Year Zero: Berlin 1945

by David McCormack

  Brigitte Eicke - 1 August 1944

  It rained all day. We had a nap in the afternoon and were in bed already by 10. It's a shame, such a waste of a lost evening.

  Anne Frank – 1 August 1944

  Dear Kitty... I've often told you that my soul is divided in two. One side contains my boisterous happiness... (and) squeezes out the other, much nicer, side that is more pure and deep. Nobody knows the nice side of Anne...

  The banality of Brigitte's diary entries demonstrate that politics held little fascination for her. Whilst world changing events were taking place all around her, she largely focused on the trivia of everyday life. The following entry from 27 February 1943 concludes with an aside about the deportation of Berlin's Jews :

  Waltraud and I went to the opera to see 'The Four Ruffians'. I had a ticket for Gitti Seifert too. What a load of nonsense, it was ridiculous. We walked back to Wittenbergplatz and got the underground to Alexanderplatz. Three soldiers started talking to us. Gitti is so silly, she went all silent when they spoke to her. The least we can do is answer, even though we weren't going to go anywhere with them. Jews all over the place are being taken away, including the tailor across the road.

  The tailor which Brigitte alludes to worked in the Hackescher Markt which was located within Berlin's pre-war Jewish district. Brigitte and her mother lived in an apartment on Immanuelkirchstrasse, a stones throw from the Rykestrasse Synagogue and Jewish cemetery in Kollwitzkiez. However, her youthful indifference was such that she saw nothing. Her life was as far removed from the experience of Anne Frank as it was possible to be.

  In 2015, Brigitte was interviewed following the publication of her diary. When asked to explain her apathy, she replied, 'I was busy with my own life... I can't remember if we learned where they'd gone. We young people were indoctrinated to believe in the good of the regime to the end'. The historian Ian Kershaw once wrote that, 'The road to Auschwitz was built by hate, but paved with indifference'. Brigitte swam with the tide, her decision to join the Nazi Party in March 1944 was not out of political conviction, but from peer pressure. Brigitte was neither a perpetrator, nor a victim, she was merely a very small cog in the machine which powered the Nazi state.

  By late 1944, this small cog had completed her secretarial training and was working for an Aryanised chain of department stores. Whilst Hitler was planning his desperate gamble in the Ardennes, Brigitte fretted about a disastrous perm. Her carefree existence went on, even as Soviet troops were digging-in on the Oder. In a 2 March 1945 diary entry, she wrote, 'Margot and I went to the Admiralspalast to see 'My Gentleman Son'. It was such a lovely film, but there was a power cut in the middle of it. How annoying'. Brigitte later witnessed the battle for Berlin and the downfall of the Nazi regime. On 2 May 1945, she wrote :

  At 3 am Frau Schobs came into the cellar and said, 'The Fuhrer is dead, the war is over'. I could only let out a scream... We went out onto the street and all the soldiers were withdrawing, it was so sad.

  Brigitte was spared the terrible ordeal suffered by so many young girls and women at the hands of Soviet troops. She was also spared the fate of Anne Frank who succumbed to typhus in the filth of Bergen-Belsen in February 1945.

  Within weeks of the Soviet authorities assuming control in Berlin, Brigitte forgot about her Nazi past and became a member of an anti-Fascist youth organisation. Once again, she was prepared to swim with the tide, albeit without much enthusiasm. In a July 1945 entry, she wrote, 'I get the impression that they want the same thing as the Nazis, just under another name'. Whilst her diary may on first reading appear somewhat banal, it does open a window upon the most basic human instinct, survival.

  Chapter Four

  An Interesting Proposition at the Hotel Adlon

  In 1905, wine merchant, coffee house owner, gastronome and hotelier Lorenz Adlon successfully lobbied the Kaiser for the construction of a first class hotel to rival those in London and Paris. His chosen location, close to the Brandenburg Gate was already occupied by the Palais Redern, a neoclassical style building designed by the noted architect Karl Schinkel and named after Count Wilhelm von Redern, who in 1828 became artistic director of the National Theatre. Following the Kaiser's intercession, this fine building was demolished to make way for the new hotel. Designed by Carl Gause and Robert Leibnitz, the Hotel Adlon was completed at a cost of twenty-million gold marks. Behind a rather sober façade, the sumptuous interior was decorated in neo-baroque and Louis XVI styles. The hotel also boasted modern amenities including central heating, lifts and telephones.

  The hotel opened on 23 October 1907. The Kaiser was a regular visitor. The Foreign Office used the hotel on a regular basis as an unofficial meeting place. Notable visitors before the outbreak of war in 1914 included Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, the inventor Thomas Edison, industrialist and founder of the Ford Motor Company Henry Ford, and the business magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller. After the death of Lorenz Adlon in a traffic accident close to the Brandenburg Gate in late 1918, the proprietorship of the hotel passed to his son Louis.

  During the 'Roaring Twenties', the hotel was frequented by such luminaries as film stars Louise Brooks, Mary Pickford and Marlene Dietrich, celebrated operatic tenor Enrico Caruso, singer and entertainer Josephine Baker and writer Thomas Mann. Following Hitler's rise to power in January 1933, the hotel continued to be a popular meeting place, particularly for Foreign Ministry officials. Following the first air-raids on Berlin by the RAF in 1940, huge underground shelters were constructed, along with a protective wall which extended upwards towards the first floor balconies. Louis Adlon lamented the graceless vista which the protective wall had produced :

  It lent the building, of which the graceful architecture had been so essential a part of the Unter den Linden and Berlin, a strangely remote and repellent aspect, as though, from being a hotel which had become world-famous for its warmth and hospitality, it was now a fortress where no one might enter.

  By some miracle, the 'fortress' was still standing and very much still in business following the conclusion of 'Bomber Harris' concentrated attack on the city between November 1943 and March 1944. Whilst much of Berlin had been battered and scarred by the protracted aerial bombardment, the Adlon continued to take in paying guests and provide facilities for Foreign Office staff.

  On 2 February 1945, one of the most interesting incidents in the Adlon's history took place. That morning, Major Johnny Dodge, who had been languishing in Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp along with fellow 'Great Escapees' Harry 'Wings' Day and Sydney Dowse was suddenly freed. Six weeks earlier, he had been summoned to appear before Dr Hans Thost and Dr Theodor Paeffgen of the SS intelligence service. Dr Thost had opened the conversation by asking, 'How do you think the German and British people can get closer together?' Dodge replied by saying that :

  The British people are offended most by the fact that Germany has overrun small nations and that Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland must be freed. Also that the Rhineland would have to be demilitarised. That all countries at present occupied by German forces would have to be evacuated of those forces... The persecution of the Jews would have to cease and that the German government would have to be reconstructed.

  Both Dr Thost and Dr Paeffgen appeared to have been impressed by Dodge's optimistic assessment of the situation. His underestimation of the Allies absolute detestation of the Nazi regime led Dr Thost to state that, 'Germany wished to conclude an Armistice with the Western Allies and to be allowed a free hand to continue the fight against the Russians'. The meeting concluded with Dodge stating that he would be happy to directly convey any message that the German regime wished to send to the British government. As a cousin of the British Prime Minister, Dodge was well placed to deliver such a message. His captors had chosen well as Dodge's innate optimism made him the ideal candidate.

  Nothing further happened until the morning of Dodge's release some six weeks later. He was driven through Berlin's moonscape to a department store where he was given
a set of civilian clothes. Following lunch at a Luftwaffe officers club, Dodge was driven to the Adlon Hotel where Dr Thost and Foreign Ministry interpreter Paul Otto Schmidt were already waiting for him. In room 403, Dodge was greeted by Schmidt who then wasted no time in opening the conversation by saying, 'Major Dodge, you have escaped from almost every prison in Germany'. This somewhat clumsy opening remark naturally resulted in Dodge assuming a defensive posture. Sensing this, Schmidt quickly cut to the chase by explaining that the plan was to send him home so that he could speak with his 'kinsman' about the possibility of concluding an agreeable settlement with Germany. Dodge was to fly to Stockholm the following day with Dr Thost.

  As a result of unexpected delays, Dodge and Dr Thost were delayed in Berlin for a week, during which time they travelled around the city by public transport. As Dodge had no capacity for learning foreign languages, their conversations were carried out entirely in English. In a newspaper article published in 1952, Dr Thost recalled how, 'No one raised objection to our conversation in English, though some people may have possibly been surprised to hear English spoken in the worst bombed city in the world'. During the course of their excursions around the city, Dr Thost alluded to Dodge that both Hitler and Himmler were involved in the plan. It is doubtful that Hitler had ever heard of Dodge. However, it is possible that Himmler may well have been aware of, or had even sponsored the plan.

  Meanwhile, the plan had changed, for they were now to head to Dresden. On 13 February Dodge and his chaperone were enjoying the evening show at the city's Circus Sarrasani when the air-raid sirens brought about a mass exodus to the inadequate shelters which served as the populations only protection from Allied bombers. Dodge and Dr Thost were more fortunate than most in that they were able to take shelter in a bomb-proof bunker on the edge of the city. Having survived the devastating raid, Dodge and Dr Thost stayed in the home of Major Fritz von Alten for the next five days. They then continued their journey via Weimar, Regenstauf, Munich, Bad Tolz, Kempten, Bregenz, before finally reaching the Swiss frontier on 25 April.

  The following morning, a guide escorted Dodge to the Swiss Customs Office at St Margarethen. He was then driven to the headquarters of the Swiss Intelligence Service in Bern where arrangements were made to fly him to England. After nearly five years in captivity, this brave officer finally came home on 28 April. By this time, the war was to all intents and purposes over. Events had since made the interesting proposition made at the Hotel Adlon back in February totally redundant. Dodge never did speak to his 'kinsman' about the interesting proposals made at the Hotel Adlon.

  Chapter Five

  Blonde Poison – Stella Goldschlag

  As the Third Reich imploded in the spring of 1945, a young German-Jewish woman named Stella Goldschlag took shelter in the town of Liebenwalde. As SS troops from the Thomalla Battalion distributed ammunition to the local Volkssturm, they instructed them to conserve every round, 'as if it's your last piece of bread'. The hastily improvised defensive measures observed by Stella transformed her rustic retreat into a place of fevered activity. Indeed, the town had been in a state of turmoil for weeks. The impending attack by elements of Zhukov's 1st Belorussian Front caused panic, many fled westwards. Those few that remained included the elderly, the sick and the frightened. Stella too remained behind as she was three months pregnant. Caught between a rock and a hard place, she had no other alternative than to stay put. The Jewish underground in Berlin had already warned her that she would face retribution, and she was almost certainly on a Soviet list of wanted Nazi war criminals. Stella was no ordinary young woman, she had already gained notoriety as the 'Blonde Poison'. During her two year career as a 'catcher' with the Gestapo she had personally been responsible for uncovering and handing over between 600 - 3000 underground Berlin Jews.

  The story of the 'Blonde Poison' is arguably one of the most intriguing and disturbing to come out of the Holocaust. It raises the question of just how far someone will go in order to survive. Stella went much further than most. To understand her motivation, we must go back to her childhood and adolescence in Berlin's Westend. Stella was an only child, who was pampered and adored by parents who called her 'Little Dot'. Whilst not quite living the life of a German-Jewish princess, she wanted for little, and was always well dressed. As a child she didn't define herself as Jewish as she lived in a secular, fully-assimilated household. Her first inkling that she was 'different' came following the promulgation of the Nuremberg Laws in 1935. These laws effectively excluded Jews from civic life. Stella, along with thousands of other German-Jewish children was forced out of public school.

  Life at the Jewish 'Goldschmidt School' opened up all sorts of new possibilities for Stella. It was here that she blossomed into womanhood. The transformation from being an adored child to becoming an object of desire was not lost on this mercurial adolescent. Peter Wyden was a classmate who was in thrall to this sexually knowing and seductive young woman. In a 1992 biography he recalled Stella's allure :

  Stella, my Stella, was a survivor of a different sort. I had no way to guess her vulnerability when we were teenagers, for the frustrating truth about 'decent' girls of my sheltered Berlin youth was their apparent aloofness. They did not neck, they did not hold hands. The very word 'sex' was unspeakable between the sexes, which made Stella's sex education briefings so daring. Even my liberated mother never discussed sex. She informed me of the so-called facts of life by leaving a volume of Kraft-Ebing on prominent display on our bookshelves at home. I did have eyes in my head, and when they glimpsed Stella in those very short ruffled black gym shorts and her tight, thin white top, I didn't need Kraft-Ebing or other middlemen to make the connection with my body.

  Although I had many chances to become chummy with the adored one, inexperience keep me from pressing the luck of proximity. On most days I rode to school up Kurfurstendamm on either the No. 76 or the No. 176 tram, always picking my departure time with deliberation. My objective was to board the car on which 'my' girls were riding. If I didn't spot them, I would wait until their car came along.

  For Peter, Stella remained an unobtainable object of fantasy. In February 1937, he sailed with his parents on the S.S. Washington bound for New York. He was one of the fortunate few to be granted asylum in America. Stella's family were neither as wealthy, nor well connected, and as such their own attempts to find refuge ended in dismal failure.

  The state sponsored pogrom known as 'The Night of the Broken Glass' in November 1938 further served to ratchet up the repressive measures against Berlin's Jews. Following the closure of the Goldschmidt School, Stella attended the Feige-Strassburger school of fashion design. In reality, she did little actual fashion design. For the most part, she posed as a nude model. As a model, Stella found herself very much in demand. Men queued up to catch a glimpse of this vision who was, 'tall, slim, leggy, cool, with her light blue eyes, teeth out of a toothpaste ad, and pale satin skin'. Stella's looks were to be her salvation, and later partly responsible for her utter damnation.

  In September 1941, the Nazi authorities decreed that no Jew could be seen in public without having a large yellow Star of David stitched to their left breast. It was expressly forbidden to cover up this identifying symbol in any way. A former classmate of Stella named Klaus Scheurenberg later recalled his reaction to wearing the star following his conscription to work at the Otto Kolshon factory in Niederschonhausen, 'The star seemed as big as a plate and to weigh a ton'. Like many others he felt vulnerable and humiliated. 'Fair game, fingered!' about summed it up.

  For Stella, the order to wear the star was particularly traumatic as she neither felt, nor looked Jewish. By now she had been conscripted for work as an 'armaments Jew' at the Siemens Elmo Works. For ten hours a day she toiled away in Section 133, grinding parts for electric motors. Her fellow workers regarded her as something of a square peg in a round hole, Margot Levy later stating that, 'She wasn't one of us'. Neither was Stella a part of the Communist inspired anti-Nazi resistance movement
led by Herbert Baum. Politics held little fascination for this blonde bombshell.

  That October, Stella married her boyfriend Manfred Kubler in a hurried ceremony at Wilmersdorf City Hall. After the ceremony, the newly-weds took the U-Bahn to visit Manfred's father who was serving time in the Moabit Prison on trumped-up charges of black marketeering. For Stella, marriage legitimised her sexual relationship with Manfred. Whilst her new husband also resented his Jewishness, Stella went a step further by refusing to wear the star outside of working hours. There was some risk involved, but in reality, her Aryan appearance made her all but invisible. During those precious hours when she could hide her Jewishness, Stella felt liberated. She felt that she belonged in the ranks of those who were born lucky – German Gentiles.

  On 27 February 1943, Adolf Eichmann's assistant Alois Brunner launched the so-called Fabrikaktion (Factory Action). The operation was planed months before, with factory bosses being advised to prepare for the replacement of Jewish workers with foreign slave labour. Jewish worker Hildegard Henschel who was transported to Theresienstadt later recalled the 'action' :

  27 February began like any normal work day. The music hall at the nurses' dormitory of the Jewish Hospital was empty. In every corner sat a doctor and two nurses with cases of medicine and supplies, waiting for what was to come... Between 9 and 10 am. the phones started ringing. Oranienburg Street reported that all community officials had been arrested at their work places... People were loaded onto SS trucks and brought to four assembly camps... Large teams of aides and medical staff were taken there... I just want to state that this action was executed with terrible cruelty and no human consideration. The people were quickly loaded onto the SS trucks. The women came straight from work, in their work clothes, with no coats, no breakfast... It was hard, almost impossible to find out where people were... There was absolute chaos everywhere.