1/1/26 The six years of war living in Germany and Berlin under the Nazis.
The writer's father was forced to work in Berlin at a factory that made brakes and machine guns between spring 1943 and a few days before the war ended. He lived in a flea ridden barracks in Rehbruke, near Potsdam, later in Lichtenberg in East Berlin. Meanwhile his parents hometown of Nijmegen was badly bombed. Allied bombing raids went on day and night and at the end was liberated by General Zhukov's Red Army. By then almost nothing was left of the metropolis he had entered. Unlike the writer's mother Leo was not Jewish. People from France , Belgium and Holland, occupied countries, volunteered to work in Germany but most were forced. Students could sign an oath of loyalty to not form resistance against the Nazi's and this delayed labor in Germany. Leo refused and went into hiding. Some men who volunteered to work in Germany had actually joined the resistance. Many simply conformed. How could a filmmaker, actor journalist make a living and remain decent. WH Auden describe the 1930s as the " low dishonest decade "
1935 Leo Borchard once conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. He declared politically unreliable and so changed his identity helped Jews was part of the resistance and returned to conduct the Philharmonic in 1945.
Passport stamped with a J no longer allowed Jews to emigrate legally. Some took a boat from Italy or a train to Siberia to Shanghai. The Kinder transports started after Kristallnacht Dec1938 to Sept 1939 (with later transports continuing out of the Netherlands until May 1940) The originated from Prague , Berlin, Hamburg and Vienna. They arrived in the port of Harwich, England. Up to 10, 000 children from infants till 17 year old's. In England British Jews and Quakers encouraged this and 80% of the children were Jewish.
Bertolt Brecht a communist left Berlin in 1933. So did Thomas Man who had a Jewish wife. Von Platen was gay like Mann and portrayed as the character in Death in Venice. Toscanini refused to conduct in Germany after 1933. He told Furtwangler that anyone who conducts in the 3rd Reich is a Nazi, Furtwangler was not a Nazi and did his best to protect Jewish musicians in Berlin and Vienne
1939-----------------------------
1938 Jews were no longer allowed to attend public schools in Germany.
To make Polish aggression more plausible Polish attackers were left on the site but they were in fact concentration camp prisoners dressed as Poles. 1939 1st Sept Hitler declared war on Poland.
William Shirer was Berlin correspondent for CBS radio hired by Ed Murrow and there from1937 till 1940 Dec. Records of jazz including Benny Goodman and Louis Armstrong were still widely available and popular. Coca-Cola was available till war was declared on the US. Anti Nazi pastor Martin Niemoller, his Paulus Church still stands in Zehlendorf today. He was arrested in 1938 for resisting Nazi persecution of Jews. He was released in 1945 and lived till 1984. Sachsenhausen Prison was for Jews or political unreliable and had criminals who had special privilege's to terrorize others prisoners.
The UFO Studio produced 1930 The Blue Angle with Marlen Dietrich and 1931 M with Peter Lorre the Jewish actor who left to the US in 1934. Jud Suss the anti-Semitic film was a success but after that people preferred sweet or romantic operettas. They desperately tried to attract Marlene back to Germany as she went to Hollywood. Income tax increased and ration coupons were introduced.
Listening to foreign radio was forbidden even before the war with Poland and the public was warned that foreign radios was a part of the war to demoralize the German public. However there was a demand for earphones to quietly listen. From 1937 Air raid drills were practiced. Windows had to be blacked out and cars headlights and petrol station no longer sold petrol to civilians and on driving licenses were given to cars in the war effort. Public transport was limited and there was a run on bicycle stores. Many car accidents at night due to the darkness. The dark Berlin offered opportunities for prostitutes'. Plenty of wine and champagnes looted from France While German beer was rationed. Half the Jewish population who lived in Berlin in 1933 had left by 1939
Before Kristalnacht there were still 65 Jewish papers and 30 Jewish publishing houses in Germany. Now the Judisches Nachrichenblatt was under Gestapo control. Kosher butchering was banned. A Mischlinge could serve in the army.
The poet Jochen Klepper and his Jewish wife committed suicide in 1942 and in 1992 a stamp was printed of him in Germany.
1940-----------------------------
In the winter the water supply was cut off to apartments to stop pipes bursting and you were only allowed to bath Saturdays and Sundays, and you saw people carrying small amounts of coal that they managed to get hold of. Frozen rivers meant hardly any fish available. Fruit and vegetables were in short supply and potatoes was limited to a kilo a week per person.
Friedrich Schiller's William Tel annoyed Hitler as it glorified a Swiss rebel that killed a tyrant.
Many accepted the lesser evil of the Nazis to defend our country against the Bolsheviks. women were encouraged to become bus conductors since there were no men and to work as nurses. Wunschkonzert 1940 and Die grosse Liebe 1942 starred Friedel Shuster great successful musicals but barely mentioned Hitler. and the Nazi party.
The jazz musician Coco Schuman offered a musical escape route "A person with swing can't march in step" Anglo American jazz number were passing German titles in music sheets sold. Goebbels knew how much German troops liked jazz, the British also knew this and BBC broadcast jazz.
The film studios were like a sheltered haven from Hitler, Heinz Ruhmann , Werner Krauss Ferdinand Marian all had Jewish wives. Max Reinhardt left Berlin for Vienne in 1933 and the went to Hollywood in 1937 and died in 1943.
The Nazi anti-Semitic movie Der ewige Jude was screened in 1940 and was a commercial flop but was used to educate SS troops. Jud Suss was a success even in France also the movie The Rothschilds but the German audience had little appetite for such propaganda so Goebbels went for distraction rather.
For a woman to survive in Berlin it helped to be young, healthy and attractive. There was still hope by Hitler that Britain and France would capitulate. April, German troops invaded Norway to save Scandinavia from British influence. Denmark was a major producer of ham, butter and eggs for the occupation troops and to plunder for the folk.
April 10th , 4 days after Rotterdam was struck by the Luftwaffe obliterating the centre of the city the Dutch capitulated marking the end of the Phony War or Zitzkrieg. Hitler's excuse for going into a neutral country was to counter a similar move by the British.
On July 18th was the last big celebration of victory by German troops that paraded through the Brandenburg Gates. The first time this was when Prussian troops were victorious over France in 1871.
In summer the Luftwaffe attacked airfields and industrial targets, that did not have the desired effect so to break British morale the started killing London civilians. This resulted in a major RAF attack in September 26th. Berliners were stunned as Goering assured them could not happen. So Berlins population now became anxious. The times of cinema opening were brought forward and schools started later. Goering thought this would strengthen German hate of he British. Good-night in Berlin became Bombenlose Nacht. Food was plentiful that summer through the occupation of Denmark and Holland. Germans could live very well on potatoes cabbage and bread. One could not ignore the growing number of death notices in the press.
Musicians in Berlin as well as factory workers were called up to the military. The Nazis hated Niggermusik. Musicians from occupied countries were drafted to entertain Berliners. They played American Jazz but disguised them with German titles. Polish workers were distinguishable by a big P on the coats and were considered inferior peoples and were forbidden to have relationships with the locals. Polish workers and POWs were put to construct large air -raid bunkers. Albert Speer was Hitler's favorite architect.
Children were now evacuated and taken to Nazi education places in the rural areas. Parents were not allowed to visit them to interfere with their education.
1941----------------------------
Hitler had conceived of the idea of the world capital Germania and the first building of it in Berlin had been completed by architect Albert Speer.
Erich Kastner author of Emil and the Detectives works were amongst the burned books of 1933, he was neither a resister or a Nazi. Smoking on public transport was forbidden as was sale of tobacco to women under 25.
How much did people know as letters sent home from the front concealed more than they revealed and letters from home did not want the men to know about the air raids. "Tommy coming over for a visit" Transgression against the ban on foreign radio stations were still wide spread in the Wehrmacht.
Hitler deputy Rudolf Hess took off for Scotland in a 2 seater Messerschmitt to have an audience with King George VI who he thought was surely sympathetic to the German cause. He remained in jail after that. Goebbels put out that he had become insane.
In June there rumor's of invading the USSR and the public talked about following Napoleons failure. We see the anxiety of the German people who were easy to believe anything and that the Russians would welcome them as liberators, and Russia would collapse from within. It was difficult to disguise the toll of the war with death notices in the press of men fallen. Meanwhile in Berlin people were in packed bars and restaurants. The enthusiasm for the Nazi's and the war in Berlin was not as wide as Goebbels claimed.
April, Jews must wear distinctive badges, while factory owners needed Jewish labour. Many Germans who passed people with the star bowed their heads, partly out of shame and to spare Jews of the humiliation.
August. Protest by Graf von Galen: The Roman Catholic Bishop of Münster against the gassing of about 70,000 disable, and mentally ill under the Nazis. This killing was stopped.
Will you commit suicide or allow them to deport you? Joachim Gottschalk a leading film actor had a Jewish wife and son, minutes before the Gestapo arrived he opened the gas in his home and they 3 died.
A German patriot von Moltke was worried about the moral price of the killing as the blood guilt cannot be atoned in our lifetime.. Berlin had a love affair with American culture. Bertolt Brecht or George Grosz were obsessed with the vitality of urban jazz age America which the Nazi's called degenerate Negro and Jewish culture.
Goebbels considered Romeo and Juliet 1936 as fine but it completely escaped him that Leslie Howard was a Jew born Steiner. Segregation in the US was an inspiration the Nazi lawyers.
Charles Lindbergh and Henry Ford were a boon to Nazi propaganda and Goebbels said he had proof that Roosevelt was a Jew.
1942-------------------------------
Letters home from Russia spoke of frostbite and amputated limbs. the press showed Russia bodies littered around but never German bodies. The public were called to donate warm socks books fleeces blankets to keep the troops warm.
In Berlin people were freezing and sometimes alleviated by packages from soldiers in occupied France. Foreign diplomats were supplied with extra rations on Hitlers orders so that they would write favorable reports on Germany. Food taken from occupied countries helped Germany even if the locals starved. If anyone has to go hungry it shall not be the German people.
Jews now had to hand in their dogs, cats that either went to animal welfare or were killed.
Konrad von Kardorff was a successful portrait painter trained by Max Lieberman one of the great German impressionists. Max had died in 1935 but his widow Martha committed suicide just before she was taken to Theresienstadt.
15% of women arrested in Berlin were infected with venereal disease many of them syphilis. Goebbels was worried about the sexual habits of foreign workers.
Winter of 1941 and 1942 British bomber left Berlin but razed Lubeck, Rostock, Cologne , Easen and Bremen.
Germany claimed she was fighting a just war against savage Judeo Bolsheviks. Art in the National gallery showed that Berlin would surpass Vienna as the worlds cultural capital. Stephen Spender who had lived in Berlin in the early 30s called the center meretriciously dazzling, and seemed strained and false. Speer wanted German movies to emulate and surpass the glamor of Hollywood. The Great Berlin art exhibition of 1942 was so mediocre that even Goebbels found it a bore.
Rote Kapella or Red Orchestra consisted of about 500 men and women who helped Jewish fugitives and spread anti Nazi pamphlet. Another resister was Herber Baum a Jew an activist in the Young Communist League, 25 members of this group were arrested plus 29 others plus another 150 Jews picked up and random and executed. Hitler demanded that the remaining Berlin Jews be deported. It took longer to round up the Rote Kapella who kept up printing pamphlets.
Wilhelm Furtwanger was asked to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic to celebrate Hitlers birthday. High culture and popular entertainment was still thriving in Paris. Jean Paul Satre published books. Edith Piaf sang her chansons. Django Reinhardt 1910 to 1953 who was of Romani descent continued to play his guitar. As long as there were no Jews critical of the German they used this to seduce the French who considered it an act of defiance.
1942, 16 transports of 1000 Jews each left Berlin for the killing fields in Poland under Governor Hans Frank.
Runkfunkverbrecher (radio criminals) It is not known how many Berliners listened to the forbidden enemy. Many understood that anyone fighting for Hitler is working for Germany's ruin. There were over 3 million foreign workers in Germany. Many were French POWs Men and women from Poland, Ukraine Russia and other parts of the Soviet Union called Ostarbeiters.
The triumphalism of the earlier years was fading and endurance and perseverance were demanded. For Christmas stores were told to stay open longer to avoid queues.
1943 -----------------------------
Total war was more an act of desperation than a triumph even though Goering proclaimed in a New year speech it would a year of victory but no success without sacrifice. Bombs were falling and so the authorities had no chance time to go knocking on doors to round up Jews. "Christmas trees" would fall these were by the pathfinders to illuminate a place to bomb. Bombs alone never broke morale.
Jan. German 6th Army with Paulus surrendered in Stalingrad. German public were warned that the Russians would thirst for revenge against the Germans. Teenages were taken out of school to man anti-aircraft batteries. Albert Speer agreed to release the Jewish workers from armament factories to deport them as Hitler wanted a Jew free Berlin. Some Jewish workers were warned by colleagues to get away. Many started committing suicide.
1943 March Roughly 1,700 to 2,000 Jewish men in "mixed marriages" with non-Jewish ("Aryan") women, who were detained. This Rosenstraße Protest resulted in Goebbels releasing the husbands and children.as it was bad for the morale on the home front. More than 6000 mischlings survived as a result. In 2003 this legend was used in the movie Rosenstrasse.
Now the worry was the barbaric Russians and what they would do to the Germans. The annual commemoration of the fallen hero worship call Heldengedenktag felt more like a funeral with Hitler looking subdued and older than his 54 years. Schools were closed so that teenager could man the anti-aircraft batteries. Women up to 40years old were mobilized to work in factories. Bars beauty parlors and luxurious restaurants were closed.
The miraculous heroism of Baron Munchausen travel gave its name to a mental disorder in which people have fake symptoms of imaginary illness. This became an expensive lavish movie as a war distraction to show Nazi Germany could outdo Hollywood. The script was written by Erich Kastner and that made it successful even though he had written Anti Nazi fiction and was banned and so Kastner had to choose a pseudonym. He however put in subtle images that were not detected. When Hitler was told who wrote it he ordered that Kastner must no write another line.
People who gave shelter to Jews were now worried that dead bodies of Jews could be found in bombed out apartments. A bounty was paid of 300 Reichsmarks to give away a Jew.
Nearly 2 and a half million non Jewish foreign worker died of starvation in German in the last 3 years of the war.
Ostarbeider with a distinctive O on their coats were kept as slave workers. When many of these died of starvation the death certificate said heart failure. Dutch Belgians , French and Italian could walk around town in their own clothes and visit cafes. With the prospect of defeat people did not like the presents of so many foreigners.
The writer father Leo Baruma worked in a factory that made brakes for trains and a light machine gun. Because he also spoke French and German could act a a translator for workers. He was able to go to the Berlin Philharmonic, soccer matches and movies. In the end Leo married a Jewish women 7 years later, his mother.
Hamburg was bombed into a firestorm that obliterated 60% of all houses and depleted the oxygen so that many died. Goebbels now in a panic ordered the evacuation of all children from Berlin. However freight trains with terrorized Jews were still leaving Berlin.
1943, Sept Langbehn traveled to Switzerland and met with Allen Dulles (the precursor to the CIA) to feel out Allied terms for ending the war. He had sounded out Himmler after 1944 Wolfs Lair assassination' failed Himmler quickly had him hung.
Oct. Bomber Harris decided to obliterate Berlin. The 19C Romanesque Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church was a burning torch. The Berlin Zoo many animals died or escaped.
Hotel Eden where young Billy Wilder once worked as a paid dancer for lonely women was now a ruin, but there were still queues outside of cinemas.
People were no longer wanted to celebrate Christmas under the conditions. The authors father never liked bangs and firework celebration as a result of these times.
1944 -------------------------
People were being buried alive by bombings and there were badly burned bodies, air mines were bursting peoples lungs. Unter der Linden was badly bombed.. One could easily drown in the underground shelter where water pipes burst and flooded. American Flying Fortresses bombed by day and RAF Lancaster by night. Unlucky people in prison cells died in the raids. More than 400 thousand Hungarian Jews were being sent to Auschwitz.
Most diarist remark how little anger was expressed against the Allied bombers. Though making their lives miserable Brits were Germanic peoples.
The public had heard from soldiers of the German atrocities against Ukraine , Lithuania, Poland and other places and killing Jews. The Nazi's now had enemies on both sides. Soon it will be our turn.
Sign were put up for Hitler's birthday "Belief in the Fuhrer is belief in victory"
June 6th the Germans knew of the Normandy landings. "Defeatism" became a capital crime. "Children enjoy the war for peace will be terrible" Soviet vengeance was coming.
Actors to avoid being conscripted wanted the filming a a movie to last a long time, however many were no longer alive at the end of the war.
There were several attempt on Hitler's life 3 times in 1943 and 2 in 1944. Then
1944 July 20, (Operation Valkyrie / Wolf's Lair): Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg planted a briefcase containing plastic explosives under a conference table. Hitler claimed that world Jewry had plotted. .2 Fieldmarshals and 19 Generals as well as a total of 5000 other suspects were executed. There was a show trial to humiliate the suspects.
1944 , Sept Volkssturm Males between 16 to 60 who were not in the regular army, to protect Belin. Later women ad girls were recruited. They wore black partly uniforms and own clothes as well as an armband over 175,000 were killed.
1945----------------------
Again Actors with Heinze Ruhman 1902 -1994 jumped on the chance to make a movie and avoid having to fight. Hitler's birthday was no longer an occasion for flag waving rallies, nobody now hung out Nazi flags and the Russian armillary could be heard. The punishment became harsher to keep the population in line. The Grab Detachment of SS men and military police in search of defeatist and deserters. These were called Keterhunde as the were hung chained by their necks to lampposts. People could not look up and the many lampposts in berlin.
The Peoples Court was bombed with the hanging judge Roland Friesler underneath he died in a direct hit from a US plane. People were crowding onto trains without windows to move westwards.
Wilhelm Furtwanger waited out the Third Reich in a nursing home in Switzerland.
Coming from Pomerania, Silesia and East Prussia , even old ladies and young children weren't spared by drunken Red Soldiers. 2 million people remained in Berlin when half a million Soviet troops with 6000 tanks began to attack. With the end near Nazis were keen to do a good deed even SS officers letting Jews or political prisoner go for a bribe.
Civilians were still scared to hang a while cloth outside. The one prison commander refused to carry out the execution on prisoners for his own survival. 2 hours later they were free.
The civilian population were all in bunker as was Hitler and the Radio broadcast that Hitler was in Berlin and by miracle would save the country! Ha Ha. There were still SS men partying with their girlfriends in special underground shelter.
At the Lazarett military hospital Nurses put a red cross on a white sheet with lipstick hoping Soviet soldiers would leave them alone, it did not. There were so many suicides many who shot themselves or cut their wrists were Nazi officials. People were shoving through tunnels, and anyone who fell was trampled to death. Burst pipes caused the U-Bahn to floods with rats trying to escape the filthy water. While Berlin was a sea of flames. Whenever a horse was hit by gunfire citizens rushed out of shelters to cut warm flesh off and consume in the bunkers.
The Russians faced 40,000 Wehrmacht and about 40,000 Volksturm helped by Hitler Youths (called "caseroles" a mixture of old meat and green vegetables.) Armed with only Panzerfausts anti tank hand held weapon. Women and Girls were also forced to fight. In Berlin more than 100,000 civilians died in less than a month. Propaganda stories still promised miracles and that General Walther Wenck was coming to rescue Berlin. Wench knew that this was doomed and instead he opened a corridor over the Elba saving up to 250,000 soldiers and civilians to surrender to the Americans.
Berlin even saw camels trudging in streets perhaps they were brought from Turkestan. The Russians often did not have proper boots to wear.
Georgy Zhukov told his men to remember their families who had been torture and to take brutal revenge. Jewish officers tended to be kinder to German civilians. The first thing that the Russian soldiers said was Uhr (watch) which they never had in remote parts of the Soviets. They were also sent to look for guns, which could mean hiding Nazi's. The ability to speak Russian often made a difference between life and death.
Rape is a thing done by most conquering armies but the violence against German women was extraordinary. Hospital estimated 100,000 Berlin women were raped and about 10,000 died often killing themselves in shame. Thus part of German propaganda had been based on the truth. One women by allowing the rapist to be her fiancé secured his protection from further violence.
First Surrender (May 7, 1945): General Alfred Jodl signed the initial unconditional surrender document in Reims, France
Second Surrender Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel signed May8 VE day a second surrender. Later at the Nuremburg Trials he was sentence to death and executed.
After the war life was tougher for German civilians so it was said. There were longlines of women paid to clear the rubble, in a landscape of total destruction
Aftermath ------------------------------
Children enjoy the war, peace will be terrible. Soviet occupiers were better at rebuilding cultural and education institutions along communist lines. Unlike Herbert von Karajan Furtwangler was never a Nazi Party member. Unlike Karl Bohm, director of the Vienna State Opera he didn't glorify the Nazis and protected several Jews from persecution. Furtwangler became principal conductor of The Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Of 160,000 Jews in Berlin in 1933 only 1500 were left after the war.
Christmas Day 1989 , Leonard Bernstein conducted Beethoven's 9th by changing "Ode to Joy" to "Ode to Freedom"
We see Stolperstein of stumbling stones bearing names of deported Jews outside the building where they lived.
The city is a monument not only to man's blackest depravity but to its capacity to be reborn and live again.
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