause a scene, which embarrasses Lizzie’s husband, Calvin, who intervenes to smooth over the conflict.

Sofie returns home from a rally that she attended with Lydia in large part to pursue a possible job for Jürgen. Following the death of Sofie’s father, she discovers that her family’s wealth is gone, and she and Jürgen are struggling financially. Even so, Mayim is living with them, helping with the care of their children. There has been significant political upheaval for some time, but the violence and rage at the rally shocked Sofie. When she expresses her feelings to Mayim, Mayim tells her that antisemitism in Germany isn’t new. Even their friends Lydia and Karl had expressed antisemitic sentiments before joining the Nazi Party. Their choice to join the Party surprised Sofie. She had noticed Lydia pulling away from Mayim, but she assumed that it was because of financial elitism, not racism. When Sofie goes to bed, she and Jürgen talk about the rally and their fears about the growing violence connected to the Nazi rise to power.