by Heinz Kohler
I couldn’t understand it, but before I could ask, Helmut came running to tell us about the Italians on the sidewalk. Mr. Albrecht let them in, along with a few Belgians and Frenchmen who had been freed from the POW camp just south of the village and all of whom had somehow managed to fashion and bring along copies of their national flags. Having studied them in school, I instantly recognized the vertical blue-white-red of France, the vertical black-yellow-red of Belgium, and the vertical green-white-red of Italy. The Italians gave my mother a big hug and opened a giant dairy can that was full of soup: potatoes, milk, and pieces of meat. There was more than enough for all of us.
Later that night, when drunk Russian soldiers battered down the front door and stormed in with their bayonets pointing at us, they came upon a remarkable sight: A congregation of Frenchmen and Belgians, of Italians and Germans–bareheaded men holding on to their tricolor flags and scarf-covered women hiding their faces before the Heavenly Father–all singing Martin Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.” It was the only hymn Mrs. Albrecht could play.
We couldn’t believe what happened next: The Russian visitors took off their hats, bowed to the crucifix, and left!
That night, after Helmut was asleep, my mother kept her promise and talked with me–mostly about love and a little bit about sex and the violence that is called rape. Frankly, I didn’t understand most of it; there was too much talk about birds and bees and none of this made any sense at all. But we hugged, which felt good and safe and we fell asleep in the chair by the window, now facing the Kommandatura.
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The next morning, Mr. Kalitz stopped at the Albrecht house. He had been at the baker’s and had found the old Mr. Senf with a knife in his heart. He had also found Gisela, the baker’s daughter. She had hanged herself in the very barn she hadn’t been allowed to leave. That’s when Mr. Albrecht, Mr. Kalitz, and all the women in the house met in the new chapel for a council meeting. I don’t know what was said, because I had to watch Helmut, but I do remember later asking Mrs. Gronostalski to teach me the Russian word for rape.
“Iznasi’lovaniye,” she said, looking rather puzzled.
“You know,” she added, “you should learn the rest of the language; it may well come in handy one of these days. I can teach you, if you like, especially now that the school is closed.”
I liked the idea. Before the day was gone, Mrs. Gronostalski had given me a sheet with the Russian alphabet as well as a poster she had picked up at the Commandant’s office. I couldn’t read a word, of course, but she said we could use the poster as our textbook.
“It’s a copy of the first order issued by the Commandant of Berlin,” she said.
Order
of the Chief of Occupation
of the City of Berlin
April 27, 1945 Nr. 1 City of Berlin
Today I have been named Chief of Occupation and City Commandant of Berlin.
All administrative and political power is transferred into my hands in accordance with an authorization by the Command of the Red Army.
Military area and district commandants are appointed in all city districts according to the previously existing administrative divisions.
I command:
1. The inhabitants of the city are to keep complete order and remain at their residences.
2. The National Socialist German Workers Party and all organizations under it (Hitler Youth, N.S. Women's Corps, N.S. Student Corps, etc.) are to be dissolved. Their activities are hereby outlawed. The entire leading personnel of the National Socialist German Workers Party, secret state police, regular police, and security force, and of prisons and all other government bureaus is to report for purposes of registration to the military area and district commandants within 48 hours after the posting of this order. Within 72 hours, all members of the German Army, of the SS and of the SA who are remaining in the city of Berlin are to report also for purposes of registration. Whoever does not report by the deadline, or is guilty of hiding such persons, will be held strictly accountable according to the laws of war.
3. The officers and employees of district administrative offices are to report to me for purposes of reporting on the condition of their offices and of receiving orders concerning the further activities of these offices.
4. All communal enterprises, such as power stations and water works, canal authorities, mass transit (subway, elevated trains, trolleys, and buses), all hospitals, all food stores and bakeries are to resume their work again for purposes of serving the population. Workers and employees of the aforementioned enterprises are to remain at their places of work and to fulfill their duties once again.
5. Employees of government food storage facilities, as well as private owners of stores of food, are to report for purposes of registration all existing stores of food to the military district commandants within 24 hours after the posting of this order, and they are to dispense such stores only with permission of military district commandants. Until special orders are given, the distribution of food in food stores is to occur according to previously existing norms and food coupons. Food is not to be distributed for more than 5-7 days. Those officials who are guilty of dispensing food over and above existing norms, or who dispense food for coupons belonging to persons not any more in the city, will be held strictly accountable.
6. Owners of banks and directors of banks are to cease and desist from all financial transactions temporarily. All safes are to be sealed immediately. They are to report at once to the military commandants about the conditions of the banks. It is categorically forbidden to all bank officials to take away anything of value. Whoever is guilty of disobeying this order will be punished most severely according to the laws of war. The occupation scrip of the Allied Military Government is put into circulation as legal tender along with the national means of payments currently circulating.
7. All persons who own firearms and swords, ammunition, explosives, radio receivers or transmitters, cameras, automobiles, motorcycles, gasoline and oil are to deliver the aforementioned to the military district commandants within 72 hours after the posting of this order. Those guilty of not delivering all of the above-mentioned objects by said deadline will be punished severely according to the laws of war. The owners of printing shops, typewriters, and other means of duplication are ordered to report to the military area and district commandants for purposes of registration. It is categorically forbidden to print, duplicate, post, or put in circulation in the city any documents without the permission of the military commandants. All printing shops will be sealed. Entry will be granted only after permission of the military commandants.
8. The population of the city is forbidden
a) to leave their houses between 22:00 and 08:00 hours in the morning Berlin time, to appear in streets or yards, to be present in uninhabited rooms and to do any type of work therein.
b) to light rooms without shades
c) to take into the family, without permission of the military commandants, any persons, including members of the Red Army and of Allied Troops, for purposes of living there or staying overnight.
d) to appropriate arbitrarily the property and food left behind by officials or private persons.
Residents who violate the above-mentioned prohibitions will be held strictly accountable according to the laws of war.
9. The operation of entertainment enterprises (cinemas, theaters, circus, stadium), religious services in churches, the operation of restaurants and inns, are permitted until 21:00 hours Berlin time. For any use of public enterprises for purposes hostile to the Red Army, for disturbing order and peace in the city--the officials in charge of these enterprises will be held strictly accountable according to the laws of war.
10. The population of the city is warned that it is held accountable according to the laws of war for any hostile behavior towards members of the Red Army and Allied Troops. In case of attempts on the lives of members of the Red Army or Allied Troops or the commission of other crimes aga
inst persons and war materiel of the units of the Red Army or Allied Troops, the guilty will be handed over to a military tribunal.
11. Units of the Red Army and individual members thereof who arrive in Berlin are under obligation to reside only in residences provided by the military area and district commandants. The arbitrary eviction or movement of inhabitants, the expropriation of goods and values, and the searching of houses of city residents is forbidden to the members of the Red Army without permission of the military commandants.
Chief of Occupation and City Commandant of Berlin
Commander in Chief, Nth Army, Brigadier General N. Bersarin
Chief of Staff of Occupation , Major General Kushchov
30. Paying Tribute
[June 1945]
About a month after the Russians got to Ziesar, they put up a huge bulletin board in front of the Town Hall. We could tell that there was something going on because of the crowd under the Thousand Year Oak, which we could see right from our windows above the butcher shop. My mother sent me to investigate, having decided, along with all the other women in our house, never to leave the house herself, if at all possible. The Russians continued to drag women off the street (the Commandant having dismissed Mrs. Gronostalski’s complaints as “bourgeois humanism”), but they tended to be kind to children, especially boys.
Outside the Town Hall, I discovered two posters, both behind glass. The first one contained excerpts, translated into German, from Pravda, the Russian newspaper. I later learned from Mrs. Gronostalski that Pravda meant Truth. Without judging the truth of what was printed, I penciled copious notes onto my miniature writing pad, which I still carried along whenever I went out. Although the news was about a month old, it was still news to us:
1945
April 25
Soviet and U.S. troops link up at Torgau on the Elbe
May 7
At 2:41 A.M. local time, in a little red schoolhouse in Reims, France, then General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Headquarters, Germany surrenders unconditionally, thereby ending the bloodiest conflict in history exactly 5 years, 8 months, and 6 days after it began
Relevant documents are signed by General Alfred Jodl, German Army Chief of Staff, on orders of Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, and by Lt. General Walter Bedell Smith, Chief of Staff of the Allied Armies; German Foreign Minister Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk breaks the news to the Germans
May 8
German forces surrender Prague
May 9
The final surrender of German forces in the east takes place at Karlshorst, a Berlin suburb. Relevant documents are signed by Field Marshal General Wilhelm Keitel, Supreme Commander of the Army, by General Hans-Jürgen Stumpff, representing the Air Force, and by Admiral Hans Georg von Friedeburg, Supreme Commander of the Navy
The second poster, also in German, was of more immediate concern:
Order Nr. 1, Chief of Occupation, Village of Ziesar
All persons who have in their possession firearms or swords, ammunition or explosives, radio receivers or transmitters, cameras or typewriters, automobiles or motorcycles, and gasoline or oil, are hereby ordered to deliver the above-mentioned items at military headquarters within 72 hours after the posting of this order.
Failure to deliver all of the above-mentioned items within the above-mentioned time limit will subject the guilty to the harshest penalties of war.
Furthermore, and also within said 72 hours, all inhabitants of this village, and all others present within it, who are aged 10 to 65, are to appear at said military headquarters for purposes of registration and work assignment.
Those who do not report within said time limit, or who are guilty of hiding such persons, will be held accountable according to the rules of war.
June 10, 1945
Lazar Mayants, Major
Later that morning, we left Helmut with Mrs. Holland, the guardian angel of the chapel. He was only three and she was almost seventy; therefore, they didn’t have to do a thing. The rest of us–my mother and I and the Albrechts and all the other women and children from Cologne–marched across the street to the Kommandatura to register, but the woman, in order to look as unattractive as possible, all wore winter coats and scarves, even though it was June.
Mr. Albrecht also took a bunch of sabers along. He said his father had used them in the War of 1870-71. My mother took our radio, although it had been dead for over a month, and I took our Agfa camera, even though it had run out of film long ago. A soldier tossed the radio out the window of the Furtwängler house, right onto the back of a truck; then he tossed the camera onto the back of another. We didn’t think either one survived the impact. Then he took my mother’s wristwatch away and he took mine as well. Mine had been a gift from Aunt Martel, which made me sad.
“Uri! Uri!” the soldier had said, rather impatiently.
We figured that was his way of saying Uhr, the German word for watch. Actually, he already wore seven of them, all on his left arm. I counted when he reached up to give us the pamphlets from the upper shelf. Then he sent us into the next room. There the commandant sat in an overstuffed chair, working a giant abacus, six feet square. He dictated something to Mrs. Gronostalski, who introduced him as Major Mayants (the stress being on the second syllable) and then helped him register us. She told my mother and all the other women to be at the electric power plant the next morning at eight. Mr. Albrecht was to remain at the butcher shop, and I was to go to the Town Hall, also at eight.
That afternoon, other soldiers once again searched all the houses, apparently looking for the forbidden items noted in the Major’s Order Nr. 1. With submachine guns slung across their chests, they looked into every nook and cranny of every house, pulling out drawers and flinging them aside, smashing china and clocks and mirrors as they went about their business, eviscerating pillows and mattresses with their bayonets and, in some cases, stirring up a snow storm of feathers from open windows, and, finally, stuffing all sorts of booty down the fronts of their jackets, including door handles and faucets, light bulbs and watches. Rumor had it that the ignorant Slavs were counting on getting water and electric light by just screwing faucets into walls and light bulbs into ceilings when they got home to the Ukraine or somewhere, but I wasn’t so sure that this explanation was correct.
That afternoon, too, carpenters came and put up new street signs. They were in Russian though, and I quickly put to work Mrs. Gronostalski’s alphabet sheet. That’s how I discovered that Russian was easy. We now lived on Ulitsa Josef Stalin, although the ulitsa part didn’t make sense until I learned that it meant street.
The carpenters also put up a picture of Stalin on the front of the commandant’s house. They whitewashed the words the Chain Hounds had painted on the walls. Later, they painted another sentence, this time in red, a quotation from Stalin, Mrs. Gronostalski said:
THE HITLERS COME AND GO, BUT THE GERMAN PEOPLE IS FOREVER
Other men built wooden arches every 100 meters or so along the main street and also at all the street corners. Mrs. Gronostalski called them “arches of triumph.” They were so tall that all the traffic could go under them, sort of miniatures of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate. They were also painted red. The Russians hung pictures of Marx and Engels on all the arches, and also of Lenin and Stalin and, in some cases, of Russian soldiers with babies in their arms. The soldiers painted lots of Russian words, too, but they didn’t make sense to me, even after I turned their letters into Roman ones. I first figured Slava had something to do with the Slavs, but then Mrs. Gronostalski told me it meant Glory or Hail, as in “Hail to the Soviet Soldier,” which proved that Russian was more difficult than I had thought.
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The next day, my mother and all the other women were mobilized into a “labor brigade.” They were marched into the power plant and told to take it apart and load it onto freight cars waiting in the yard. My mother said they were sure nobody would ever be able to put it all together again in Russia, without proper blueprints and enginee
rs, but they still had to do it. People kept dropping the parts and losing the nuts and bolts. Even when they were careful, their work came to naught. More often than not, the iron parts were too heavy for the crates the Russians provided, so their bottoms fell out when anyone tried to lift them. One of the generators sat near the railroad tracks for years, right next to an old Pak [Panzerabwehrkanone = tank defense cannon], both rusting in the weather.
Other women were told to take apart one half of the double railroad tracks, which was also to be shipped to Russia. “Rabota, rabota!” [Work, work!] the Russians yelled. They also managed to hook up a radio to a loudspeaker, which is how we learned that Radio Berlin was back on the air. They played Beethoven and told endless stories about concentration camps. Millions had been murdered and cremated, they said, and detailed records had been kept about every single one of the victims.
Mrs. Dietrich didn’t believe a word of it. She said that the Russians were probably implementing the Morgenthau Plan and were looking for any excuse to justify it.
“The Jews in the Kremlin sing the same tune as the Jew Morgenthau in America,” she said. “They want to strip Germany of her industrial capacity and turn her into a nation of peasants.”
“Maybe that would be for the best,” Mrs. Albrecht said.
“But why blame the Jews for everything? It would make much more sense to blame the Catholics,” she added, “Hitler was one.”
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As for me, I was sent off to the forest with an axe almost my size. All the boys and men were to find and cut trees that were at least 15 centimeters across and load them onto railroad cars as well. “Excellent supports for mine shafts,” Mr. Kalitz said; he had been made our foreman.