This seemed a good idea, and when the Russians looked in shortly afterwards I groaned in Russian that my head hurt and that I thought I had cholera, which sent them off in a hurry. Then we had our meal of green beans and burnt potatoes.
The night was full of the screams of women being raped.
Next morning I had a real Russian cat wash, which went as follows. I rinsed my mouth with the precious water, then put my head back and sprayed it into the air so that it fell over my face, which I then wiped with a cloth. The old man commented that I was still dirty, so I repeated the process.
Again we had green beans and baked potatoes. Clearly that would be the old man’s diet for the foreseeable future.
Now I needed to scout out the ground. I asked the old man if he could spare me a couple of buckets. As I did not know if I would be returning, I bade him a provisional farewell and thanked him for his support. He said: ‘I have a couple of grandchildren in the same situation as yourself, so it was only natural.’
I went along the street with my buckets looking for a street pump. I found one and stood in the queue for water, as there were quite a few people ahead of me. I half filled the buckets and set off, not back to the old man, but first to Alfred’s apartment to find out what had happened. With my buckets no one would suspect me of being on the run. There were many posters ordering all soldiers, Volkssturm, Party members, officials and others to report to the nearest Soviet post or be shot immediately.
When I got to Alfred’s street an old Russian soldier was shovelling the remains of his former comrades into ammunition boxes to bury them. When I asked him what had happened, he said that there had been an accident.
Below Alfred’s window lay three dead bodies that had been thrown out of the window. They were my comrades and Alfred’s wife. When the Russian saw me looking at them he commented: ‘Fascists with no sense of fun!’
I went off with my half filled buckets. The nearer I got to the city centre, the more and stronger the checkpoints I came across. I noticed that they seemed more interested in those leaving the city centre than those entering, which was understandable as fighting had been taking place only the previous day. There was a checkpoint ahead of me where papers were being examined. I stopped and put down my buckets as if taking a rest.
Then a Russian one-and-a-half tonner, one of their own primitive construction that had no battery and whose windscreen wipers were hand operated, drew up and stopped near me. Inside were three men packed close together on the narrow seat, the driver and two officers, with a German civilian standing beside them on the running board. The officer on the outside hit the civilian in the face with his fist, swore at him and threw him off.
This, I thought, is my chance. I quickly went up to the vehicle and asked the Russians if I could help. They were happy to have found someone who could speak Russian and show them the way to the Reichstag. I said: ‘I am a Pole and so not at home here, but I do know the way to the Reichstag and can take you there. But there is nothing there for you to take.’
‘We just want to scratch our names on the pillars of the Reichstag. Every Russian soldier with legs is making his way to this central point to scratch his name, and if he has a photograph of it he will be a hero back in Russia. Anyone can say he did it, but he needs evidence that he was there. Now stop talking and come!’
This I did as quickly as possible and told the driver to set off. We came to the checkpoint and went through without stopping. When we reached the Reichstag I jumped off the running board, A female supervisor grabbed me and wanted me help clear the rubble. I swore at her in Russian. Then one of the Russians came up to me and asked if I could use a Leica. He had acquired it somehow but did not know how to use it. I checked the camera to see if it had a film in it, then they stood in front of the Reichstag and I took several pictures of them. Then I had to give the camera to the driver for him to take a photograph of me with the two officers.
They were anxious to scratch their names, so I left them without saying goodbye. I wanted to make my way across to Friedrichstrasse to say farewell to my dead comrades if they were still lying there. I thought that the wounded would already have been taken to hospital. Close by was the Charité where during the fighting a point had been made of not taking in military casualties in order to preserve its civilian status, but that probably did not apply any longer.
The Friedrichstrasse was still full of dead and some German prisoners of war were clearing those away on the Weidendammer Bridge. Bulldozer tanks were pushing the burnt out wrecks into the ruins to clear the street.
I still had no papers to identify me, not even the usual Waffen-SS blood group tattoo under the armpit, as I had missed having it done through having been on guard duty when the company was tattooed.
As I passed up Friedrichstrasse into Chausseestrasse I passed a shot-up armoured personnel carrier, a picture of which was later featured in many books. To avoid walking over the dead soldiers lying there, I passed the vehicle on the right side in which there was a small entry hole from a captured Panzerfaust. Several of the occupants had managed to bale out but had then been mown down by machine gun fire. When I reached the place where our way out had ended, I found my comrades lying entangled in death with soldiers of other units. No infantry had been able to get any further, only some armoured vehicles that had been shot up later.
I then looked into the ruins where we had pulled our wounded comrades. They still lay there, not as wounded but dead. The Russians had murdered them with shots at close range, that was obvious. They had been plundered, their pockets opened and their watches taken. Naturally this hit me hard. I stood there and could have howled like a young dog that has lost its master, but I sensed that I was being watched and crept away through the side streets, drawn like a magnet back to the Reichs Chancellery.
I do not know what impelled me, but I made my way through the Tiergarten and over Potsdamer Platz to come to Hermann-Göring-Strasse. There I saw that the boundary wall to the Reichs Chancellery plot had been demolished and one could see over into the garden, where many dead were lying around. (I later learned that the Russians had tasked an engineer battalion to blow down the wall, expecting strong resistance, and that they called it ‘The Suicides’ Garden’ after the many suicides to be found there.) The dead were especially thick around the former fountains in the centre.
I walked around the whole complex like a bored stroller. The Wilhelmstrasse entrance was also open. On a post that had been set up I saw a badly charred corpse that, when I got close, I recognised as Goebbels. Russian soldiers and foreign workers were standing around making comments and making a mockery of his corpse.
I decided to make my way to Lichterfelde and tell Frau Mundt what had happened to her husband, but as I approached the Potsdamer Bridge a new obstacle confronted me. Bulldozers and engineers were making the bridge passable again, but impassable for me. A checkpoint was demanding to see the papers of anyone not a Russian soldier. I was wondering what to do next when the one-and-a-half-tonner came to my rescue once more. They spotted me leaning against a pillar and beckoned me over. Now they wanted to go to Steglitz and asked me if I could help them find it. ‘I have more to do than just drive around with you, but since no one else can help you, I will. Only, that is not on!’ I said, pointing at the checkpoint.
‘Oh, we will soon see about that!’ said one of the officers. ‘Climb aboard!’