The German Wife

“My family accepted it was a problem that could not be solved. But in the depth of that night, I considered the same situation and decided it didn’t have to be a problem at all.”

This introductory characterization of Lizzie demonstrates her willingness to be unconventional. Although her family insists the problem with the cows is just how things are, Lizzie rejects the status quo and looks for her own solution. This passage shows her original thought and independence, which will eventually lead her back to the farm she loves.

“Every now and again, I remembered the jubilation I felt the day he came home after the war. It once seemed a miracle that he’d returned physically unscathed. But after five years of ups and downs, it was clear that while Henry’s body was intact, his mind wasn’t. I also knew exactly who was to blame. And I was about to go drink champagne and nibble on sandwiches with a group of them, on a lawn at the Redstone Arsenal facility.”

Here, Lizzie’s anger at the German immigrants is directly tied to The Impact of War on Family. Henry’s trauma and mental health condition have changed him in the wake of his experiences in Germany in WWII. This passage additionally shows Lizzie’s desire to look for a singular antagonist to blame for Henry’s problems, a tendency that drives events throughout the novel.

“It was different for the wives. We had arrived as free women and could socialize, or refuse to socialize, as we saw fit.”

Sofie’s awareness of the different roles of men and women in respect to Project Paperclip highlights The Subtle Role of Women in World Events. Though the German scientists have to maintain working relationships and the American soldiers and project leaders are required to work with the men recruited by the government, the role of the wives is different. They can exert social pressure to create the world they want to live in, regardless of the professional requirements of their husbands.

“You’re my best friend in the whole world—a sister if not by blood, then by choice. But you can’t know what it’s really like to live your whole life under the shadow of hate. To wake up every morning knowing that there’s a large portion of your own countrymen who would sooner see you gone. You’ve seen the big, openly aggressive moments—but you don’t notice the way people look at me when I’m on the trolley car. You might notice the No Jews sign in the windows of some stores, but don’t hear the undertone in the grocer’s tone when he counts my change, or the casual way people joke about me and my family.”

Mayim’s explanation of the experience of antisemitism reflects the embedded hatred in Germany, and the reference to the “No Jews” sign echoes the “Whites Only” signs that Sofie sees when she arrives in Alabama. This passage simultaneously calls attention to the microaggressions that provide the framework for larger racist violence and Sofie’s relative ignorance because of her position of cultural privilege.

“But in just two days, the Nazis had taken away our only source of income and threatened our home. We knew the pressure would only increase if we continued to resist, but we had so little left…only the most important things in our world. Our family and our lives. Once we realized that, saying no was no longer an option.”

The moment when Jürgen and Sofie realize the extent of Nazi power is also the moment when they forfeit any chance of meaningful resistance. Sofie notes that “the pressure w[ill] only increase if [they] continue[] to resist,” but she doesn’t yet realize that the pressure will also increase if they do not resist. The moral calculus she undertakes here underscores The Difference Between Intentions and Actions. In the extreme environment of Nazi Germany, Sofie and Jürgen’s good intentions have value only if they are willing to pay for them with their lives.

“Papa, Hans won’t play with me at school because he said I have dirty Jew germs. He said we might even die!”

Georg’s embarrassment and fear demonstrate the power of propaganda. A subtle underlying narrative in the Berlin storyline is the terrifying power that the Nazis wield through control of children, emphasizing the impact of war on family.

“We’ll be an example to the public one way or another. Do you understand what that means? It means if we aren’t an example of how to shun a Jewish friend, we’ll be an example of what happens to people who don’t. I don’t know how we survive if I lose this job, let alone if…”

Jürgen’s rationalizations for expelling Mayim from their home are another sign of his and Sofie’s slow loss of morality in the face of seemingly impossible choices. Sofie and Jürgen cherish Mayim as part of their family, but they are unwilling to put themselves and their children at risk for her sake.

“But I had become someone who would sit at a dinner party and crack jokes about pork knuckles when a man spoke of Mayim and her family as vermin. I was someone who would let my child read antisemitic books. I was someone who would let my best friend be sent away, even as our country turned its back on her.”

Sofie’s realization that the compromises she keeps making are changing her in disturbing ways demonstrates the difference between intentions and actions. Privately, Sofie is disgusted by Otto, by the antisemitic books, and by Mayim moving out, but publicly, she continues to smile and joke in order to appear to approve and agree with the ugliness she sees around her. Over time, her experiences make it clear that in effect, appearing to agree is the same as actually agreeing.

“I watched the emotions play out on my brother’s face. First came shame and guilt and remorse, then frustration and irritation and embarrassment and anger. But all of this faded as quickly as it rose, and then Henry looked away as he nodded. By then, he simply looked resigned.”

Henry’s reaction to Lizzie’s insistence that he enlist in the Army shows the initial social pressures he experiences that help lay the foundation of his later trauma and mental health condition. Unlike Lizzie, Henry is beaten down by the challenges he faces in the Great Depression, while Lizzie seeks solutions and refuses to accept defeat.

“A man like Hitler always wants war. He wants power and land, and no one is going to give those things to him. At some point, he’ll try to take them.”

Adele is characterized as a wise woman who has seen enough war and political upheaval to know what is coming. Her accurate prediction about Hitler underscores the subtle role of women in world events and the impact of war on family. Adele lost one family and gained Jürgen as a result of the first war, but her role as a wife and mother gave her a heartbreaking front-row seat to the effect of power-hungry men on average people.

“And over those weeks, some of the stores added No Germans signs to their front windows, right alongside the Whites Only signs.”

This is the last in a series of paragraphs describing Sofie’s first few weeks in Alabama. In such a short time, her familial joy is overshadowed by a creeping prejudice throughout the Huntsville community. This passage parallels Mayim’s description of microaggressions in pre-war, pre-Nazi Germany—Sofie is now experiencing firsthand a small taste of what Mayim, the Black community, and the Jewish community have endured for centuries.

“I never once noticed her reticence toward Mayim. Maybe I saw what I wanted to see. In any case, she’d proved Mayim right. The Nazis didn’t make people like Lydia anti-Semitic, not really. They had only uncovered what already existed.”

Following Lydia’s assertion that she’s always harbored antisemitic views, Sofie begins to see that she herself was complicit in racism and violence well before Hitler’s rise to power. Sofie’s potentially willful ignorance illustrates the difference between intentions and actions. Despite her personal beliefs, she tolerates or ignores prejudice for the sake of social comfort.

“Who would have thought you, my roughhousing, horse-breaking, fence-fixing, tractor-driving sister, would become the well-to-do wife of some airplane genius?”

Henry’s description of Lizzie demonstrates how she has changed externally because of her circumstances. It also shows Lizzie’s true character: that of a strong and independent woman who only wants to be a farmer—the character she returns to at the end of the novel.

I was staring at Calvin in horror when Henry appeared behind him. My brother caught the end of the emergency broadcast, and I was staring right into his eyes as the realization dawned on me that the nation was now at war.”

The announcement of the bombing of Pearl Harbor is the beginning of war’s impact on Lizzie and Henry. Lizzie’s “horror” is the knowledge that her brother, who has struggled with trauma in the past, will be sent to active combat.

“I, on the other hand, was startled by it. Jürgen had said everything he should have said in response to this challenge, but there was a superiority to his tone, not toward Otto—toward me. Women in the Reich were expected to be submissive to their husbands, but my marriage had never operated that way.”

Although Jürgen never privately treats Sofie as anything but a cherished romantic partner, this scene highlights the suppression of women under Nazi rule. Even Jürgen becomes susceptible to the expectation to treat women as inferior, which highlights the subtle role of women in world events.

“The hatred that drove those Germans wasn’t some tidy thing you can put a period after and move on from. I saw the inside of one camp. Just one out of nearly a thousand of those hellholes, and even five years later my mind is so scarred there’s some moments I don’t even know what continent I’m on. I let those doctors give brain damage, Lizzie—just in the hopes that I’d feel myself again. And those hospitals are full of veterans just like me, all of us…so shaken by what we saw that we might never be the same.”

Henry’s description of his experience at Buchenwald, like Mayim’s speech to Sofie, unflinchingly describes the depravity of the Holocaust. Henry is so traumatized by simply witnessing the camp that he “let those doctors give [him] brain damage” to escape the horror of his experience.

“But one day, the war would end. The endless bombardment of Nazi propaganda would stop. And my children could learn that their parents had tried to do the right thing. Too little, too late—yes. But they would at least know that there had been a line we refused to cross.”

Sofie is characterized as fundamentally optimistic, and in the moment when she and Jürgen agree to risk their lives to refuse Jürgen’s entry into the SS, she looks to the future. Even if she isn’t there to guide her children to a better world, she’s willing to die to play some part in the birth of that world. This passage also emphasizes Sofie’s dedication to her children above all else—she’s literally willing to die to be someone they can be proud of.

“If there was one game I’d learned to play well over the years of the war, it was the pretending game. every woman knew how to play Whenever we were talking to anyone who had a loved one in the military, we shifted into a mode of forced optimism. The way we spoke to one another sometimes, a casual observer might have thought war wasn’t a dangerous scenario at all.”

Lizzie’s conversation with her friend Becca, focusing on the positive in the face of intense risk and worry, highlights the impact of war on family. Her metaphorical reference to “the pretending game” highlights the emotional labor expected of women, who are tasked with maintaining the appearance of normalcy even as the world falls apart around them. Lizzie, who has always been a realist who looks for solutions, is reduced to feigning optimism as her only defense against the tragedies of war.

“God forgive me, as soon as they started talking about the ways they’d torture our children to death, I lost my nerve. I should have expected it…They think nothing of imprisoning and murdering Jewish children. Of course they wouldn’t hesitate to interrogate the children of a traitor.”

This is the last element of the pressure used to force Jürgen to join the SS. He’s willing to face torture, death, and the death of his wife to resist this last step of degradation, but when they threaten his children, he “los[es] [his] nerve.” This regime uses the threat of violence to preserve the difference between intentions and actions—to ensure that good intentions do not translate into effective action.

“I flipped to the next photo, and as I stared down at the final one, I felt a pinch in my chest. An even younger Sofie Rhodes, this time with another young woman beaming at the camera, a Star of David pendant hanging from her necklace. They had suitcases at their feet. They looked like their lives were spread out before them, begging to be explored.”

Lizzie’s discovery of the photographs that Henry stole from Sofie finally shows Lizzie the human element of Sofie. These and other photographs serve as a motif illustrating the impact of war on family. Lizzie acknowledges that Sofie can’t simply be an evil antisemitic Nazi; something serious must have happened to allow that woman in the photo to accept the evil that was Nazi power.

“‘You’re awfully calm for someone who just found her husband shot, Mrs. Rhodes,’ Johnson said quietly.

‘I’ve had a terrible shock,’ I said quietly.

‘Women who have terrible shocks become hysterical,’ he said dismissively.”

Sofie’s interaction with the detective shows the simplistic and sexist expectations common in the 1950s. Sofie’s experiences with the Gestapo have taught her to stay quiet and compliant for safety and to maintain calm in stressful situations. However, that calm and quiet demeanor leads the detective to view her suspiciously, expecting “women who have terrible shocks [to] become hysterical.” The word “hysterical,” derived from the Greek hystera, meaning “womb,” has long been associated with sexist stereotypes of supposedly overemotional women.

“You were a puppet in the hands of evil men from your childhood, but there is a good person inside of you, and I’m going to help him grow strong again.”

The words that Sofie longs to say to Georg when he goes to defend Kassel show that although she has compromised her morals, she still maintains her core beliefs and looks to the future for the opportunity to begin to right the wrongs she’s been a part of. This passage directly precedes Georg’s death and highlights the impact of war on family. In Sofie’s mind, Georg is still the kind little boy that she remembers, and had he not been twisted and killed by the war, she would have had the opportunity to guide him back to goodness.

“You only get one life, Mrs. Miller. But that wasn’t true. I’d lived many lives. I’d become someone entirely new, just to survive in El Paso. I’d done it again for Calvin’s sake, and I’d honed that new persona, desperate to make him happy the only way I seemed able. I’d shape-shifted again for the El Paso wives, just so I’d fit in.”

Lizzie’s reflection in reaction to Sofie’s statement demonstrates how dynamic she has been as a character and emphasizes the subtle role of women in world events. To survive the Great Depression, the war, and the changing political landscape, Lizzie has changed, even betraying her fundamental identity. This realization contains her last change—back to the farm girl she was before the drought, where she will return now that she has given herself permission to be her genuine self.