Letters From Berlin: A Story of War, Survival, and the Redeeming Power of Love and Friendship

by Kerstin Lieff

  The farm was just south of Hamburg, and here I learned everything about farming. I was outdoors all day long, and how I loved getting my hands dirty! The farmer’s wife showed me how to plant kohlrabi, cabbages, potatoes, and carrots, and how to heave hay with a pitchfork. I’d get so hungry that I’d pull carrots right out of the ground, wipe the mud on my pants, and eat them just like that, dirt and all.

  I learned, too, how to weed the garden and how to milk cows and goats, how to make butter from the cream and leave the buttermilk for drinking. I also participated in the butchering. I learned what parts of the cow are cut first and how a butchered cow is drained of its blood. I was taught how to make blood soup and blood sausage, the soup being thick and dark, the sausage having something added to “fill it out,” like barley, as the farmer explained to me. I wrote notes in a cookbook from this time on the farm, and for many, many years, my favorite recipes were those I learned from this farmer and his wife.

  The farm just south of Hamburg. “I was outdoors all day long, and how I loved getting my hands dirty!”

  There were several girls on the farm with me, also fulfilling their Arbeitsdienst obligations. Three of us became quite good friends, as we all shared the same space, with our bunks pushed up against three sides of the room. It was a blissful life. Early to wake, hard work, early to sleep. Good air and, most of all, good food. Lieselotte was one girl’s name. The other was Anneliese. They had similar names, and they even looked alike. Both had dark blonde hair that they wore cut short and turned under, as was the fashion. Both had straight teeth that showed often, as they both liked to smile. Lieselotte was from Köln and Anneliese was from the north, Schleswig-Holstein.

  One evening my two friends and I shared a bottle of wine. It was a Saturday night, and we sat in our room and talked Quatsch. Silly things. We laughed and got tipsy and were just happy to be together. One of us—I can’t recall whether it was Lieselotte or me—told a joke.

  “Adolf Hitler, Josef Goebbels, and Martin Bormann were all in a boat” is how it started. We felt safe joking about our leaders, because we were among friends. “The boat tipped over. Who was saved?”

  We looked at one another.

  “Who? What’s the answer?”

  “The German people!”

  Oh, we had a good laugh.

  And we laughed and talked until early in the morning, and then went to bed still giggling.

  The next morning, Anneliese came to both of us and said she couldn’t sleep all night. “I’m so upset over all the things I heard you say last night,” she said. She was frowning and knitting her fingers together. “I’m afraid I have to turn you in.” She stood with her back straight and her eyes on us. “I have to do this. It’s the law, you know.”

  Lieselotte and I simply stared, open-mouthed. “Anneliese! Do you know what you’re saying?”

  “Yes, of course I do.”

  “But do you really know? We’ll be sent away to a prison camp. Don’t you know that? We could even be put to death!”

  We were both stunned. My mind told me to run, immediately, out into the countryside somewhere. I imagined hiding inside chicken coops, running from farm to farm during the nights until I could return to Berlin somehow. But then what? They would come find me there, too. But I would have to run, all the same.

  We pleaded with her, and she cried, and then we cried. And finally she just left the room. She never did turn us in, but we didn’t speak again, either. The lesson I learned from that night was that no one could be trusted, ever.

  IV.

  One night, when I had been on the farm only a short time, I heard planes flying overhead. I ran outside to see. There, above my head, was an entire sky full of planes flying toward us from the north. It could have been five hundred or more. I had no idea what was about to happen. The war had seemed so far away from us out here in the country.

  Lieselotte and Anneliese. “We felt safe joking about our leaders because we were among friends.”

  The planes flew by and then out of sight, but I knew this was going to be a terrible night. I kept looking to the north, and suddenly it became brilliantly red. In the distance, I heard explosions. The sky became redder, and there were huge billows of smoke. They must be bombing Hamburg, I thought. It was the only possibility. Hamburg was only twenty kilometers away.

  The skies continued to be red, and walls of bombers kept coming from the north, for days. We were all so frightened, but no news came our way. We only surmised that it was Hamburg being bombed, but we had no idea how bad it was until trainloads upon trainloads of refugees began to arrive at the station in our village. All were running from Hamburg, which was still burning. It was women, mostly, with horror all over their faces. Women who had lost their children. Children who had lost their parents. We came to learn that nine thousand tons of bombs had been dropped on Hamburg in the period of about a week.17

  Some of these refugees stayed with us on the farm for a while. Many of them simply stared into the air ahead of them and never spoke. A few did talk, but with dazed looks on their faces. They talked of melted asphalt, people stuck in the asphalt, not able to move. Winds pulling people up into the inferno. People running with their clothes on fire. People jumping into the Alster River. The river catching fire!

  In the larger cities, the British had been dropping leaflets saying the war was a lost cause, that they were prepared to rescue us from our oppression, and some of us wanted to believe that. I was frightened. I was young; I wanted my life to move forward, to learn and study and, one day, have a family. And yet, there was the war.

  We heard reports of bombs falling in Berlin, day and night, and I worried about Mutti. All alone on most days. Karl Spaeth was away much of the time now. No son or daughter there at home with her. How was she holding out? I asked permission for a morning off one day and rode my bicycle down the country road to the train station to make a phone call. I felt a need to talk to her.

  The station was filled with trainloads of soldiers and more trains full of civilians leaving their destroyed cities. I took the few Pfennige I had in my purse and went to the public telephone to make the call to Berlin.

  “Mutti! Ja, hallo! It’s me. Margarete. I can’t speak long, I haven’t enough Münzen, but please listen to me …” Mutti was saying something, but I heard very little. “Ja, Mutti.” I needed to speak quickly, my money wouldn’t hold out long, so all the things I would have said in a letter—things like “I’m enjoying myself tremendously” and “Yes, I’m healthy and eating well, and yes, the farmer and his wife are treating me very well”—these conversations didn’t take place. All I said was “Mutti. Come here to the countryside. You’ll be much safer here than there in Berlin.”

  I heard only what sounded like a sigh. Perhaps a cough, nothing more, and then, “No, no, Grete. No. I’ll be fine here …” Her voice seemed so far away.

  “Mutti, do you understand how dangerous it has become? I mean, I hear it from the soldiers and the refugees coming from the west, from Hamburg and from Köln, that we’ll be bombed much, much more. And that Berlin is to be decimated. I’ve heard this!”

  Mutti seemed not to believe me, or perhaps she was simply too scared. She said very little. I tried then to convince her. I saw what had become of Hamburg. Would Berlin be spared? She needed to leave.

  “Mutti. I beg you to listen. Yesterday I saw a British propaganda leaflet. I saw it with my own eyes. A refugee had it with her and she showed it to me.” And in a final moment of desperation, I exaggerated what little I knew: “Mutti. They say they are going to bomb Berlin to pieces. That’s what they’ve said.” And then, “Mutti, it will be our street next, they said so, they said the Windscheidstrasse—”

  I heard a click. Mutti was no longer on the other end. Only the silence of a dead telephone.

  So it was true. Even the phones in the public places, at the train station, were tapped. I quickly looked around me to
see if there was an SS man standing somewhere off in the distance, smoking a cigarette, pretending not to notice me. I didn’t see anyone, but I took off on my bicycle, quickly, and I took a route in the opposite direction of our farm in order not to draw suspicion on Herr and Frau Federmann, the farmers who were so kindly taking care of me. Their name sticks with me because it means “Featherman,” and as kind as I imagined a “feather man” to be is exactly how they treated me. It took all day to return home, and I was hungry. What had I accomplished? I was still frightened for Mutti, but I didn’t know what to do.

  V.

  Papa Spaeth received a letter on the nineteenth of August, 1943. Dieter was concerned for all of us. He knew that Berlin had been bombed, and he had received my letter describing the burning of Hamburg. Still, he wished “Mutti would not worry so.”

  Dear Father,

  Thank you for your letter: wireless radio is of course a better invention than the loudspeaker or, in fact, anything else. Today I passed the first listening class and can now type at a tempo of 50 (words per minute). I’ve even begun my duties working the radio. In any case, it’s quite fun to be able to type on this machine and even more fun when the connection actually happens and I’m in a real conversation with the other party.

  The higher level of horse riding does, on the other hand, bring its downside, like stall duties. And another distasteful side job is that of cutting hay. And, so often, we have roll call and no one answers because of all the incorrect names that are listed! But be at ease: I have, as of yet, not been punished.

  And, about my comrades, and my superiors, I have nothing to complain. Even if we’re sometimes handled in a rather “rough” manner, I have to admit, it’s only for the good. It usually works anyway, as in most cases they don’t really need to use the technique of “giving him hell” or “giving him a slap.” Often I think of swearwords to say, but then I stop myself. You must always keep in mind the spirit of the men, and why we’re here. That way you create your own form of discipline.

  Does Mutti really want to leave Berlin? Grete’s first impression of Hamburg really did her in! I read all about it in her letter. But I’m sure Mutti will know what’s best and make the right choice as to whether she should leave Berlin or not.

  I wish you good health and recovery during your time off and I hope you return refreshed. I especially wish that Mutti would not worry so.

  Best wishes,

  Your Dieter

  From what she shared of this letter, Mutti must have been considering coming to be with me in the countryside after all, although she never said anything to me. Perhaps it was her way of saying, Don’t worry so much. Time, after all, was too short, and the time it took to make a decision already meant new problems had occurred.

  But Dieter was proud, and she was proud to tell me about it. He had been trained in Morse code, something he talked about to his Papa. And his position now, at the fronts, would be to report.

  10

  YOU’LL STUDY MEDICINE

  I.

  The Arbeitsdienst was done and it was 1943. I still hoped to compete as an athlete one day. But wars don’t need athletes, and this one was no exception. What this war needed was medical staff. Hospitals were desperately short of medics and nurses, and doctors were greatly needed for the front. With most of the men being drafted to fight, there was a huge vacuum of able personnel in that field. My heart wanted to study sports, and the sports schools still did have openings. But it was wartime. I told myself, There will be a time after war, and won’t I be able to compete then? Or at least teach then? But when would “then” be? Three years? Five? Twenty?

  Mutti decided for me. It would be medicine.

  “It’s what’s best for you. You’ll likely be married soon anyway, and if you were to become an athlete, even if you were a good one, which you aren’t, or if you could get a position as a teacher, which you won’t—those positions hold no rank. No status. So? You’ll study medicine. End of discussion.”

  I wanted to ask, What have you ever made of yourself, you who have no more than horse ribbons to show for yourself, and silk dresses? You should know, Mutti, it’s a new era, and I can think for myself.

  Then I applied to medical school.

  Jena, 1944.

  II.

  I was to begin my studies in September, and it would be in the lovely, lovely town of Jena, where Goethe and Schiller lived and wrote and taught at the very university I was to attend. Its architecture dates back to the early years of the Renaissance.

  When I arrived in Jena, by train, the weather was still warm. I registered for classes as soon as I arrived. There was Anatomy and Chemistry, which I loved; Physics, which I hated; and Stenography, because my Mutti said I needed something to fall back on if I were to fail. But I was a student! I was about to study what would become my life’s work, and for the first time in my life, I was on my own. Free to dress as I wanted, open coat or not, free to decide where I would go, with whom, and when, and free of my stepfather, Karl.

  Jena did for me what Berlin had done when I first arrived there: it took me into its arms. Jena was a relatively small city, everything was within walking or S-Bahn distance, and in the center of town was the old city square.

  Jena’s Rathaus, the town hall that dominated one end of the square, was built in the late 1300s, in medieval times, strong and dramatic. There was an astronomical clock in its tower—something all the Rathäuser of that era had—and every hour a little door opened and a comical little man we called Schnapphans appeared, dangling a golden ball in front of him. This ball was supposed to represent the soul of man, and Schnapphans’s antics during his show were to try to catch the ball, something he never succeeded in doing, until he just disappeared behind his door again, only to reappear and try, once again, to catch the soul an hour later.

  I stood there that first day, filled with awe at the thought that these were the same antics that Schiller and Goethe might have watched as they stood in this square, this same little man attempting to do what no man could ever do. Was this where Goethe imagined Faust? I wondered.

  Opposite the Rathaus was an old apothecary where I often shopped. It was a quaint store filled with shelves upon shelves of brown bottles organized in neat rows, holding homeopathic remedies for rheumatism, circulatory problems, headaches, and other, unnamable things. The proprietors looked to be nearly as old as the shop itself. Both had brilliant white hair and strong white teeth, and both wore white lab coats, as was the custom.

  In the center of the square was the statue of our school’s founder, Johann Friedrich I. Long ago the students had shortened his name, and we referred to him only as Hanfried.

  My living quarters were with a widow named Hanna, whose son was at the front, fighting in Africa. She was lonely and needed the extra money, so she gladly rented rooms to students for a few Marks each month, and she took me in as if I were her daughter.

  The university was beautiful in a lazy sort of way, with a large courtyard in the middle, and the street alongside it was tree-lined and shady. The rooms were large and imposing, the way university rooms ought to be.

  It wasn’t difficult to make friends in Jena. The town was small enough, and most of the population was made up of students or those otherwise associated with the university. Within a week I had made five good friends, all of them medical students: Heidi, Anne-Marie, Klaus, Helmut, and Franz. All of us seemed to have the same professors, the same lectures, and the same attitudes. We were here to study and wanted to forget about the horrors that were going on around us.

  The Schwarzer Bär became our favorite student tavern. It was hundreds of years old, with Gothic arched doorways, low ceilings, and dark paneled walls with tapestries. One tapestry showed Martin Luther sitting at a long table, holding his hand up while speaking with friends, a Krug of beer and a plate of food before him. Jena was a town that was particularly moved by the Reformation, and Martin Luther was known to
have frequented this very same tavern.

  After a day of studying, we would gather in the Schwarzer Bär to gossip about our teachers, and in particular we would joke about our Anatomy professor, Professor Schmitt, who was always quite humorous. You could tell he loved his field of study. He’d give his lectures as all professors gave their lectures, but his mannerisms always made each sentence sound especially funny, especially sarcastic, so that we always left the hall nudging each other, repeating his jokes.

  An added dash of humor was a pair of heavy gray boots that he shuffled around in, a statement that complemented his air of impropriety. We admired him, too, because he was not fond of the Nazis. He said only “Sit”—not “Heil Hitler”—and he’d click his boots together and give a wry smile and then go on and teach.

  As students, surely we thought about our politics and the situation of our country, how dire it was beginning to feel, but we wanted our lives too. We wanted to study, and so, rather than speak of politics, we spoke instead about philosophy—Nietzsche and his theory of the Übermensch, the true Superman—and religion. And, of course, we spoke about Faust, Goethe’s character who made a wager with the Devil to sell his soul in exchange for knowledge. The part of this tragic play that would stay with me for a long, long time was when he chose, because he suddenly heard church bells ringing, to live rather than take his own life. It felt like an omen by which to live.

  Like any student, I needed pocket money, and I did what many did—I donated blood. I could do so once a month, and for this I would receive twenty Marks. Plenty for a bottle of wine or a glass of beer at the tavern after class. My other job was obligatory—volunteer work for the war effort. It was called the Kriegsdienst. As a medical student, I was able to work in one of the science labs of the well-known optical manufacturer Zeisswerk, which made instruments for U-boats such as periscopes, specialty binoculars, and rifle scopes. Here, in this lab, I noticed that some of my coworkers did not speak or understand German. They spoke among themselves in a language that sounded much like Polish. I didn’t know until years later that they were most likely prisoners. And possibly even Jewish. I assumed, as I had in Berlin, when I saw people like this, that they were simply Fremdarbeiter, foreign workers, with poor hygiene and ragged clothes, and that they had come to Germany of their own free will to work.