One of my journeys to Berlin forced me into the lions den, i.e. the Dutch Consulate. I had enough cheek to ask for one of those CARE packets, even as a bogus ‘displaced person.’ It was dangerous being on ‘Dutch soil’, so to speak, I could have been arrested, but nothing ventured, nothing gained, and I was not asked for any proof identity. As a German soldier I had no right to this treasured parcel, a ‘generous gesture’ from America. But my cheek paid off and I walked out of the Consulate with one under my arm. So it should not be wondered at, when some time later I was ordered to register myself in Berlin, for my name was on a wanted list. I was accused of entering foreign service without the permission of Her Majesty. That ‘Her Majesty’ had deserted her land and her people, whereas I had defended both from Communism, would not be a debatable point or argument, and so I ignored this.
I was deeply moved by the sight of the city of Berlin, the old capital city of the Third Reich. No matter in which direction one looked its destruction stretched for miles and miles. In the Zoo there was not one tree standing. It was nothing more than the bones now of the capital that it had once been. Bones that had been licked clean of its charm, culture, and its beautiful facades. Stripped of its character it stood derelict from horizon to horizon. Berlin had died, been mercilessly killed. The former American Consul for Germany, Vernon Walters, on a visit in October 1945, declared that “Not even the war damage that I saw in Italy can compare with that which I have now seen in Berlin. It resembles a crushed skull”.
German discipline and industriousness came to the fore, an example shown by the Trummer-Frauen. They were the women who for nearly six years, had hidden in cellars by night to survive the bombing of the Allies. They had taken over the important work left behind by their soldier husbands. At the same time they brought up their children. They showed the world that it was time for a new start. They sorted half a brick here, a whole one there, and threw them into piles. From houses that had once been, they were now symbols of reconstruction.
I only learned later about the battle for Berlin. I heard from French volunteers, who had like me, volunteered to fight against Communism and who, in Kolberg and especially in Berlin had given their last drop of sweat and blood for the cause. Their sacrifice is without comparison. In the centre of Berlin, it was the ‘Charlemagne’ who fought to their last man and destroyed sixty enemy tanks. The American historian Cornelius Ryan reports in his book, The Last Battle, that nearly 100,000 women were raped in Berlin, by Russian soldiers. A further 6,000 committed suicide rather than live under the rule of the Bolshevik régime. At that time the ‘missing persons’ list increased out of all proportion, as the people of Berlin were dragged from their homes by the Reds and transported away to the East.
I was to experience the extreme contrast of misery and amusement at that time. Hundreds froze and starved in the extremely cold winter of 1946/47. The old people were the sacrifices, not having the strength to trudge cross-country with a rucksack for their needs. That was one side of the picture and the other presented itself in the amusement of the newly presented American way of life. I ventured one evening to the area around the railway station, ‘Berlin Zoo’, to take a look for myself. Already in the early evening I heard the ‘swing and jazz’ oozing from the murky underground bars and clubs. It was an offence to the ears of every normal German. They were newly formed in the cellars of the houses. In those bars, a bottle of whisky cost the princely sum of 800 marks. The well-nourished ‘kings of the black market’ enjoyed the spoils of their unscrupulous business deals. Needless to say, there were the highly made-up madams, who were willing to hop around, to ‘jitter-bug’ with the crew-cut styled and sweat-bathed GIs in an ecstasy of wild movement, which released all their inhibitions.
The ‘black’ market in the Scheitniger-Stern was harmless in comparison to Berlin, for it was strictly forbidden. Forbidden or not, it flourished. The people were in dire need and already there were new selling spots for one’s dealings, be it in house doorways, or an abandoned bus, or a cellar. Once more everything was there. Once more, the ‘man in the street’ could not afford the prices. When one was caught scheming and dealing, then one could expect the hardest of sentences from the authorities. Every one took the risk, for they had no other choice. It was a code of honour to procure what one could for the simplest or the most urgent of needs. Prison was the result. More than once I came close to this, although I never had any ‘hot wares’ on my person.
This happened in Berlin, Dresden and in Leipzig, where police sirens were to be heard. Police in old Wehrmacht uniforms dyed black stormed out of lorries, together with Russian soldiers in jeeps. The streets were very quickly cordoned off encircling the innocent as well as the scheming dealers. One had to be like the wind to escape. One had to be fit in order to be far quicker than they. I thanked my lucky stars for my sports training as a soldier, that life-saving training for the battlefield. This was also a battlefield, but of another sort and the ruins gave plenty of cover.
One should not be too critical of the ‘black’ market, however much one thinks it criminal and unjust. It was however the only possibility one had of surviving the drastic conditions that reigned, and more drastic they could not have been. This ‘black’ market forced the last ten pounds of potatoes or carrots out of the farmers’ cellars. The only commodity one could not buy for one’s welfare was coal.
It was a very hard winter, with polar conditions in 1946/47, with the same below freezing temperatures of 20—25° that we had experienced in Silesia and Russia. People not only starved to death, but they froze too, some not being able to fend for themselves. They died by the dozen. The goods section of the railway station in Berlin was guarded like Fort Knox, to avoid the theft of fuel brickettes which were now worth more than gold. The thieves, professionals and or simply fathers of children, were now forced to thieve whilst the goods train was in motion. Some times they found outlying stations where they could uncouple a whole wagon on a dark night, and empty it of its contents. Those goods were meant for the Russian Army and the warmth of their soldiers. The joy of the ‘little German man’ was therefore doubled and trebled, for why should they be the only ones who were warm? So they joined the bands of thieves, wheelers and dealers, who were to be found in the whole of the land. “Steal what you can” was the word in those days.
The normal citizen yearned for an orderly way of life. The Soviets put the pressure on, spraying the land with psychological terror, in the form of political propaganda, such as “learn from the Soviet Union to be victorious”, or “Long live Stalin, the best friend of the German people”. The media were also involved in this brainwashing, particularly in films, in which the German soldier, the Wehrmacht was always the cowardly rogue. Russian actors roared in mime, depicting simple and naive Teutons with helmets sitting crookedly on the backs of their heads, in a stupor from alcohol. Was it an interpretation based on their own behaviour? The Waffen SS were to be seen in the field, in their black parade dress, naturally with white-blond hair, their eyes in a bestial gaze as they took part in erotically sadistic torture of a lovely lady member of the Russian partisans. Naturally enough this lady held the Russian flag high in not giving anything away. It was distaste ful and the worst sort of propaganda, but so apt coming from the Communists. They however were not the only ones.