The piercing gaze of everyone in the room burned through her.
She couldn’t be sure they’d really be hanged, but she wasn’t willing to take the risk. The least she could do was to save Gerlinde.
“Please, sir, it’s true. It was all my fault. I begged her to come with me. She didn’t want to. Punish me, but let her go,” Lotte pleaded.
“Is this true?” the colonel asked Gerlinde.
Tears shot into her eyes and she nodded. “Yes, it was Fräulein Wagner’s idea. I tried to talk her out of it, but when I saw her determination I agreed to go with her. Couldn’t leave her all on her own in a foreign country, now could I?” She tried a crooked smile. “So that makes me as culpable as her and I insist on being tried together with her.”
“A pair of fiercely loyal Nazis who aren’t trying to save their necks
