The German Wife

Lizzie is raised on a small farm in rural Texas with her parents and older brother, Henry. She’s the secondary protagonist, and as the second first-person narrator, she provides the American perspective in the novel. Lizzie is strong both physically and emotionally. Her identity is, like Sofie’s, directly connected to her family. Unlike Sofie, however, Lizzie has no interest in becoming a mother or having romantic relationships. Her marriage to Calvin Miller is a partnership rather than a romance. She has strong opinions and independent ideas, which are attractive to Calvin, but their marriage is never consummated, and they have separate bedrooms. She cares about Calvin, but she makes no pretense of romance or passion for him. Instead, her focus is on supporting those she loves. Her mother taught her that a woman’s power lies in her ability to maintain strength even when the men around her fall down. Her father and brother both experience mental illness, and when her mother dies, Lizzie provides the strength and financial security for herself and her brother.

While she’s married to Calvin, she learns to perform as a stereotypical housewife to support his career, but her first love is always working the land. When the war begins, she finds comfort in planting victory gardens, and she maintains the hobby as a way to connect with her past. She is a dynamic character who changes significantly throughout the novel. The intense change in her character at the end of the novel is signified by Sofie’s description of Lizzie in court: “She was barely recognizable—dressed in trousers and flat shoes, her hair longer and pulled into a rough ponytail, her freckles and light eyelashes on full display” (419). There are few descriptions of characters’ physical appearance in the novel, and this one shows Lizzie as no-nonsense and focused entirely on her goals, rather than made up to fulfill a role. Initially, she is hostile toward and suspicious of Sofie and the other German immigrants. However, Lizzie is willing to learn, and when she sees clear evidence that Sofie and her family are Henry’s targets, Lizzie takes action to try to alleviate the damage. She recognizes Sofie’s dedication to her family, and the women are able to make peace largely because of their shared commitment to protecting and supporting their families.

Jürgen is Sofie’s husband and the father of their four children. It is his knowledge of rocket science that pushes them into Nazi politics, and this same knowledge makes him valuable to the US government and thus saves him from prosecution following the fall of the Nazis. Jürgen is loosely based on the German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, who helped develop the V2 rocket that was devastatingly effective when used by the Nazis in attacks on England, France, Poland, and other countries in World War II. Like von Braun, Jürgen becomes an SS officer late in the war. However, while little is known about von Braun’s actual beliefs, Rimmer characterizes Jürgen as a man wracked with guilt for his part in the atrocities of the Holocaust. As a child, Jürgen’s family were the victims of a bombing related to World War I, and when he knows his work will be used to make more effective rockets, he thinks of that experience:

Say we launch this from the border, as a family in France or Poland or Belgium or Switzerland sits in their kitchen eating their breakfast. That family is gone before they ever knew something was coming for them. The mother has no time to scream to the father that she’s going to get the baby. The father has no time to push his son into the cellar to save his life (295).

Jürgen identifies with those who will be victims of the rockets he developed in the hope of sending humanity to space, and he hates what his work becomes under Hitler.

Despite these moral reservations, when faced with the choice between complicity and resistance, he repeatedly chooses complicity in an effort to protect himself and his family. Jürgen tries, early on, to reject the rocket development job. When it becomes clear that his children are being brainwashed by government propaganda, he tries to leave the country. When he’s asked to join the SS, he tries to reject it, even on pain of his and Sofie’s deaths, but when his children are threatened, he can’t stand the idea that his actions will cause them pain. Jürgen knows that what he has done is wrong, and he is characterized as a man who wants to do the best he can to make up for the crimes of his past.

Henry is Lizzie’s brother, and his “combat fatigue” (331)—a condition that would likely be termed post-traumatic stress disorder today—is treated with an experimental insulin therapy that causes confusion and delusions. His stalking of Sofie and Jürgen Rhodes, and eventually his shooting of Jürgen, can be traced to his mental illness and its harmful treatment. Henry is the primary motivator for almost everything Lizzie does in her life. Henry changes significantly throughout the novel. He begins the novel as an exuberant and passionate young man, in love and excited about the future, but his parents’ sudden deaths, the loss of the farm, extended unemployment, and eventual trauma as a soldier steal his warmth. All along, Lizzie tries to support and protect her brother, often to her own detriment. However, Lizzie’s dedication to Henry finally pushes her to acknowledge that she’s not living the life she wants.

Mayim is Sofie’s childhood best friend. The women grew up together, and Mayim’s Jewish identity was never an issue for Sofie. Sofie was so innocent of antisemitism that she often failed to see how Mayim was mistreated in German society even before the rise of the Nazis. Sofie’s love for Mayim is one of her primary conflicts as she navigates the moral destruction of her country, her husband, and herself. Mayim is characterized as a kind, caring, nurturing young woman who never blames Sofie or Jürgen for their complicity with the Nazi regime’s antisemitic policies. Mayim embodies the Jewish experience in Nazi Germany. Like so many others, she loses her family, is isolated in a ghetto, is sent to Auschwitz, and barely survives the death march. Mayim’s experience serves as a concrete representation of the harm caused by Sofie and Jurgen’s complicity with the Nazi regime, and her survival offers Sofie a glimmer of hope that allows her to begin rebuilding her life.