Projekt 1065

Michael recounts a night in November 1938, when he and his parents are walking home after seeing a movie. They see a fire and run to help, but before they can, men in Nazi armbands rush through the neighborhood carrying weapons, smashing store windows and painting JUDE—“Jew”—on buildings. Michael’s Da realizes that the Nazis are “‘finally doing it’” (6)—they’re targeting the Jews—and Michael cries that they have to help. His parents tell him they must “‘keep [their] heads down’” (7) and flee, and as they rush toward the embassy, Michael is horrified to see citizens joining with the Nazi soldiers to attack the Jews.

The Gestapo, Germany’s secret police, herd men into trucks, and Michael hopes they’re arresting the attackers—but instead they’re arresting the Jews, who, according to Da, will be sent to labor camps. Michael wants to stop them, but feels “helpless” (8), especially when he sees the Nazis shoot and beat a man to death. The Gestapo stop Michael’s family and check their papers, but let them go on, as Michael implores his parents to “‘do something’” (9).

Da insists that they “‘are doing something’” (9): For the first time, he and Ma tell their son that they have a “‘secret mission’” (10) in addition to their roles as ambassadors. As the chapter ends, Ma and Da prepare to reveal their secret amid the violence of Kristallnacht, or the “‘Night of Broken Glass’” (10).

Back at the Nazi dinner party, Michael has spilled grape juice on his Hitler Youth uniform. His hosts direct him to the bathroom, and he insists on going alone—the spill is “just the excuse [he] need[s]” (12) to do some spying. Michael is in the home of a German company owner who makes Nazi tanks and planes. Michael finds a study and begins looking through papers on the desk. If you want to learn people’s secrets, Michael thinks, “you ha[ve] to go hunting for them” (12).

Michael notices a copy of Mein Kampf on the desk, with a playing card as a bookmark. The card seems unusually thick, and he realizes it opens up to reveal rows of numbers printed inside. He reads and “absorb[s]” (14) the numbers and puts the card back—just as the doorknob turns, and someone begins to enter.

Michael hides behind the curtains against the back study wall as someone enters, but only turns on a small desk light. Michael peeks beyond the curtain to see the man is the butler, pouring a drink and then swallowing it. A searchlight flashes behind Michael, startling him, and he turns and looks out the window—a “mistake,” as Michael is “deathly afraid of heights” (16). Dizzy, he grabs the window latch, and the butler hears the noise and approaches. 

The butler suddenly “crumple[s]” (18) to the floor, and Michael’s mother whispers his name. Michael steps back into the room, and Ma shows him the chloroform-soaked handkerchief she used to incapacitate the butler—she carries chloroform in her purse “‘for emergencies’” (18). Michael helps his Ma pull the butler into the chair, and Ma pours some alcohol on the butler’s shirt so whoever finds him will think he passed out drunk. She also asks Michael if he “‘got it’” (18), and he affirms that he did.

Back at the dinner, the host makes a speech about Germany’s great achievements in World War II, while also mentioning the “‘steadfastly neutral’” Irish “‘friends’” (19) represented by the O’Shaunesseys. Still, Michael and his family are “under no delusions” (20) that if Germany decides to attack Ireland, they’ll do so without hesitation.

Michael and his family excuse themselves and drive home, as Michael writes down the long series of numbers from the playing card—he’s had a photographic memory “since before [he] could remember” (21). Ma says the numbers reveal the site of a new engine factory that the Allies will bomb. Da worries about how “‘dangerous’” (21) Michael’s activities have become, but Michael takes pride in his ability to help, to “‘make up’” (21) for his inaction on Kristallnacht. As the chapter ends, Michael reveals his family’s mission in full: They are “spies for the Allies” (22).

Michael walks to school the morning after the dinner party, passing through Berlin streets lined with “hollowed-out husks” (23) of buildings from the Allied bombing. Michael reflects that many Germans must be losing faith in the Nazis’ ability to win the war, but they will only whisper their concerns after making the “Deutscherblick,” or “‘German Look’” (24)—a glance around to make sure no one is listening. In Berlin, everyone is willing to “rat you out” (24) to demonstrate their own loyalty, leaving the place a “suspicious city” (25). 

Like the rest of his all-male class, Michael is a member of the junior Hitler Youth squad and is expected to move up to the senior youth at age 14, then join the army at age 19 and fight in the war. Today, Michael notices a new classmate named Fritz Brendler, a scrawny, awkward boy whose Hitler Youth uniform is “two sizes too big” (27). Michael deliberately ignores Fritz, knowing a German friend would “get in the way” (27) of his secret mission, as the school day begins.

Michael’s teacher, Herr Professor Doktor Major Melcher, has “too many titles” (28) as he has both earned a university doctorate and served as an army major. A former college professor, Melcher is “super mad” (28) about having to teach 13-year-olds, but Michael has a “soft spot for the old codger” (29)—Michael suspects Melcher doesn’t truly support the Nazis.

Melcher announces that Hitler has proclaimed Berlin “‘officially Jew-free’” (29)—all the Jews are in concentration camps—and that 17-year-old Hitler Youth will now join the army rather than first completing a “year of service” (30) at country farms. Only Michael, who has access to British radio reports, realizes that the Nazis are desperate after surrendering to Russia and losing hundreds of thousands of soldiers. Michael is glad the Nazis are finally “on the ropes” (30).

Finally, Melcher reveals that the class will now be moving from the Jungvolk to the regular Hitler Youth squad not in a year, but “‘next week’” (31).

The entire class, including Fritz, is thrilled to be part of “‘the real Hitler Youth’” (31), while Michael is glad that he’ll have more chances to spy. However, Michael recalls the physical exams that senior Hitler Youth must pass, and he’s sure he’ll fail one particular test. 

After school, Michael joins his Hitler Youth squad for a book burning, as Hitler has demanded the burning of “‘un-German’ books”—or as Michael puts it, “pretty much every book” (33)—for years. The youth leader, a “donkey-faced idiot” (34) named Horst, guides the boys into a row house where a stash of illegal books has been found. Michael, noticing the bare surroundings, is “chill[ed] to the bone” (35) by the thought that the house’s owners are in prison camp, or already dead.

Michael tosses fewer books than the others into the fire, doing just enough to fit in. As the chapter ends, another boy calls, “‘He doesn’t want to burn the books!’” (36), and Michael is sure he’s been found out.

Michael discovers he’s not the one being accused; rather, it’s Fritz, the short boy they call “Dreikäsehoch” or “‘three cheeses tall’” (37), who is holding a pile of books and not tossing them into the flames. When Fritz continues to hesitate, the other boys attack him, calling him “‘Jew lover’” (38). Michael remembers how he did nothing to help the Jewish man being beaten on Kristallnacht, and how he himself was beaten by bullies at school in London. No longer a “helpless little boy” (38), Michael decides to join the fight.

Like a “right whirling dervish” (40), Michael kicks and punches the other boys until they back off, and then he stands over Fritz “like an antiaircraft gun during an air raid” (40). Michael insists he saw Fritz burning books, and he urges Fritz to corroborate his story. Horst tells the boys to let it go, as they can’t hurt the son of the Irish ambassador “‘too badly’” (41).

However, Horst himself goes on to punch Michael so hard he falls to the ground beside Fritz. Using Nazi rhetoric, Horst tell the boys, “‘compassion is a weakness’” (41), and in response, Michael is ready to “knock Horst’s donkey teeth down his throat” (41).

Michael knows he’ll get in trouble for challenging Horst, a “superior officer” (42), so he resists the urge to fight back. However, he decides that “one day,” he’ll “teach Horst how to take a beating” (42).

Two members of the SRD, the “Hitler Youth equivalent of the Gestapo” (43), arrive and announce a British plane was shot down outside of Berlin. A parachute was seen, and the Hitler Youth must help look for the missing pilot. The boys, including Michael, climb into the SRDs’ truck, and Michael fears for the British pilot who will be “tortured and killed” (44) if caught. As the truck drives out of Berlin, Michael realizes he’ll simply have to find the pilot before the Nazis do.

In the truck, Fritz thanks Michael for sticking up for him. Michael is “stunned” (45) when Fritz reveals he wants to join the SRD and eventually the SS, or “Death’s Head Squad” (45), who oversee the concentration camps. Fritz asks Michael if he’s English, and Michael considers this an “insult” (46), as the English have oppressed the Irish for years.

The truck stops by a farm outside the city, and the SRD members organize the boys into search groups. Michael considers the SRD “the scariest kids in Nazi Germany” (47), as their purpose is to watch and report on the other German youth—and their accusations “could get you sent to a concentration camp” (48). Even scarier, though, are the two adult SS officers leading the search.

Michael’s group is assigned to search the farm, and Michael runs toward the farm “faster than anybody” (48), knowing he has to reach the pilot first.

To Michael’s annoyance, Fritz follows him inside the barn. Fritz starts jabbing bales of hay with a pitchfork, while Michael spies a ladder leading to a hayloft and hopes the pilot is hiding there. However, climbing the ladder leaves Michael with a “sick churning in the pit of [his] stomach” (50).

When he reaches the top, Michael doesn’t find the pilot, and he prepares to descend the ladder without looking down. However, Fritz climbs the ladder too and then calls out to Michael, startling him, and Michael accidentally looks at the floor far below him. Michael’s “head bec[omes] a helium balloon” (51) as he’s overtaken with panic, and he falls over the side of the loft.

Fritz grabs Michael and pulls him back into the hayloft, and Michael admits he’s “‘afraid of heights’” (52). Fritz promises not to tell anyone—a significant promise, as Michael’s phobia would make him the target of Nazi bullies—and Michael realizes he’s “found a friend” in Fritz (53). However, they still haven’t located the British pilot.

Michael and Fritz leave the barn and keep looking for the pilot. Michael notices a trail of blood and a boot print along a row of hedges heading toward the hills, and he’s sure the pilot headed that way to reach higher ground. Michael covers the blood and creates a trail of broken branches going the opposite way, then points out the fake trail to the other boys. As Michael runs ahead, continuing to make a fake trail as the other boys follow him, he sees a “hint of blue” (55) within a hedge. Inside the hedge is the pilot—and the airman is lying “right where [Michael is] leading the entire Nazi search party” (55).

Michael speaks to the pilot in English, telling the airman he’s Irish, and on the Allies’ side. When Michael shares his full name, the pilot replies that “‘you can’t get much more Irish than that’” (56), and adds that he has a twisted ankle and “‘bloody gash’” (57) on his arm. Michael asks if the airman trusts him, and the two trade jokes about the longstanding feud between Irish and Englishmen; the exchange convinces the pilot that Michael’s telling the truth, and he tells the boy “‘I’m entirely in your hands’” (57).

Michael tells Fritz that he thinks the pilot actually went the other way, and that the trail they’ve been following is “‘misdirection’” (57). While pretending to search, Michael cuts himself with a branch and creates a new blood trail, which Fritz notices and leads the other boys in the wrong direction. The SS leader decides the pilot is fleeing to the mountains, and as Michael ducks into the barn rather than join their search, he realizes where to hide the pilot.

Michael struggles to guide the tall, heavy and injured airman into the barn, as the pilot continues to crack jokes, this time about the “‘three-legged race […] at the village fair’” (60). The pilot doubts the barn is a good hiding spot, but Michael points out it’s already been “‘searched and cleared’” (61). They make a “nest” (61) for the man at the back of the hay, and Michael says his parents will come rescue him that night. Michael realizes that the pilot is the second friend he’s made in the barn, and decides to call it “die Freundschaftserweisungsscheune, ‘the befriending barn’” (61).

As the chapter ends, the pilot reveals he was taking “‘very important reconnaissance photos’” (62), and Michael must find the film he hid in a haystack near where the plane fell.

Michael searches for the pilot’s film with no luck, and the other Hitler Youth return and prepare to head back to Berlin. When Michael tells Fritz that he decided to search the haystacks in case the pilot turned back again, Fritz calls him a “‘gumshoe’” (63)—an odd word for a German boy to use, because it’s an English word with no direct German translation.

The SS officer gathers the boys, saying that even though they haven’t found the pilot, they have “‘found what he came to do’” (64). The officer holds up a camera, pulls out the film, and exposes it to sunlight, “ruining it forever” (64).

As Michael and his parents drive to the barn under the cover of night, Da says Michael should have let the Germans catch the pilot—Michael is too young to put his “‘life on the line’” (66) for the Allies. Ma, the “real spy in the family” (65), adds that she’s spent years establishing her “‘informant network in Berlin’” (66) and wouldn’t want them to “‘los[e] everything’” (66) to save one man.

Michael shares that his Ma was actually a young spy herself, training with Irish Intelligence from the age of 16, and she’s taught Michael espionage techniques despite Da’s disapproval—but this night, she agrees with Da. Michael, on the other hand, believes he couldn’t let an innocent man die.

Michael leads his parents to the barn—the only reason he’s allowed to accompany them is so he can act as guide—and they find the pilot. The pilot asks about his camera, and Michael says the SS got to it first. Finally, the pilot tells them his name, Lieutenant Simon Cohen, and they realize he’s a Jew.

If Michael’s family is discovered hiding Simon, a Jew, in their home, they’ll be sent to a concentration camp—and because Da is the Irish ambassador, they might incite “a major international incident” (69) as well. Still, they bring Simon back to their home at the embassy around three o’clock in the morning and deposit the pilot in a closet-size room at the back of Da’s study. The room is already home to books the Nazis don’t approve of, and Simon appreciates their impressive “‘collection’” (70) of mysteries. The pilot is dismayed to find Michael hasn’t read any of them—the Allies are fighting so people will have the right “‘to read what they want, to think for themselves’” (70), and Michael isn’t taking advantage of the books at his disposal.

Simon gives Michael one of the books, The Golden Spiders by Rex Stout, and tells him to read a bit and they’ll discuss it every day. Da thinks it’s a great idea, and as Michael’s parents dress Simon’s wounds, Simon tells more jokes about English-Irish relations. Ma promises she’ll devise a plan to get Simon out of Germany, and Simon shares why he was flying during the day: He was taking photos of a new, propeller-less airplane the Nazis are designing, called Projekt 1065.

The next day, Michael is so exhausted that he falls asleep during school, and wakes to Fritz poking at him. Fritz wants to share something with Michael, and because he does “the German Look” (75) to ensure no one’s watching, Michael knows it’s important. Fritz gives Michael a large blue paper, and Michael realizes he’s holding something that could “change the fate of the world” (76).

The blue paper is a blueprint of a propeller-less airplane, with the words “Projekt 1065” (77) in one corner—the same plane Simon mentioned last night. Fritz says that because the plane has two jet engines, it will be “‘twice as fast’” (77) as any other plane. Fritz’s father is helping to design the plane, and Fritz stole the blueprints from his study. With these aircraft, Fritz says, “‘Germany will smash the Allies’” (78)—and Michael knows he’s right. The British Royal Air Force, or RAF, has managed to defeat the Nazis in England, but these new planes would “fly circles around the RAF” (78). Michael notices that the print is page one of 12 and asks about the rest, but then a siren announces an air raid.

During air raids, each Hitler Youth member, including Michael, must hurry to a particular street and make sure the residents are safe in the air raid shelters. Once Michael has checked on his street, he rushes back to the embassy, even as bombs begin to fall. At home, he runs straight to Simon and tells him he saw the blueprints for Projekt 1065.