That is why I told the Hitler Youth boys about your Jewish father. Protection of the sick, weak, and inferior is not sensible. Yes, Hannelore, I shall prove to all of Germany. There is talk of an honor ceremony but I’m too busy fighting for the Führer to accept honors. Only seventeen, yet carrying more valor than those twice my years. At this very moment, I am guarding dangerous explosives. Your sugared heart could not bear the treacherous circumstances here in the port of Gotenhafen. I’m relived you are not here to see this. How fondly, how incessantly, I think of my Hannelore and red-sweater days. You and your red sweater are foremost in my thoughts. She was quite pretty and smelled like fresh eggs, but there have been many grateful and pretty girls. “Thank you, sailor.” Her warm whisper lingered in my ear. It was nothing really, but she was so grateful she clung to me, not wanting to let go. Today I saved a young woman from falling into the sea. You would be proud of your watchful companion, sailor Alfred Frick. Yes, Hannelore, I compose these letters in my mind first, as I cannot abandon my men as often as I think of you. We laugh in the face of fear, kick it like a stone across the street. He gets Joana a position as a nurse on board, and gives Florian blank boarding passes, which Florian uses to forge identification papers that will guarantee him passage.īut brave warriors, we brush away fear with a flick of the wrist. Alfred becomes instrumental in helping Emilia, Florian, and Joana obtain permission to board the Wilhelm Gustloff. Alfred remains separate from the other main characters- Emilia, Florian, and Joana-for the first half of the novel, but his storyline intersects with theirs in the town of Gotenhafen, where his ship is stationed, and where they are trying to board a boat and evacuate East Prussia.
His Mutter loves him, but Alfred’s father is ashamed of him, especially after he was rejected from the Hitler Youth, which continues to be a source of shame for Alfred. Alfred has a complicated relationship with his parents. It is later revealed that Alfred reported Hannelore (who was half Jewish) to the Nazi Youth after she rejected his advances. Every action he undertakes is to advance himself, and to somehow prove his worth as a “Good German.” He is in love with Hannelore, his former next-door neighbor, to whom all his chapters are addressed. He has no friends, and very little loyalty to anyone but himself, and Hitler. Alfred begins the book as a pompous, if misunderstood German soldier, and as the story progresses reveals himself to be increasingly racist, bigoted, delusional, and possibly psychopathic. From the first chapter Sepetys notes that Alfred’s driving emotion is fear: fear of being inferior, fear of rejection. One of the four principal characters and narrators.
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