Miller Caldwell - A Reluctant Spy

Occasionally you find yourself reflecting on history. Such opportunities often lurk in innocuous places. When explored, an intricate tale often emerges. For some it is mere history, a lesson to learn. For others, it is a lesson to celebrate.

Tentatively based around the remarkable life of my great-aunt, Frau Hilda Richter (née Campbell, 1889-1956), this story merges her life with the great events of World War 2. Her niece, and my godmother, Vera Wild (née Caldwell, 1900-1992), revealed the story of Hilda’s life to me in her penultimate year. My uncle, Dr A. Stanley Caldwell (1920-2013) gave me some of Hilda’s personal communications, stamps and the story of her initial espionage for the Nazis in 1938. The novel fills in the voids I have in Hilda’s life, focusing strongly on Vera’s memories of a most unusual and courageous great-aunt.

With the exception of identified historical personalities and significant world events, this novel is the product of my imagination and knowledge of my remarkable great-aunt.

Hilda Campbell was born in 1889 in Forres, in the north of Scotland. She studied modern languages at Aberdeen University and in 1911 went to Germany to further her knowledge of the German language and culture. At a concert at the Kunsthalle in Hamburg, Hilda met Dr Willy Büttner Richter, a local general practitioner. They married in 1913 and spent their honeymoon in Scotland visiting relatives. They also met my godmother Vera Wild (née Caldwell) and invited her to come to stay with them in Hamburg the following summer.

Vera arrived in mid-July with the promise of a six-week visit before she returned for her fourth year at secondary school. The First World War broke out on 4 thAugust 1914 and found Vera trapped behind enemy lines in Germany. Through a network of friends, Vera returned home via Harwich after an eventful trip. An account of her return to Scotland appears in the Forres and Nairn Gazette of 2 ndSeptember 1914. Copies of this document are available by courtesy of the Forres Library Educational Services. A report of Vera’s travels under war conditions is contained in the appendices.

Hilda occasionally taught English privately in Hamburg as she fulfilled her duties as a mother to Otto and wife of a busy family doctor. Further details of her life were unknown until…

As she checked her black hat in the mirror in her bedroom, for the second time in her life Hilda realised war with her homeland seemed inevitable. This time, however, she would be on her own.

The funeral party gathered around the grave beneath the branches of sycamore trees that caressed each other in the spring breeze. The Hamburg sky hung low and the light was grey and dull for mid-morning; the clouds struggled to hold on to their moisture. Beyond the wall of the Friedhof Ohlsdorf cemetery, the traffic on the Fuhlsbüttler Strasse was a distant rumble. It was 11.30 a.m. on Friday 12th March 1938, a day all Austrians and Germans would remember, while in this city graveyard the Richter family congregated, each with their personal thoughts and memories as Dr Willy Büttner Richter’s coffin descended into the grave.

Grateful patients gathered around. Many were in tears to see such a relatively young man deprive them of his caring attention at their popular medical surgery. There were also many mourners from the professional ranks of the city. For the moment, the exciting news of the Anschluss, which was developing that morning, had to take a back seat.

Hilda Richter, the doctor’s widow, resplendent in her black fur-lined overcoat, took comfort holding the hand of her son Otto, smartly dressed in his Hitler Youth uniform.

‘Dust to dust, ashes to ashes. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.’

The tall, lean young Lutheran pastor closed his prayer book of common order and invited Hilda and Otto to step forward and sprinkle the sunken coffin with a dusting of earth. Hilda did as he bade her and passed the trowel to her son. Otto brushed away a tear as the earth left the trowel a little ashamed to show any weakness, especially in his uniform. He stood back as Hilda opened her handbag and took out a sprig of heather. She kissed it then dropped it on to the centre of the coffin. Unintentionally, it masked Willy’s brass nameplate.

A breaking twig alerted her to an approaching footstep and a hand gently tapped her right shoulder.

‘Willy would have liked that touch.’

She turned and smiled at her brother-in-law Karl, who had been as shocked as anyone on hearing of Willy’s sudden fatal heart attack. They had been close brothers.

‘We loved our holidays in Scotland,’ she said.

‘I know you did Hilda. Those were happier days, much happier. The gathering clouds this morning… seem so menacing.’

‘Karl… shhh.’

She looked over her shoulder. Sympathetic eyes met hers, and she felt uncomfortable. Like Otto, she was embarrassed to show any emotion and schooled her expression to mask her sadness.

Shortly after noon, the dignified group of mourners entered a reception room at the nearby Vier Jahreszeiten Hotel. A black paper cloth with a central motif of the swastika covered a table at the side of the room. There were sandwiches, fruit and biscuits galore and a coffee urn percolated happily at the far end of the room. In the middle of the table, the party emblem remained uncovered for everyone to see and appreciate.

A man in a dark green suit approached Hilda.

‘My condolences, Frau Richter.’ He wore the party emblem on his lapel and was a little overweight, exaggerated by a ruddy round face. He shook her hand, bowing his dark bushy eyebrows as he did so.

‘Thank you,’ she replied politely, wondering who he was. Their eyes danced around with caution. It was an awkward moment for both of them as she tried to place him. Not knowing this man, or how he knew her late husband, left her struggling for words.

‘Do forgive me. I am Herr Gerhardt Eicke. I am your son’s training officer.’

Instantly she recalled this man was the individual who impressed Otto so much. Her smile emerged reluctantly. He seemed briefly embarrassed by her cool response and turned away to the nearby table to lift a coffee cup. Then he returned.

‘Otto is a fine young man, one of the best in the Hitler Youth without a doubt. He is a credit to you and of course to his late father.’

There was a ring on the hand holding the coffee; it matched his lapel badge and was on his marriage finger.

‘I see,’ Hilda said. ‘So Otto is doing well?’

His demeanour oozed confidence now.

‘These are exciting times. The Fuehrer has taken Austria into Greater Germany today. He has wedded us to the German-speaking Austrians. It is a bittersweet day for you I am sure, Frau Richter. Otto will be a great comfort to you at present.’

‘You must forgive me. I had not heard the news,’ she lied. As it broke that morning, she had been preoccupied and had failed to understand fully the consequences of the Anschluss. Now concern prickled in her mind.

He nodded understandingly. ‘I appreciate your thoughts have been elsewhere. The twelfth of March will go down in history. I can assure you of that,’ he said pompously.