Candles In The Window: 2

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Man Who Calculated Death" - Episode 2: "Candles In The Window"

Released on November 6, 2024, by PodcastOne

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Introduction

In the second episode of "The Man Who Calculated Death," titled "Candles In The Window," hosts Suzanne Rico and her sister Stephanie delve deeper into their family's intricate past, uncovering secrets that intertwine personal history with the dark shadows of World War II. This episode explores themes of generational guilt, hidden heritage, and the enigmatic legacy of their grandfather, Robert Lusser.

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Exploring the Augsburg House

Setting the Scene

The episode opens with Suzanne and Stephanie visiting a storied house in Augsburg, Germany—built by their grandfather in the early 1930s. The sisters describe the house’s fairy-tale-like garden and modern Bauhaus architecture, which contrasts sharply with the tumultuous history that surrounds it.

• Suzanne (00:45): "This is it. Now what? Jet lag got us feeling goofy."

• Stephanie (00:38): "Yeah, that's a high wall."

Their journey begins with a sense of nostalgia and deja vu, as Suzanne recognizes the garden from old family home movies, highlighting the stark contrast between the idyllic past and the impending chaos of the Nazi era.

Meeting Erika

Upon knocking on the door, Erika, a neighbor in her mid-60s, welcomes them. Through their conversation, Erika introduces the concept of collective guilt, a recurring theme that ties back to their grandfather's work for the Nazi Air Force.

• Erika (02:30): "We must all live with our guilt. Even though we may not have any personal guilt, we carry the guilt of our people."

This profound statement unsettles Suzanne, prompting her to question the legacy she inherits.

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Unraveling Robert Lusser’s Past

A Multifaceted Legacy

The sisters juxtapose the image of Robert Lusser as a beloved family man against his darker persona as a decorated Nazi engineer. A photograph reveals him donning the Knight's Cross, a high Nazi honor, which starkly contrasts his public image.

• Transcript Highlight (06:00): "Robert Lesser is sitting at a dinner table full of well-dressed men... wearing the Knight's Cross, a silver swastika gleaming at its center."

This duality raises questions about how someone can embody both familial warmth and sinister affiliations.

Family Narratives

Suzanne and Stephanie recount their conversations with their aunts, who reveal a different side of Robert—one that includes love letters and ambitious engineering feats. These anecdotes paint a picture of a complex individual torn between personal passion and societal pressures.

• Stephanie (08:43): "They were more than friends. Robert Lesser actually built Beinhorn her own plane."

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The Hidden Romani Heritage

Secrets of Ancestry

A significant revelation in this episode is the discovery of their family's Romani (Gypsy) heritage. Through letters and family stories, they uncover that their great-grandmother, Louisa Schell, concealed her Romani roots to protect future generations from Nazi persecution.

• Susie (30:00): "Her hands buried in the pockets of a white calf coat... This smiling young woman is someone I long to know. She's my grandmother, Hilda Lusser."

The alteration of Louisa's maiden name in church registries exemplifies the lengths to which their ancestors went to hide their true identity, ensuring survival in a hostile environment.

Impact of Roma Persecution

The episode delves into the brutal history of Roma persecution under the Nazis, emphasizing the precariousness of the family's hidden identity.

• Suzanne (25:32): "The idea of books with the sole aim of poisoning little kids' minds makes me sick."

This context underscores the dangers their ancestors faced and the resilience required to maintain their legacy.

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Navigating Nazi Germany

Robert Lusser’s Career and Compromises

As the Nazi regime rises, Robert Lusser's career flourishes under Willy Messerschmitt's leadership, leading to the creation of the infamous Messerschmitt BF109 fighter plane. However, his success is marred by his reluctant acquiescence to Nazi demands.

• Suzanne (27:02): "My grandfather joined the Nazi Party out of convenience, taming down what he called his inner opposition."

The sisters explore how fear and ambition drove Robert to comply with the regime, highlighting the moral complexities faced by individuals in totalitarian societies.

Family Dynamics Under Duress

The increasing influence of the Nazis disrupts the family's previously serene life. Family gatherings become tense, and overt expressions of dissent are dangerous.

• Suzanne (24:36): "The way in which Hitler and the Nazi party used fear to turn neighbor against neighbor and silence dissent."

This environment forces the family to navigate their public personas carefully, balancing personal beliefs with the perilous reality of living under Nazi rule.

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The Foreboding Prelude to War

Hilda’s Prophetic Vision

In a poignant moment, Hilda, Suzanne’s mother, foresees the coming war, revealing the emotional toll the political climate has on the family.

• Hilda (38:21): "Another war is coming."

This foreknowledge adds a layer of tragic inevitability to the family's story, as they prepare for the upheaval that World War II will bring.

Deterioration of Peace

As Germany mobilizes for war, the episode illustrates the crumbling facade of the family's peaceful existence.

• Stephanie (23:28): "Yeah. By 1936, the Nazis had taken over the German police force."

This takeover signifies the tightening grip of the Nazi regime, setting the stage for the family's eventual reckoning with their past.

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Connecting with Extended Family

Meeting Cousin Susie

The sisters extend their investigation by visiting Susie Shern, a first cousin once removed, who provides additional insights into their family's Romani heritage and the pervasive impact of Nazi ideology.

• Susie (31:56): "This is my little niece, her daughter, and Spike, the English bulldog."

Through Susie's recollections, the podcast uncovers more about the discrimination their ancestors faced and the subtle resistance within the family.

Discovering Historical Documents

In Susie's possession are crucial documents that reveal conflicts within the family regarding Nazi affiliations, adding depth to Robert Lusser's complex character.

• Stephanie (27:23): "When Robert and Hilde would visit, a fiery argument between son and father-in-law would break out."

These documents highlight the internal struggles and moral dilemmas that defined the family's interactions during a fraught historical period.

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Conclusion: The Weight of History

"Candles In The Window" masterfully intertwines personal narratives with historical events, painting a vivid picture of a family grappling with its legacy amidst the rise of Nazism. Through intimate conversations, archival photos, and emotional reflections, Suzanne and Stephanie Rico illuminate the enduring impact of their ancestors' choices and the hidden truths that shape their present identity.

As the episode closes, listeners are left anticipating the unfolding of deeper family secrets and the ultimate confrontation with the past in future episodes.

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Key Quotes

• Erika (02:30): "We must all live with our guilt. Even though we may not have any personal guilt, we carry the guilt of our people."

• Suzanne (24:36): "The way in which Hitler and the Nazi party used fear to turn neighbor against neighbor and silence dissent."

• Hilda (38:21): "Another war is coming."

• Seunzzane (27:02): "My grandfather joined the Nazi Party out of convenience, taming down what he called his inner opposition."

• Susie (31:56): "This is my little niece, her daughter, and Spike, the English bulldog."

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Final Thoughts

This episode serves as a compelling exploration of how personal histories are often enmeshed with broader historical forces. "Candles In The Window" not only uncovers the layers of the Rico family's past but also invites listeners to reflect on the enduring legacies of ancestry and the complex interplay between individual actions and historical events.

For more details, including exclusive family photos and archival materials, listeners are encouraged to visit themancalculateddeath.com.

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Note: This summary is based on the transcript provided and is intended to offer a comprehensive overview of Episode 2 of "The Man Who Calculated Death." It aims to capture all significant discussions, insights, and revelations shared by the hosts.

Transcript

[Suzanne Rico]

Hey, everyone, it's Suzanne Rico. Just a quick reminder that new episodes of the man who Calculated Death are available for free every Tuesday, wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening. And now onto the show. Is this 24? Yeah, I think this is. Yeah, it's funzi. On a clear spring day in Augsburg, Germany, my sister and I are scouting out a house that we've heard about our whole lives but have never seen. This is it. Now what? Jet lags got us feeling goofy.

[Stephanie]

Yeah, that's a high wall.

[Suzanne Rico]

So I jump and pull myself up by my hands to see what's on the other side.

[Stephanie]

What do you see?

[Suzanne Rico]

What do you see? There's a lady back there.

[Stephanie]

Let's go around to the front door. Let's go talk.

[Suzanne Rico]

Yeah, let's go talk to her. Okay. I don't want to scare her. Truth is, I'm a little scared. Even after a long news reporting career, knocking on a stranger's door is still nerve wracking. I mean, what do we say? We're a couple of Americans from California. Our mother was born in this house, and we're here to fulfill her dying wish. It sounds a little crazy, but when a woman comes to the gate, that's exactly what Stephanie says.

[Stephanie]

We are also Californian, und here ist meine Mutteren.

[Suzanne Rico]

The woman introduces herself as Erika. She's mid-60s, thin and fit. Blue knit cap on her head, gauzy scarf tied around her neck. And when Stephanie explains that our grandfather built her house in the early 1930s, Erika invites us in. The garden behind the gates has the feel of a fairy tale. Big lawn, red roses and tulips everywhere. A pond with lily pads right in the middle. Cherry trees bloom around a simple but elegant house that doesn't look typically German. White boxy, very flat back pillows, sliding glass doors. Super futuristic for the 1930s. Yeah, the Bauhaus looks completely in place. Modern. As I spin a slow360 just trying to take it all in, I'm hit by this unsettling sense of deja vu. It's so strange. It's like a time travel type thing. You know, I've seen this garden before in the home movies my grandfather shot. My mom and her sisters played on this very same lawn. Sat on the rock wall right over there, smiling in their matching dresses. I can't believe it's still the same. All before their world exploded inside. Feels weirdly familiar, too.

[Stephanie]

Here we're coming into the Augsburg house.

[Suzanne Rico]

A black grand piano is set off by dark red walls. Persian carpets covering original hardwood floors. It's old school German, a relic from an era before the Nazi war machine pulled my grandfather into its orbit. Erika leads us up a narrow, creaking staircase to the sunlit second floor. This is where her bedroom must have been. And as we walk through the place my mom described as the only safe haven of her childhood, I try to tell Erika about our mission to finish her memoir and how it's expanded to include the search for the true connection between our grandfather and the Third Reich. But the heavy subject matter is too complicated for my rusty German. So Stephanie jumps in, explaining that our grandfather once worked for the Nazi Air Force. Ich weiss, Erika says. I know she's already aware of how the history of her house intertwines with the infamous history of her country. And somehow this woman, who was a total stranger five minutes ago, puts into words something that has been nipping at my subconscious. We must all live with our guilt. Even though we may not have any personal guilt, we carry the guilt of our people, says Erika. This idea of generational and collective guilt, like some curse handed down through time, is troubling. I've never really thought about whether Stephanie and I, who weren't even born in Germany, bear any responsibility for Nazi atrocities. But Erika is definitely including us in that we. The only way to truly free ourselves from the guilt, she says, is to know what happened and remember it. Our journey has just begun and already the ghosts of our German history are tugging at my sleeve, staring out the window of the big Bauhaus my grandfather designed. I'm confused by the different sides of him. There's the laughing family man in the old home movies, playing with his kids in the garden. Sky clear of clouds. And then there's a darker image in a photograph we found in our mom's office. Robert Lesser is sitting at a dinner table full of well dressed men. He stares into camera with calm blue eyes, a fancy medal hanging from his neck. My grandfather is wearing one of the Nazis highest honors, an award called the Knight's Cross, a silver swastika gleaming at its center.

[Stephanie]

A new chapter opens. The battle of the flying bombs.

[Suzanne Rico]

I'm Suzanne Rico and this is the man who calculated death. Episode 2 Candles in the Window the.

[Stephanie]

Birds are about to fly. I see black in the future.

[Suzanne Rico]

Come in, come in. This is an invitation. This is gonna blow your mind because it blew my mind.

[Stephanie]

So you listen really well.

[Suzanne Rico]

This is the original of the Man Calculated Death.

[Stephanie]

The man who Calculated Death. Der Mann der Dentold er Reghnete.

[Suzanne Rico]

Sacramento. 295 miles in the months leading up to our Germany trip, I spent a lot of time on California's Interstate 5. Dry, dusty farmland. A long trip, but worth it. Because my Tantas, with all their memories, were waiting on the other end. Hello. Hello, guys. Hi, Tantas. You remember Tanta Trouty, the one who drinks wine with dinner?

[Stephanie]

Yes, a little bit more.

[Suzanne Rico]

And Tanta Heidi, the one who's always complaining about her health. How are you feeling?

[Stephanie]

Terrible.

[Suzanne Rico]

Terrible. Heidi is 88, but the truth is, both my aunts have more energy than I do. And when I asked them to dig out everything they have on my grandfather.

[Stephanie]

Telegram.

[Suzanne Rico]

Yeah, the telegram.

[Stephanie]

Those are those original.

[Suzanne Rico]

They went to towns. Hold on, I gotta look. I've never seen a telegram before in my life. It's actually not one, but dozens more telegrams.

[Stephanie]

Look, Susie.

[Suzanne Rico]

All in German. All addressed to my grandfather. After a lifetime of thinking Robert Lesser was just a balding, boring scientist, my aunts introduced me to a completely different guy.

[Stephanie]

Leva Lusso.

[Suzanne Rico]

Leva Lusso. So these are all congratulatory letters. Turns out my grandfather was once a dashing race pilot.

[Stephanie]

Your big victory.

[Suzanne Rico]

Your big victory. Wow. Airplanes were only invented in 1903, so back in the 20s, pilots were considered pretty magical. People even wrote songs about them. Translation, Fire. Say hello to the sun, say hello to the stars say hello to the moon. I know it's not a musical. Not gonna sing the whole thing, But I am going to take you back even further than the 1920s. All the way back to the turn of the century in Ulm, Germany, home of the world's tallest church tower, the Museum of Bread Culture, and the birthplace.

[Stephanie]

Of Professor Albert Einstein, who helped discover the atom bomb.

[Suzanne Rico]

And Robert Lesser. Now, I get that comparing my grandfather to Albert Einstein is a bit of a stretch, but going by the Tanta's tales, little Robert was a bit of a prodigy. At the age of eight, he built himself a kayak. One that folded up so a kid could carry it. And then he one upped himself and built a sailboat to sail on the Danube River. It sounds like an idyllic childhood, right? Nope. The Tantas say Robert's love of the great outdoors. Well, it was partly about escaping the not so great indoors.

[Stephanie]

His father was a traveling cigar salesman.

[Suzanne Rico]

Cigars.

[Stephanie]

Cigars. So he was gone from Monday through Saturday, and when he came home, he said, robert, bring me the belt. And then he gave him a spanking, because he figured in that week when I was gone, he did enough things that were worthy of a spanking. Yes. Every weekend he would get beaten. He would get beaten.

[Suzanne Rico]

I've only ever seen one picture of my cigar selling great grandfather. Stephanie and I found it in our mom's office. That's the guy who beat Robert Lesser. Oh, his dad. That's his father. He's in a black suit, scowling, under a thick beard. He looks stern. Yeah, Robert's mom doesn't crack a smile either. Black dress, black shoes, black fur stole. Not exactly a vision of fun. So determined to get away from home at the age of 18, Robert enlisted to fight in World War I. And that's when he got obsessed with flying. Fighter pilots were national heroes with cool nicknames like Black Eagle and the Red Baron. The danger is quickly seen by the hawkish eye of the Red Baron. And while the war ended before Robert saw much action, those air warriors left a lasting impression. The boy who grew up making kayaks and sailboats now set his heart on making airplanes. He enrolled at the Stuttgart Technology University and after graduation landed a job designing sport and touring planes with the Clem Aircraft Company. Pretty soon he was flying his own creations, license required. By this time, the skies over Europe had transformed into a kind of high altitude Wild West. Pilots racing their little planes from country to country, goggles on, wind in their hair. And it wasn't just the men.

[Stephanie]

I didn't have the intention to go over to Australia when I left, but when I came down to Calcutta, I heard about this trouble between China and Japan and so I thought, I have perhaps to change my mind.

[Suzanne Rico]

Ellie Beinhorn, the first pilot ever to fly over three continents in one day. And when the Tantas find a picture of Ellie with their dad, they get all excited. The two pilots are sitting at a hotel bar somewhere, leaning in until their heads are almost touching. She was beautiful.

[Stephanie]

Yeah, she was.

[Suzanne Rico]

They're getting a little cozy.

[Stephanie]

Yes.

[Suzanne Rico]

Rumor has it the pilots were more than friends. And that Robert Lesser actually built Beinhorn her own plane.

[Stephanie]

And of course, he was very handsome.

[Suzanne Rico]

What was her reputation in Germany? Ellie Beinhorn. Oh.

[Stephanie]

Oh, absolutely. She was a hero.

[Suzanne Rico]

And so was he. A true aerial cowboy. Look at all of these, Heidi. It's hundreds of pages of these newspaper articles.

[Stephanie]

Alle the whole world, the whole world writes about your flying. Vegan feel.

[Suzanne Rico]

Vegan. There's Robert Lusser holding a bouquet of flowers after winning a race in France. And then hoisted on the shoulders of an admiring Italian crowd. But his most amazing exploit.

[Stephanie]

That's when he landed on the. On that Swiss mountain.

[Suzanne Rico]

That Swiss mountain she's talking about. The Jungfrau. Also Known as the Top of Europe. Their dad is posing in front of his rickety looking open cockpit plane, which he's just landed in the middle of a glacier. He wore a suit. He was wearing a suit.

[Stephanie]

And my mother came up in the.

[Suzanne Rico]

In the train. The Evening News, London's biggest newspaper at the time, documented the entire thing with the headline never done before. I was up on the Jungfrau, 11,000ft up, when an airplane circled over the highest peaks and landed on the Alich glacier.

[Stephanie]

Do you know how high that is? Very 3,400ft. Meters. Meters. Wow.

[Suzanne Rico]

The pilot proved to be a friend of mine, Robert Lesser. He hit on the idea of having both wheels and skis on his undercarriage. The wheels 4 inches lower than the skis.

[Stephanie]

But you know, there was dangerous to.

[Suzanne Rico]

You think. He was 28. My grandfather looks like a dapper daredevil. But the picture on the next page takes our breath away.

[Stephanie]

Oh, Lordy. Oh, gosh.

[Suzanne Rico]

At my grandfather's side, high in the Swiss Alps, is a dark haired beauty. They're leaning casually against his plane. Her hands buried in the pockets of a white calf link coat. So fashionable. A matching white beret and snow boots complete the look. This smiling young woman is someone I long to know. She's my grandmother, Hilda Lusser. The one whose violent death at the age of 41 remains an unsolved mystery. My grandmother's childhood is pretty mysterious too. In fact, it almost seems like Hilda's life started when she met Robert Lusser in 1925, when she was 22. At least that's where my mom's memoir picks up her story. Here's my sister Simone again. Hilda wasn't from an upper class family like Robert, but she was a striver and wanted to escape her roots. And she managed it. She made a superior match. They met through Hilda's brother, who brought Robert home for dinner one night. And the moment she laid eyes on this handsome stranger, boom.

[Stephanie]

My mother was so in love with that man. I mean, he was the man of her choice and her dreams. And she wanted him.

[Suzanne Rico]

It was a case of opposites attract. Robert's golden curls, light eyes and logical mind versus Hilda's black hair, dark eyes and passionate personality. The Tantes have love letters to prove it. A whole sheaf of them, written in precise Germanic script. I'm going crazy over you.

[Stephanie]

Yeah.

[Suzanne Rico]

Kiss. Kiss. Kiss. And whenever they were separated, Robert missed his Hilde desperately.

[Stephanie]

These are from Papa. Oh, my God.

[Suzanne Rico]

Oh, my God.

[Stephanie]

Papa wrote her. Yes. He wrote love letters too. No. Yes. Oh, my Lord.

[Suzanne Rico]

My grandfather's letters aren't as outright passionate as my grandmother's, but they helped me form yet another image of him. Not the family man or the famous race pilot or the decorated wartime engineer, but as a young poet just trying to discover himself.

[Stephanie]

Hilde. I sat myself down into the easy chair where it was at its lowest, and thought of the 10 or 12 hours full of happiness, which were as lovely as springtime.

[Suzanne Rico]

So beautiful.

[Stephanie]

And I knew at the end that I love you. And at the same time, I'm your friend as it was never before with another girl. I kiss your curly head. You're Robert. Oh.

[Suzanne Rico]

What do you think of when you read that?

[Stephanie]

Well, you know. They were both passionately in love.

[Suzanne Rico]

All that passion leads to surprise. Hilda getting pregnant, which leads to a quick wedding and their first child in 1927, a girl named Dole. As Hilda settles into her life as a Fraule, or little wife, her new husband carries on designing and racing airplanes. More fame follows and more kids. Trouti, born in 1931, followed by Heidi, 18 months later. The growing family moves to a nice flat in Stuttgart, and Robert drives a sporty Opel coupe to work every day. Then comes the call of a lifetime. Willy Messerschmitt, Germany's famous airplane designer, offers my grandfather a job. He jumps at the opportunity. But as Robert uproots his career and family to move east to Augsburg, where he built that modernist dream home Stephanie and I visited, the country around him is beginning a violent downward spiral.

[Stephanie]

European statesmen have been staggered by dictator Adolf Hitler's latest move in denouncing the treaties of Versailles and Locarno and turning.

[Suzanne Rico]

Those safeguards of European peace into nothing more than scraps of paper. So the Versailles Treaty of World War I prohibited Germany from having an air force. But Adolf Hitler, he just ignores the rules. And as soon as he's appointed Chancellor in 1933, he establishes the Reich Aviation Ministry, military equipment of the most advanced design.

[Stephanie]

And an air force that even our.

[Suzanne Rico]

Own prime minister admits is equal, if.

[Stephanie]

Not superior to our own.

[Suzanne Rico]

German companies begin competing to design fighter planes for the new Luftwaffe. And Messerschmitt wants in on the action. In 1934, he promotes Robert Lesser to head up his new warplane design bureau. The Nazi rise to power proves a boon for my grandfather. And his first project is one for the record books. The Messerschmitt BF109. Without question, it was the most famous.

[Stephanie]

Luftwaffe plane ever to take flight.

[Suzanne Rico]

A revolutionary aircraft that was both loved and hated, the bf109. My grandfather designed with Messerschmitt is still the most produced fighter airplane in history. Robert Lesser was on a roll, but Heidi says her parents were living in a bubble. Original films 1933-1940. She shows me more home movies. Family fun from the 1930s.

[Stephanie]

Water skating in the early 30s. That's my dad.

[Suzanne Rico]

Maybe that's where I got. If Robert and Hilda were worried about the Nazis taking over Germany, they sure hit it well. Just holding onto a rope.

[Stephanie]

Yeah, just a rope on two skis.

[Suzanne Rico]

Oh my God. Oh, here goes Hilde. Look at. She was so beautiful. But what were they thinking? Were they just thinking that we're just going to ignore it and it's going to go away?

[Stephanie]

Yeah.

[Suzanne Rico]

By 1936, the Nazis had taken over the German police force. So it would have been hard to ignore the fact that that a dangerous dictator was taking control.

[Stephanie]

The whole country was in a total uproar. And my dad and my mother are in boats and all dressed up and in their little cars.

[Suzanne Rico]

How I wish life was as rosy as the family films make it look. But these old movies, they're more like the Lesser's Instagram feed. The bad stuff was there. It just didn't make the cut.

[Stephanie]

The country was in a turmoil adjusting to this. Hitler who was killing and burning.

[Suzanne Rico]

The grim truth of Adolf Hitler and National Socialism was beginning to bubble up through the cracks in the Lesser's fairy tale life.

[Stephanie]

A Gauleiter was a prisoner, was in charge of a certain area, a leader. And on Hitler's birthday you had to put red candles in your. And if you didn't, the Gauleiter would.

[Suzanne Rico]

Make a load of it, turn you in. I've come to think of it as the culture of Shh. The way in which Hitler and the Nazi party used fear to turn neighbor against neighbor and silence dissent. Did you guys light red candles?

[Stephanie]

Well, of course we lit red candles. You don't want to draw any attention.

[Suzanne Rico]

Tanteheidi speaks powerfully about the ways that Nazism had started seeping into her family's life. About these extravagant work parties her parents hosted in their beautiful Augsburg home.

[Stephanie]

And at one party, a woman brought three books, one for each Dole and Traudi and Heidi. And mine was of anti Jewish hate. Definitely a hate book.

[Suzanne Rico]

Hearing this story makes me think of my own family. My husband Ethan is Jewish. My kids help light the Hanukkah candles every year. Our Christmas tree sparkling in the background. The idea of books with the sole aim of poisoning little kids minds makes me sick.

[Stephanie]

We took our books and we Started to read and it was nasty pictures of Jewish people. And it said in the book Dashenzi. There they stand, those nasty Jews with their eyes on the little blonde girls. And of course, my sister and I were reading this, you know, totally interested.

[Suzanne Rico]

Heidi and Troutie were 5 and 7 at the time. They didn't know any better. But Hilde, their mother, she did.

[Stephanie]

And the next morning we came down and we said, moody, where's our book? And they had disappeared. My mother had taken those books and she wouldn't tell us. And we never saw those books again.

[Suzanne Rico]

Hilda tried to keep Nazism out of her house, but that couldn't have been easy when her husband was designing warplanes. But when I try to get some clarity on my grandfather's mindset about National Socialism and Adolf Hitler, my Tanta's answers aren't as black and white as I'd hoped.

[Stephanie]

He was totally disillusioned. He was apolitical, that is. Yeah.

[Suzanne Rico]

But then Heidi says she has something to show me.

[Stephanie]

I'm gonna go to the little room and look in that box that says Robert Lissa.

[Suzanne Rico]

After a little rummaging.

[Stephanie]

No, no, no.

[Suzanne Rico]

Down below. She finds it.

[Stephanie]

Yeah, you can turn the light on.

[Suzanne Rico]

Here we go. Inside the box is a letter written by Hilda's youngest sister, Guse. It addresses Robert Lesser's stormy relationship with his father in law, a man she called an enthusiastic Hitlerite. Heidi and I don't have our reading glasses.

[Stephanie]

I don't need any glasses.

[Suzanne Rico]

So Trouti reads Gus words.

[Stephanie]

When Robert and Hilde would visit, a fiery argument between son and father in law would break out, for Robert was anti Nazi. We younger sisters, listening awestruck, couldn't believe our ears when Hilde spoke up for her husband's ideas.

[Suzanne Rico]

This letter makes me feel slightly better. But as we sift through the rest of the box, I find another one. I was registered with the party on 1st of May, 1937 for the following reason. Yeah, that's your dad. In summer 1937, the Technical High school in Stuttgart offered me a professorship for airplane design and construction. The professorship my grandfather references, the Tanta say it was super prestigious. At the end of the interrogation by the Ministry of Education in Stuttgart, I was asked whether or not I was a member of the party, which I denied. The ministerialrat official then replied, enter the party and thus we will have much less work. Much less work. Just sign on the dotted line and your career is good to go. My grandfather joined the Nazi Party out of convenience, tamping down what he called his inner opposition. Because he loved everything about airplanes. Flying, designing, constructing. But it wasn't just ambition. It was fear. Long before the war started, Germany was already a totalitarian state. In the 1938 election, official turnout was 99.6%, with 99.1% voting for the Nazis. And not because everyone loved them. It was dangerous to go against them.

[Stephanie]

It was treason. Treason to the cause, you know?

[Suzanne Rico]

And the penalty was death.

[Stephanie]

The penalty was death.

[Suzanne Rico]

Like so many scientists, engineers, teachers, business owners, etc. Robert Lesser just swam along with the rising tide and tried to keep his bubble from bursting. But my grandfather had to be especially careful. Because somewhere between the water skiing and love letters, red candles in the window and four little girls, an explosive secret was hiding deep in the bloodlines of his beloved wife. Continue on to Fraslorfurjstrase. Rainy day in Deutschland. Following the lady. She has a really bad German accent. It's day two of our fact finding mission. Turn right onto Tour Wang Ehrstrasse and Stephanie and I are headed to the town of Weilumdorf, where we hope to unearth a family secret. We're meeting with another stranger, but this time it's a relative. First cousin once removed. And this is the Hilda's side. It's her oldest sister's daughter. Got it. My grandmother's niece. So my mom's first cousin. Your destination will be on the left.

[Stephanie]

All right.

[Suzanne Rico]

We found it. Susie Shern's house. It's a very old house. Three stories, peaked roof. Very German. And the way the dark clouds hang heavy in the background, it looks a little haunted. You first. But the woman who opens the door is no ghost. She's about 80, with thick black hair and lively blue eyes.

[Stephanie]

This is my little.

[Suzanne Rico]

She introduces us to her daughter, husband and Spike. An English bulldog.

[Stephanie]

Spikey.

[Suzanne Rico]

Spike settles down. We sit down in front of this big fireplace with a carved wood mantel. And Susie starts to reminisce about the summer my mom came to stay with her. She even has a coloring book that they shared. It's such a sweet memento and I wish my mom were here to see it. But there's a more serious reason we've come to see Susie. I'm hoping this distant cousin can shed some light on our family ancestry. She shows us a photo of Hilda's mom. Dark eyes, dark hair. Traits she passed down to her daughter. And before we can even ask, Susie confirms what our mother always Our family carries what the Nazis considered tainted blood. Sige. It's the old German word for gypsy. The Roma tribes of Europe and not a very nice one. Derived from the Greek word for untouchable. Susie says when she was a kid, she heard snippets about her heritage by listening to whispered conversations through open windows. But according to my mom, her family never discussed it. Many fairy tales had underscored the undesirability of gypsies, who were talented dancers and storytellers, gifted at cobbling together something out of nothing. They were also considered thieves, charlatans and liars. The Nazis despised the Roma as much as they did the Jews. They called them unweltes Leben, or unworthy of life. And the Roma despised the Nazis right back. Susie remembers her grandmother Sophie being surprisingly outspoken about it. What does that mean? The National Socialism, you Nazi dachshund. Sophie's choice of insult, comparing the Nazis to little wiener dogs, made us laugh. But their treatment of Europe's Roma people was just horrific. It's impossible to know exactly how many were murdered in the Holocaust, but worst case scenario is half a million. That's a third of the entire population. And their persecution went back a lot further than World War II. In 1890, Germany held a conference on, quote, the Gypsy scum. A decade later, officials in Munich set up the Gypsy Information Agency to keep track of all Roma in German lands. And once a person was tagged with that damning information, they became targets for persecution. So the question is, how did my ancestors stay off that list? For the answer, Susie takes us back one generation further to the wedding day of my great great grandmother, Louisa. The year is 1863, and inside the Leonhardtkirche, or Church of the Lionhearted, 21 year old Louisa Schell grips her groom's calloused hands. Gottlieb Esper is an upset German blacksmith who, so the story goes, spotted Luisa sitting on the back of a wagon she called home. Die wil ich, he said. I want her. His family forbade it, threatened to cast him out for choosing an unterwunde or undesirable. But love is a powerful emotion that can spark brave decisions. And the bride and groom seal their vows with a kiss. But later, they notice something strange. When the priest recorded their marriage in the church registry, he changed Louisa's maiden name instead of shell, which indicated Roma heritage. He wrote Shaw a respected Germanic surname. And with the swap of one simple vowel, the priest buried all official traces of Luisa's Roma ancestry, a bloodline that could have gotten her descendants killed. But somehow that secret passed through the generations, from Luisa to Sophie, from Sophie to her daughter Hilda, and from Hilda to her husband Robert. And he took that secret to work every day in the Nazi culture of Shh. And maybe he thought carrying on as normal was the best way to keep his family safe. But my grandmother, descendant of the traveling Roma tribes, saw the future clearly on the day before. Before Hitler invaded Poland in 1939. Tante Heidi remembers finding Hilde sitting at her dressing table in Augsburg. In the sunlight spilling in through the beautiful Bauhaus windows, she could see her mother's dark eyes glistening with tears.

[Stephanie]

And so I came in and I said, why are you crying? And she said, my child, my child, another war is coming.

[Suzanne Rico]

September 1, 1939. German troops thrust deep into Poland to win a swift and absolute victory. When it did, the life they'd been living, from daring airplane stunts to fancy dinner parties to lazy afternoons on the lake, would be gone for good. Coming up on the man who Calculated Death.

[Stephanie]

The fateful hour of 11 has struck.

[Suzanne Rico]

And Britain's final warning to Hitler.

[Stephanie]

Having been ignored, a state of war once more exists between Great Britain and Germany. Carpet bombing was always done at night, and it was done in waves. Hello, Pompa deer. Okay, when you are.

[Suzanne Rico]

What wakes me? Sirens, screams?

[Stephanie]

We saw that the entire sky was orange, and none of us knew whether our parents were alive, were dead. Anyone found guilty of corruption would be hanged in the court of the Reisenford Ministerium. He had that look in his eyes, like he could kill. I was asked if it might be.

[Suzanne Rico]

Possible to design a flying bomb controlled by autopilot.

[Stephanie]

Look at this.

[Suzanne Rico]

This is like straight from beyond the grave. That's next time on the man who Calculated Death, an original series from Discount Sushi, a novel. The show is written, reported and produced by me, Suzanne Rico. And if you're enjoying it, please rate and review wherever you get your podcasts. For more information, including family photos, video videos, and archival material, go to the manhocalculateddeath.com thanks so much for listening.