Krosigk’s speech was an outrageous distortion of history which made no mention of the Nazi terror apparatus. Whilst the Soviet administration was unquestionably harsh, there were no ghettoes, no gas chambers. Germans living in the Soviet zone of occupation were not to be killed en masse, but converted to the cause. Whilst the German armed forces formally surrendered to the Allies on 8 May at Karlshorst (Berlin), the Doenitz administration continued to enact a sham form of government until it was wound up by the British authorities on 23 May.
Meanwhile, in Berlin the issues facing the conquerors were very real. Before the political indoctrination of the defeated population could begin, the shattered city had to begin functioning again. The infrastructure of the once great city of Berlin had collapsed. Streets were choked with debris, trains and trams no longer functioned, power plants, pumping stations and gas works were largely destroyed. However, the most pressing problem was food. Stalin made a political decision to feed the German population.
With Nazi Germany defeated, the differences between the incompatible political systems which made up the Grand Alliance became more marked. During this early stage of the Cold War, Stalin prioritised the needs of Germans above his own citizens. In his memoirs, Zhukov recalled the implementation of Stalin’s policy:
The population of Berlin had to be saved from starvation. The supply of foodstuffs, which had been stopped before the Soviet troops entered Berlin had to be organised. It turned out that large groups of the population had received no food for several weeks. The Soviet troops stationed in Berlin began to extinguish the fires, organise the removal and burial of corpses, and de-mine whole areas. The Soviet command, however, could not solve all these problems without involving masses of the local population in active work.
With few men left, the workforce available to the Soviet administration consisted mainly of women. Soon, the ‘Rubble Women’ became a feature around Berlin’s shattered streets. Work meant food, and in the ruined capital there was certainly no shortage of clearance work.
It was left to General Berzarin (Military Commander of Berlin) to put Stalin’s plans into practice. He soon became a well liked and respected figure in Berlin as he mingled with German civilians queuing at field kitchens. His tenure was however short-lived, as after only fifty-five days in office, he was tragically killed in an accident. Rumours spread that he had been murdered by the NKVD, or even by Nazi Werewolf fanatics (Bezarin was killed in a tragic road traffic accident). During his short time in office, this energetic officer achieved minor miracles by establishing order, reintroducing essential services and feeding the population. The long process of winning over the German population had begun.
The catastrophic defeat of Hitler’s Germany was greeted with mixed feelings by ordinary Berliners. By July 1945, the city was full of American, British, French and Soviet troops. The famed wit of Berliners largely focused on lampooning the occupiers. A popular joke of the time concerned the old Berliner who was asked which nationality he liked most. After ruminating for a while, the man replied – ‘The Siamese’. When it was pointed out to him that there were no Siamese occupying forces in Berlin, he put his head to one side and said – ‘Ah, so? Why come to think of it, there aren’t’. Whilst you won’t need treatment for cracked ribs after laughing too much at this joke, it does nonetheless serve to demonstrate how humour was used by many as a coping strategy.
Richard Brett-Smith, a young officer serving with the 11th Hussars in Berlin (July 1945 – March 1946) was a keen observer and chronicler of Berlin life. His observations go some way towards explaining the attitude of the average Berlin citizen towards defeat and occupation:
In Berlin I found most people more resilient than in other German cities, and certainly as quick-witted, sharp, and cheerful as the London Cockney. Perhaps Berlin is the one place in Germany where a sense of humour near to that of the English is often found. It was amazing that in 1945 a people in such straits could laugh at all, and miraculous that they should laugh at and make jokes about their own troubles and afflictions, such as the Russians, the Black Market, the Red Caps (British Military Police) or ‘Snowballs’ (American Military Police) and food rationing… To me, it was the Berliners’ sense of humour and individuality which most distinguished him from other Prussians. So often it depends upon a lampooning of authority with that wry cynicism about one’s own plight
The wry wit which Brett-Smith observed was both an acknowledgement by Berliners of their own much reduced circumstances and their resilience in the face of adversity. They had survived the bombing and the coming of the Soviet armies. Through their humour, toughness and adaptability, they would survive the occupation too.
Hitler once said, ‘Give me ten years and you won’t recognise this country’. In the event, Hitler’s dictatorship lasted twelve years, by which time the country was indeed unrecognisable. The great cities of Germany lay in ruins. Factories were either destroyed or lay idle due to acute shortages of fuel and raw materials. Public utilities had ceased to function. Life revolved around securing the basic necessities of food, shelter and warmth. People lived a troglodyte existence in the cellars of bombed and burnt-out buildings. As they scurried around the ruins like ants, thick dust clung to their clothes and faces, giving them a ghostly appearance. The celebrated war correspondent Alan Moorhead described life in these shattered German cities as ‘sordid, aimless, leading nowhere’.
During the first eight months of the Allied occupation, there was hunger amongst the population, but no famine. There were incidents of diseases such as typhoid fever, typhus and diphtheria, but not on an endemic scale. Statistics compiled by the British authorities provided valuable information regarding disease, suicide, crime and employment rates. However, first hand observations of the reality of life in post-war Berlin were more valuable still. Brett-Smith’s recollections say far more than bare statistics ever can. In his memoir, one particular passage vividly encapsulates the daily struggle faced by ordinary Berliners:
I see in my mind an old woman grubbing among the swill-tubs near a soldiers’ mess, until warned off, for this food is for the pigs; a vamp collapsing in a night-club from drinking two glasses of wine on a stomach that had been empty for two days from necessity, not from folly: a free fight among half a dozen citizens, men and women of varying age and children too, which started after four potatoes had rolled off a cornering British Army three-cornered. Two old men, fag end collectors, knocking heads as they both dive for a cigarette stump thrown from a passing Jeep. Corpses of refugees in cattle trucks at the Lehrter Station – had they died from starvation or from cold? These instances could be multiplied.
The hunger experienced by the population led in some extreme circumstances to serious crime, including murder. Between May and December 1945, between fifty and sixty murders were committed in Berlin every month. Most of the murders had robbery as their prime motive. Indeed, there had been a spate of armed robberies on the S-Bahn system by multinational gangs. The arming of the German police in early 1946 led to a substantial reduction in the murder rate, though not in other serious crimes. Organised and opportunistic vehicle theft remained a serious issue for the occupying authorities as Brett-Smith recalled:
It was courting disaster to leave a Jeep parked in the street without having immobilised it. Sometimes even that precaution did not prevent thieves from towing it away or removing all four tyres and the spare, and there were even some who, having padlocked their steering-wheel with a grim satisfaction an hour or so earlier, laughed on the other side of their faces when they returned to find steering-column and padlock arranged on the kerb, but no sign of a car.