So there I was 16 -- going on 17 -- looking for someone to take care of me, when all of a sudden I met Rolph. Even now after all that's happened, his beautiful Germanic name rolls off the tongue like a fresh schnitzel crust and sends me head over traditional Austrian hiking boots! Rooooolph.
His work delivering documents for a local organization (which only later did I realize was the National Socialist Part of Austria!) often brought him to my house, and I'd sneak out to be with him. We'd just walk around my giant garden for hours. Well, one evening, it began to very cinematically pour rain, forcing us into my estate's glass gazebo. We sang and danced together, and then -- gasp -- he kissed me! I reacted just the way any other normal, red-blooded 16-year-old girl would react after their first kiss with their crush -- by running out into the rain and screaming "Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"
We met as much as possible after that, each accepting the other for who they were. He didn't even judge how I wore matching outfits with my six brothers and sisters with whom I had formed a singing group (despite the fact that the clothes had obviously been made out of used curtains!) As for me, I thought he could do no wrong.
But I was wrong. I mean, Neville Chamberlain-level wrong.
One day Rolph came to the house on very official business. You see, Hitler's army was about to annex Austria, and now Rolph was a full-fledged Nazi. (OMG, right?!) I thought he was acting a little big for his britches, and he thought I was being "a child." But I wasn't a child. I was 16! Going on 17!
What's worse is that he was pressuring my father to join. I mean, my dad might be strict, but he's not a Nazi!
Finally, things came to a head when my family decided to escape Austria by climbing the Alps -- even though we could have more easily just boarded a train out of the still-open borders. We hid in my stepmom's nunnery (it's a looooong story...) while Nazis searched high and low for us. But wouldn't you know it, just when we emerged Rolph was standing there pointing his flashlight at us in a crisp new Nazi uniform. (Gotta admit though: he did look hot.)
He let me and my stepmom and sibling run off, so we could escape, so I guess he wasn't all bad, even if he did willingly and enthusiastically join the organization responsible for some of the worst atrocities in world history. But then he totally blew his whistle to alert his superiors when my dad asked him to come with us! What a jerk! I'm so glad I didn't let him get to "second base" with me or as we call it in Austria: midfield.
Long story short, after crossing the Alps, I never saw him again. Odds are fairly good he died in the war. :(