The German Wife

Sofie and Jürgen’s experiences in Germany offer a possible explanation for a question that is frequently highlighted in any Holocaust narrative: how seemingly normal and good people could justify either participating in or turning a blind eye to the horrors of the Nazi regime. Sofie and Jürgen never endorse the antisemitic ideas circulating around them, but they are complicit in both the attempted extermination of Jewish people in Germany and the attacks against civilians in the countries that Germany targets with their rockets. Rimmer’s storytelling emphasizes the slow, cumulative process by which these seemingly decent people become complicit in genocide. Again and again, Sofie and Jürgen choose their family’s safety over their sense of justice, and by the time they recognize the inevitable consequences of their choices, it’s too late to make a different choice. When Jürgen is recruited into the SS, he tells Sofie that this is the final bridge and one he is unwilling to cross. Yet he crosses it almost immediately when his wife and children are threatened. In truth, he likely crossed the final bridge unknowingly months or even years before this moment: By failing to resist or flee Germany when it would have been easier to do so, he drifted into a situation in which he could resist only at the cost of his family’s lives.

The slow advance of antisemitism, aggression, and violence in Berlin showcases how easy it is to accept a small injustice and how those small injustices can accumulate until they become overwhelming. Jürgen and Sofie know from the start that taking the rocket science job with the government is likely to lead to dangerous places, but Sofie’s narration reveals that they feel like they have no choice: “[T]he decision had already been made” because “in just two days, the Nazis [take] away [their] only source of income and threaten[] [their] home” (105, 115). This is the first of series of choices that only have one safe answer. Once they decide to prioritize short-term safety over doing what’s right, further moral compromises appear inevitable: relocating Mayim, joining the Nazi Party, allowing the children to enroll in Hitler Youth, and finally joining the SS. At every step, they try to find a way out, but the more they capitulate to the Nazi regime, the higher the price of resistance becomes. When Jürgen participates in bringing victims to Mittelwerk and Sofie sees the horrific conditions there, they’re willing to risk their lives, but again, the Nazis find another way to threaten them—their children. They want to stop and resist, but every step is impeded, and every move is surveilled.

The fear and anger directed at Sofie and Jürgen when they come to the United States represent a simplistic narrative—people in Huntsville have seen the horrific images from the liberated concentration camps, and they assume that anyone associated with the Nazi regime must have personally supported and desired such horrors. Sofie and Jürgen’s story demonstrates that this is not necessarily the case. Instead, even those who personally abhor racism and violence can be guilty of perpetrating these evils through failures of courage. Claudia was a citizen of Germany under Nazi rule, so she has a clearer understanding of the pressure that Sofie and Jürgen faced than the Americans in Huntsville. However, Claudia says that Sofie and Jürgen went too far and that it was one thing to fail to resist but entirely another to join the Nazi Party and even the SS. What Claudia does not fully understand is that these failures are the same. The longer Sofie and Jürgen failed to resist, the steeper the cost of resistance became. Their most consequential mistake was believing, while living under a malicious regime, that they could preserve their safety and decency at the same time.