The next day, Mutti faced the men. “My husband has been deployed. His son volunteered for war.” Mutti paused her speech and looked around.
She stood in front of the main auction house and packing shed, a wooden building 1500 feet in length. Around her stood fish packing halls and refrigeration houses, an ice-making factory from 1911, and a sailor’s home built just last year. There was a railway station that came into service in 1897, the year after Agatha was born. The fishery harbor smelled of sweat and crusted salt. Fifty tons of fish passed through her every day. Bremen and northern Germany could not be fed if the fishery shuttered.
“Since Herr Finkham can no longer head the fish auction, and his son is not here to take the job is there a man who would step forward to take my husband’s place?”
Mutti stopped, expecting the fisherman and their brokers to grumble at her husband’s absence and clammer to replace him. Silence greeted Mutti. The men had caught the Spirit of 1914 — war fever. They would volunteer — not to bring food to Germany — but for battle. War was exciting, a chance to lift Germany to its proper role as a great world power. Men should act now. The war was likely to be short, last perhaps only a few months. A man who did not act now, may never be able to tell his sons war stories.
The silence endured. Mutti grew frustrated. Hoping to goad the men into action, she said, “If no man will come forward, I will take the position myself.” Cheers echoed off the auction house walls. Mutti had just become the city of Bremen’s first woman head of the fish auction.