Life After Life: The Land of Begin Again, Aug 1939 Summary & Analysis

Six years later, Ursula is at the grand Berghof, and Eva Braun (Hitler’s mistress) is playing with Ursula’s five-year-old daughter, Frieda. Frieda has blond hair, blue eyes, and is very pale, and both Hitler and Eva love Frieda. Watching Eva play with her daughter, Ursula wonders what she is doing at their house, and when she might be able leave. They had arrived two weeks prior.

Ursula describes Frieda as the center of her heart, and Ursula knows that she would be willing to “walk on knives” for the rest of her life to protect Frieda; that she would burn in flames or drown if it would save her daughter. She had had no idea that maternal love could be so physical.

“The Berg”—Hitler’s mansion—is bustling with other women, many of whom are senior party officials who hate Eva for managing to marry the leader of the Reich. Eva had been a shop girl when she had first met him, and the other people at the Berg constantly remind her of her “courtesan” status.

Eva takes lots of pictures of Ursula and Frieda, and Ursula imagines a future time in which someone leafs through Eva’s albums and wonders who Ursula might be, this day becoming history. She thinks about history more broadly—how most people only realize the significance of certain events in hindsight. But Hitler is “consciously making history for the future.”

In private, Jürgen claims to find Hitler and his henchmen tremendously flawed, but in public he behaves like a good servant of the Reich. Jürgen is a lawyer, and in order to practice law he had to join the Party, even though he had really been a staunch Leftist. He had subsequently risen through the Party rather quickly—even getting tickets to Hitler’s fiftieth birthday parade.

At Hitler’s birthday parade, Ursula had been amazed by the theatrics, the precision, and the weaponry. Jürgen commented that the military had helped to rescue the German psyche—returning patriotism to the country. As if to prove his point, the crowd had gone wild at the parade’s finale. 

Frieda had grown very ill several weeks prior, quickly become feverish and delirious, and Ursula and Jürgen had rushed her to the nearest hospital. Ursula stayed by her side for two days and nights, holding on to her hand. They willed Frieda to live, and she did. When Ursula returned home from the hospital, she had received a letter from Eva, inviting them to the Berg to help Frieda recover.

Ursula had never met Eva. Eva knew of her through Klara, as they used to work together and went to kindergarten together. Jürgen wondered if Eva knew that Klara is married to a Jew. Ursula was surprised to hear the disdain in Jürgen’s voice when he said this word, and also noted that their conversations had become more and more one-sided lately.

When Hitler is not at the Berg, Ursula notes that Eva doesn’t really know what to do with herself. Ursula sees Eva as amiable, chatting about inconsequential things and making no attempt to be brainy or astute. Jürgen had told her that “powerful men needed their women to be unchallenging,” and Ursula had wondered whether that was true of him, too.

Ursula asks Eva one day how Hitler became the great leader he is. Eva says that “he was born a politician,” but Ursula thinks that “he was born a baby, like everyone else. And this is what he has chosen to become.” Ursula knows she could easily get ahold of a gun, but if she were to shoot him, she doesn’t know what might happen to her, or to Frieda.

When Ursula and Frieda had arrived at the Berghof, Hitler himself had greeted them and invited them to stay until Frieda felt better. Pamela noted in a letter that he likes women, children, and dogs—he just has no respect for the law or common humanity. Ursula knows that Pamela would not be able to stay silent if she were in Ursula’s place, and Ursula feels guilty for being so passive.

Ursula thinks of Klara, whom she had not seen for many years. When Frieda was born five years prior, Klara’s Jewish husband had already been barred from teaching. He and Klara had wanted to leave in 1935 and 1936, but inertia had kept them in Germany until he had been part of a roundup and had been transported east.

At the Berg, Ursula is forced to listen to concerts and watch films of Hitler’s choosing, after which he would talk for hours. Ursula wishes in these moments she could escape to Fox Corner. Once, when Sylvie had visited to get to know Jürgen better, Ursula had taken Sylvie to a parade, to show her the adoration showered upon Hitler. Despite viewing the proceedings as “mass hysteria,” she had reluctantly raised her arm to give the Nazi salute as well.

Ursula tells Eva one day at lunch that she thinks Frieda is well enough to go home. Ursula wants desperately to return to England. She had planned to go in May—had even packed suitcases for herself and Frieda without Jürgen knowing—but the day before they were supposed to leave, she found their passports were missing. She searched the house, but could only find Jürgen’s.

That night at supper, Ursula could barely swallow. Jürgen told her that he wanted to take a holiday to Sylt—where they won’t need a passport. Ursula had been terrified, thinking he must have figured out about her plan. But then Frieda had become ill, and the plan became irrelevant anyway. Ursula thinks of this episode as she leaves the Berg with Frieda, driven by the chauffeur who had brought them. The next day, Germany invades Poland.