Reads so much...

"I looked at myself carefully in the mirror and liked what I saw. I looked like the girl on the BDM poster, copies of which had been put up all over the city. And when I walked out of the dressing room Frau Muller and Lotte both said I looked very pretty.

'We'll want the jacket too,' Frau Muller announced. I was delighted. I hadn't expected that. The BDM uniform jacket was a waist-length brown suede garment with BDM buttons. 

Then came the insignia. 

From one of the glass cases Frau Mueller picked out three identical small porcelain-on-metal insignia. Like the BDM flags, they had a red diamond with a black swastika on a white background. One pin went on the right shirt pocket, the second on the jacket, and the third on the beret. 

'Now let's get her the shoes,' Lotte said, ordering the saleswoman around like her mother did."

E. Butterworth, page 150 of As The Waltz Was Ending 

A few pages later...

Saved by her talent and by other adults!

"Frau Dertl came into the dressing room sixty seconds after I had, clapped her hands to get our attention, and demanded:

'Have any of you been approached by the BDM?'

With one or two exceptions, the girls raise their hands. 

'And how many of you have joined it?' 

Almost half of the class raised their hands. I could see from Fraud Dertl's face that she wasn't pleased at all. But at least, I thought, I wasn't going to be alone 

'We don't have time for such things,' Frau Dertl went on. 'Our work comes first. The government recognizes this. The management will give each of you a letter explaining that you are not to be recruited for the BDM or anything else.'

E. Butterworth, Page 155 - 156. And further on down...

"I held out the letter from the Opera. Fraulein Heller snatched it from my hand, opened the envelope, and read the letter. 

She didn't like what she read and she correctly suspected that. I was delighted to be in the position I was. But there was nothing Fraulein Heller could do about a decision by the Reichsminister for Propaganda, Dr. Josef Goebbels. Goebbels had decreed that, among other 'German' cultural treasures, the Vienna State Opera was considered to be so important to the New Germany that its members were exempt from all Nazi party-sponsored 'Volunteer' activities.

'Emmy,' Fraulein Heller announced a moment later to the rest of the class, 'has special duties for the State, which will not permit her to be in the BDM, much as we all know she would like to be.'"

E. Butterworth, page 157

As the waltz was ending : Butterworth Emma M

https://archive.org/details/aswaltzwasending00emma