VOLUME 9NO.7JULY2009 QallJ journal mijlljjjjjfl ^m^l Association of Jewish Refugees Berlin - the eye of the storm ermany in the first months of 1945, of whom some 200,000 were 1945 experienced a firestorm Jews, between 200,000 and 350,000 Gof violence of almost unpara­ died. Nothing characterises the wanton lleled dimensions. Between January savagery inherent in the Nazi system 1945 and the end of the war in May more clearly than the way it attempted, 1945, it became the arena for destruc­ almost as a kind of automatic reflex, tion and killing on a vast scale, both on to continue the genocide of the Jews land and from the air. Hitler's war had by makeshift means at a stage when come home to Germany in full measure, Nazism itself was collapsing. and its final battles were fought out in The Nazi leadership, obsessed with the heartland ofthe Reich, including its avoiding another November 1918 and capital, Berlin. the humifiation of surrender, had no In the months after the Red Army strategy to offer than that of fighting launched its massive offensive of 12 on, against hopeless odds and in an January 1945, only halting when it took utterly desperate situation. The regime Berlin, the German army suffered its now had to make Germans, civilians greatest losses of the war. In January and soldiers, support a lost war and 1945, the number of German fighting conduct a pointless resistance against a men killed was over 450,000, far more superior foe, at enormous cost in human than the 185,000 soldiers who died in suffering and material destruction. January 1943, when Stalingrad fell. As This compelled the authorities to Professor Richard Bessel has pointed Red Army captures Berlin employ increasingly ruthless measures out in his recently published study, against their own citizens: ordinary Germany 1945: From War to Peace, this Pforzheim and Wurzburg suffering Germans not hostile to Hitler were was considerably more than the losses devastating damage. Civilian casualties now exposed to the Nazi terror, as any suffered by Britain or the USA during were enormous and Germany's entire signs of unwillingness to prosecute the entire war. infrastructure - transp.ort, communica­ the war to the bitterest of ends were The killing was on a staggering tions, fuel, gas, electricity, water, food punished drastically, often by summary scale: in the following three months, supply - broke down. Huge numbers execution. It was a strategy almost February to April 1945, the monthly of civilian casualties also occurred in designed to maximise casualties, toll of German military casualties never the East, as several million Germans military and civilian. fell below 280,000. Though Germany fled before the advancing Red Army. The maelstrom of violence visited had no hope of winning the war, These disorganised treks in freezing upon Nazi Germany in 1945 must be Hitler's strategy of resistance to the weather cost hundreds of thousands seen in the context of the greater bitter end led to a grinding campaign of lives. CiviHans suffered terribly as violence inflicted by Nazi Germany on of destruction, in which stubborn the Red Army fought its way into one the peoples of Europe and on those German resistance was engulfed by German city after another, especially like the Jews whom it designated as its the Allies' overwhelming superiority. those like Breslau and Konigsberg, foes. The violence was the logical end The cost was terrible: the Red Army in which the German military leadership product of Nazi poUcies and German particular, always prodigal with human had designated as 'city fortresses' and wartime practices. So this article is lives, suffered enormous losses in its forbidden to surrender. intended to convey the dimensions of advance into Germany, losses for which The chaos that engulfed the Reich the killing that occurred on German its soldiers duly sought vengeance. in its dying months did not spare the soil in the war's final months, not as The RAF and the USAF intensified Jews, even though the gas chambers a plea for sympathy for Germans. It their onslaught on Germany's cities in the extermination camps had ceased is, admittedly, true that the innocent from the air, dropping almost 50 per to operate by 1945. As the camp system suffered with the guilty: Richard Bessel cent more tons of bombs on Germany broke down, Jews died in thousands cites a seven-year-old boy who saw his in the first three months of 1945 than on senseless death marches or from grandmother burnt alive in the bombing they had in the whole of 1943. The hunger, disease and maltreatment in of Magdeburg and a girl of 13 who was air raid that destroyed Dresden on the appalling conditions prevailing in gang-raped by Russians. But when the 25 February 1945 was replicated all camps like Belsen and Dachau. Of the girl cried out for her mother, a Russian over Germany, with smaller towns like 700,000 people in camps in January I continued overleaf AJRJOURNALJULY 2009 became a bestseller. BERLIN - the eye of the storm The book presents a graphic, factual Kindertransport Reunion continued from page I account of the author's experiences, and the very objectivity with which it founder Bertha Leverton soldier, not untypically, let her go is written gives it a searing honesty to emigrate to Israel - how many German soldiers showed and a gripping sincerity. With many of the same flicker of humanity to young their men captured, dead or fighting Jewish girls as they despatched them to elsewhere, Berlin's womenfolk faced mass graves or gas chambers? the Soviet advance virtually undefended. A memorable account of civilian The anonymous author does not shrink life and suffering in those apocalyptic from describing her own experiences, months has enjoyed a remarkable which after the first few days led her second lease oflife in recent years. Eine to adopt the expedient of finding a Frau in Berlin (A Woman in Berlin), senior Russian officer as a 'protector', republished by Eichborn Verlag in to save her from the random attentions 2003, is the diary of an anonymous of marauding troops. She does not German woman written in the weeks indulge in self-pity or parade her between 20 April and 22 June 1945 victimhood. On the contrary: aware and describes the daily realities of the of German responsibility for the war dying spasms of the Third Reich, the and its atrocities, the author told Kurt end of the war and the entry of the Marek, who wrote the afterword to the Bertha Leverton thanks KT members for their good wishes Red Army into Berlin. It was filmed in 1954 edition, that 'none of the victims 2008. (Perhaps regrettably, the author's can wear their sufferings like a crown ertha Leverton, founder and identity has been revealed: she was an of thorns. I for one had the feeling that organiser of the Reunion of otherwise unknown journalist, Marta what happened to me was a balancing BKindertransport, is to emigrate Hillers, who died in 2001.) of accounts'. In this respect, her book to Israel to live with her family there. The book was originally published evokes a contrasting reaction to The At a crowded and deeply moving in America in 1954 and was translated Reader, which depicted the 'narcissistic farewell party at the AJR Centre in Cleve self-absorption' typical of post-war into several languages. But the German Road, members paid tribute to Bertha's Germany's attempt to come to terms version appeared only in 1959, and contribution to the Kindertransport with its Nazi past (see my article in the in West Germany the book failed to movement - which would not have achieve the status it deserved. This was April issue). existed without her efforts. hardly surprising, given the reluctance The author of Eine Frau in Berlin Over 20 years ago, against all odds, of Germans to confront the catastrophic makes plain how defeat and collapse Bertha took it upon herself to bring defeat they had endured only a decade undermined the subordination of women about an international gathering of earlier, the reduction of their proud to men in the militarised, male- those who, like herself, had fled to capital to rubble, and their humiliation dominated society decreed by National at the hands of Soviet soldiers whom Socialist ideology. The impotence of Britain from Nazi persecution, in they had been taught to regard as German men in face of the Red Army's many cases never seeing their parents racial inferiors during the Nazi period. appropriation of their womenfolk again. Coupled with feelings of guilt about leaves her openly scornful of their The enormous success of the 1988 the Nazi past, this made Germans shy traditional notions of masculinity. First Reunion was followed ten years away from their memories of the war The unwillingness of men like her later by a Second Reunion, and, last and its end. It was left to a book by a partner to acknowledge her new-found November, by a Third Reunion, when British author, Antony Beevor's Berlin: sense of freedom and independence, almost 600 people, including guests The Downfall, 1945 (2002), to provide common to women who have had from Israel, the USA, Germany and a full-scale study ofthe German capital to take responsibility for their own elsewhere, were present. On the latter in 1945. lives, disappoints her bitterly. His occasion, undoubtedly the highlight Among those suppressed memories, emotional inability to come to terms of the day for many Kinder was the none was more sensitive than the treat­ with her experiences at the hands of attendance as guest of honour of HRH ment of German women by the victorious the Russians effectively wrecks their The Prince of Wales.