Crooked Cross

An extraordinarily prescient 1934 novel tracing the rise of Nazism in Germany through the eyes of an ordinary family.

“Remarkable… The resonances with today are impossible to overlook.” —Guardian

Gripping in its immediacy and poignant in its humanity, Sally Carson’s celebrated historical fiction novel follows one family’s deterioration through the rise of totalitarianism.

It is Christmas Eve 1932, and the Kluger family are celebrating at home. Their only daughter Lexa is excited about her upcoming summer wedding to Moritz Weissmann, a promising young doctor. Moritz is initially welcomed by her parents and two brothers, Helmy and Erich. But as the year progresses, and Lexa’s brothers become fervent members of the Nazi Youth, they turn against Moritz.

By midsummer, the once close-knit Kluger family are now fractured by irreconcilable beliefs and differing loyalties. When legislation strips the town’s Jewish citizens of their rights and their livelihoods, Lexa remains steadfast in her determination to stay true to Moritz, the couple forced to meet in secret.

A captivating portrayal of the Nazis’ growth in power between December 1932 and June 1933, Crooked Cross grounds history in the lives of ordinary people to intimately detail a country's grim descent into authoritarianism. With the outbreak of war and Carson’s death in 1941 leaving her work largely forgotten until now, this newly rediscovered classic remains as resonant now as when it was first published.Preface

CHRISTMAS EVE 1932
Chapter One

PART 1: NEW YEAR 1933
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five

PART II: SPRING 1933
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten

PART III: EARLY SUMMER 1933
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen

PART IV: MIDSUMMER 1933
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen

MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S EVE 1933
Chapter EighteenSally Carson (1901-1941) came from Dorset, and spent her youthful holidays in Bavaria, where she got to know the Germany she portrays so well in her novels. She worked as a dance teacher and publisher’s reader, then married a Bradford publisher, became a mother, and wrote the trilogy of which Crooked Cross is the first volume. Her books met with immediate success, but her career was cut short by the war she so clearly saw coming, and by her untimely death from breast cancer.

Laura Freeman is chief art critic at The Times and author of The Reading Cure: How Books Restored My Appetite and Ways of Life: Jim Ede and the Kettle’s Yard Artists.‘Happy Christmas, Frau Kluger!’ ‘Happy Christmas!’

‘Grüss Gott – Happy Christmas to you, Herr Ebner!’ ‘Lexa, Merry Christmas!’

‘Grüss Gott, Elsa!’

‘’s Gott, Hermann!’

On Christmas Eve there was always a rush to try to get home quickly from Church, and it was always difficult. Talking at the church door was impossible, as the other people pressing out behind you on to the tiny pavement simply forced you to move forward and out into the winter evening. Suddenly you were surrounded by laughter, talking, pushing, and at the same moment the bells rang out and drowned everything.

The Mariastrasse which led directly from the Church was just as crowded. It was so narrow that you could only walk two or three abreast. There was hardly room to put on coats and capes; you could scarcely turn to see who was behind you, let alone talk comfortably. You had to walk at the pace the front people set. But the Klugers, to reach their house, had to cross the Market Place. Once there, the little squashed procession spread itself out, glad to have the chance to stand still, to see who was there, to chat and gossip.

The Market Place in Kranach was big and broad, much too big for the size of the town. It made the fifteenth-century Town Hall, with its great square tower, look quite small. Even the Grauer Bär, massive and rambling like all old Bavarian Inns, looked insignificant from outside, and as for the Goldenes Horn, you hardly noticed it unless you remembered the especially good beer you could drink there.

In the summer the Market Place did not look so vast. There were tubs of flowers outside the inns; little screens of creepers shielded the tables standing on the street. The trees in the mid-dle were full of leaves and there were always people standing round the fountain. But now, under the low December sky, a light coating of snow over everything, it looked bigger than ever. The lights at each corner hardly lit the middle, though the bare trees tried hard to throw shadows across the snow.

‘Happy Christmas, Frau Kluger!’

‘Happy Christmas, Herr Direktor!’

It was Frau Kluger who was the difficulty on these occasions. She wanted to know just who was there, who So-and-so had stay-ing with them; she wanted to talk to everyone. She always had so much to do, and so seldom went out amongst people that Lexa didn’t like to hurry her on too much. Being Christmas, she had to wait with her and pretend she was not in a violent hurry to get back to the goose and the salad. The tree had to be finished too; that was Helmy’s job, and the tables had to be done.

Lexa’s feet got colder and colder as they walked a few steps and then stood still again. Most of the young people had managed to rush off somehow; all except Moritz. He held her arm tightly, teased her about her new cap and tried to put his hand inside her muff. Father put up with Mother’s gossip, but looked like a cat with snow in its ears. He only grunted and kicked at the snow, but his eyes twinkled over his high collar.

‘Might as well not wear a hat at all,’ he grumbled to Mother as he swept it off for the thousandth time.

But Mother didn’t hear. She probably didn’t want to hear. This was her day, the one day when she had her own way, and did just as she liked, and she meant to enjoy it.

But surely Mother couldn’t want to talk to old Frau Müller. ‘And how is little Hansl, Frau Müller?’

‘Better now, thank you, Frau Kluger, but last week . . .’ ‘Ach, Frau Hartl – Thea, Christo and Herr Professor! How are you? Yes, here is Moritz with us. Erich is away at Sellstein for the season, you know And now here is the Herr Doktor.’

‘It’ll take hours to get Mother home,’ whispered Lexa hopelessly to Moritz. But it did not take so long as she had thought. Snow began to fall again, light snow, drifting on a cold wind, then thicker snow, till everyone was coated in white and you could hardly see the lights. The big groups of people broke into small parties, then into families, into single, hurry-ing people. Soon the Market Place was quiet and empty again, looking bigger than before. Only the bells went on ringing, happily, noisily; the snow went on falling, more silently, whiter than ever.

‘It’s nice to see everyone again,’ said Frau Kluger, as they toiled up the path to the house.

‘Christmas isn’t like any other time, is it?’ And she took Herr Kluger’s arm and made him laugh about his snowed moustache, because she knew he had hated waiting so long, and that his feet were cold. ‘Wait till you see what present I’ve got for you, Hans,’ she said.