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

by Kerstin Lieff

  I never liked those “Brothers” anyway. I was always afraid they would force me to become a “German mother,” and if I resisted, I’d only have been thrown into the concentration camp.

  In the streets, the Russians often grabbed women and young girls and threw them into vacant hallways and raped them. Many of those innocent young girls were so weak or so ill, they couldn’t defend themselves. But I suppose this sort of character lives everywhere. Many were even robbed of their very last possessions. But then, even our dear fellow Berliners, to some extent, committed these very same crimes against our own people. One will rob the next of something he himself has lost, and the next will do the same, and so it goes.

  On the Windscheidstrasse, they ransacked our bomb shelter and broke open the suitcases, plundering what they could. But somehow we are able to find luck in the midst of misfortune. Not long ago, it was mandated that all this plundering was illegal, as were their shameful advances toward the women.

  If one addresses them with “Commander” or “Kommisar,” they actually do show some respect, and at this point it has, for the most part, stopped altogether. Many of the Russians have even returned home. At most, they broke into homes and have taken the few items that could be used to furnish the officers’ mess rooms. Then I heard from one of our nurses, who lives in the Grunewald-Villen district, that she was forced to have a Russian live with her. This Russian wanted a carpet and an easy chair, and a few other things, so all these items were taken from a neighbor’s apartment and given to him.

  It’s imperative to watch out for yourself when the Russians are drunk. On Sundays, or in the evenings after a celebration or a parade, as a woman, you must never allow yourself to be seen outside.

  The Russian is really a peculiar sort of person. As inhumane and brutal as he can be, he can also be quite good-natured. It’s not infrequent that he will give away all his bread and sausage.

  The other day there was a car in front of our house. It was full of Russians. One, in particular, was beside himself with joy over the children’s delight when he handed them handfuls of sugar that he had pulled out of a bag. Like innocent children is how they often appear to me. The Russian commandant who came to us seemed to be just such a good-natured person. I heard this from many who had talked with him or asked him for certain things. Russians look to us to be strange and rather alien. I’m not attracted to them—I have to be honest. But then, we probably don’t appeal to them either.

  The PGs are being hunted down. From the Gauleiter down,49 everyone has been shot. Even those who worked for them are being dealt with as if they were PGs themselves, regardless of whether they were members of the Partei or not. They are thrown out of the homes they’ve been living in, and the space is cleared out for the Jews to reinhabit. All PGs who were members of the Partei before 1933 will no longer receive food ration cards. Instead, they now spend the entire day shoveling rubble and then are fed only once a day and only from the Goulaschkanone. But this is what they did to the Jews.

  I think they’re only this strict in Charlottenburg because the Werewolf is still very active here.50 For a while, food warehouses were set on fire during the night—those same warehouses that, earlier in the day, the Russians had stocked full of supplies intended to go to the German people. What madness in these young boys! Who is it they are trying to help by doing this? They are taking the very food meant for their own people. This is complete sabotage because we already surrendered unconditionally as of May 7th!

  As punishment for the Werewolf activities, they shot 100 Hitler boys. Isn’t this sad? So much unnecessary bloodshed for the sake of a few scoundrels. They were mere children who had not been raised properly, and had been influenced by circumstances of war.

  And now all of Charlottenburg is being punished for their crimes. In other districts the people are much better provided for. Here we only began receiving lard and barely a few potatoes as of the first of May. Other sectors of the city have received much more to eat. We were even refused the “Stalin donation.”

  Who shall receive provisions has been divided into several groups: the ordinary users; workers (of which I happen to be one) who receive 500 grams of bread each day; and the heavy-duty workers (I believe doctors and clergymen belong to this group). They receive significantly more to eat.

  Stalin should feel obligated to at least feed us all.

  Oh, my dear man, surely you’re sighing with the greatest relief that this wretched war is over. Such a dreadful end is something none of us had wished for. It is also so distressing that no one knows what’s to become of us, and that we have been so helplessly handed over to, and are at the mercy of, our enemy.

  All women, ages 15 to 50, need to register as labor reservists. Should, for example, Mutti suddenly try to find work? Which work? Should she just wait and see what is to be? Is it also possible that all those able to work will be hauled off to the east? Where is one sure to find work? There’s no money anyway.

  We need to stay in the Lazarett until the very end. At the hospital where one of my colleagues and a former classmate of mine, Renate Wisselmann, works, several of the helpers were replaced by fully registered nurses as of May 31st. In a sense, it’s good, in a time of such massive unemployment, to have a source for bread. But I am beginning to realize how very stressed I have been. Even though, during the day, I don’t seem to have a fever, every night my temperature rises again. The doctor recommends rest. Very often everything goes black in front of my eyes when I try to stand. Today I sat out on our balcony for the first time. I feel like an old woman. As if I were really quite ill. I know I cannot go back to work just yet. I would love to be able to just get around, but my strength is only coming back very slowly. I am very unhappy with all this.

  A doctor let me know, through a conversation he had with Mutti, that Sauerbruch is still taking interns for the next three weeks.51 Should I try for an interview? I would love to do that. Besides, I would love to find a position as doctor’s assistant somewhere.

  Oh, Franzel, if only you would just come! Then everything would make me so much happier. I would have to work anyway, as we need to be able to eat. But you will be with me. Today Mutti told me that if you came, and if you asked me to marry you, she would give her permission. My father also gave his permission. Even before he took off, he called from the train station. I happened to answer the telephone. I asked him just once more, that if we were to get engaged, and if by chance he were not to return before we wanted to marry, would he be against our marriage. He said that if I wanted it so badly and it was my absolute resolve to do so, and if we simply could not wait any longer, then it would be all right!! That was his very last word! It’s kind, don’t you think? Soon, certainly, you shall be with me.

  Will you be upset with me then, that even though we made all these promises to one another, I will continue to study? How long we will be able to study, and how long we will have money, is anyone’s guess anyway. Perhaps I could earn the money for the lecture fees on the side. I have to try now to earn money for my daily bread and for my future. But then, as soon as you return, I will conclude my studies.

  Dear one, please return soon! Soon we should have mail service again. That would certainly be good. But what an appalling idea—to never to see you again. Would my intuitions deceive me? Intuition never lies. I knew this even a year ago—that the friendship with you was not over and that certainly we would see each other again. I felt it but never wanted to believe it. I was always so happy when I thought of you. I often compare other men to you: I even tell them so. It’s as if I’m being “thought,” I’m being “experienced,” my tasks are being “done” by something other than me. Sometimes I think, too, that someone like you will never come my way again. There is no one for whom I feel as much as I do for you.

  And then, when I think about my present circumstances and I think about you, I get angry with you, and am not ready to reconcile with you yet. So many days have passed during which we’ve been apart, I
have completely new and different ideas in my head about you. My studies are much more important and more interesting to me than you.

  But, my love, I think of you so often. People are already beginning to laugh at me for still believing you’ll be with me again one day, and that we’ll still begin a life together after the war.

  I have become friends with a colleague here in Berlin who took the civil service exam. At first he used to tell me that a man should fight for his woman, and he would, if you were to return, not give up that fight over me. But now I have convinced him that that is a useless effort, that it’s just pointless. The other day he asked me if he could be the godfather for my first child. This was said half jokingly and half in all seriousness. I laughed so hard, and I told him that not long after we married I would have a little son. That is already written in the books! (I even already know what he looks like. In fact, he looks a lot like his Papa!)

  Out here on the balcony, next to me and the lounge chair on which I am lying, is a picture of you, and next to that is your little stuffed animal. Mutti brought it from Calau a while back. I just want to be well again, and be able to go outside. Outside somewhere, where it is beautiful. If only the upcoming demarcation of our country were not going to happen! Very soon the peace negotiations are to be finalized so that we will finally know how things will be.

  My dear Peter, we’ll never live in the city, will we? We’ll live where nature, tranquility, and love prevail. We will live somewhere quietly and alone, even if it’s only a little hut. A small house offers so much peace. Then we’ll engage in art, science, literature, philosophy—as much as we please. We’ll be far away from all outside influences. We’ll sink ourselves into the aesthetics of literature. That will be so wonderful!

  I so longed to live back in that contemplative Biedermeier era and wished away the war, technology and machines, inventions and weapons. I have never been a friend of Physics, Mathematics, and certain strains of Chemistry. You can, of course, see this in how often I attended the Physics lecture: five times, of which two had bomb alarms go off and we needed to flee the hall. And the first visit I made was only so that I could get my lecture certification. That makes it three times. In one lecture we ate radishes, and then at other times I overslept and missed the whole thing.

  Oh, dear one, to be as happy and free as I was as a student in Jena! The whole world seemed to open its arms during this gloriously romantic student’s life. Science, literature, art … one loved it and gained its knowledge, all in university fashion: “universitas.” One listened to lectures one wanted to hear, one did what one wanted to do. Nothing was anyone else’s business. “The world belongs to us students!” was our motto. How often we just lay in the sun with all our books and then returned home in the evenings without ever having opened a single one of them. That lovely old student town of Jena. All those beautiful traditions have now been destroyed. Only the memory lives on.

  My dear man, all this will exist again! We just need to have patience. So, for today, my dear Peter, everything is well. I have reported everything in long and elaborate detail. I’m so curious to know what you have to report. The majority of it, though, is news one cannot ever speak about accurately.

  So for now, take from me my most loving caresses, and in the quiet of your dreams, know that I send you a kiss,

  Your Grete

  1 June 1945

  My Dear One!

  How did it go for you on the 25th of May? One of the nurses has her birthday on that day. When she told me once that her birthday is in May, and I asked her on which day in May, it was almost as if an oracle had spoken: I was thinking of May 25th, and then immediately thought, yes, Schwester Luise’s birthday must be on the 25th, because it’s such a holy day. When she said it in that very instant, “on the 25th,” I was frightened by my thoughts and that this oracle was actually speaking.

  The night before, Schwester Ruth, the head nurse on my station, and I went out to pick a few flowers. It was already quite late at night, and because of that stupid Russian time we have now, it was actually two hours later in the day than what the sun’s position said. We walked along the avenue and saw, to our right, something hidden deep within an enclosure.

  We continued deeper into the woods and into this enclosure, and discovered, way down beneath everything, something hidden and wild—it was a little creek or pond, but so romantically overgrown. As always, and everywhere, I thought of you. An overgrown boulder towered about ten to twenty meters up ahead, at the other end of our little stream. Grass, gnarled tree roots, and thicket were everywhere. In my memory, it looked to be quite large and craggy. But maybe it was simply a small hill. Nevertheless, it appeared like an enchanted castle that had been asleep for a hundred years. No human hand had ever brought this to order; everything grew just as it wanted. Just this gave it its romanticism. It was misty and cool. Suddenly the song “The Two Royal Children” came into my head, and I said to Schwester Ruth, “It’s just like in the song. Over there, on the other side, are the Americans, in the middle is the River Elbe—the Line of Demarcation—and over here are the Russians. We are so close to our loved ones, and still cannot get to them.

  There were two royal children,

  They loved each other dearly,

  But they could not come to one another

  Because the water was much too deep.

  Yes, so that’s how it is now. But even these chains can be broken, and we’ll be together again! This is what I concluded, without saying so out loud.

  That night we arranged the flowers we had picked in some vases and prepared her birthday table. The next morning, her birthday proper, we woke up quite early just to get the rest ready for her. We had an early breakfast together and everything was in a festive mood in our station tea kitchen. I placed two little flower bouquets on my nightstand, with such sweet little forget-me-nots. Then in front of them I placed your picture. Over and over again, I thought so deeply about you, and had no fear whatsoever, as I thought I might at first. I was so happy that that decisive May 25th was going to be over, a day on which you would surely be safe and well.

  On the 25th of May, if possible, we were going to give the birthday girl an afternoon off. I did her afternoon chores. There was much to do, as everything was in chaos. I always seem to have the good luck that when it’s my turn to oversee the station, all hell breaks loose. The men suddenly have hemorrhages, or new patients are admitted, or newly operated patients arrive who need to be injected on an hourly basis, or someone dies, or a wound needs to be rebandaged, or someone messes on himself and his bedding needs changing, or someone suddenly has a spike in his fever or has an attack of some kind or another, and the necessary medication is nowhere to be found, and then even the keys for the narcotics cabinet are missing. Usually much of it, or all of it, happens all at once. This is how it was today. At six I finally finished taking everyone’s temperature and changing all the wet bandages. Schwester Ruth then took over and worked alone. Luise returned at around seven and helped with the injections.

  That evening, Schwester Ruth invited the two of us, Luise and me, to be with her. We had a cozy dinner, drank a little liqueur that we had saved from our last rationings, smoked a few cigarettes, and gossiped a bit. Schwester Ruth read some rather sweet but funny soldiers’ stories to us. Tears of laughter rolled down our cheeks. And then that night as I was falling asleep, I thought again of you, my dear Peter. Every night I fall asleep with thoughts of you, and then awake again with thoughts of you. If I see clouds or look at the sky, I think of you, and I think, how beautiful the sky is now in the summertime, and how free and lovely the world is now, and that God surely always wants what is beautiful to be, and that surely He too would want to see us two united.

  All we want is to learn to have gratitude for God’s kindness and love, and to be able to see it and be allowed to enjoy it.

  So, please, just fulfill this one wish, dear Father in Heaven. It would be so sweet and we would be so grateful. I beg
You so deeply and with such earnestness.

  Good night my dearest Peter.

  Always,

  Your Grete

  2 June 1945

  My dearest Peter,

  Poetry from Goethe and Mörike are what I would like to read today. That is precisely what would befit today’s mood. I would love to lie in the grass, to dream, to let the summer’s sun bathe me.

  My dear, you shall soon be here! In one month it will already be the 10th of July.52 I wonder if I will have received a letter from you by then? Oh, would that be a lovely birthday present! Four years ago, I also waited for a birthday wish from you, but I did not hear from you for a long, long time. I was very sad about that. Back then the Tanzschule had just finished. At that time I still had a few other admirers that were hard to shake off. One gave me a beautiful large bouquet of roses, deep dark red ones, as a gift. I wasn’t even grateful for them and did not thank him even once. I feel like a bird in a cage. I am imprisoned and have just to wait to see what will become of me.

  Everyone in the hospital is overworked and everyone is sick. Does one have to allow oneself to be so used up? As soon as I feel a bit better, I will try to contact Professor Sauerbruch, so that I can begin my studies again. I will look around too to see if I can get a position as an assistant lecturer. It’s nearly equivalent to the medical lab work necessary for a medical student to experience. Besides that, I know how to use medical instruments and can teach myself much more while doing so.

  We ought to be taking a walk in the lovely summer breeze right now. Or we should be in Jena, or at the seashore, or near your home at the beautiful Rhine. You know I am such a water rat. I love all water sports, and at the end I’ll jump into any body of water to swim and dive under. But I’m sure you swim much faster than I, because you’re so much bigger and stronger.

  Do you know what I did once? I was with a friend from the Tanzschule at a swimming pool. I really didn’t like the fellow all that much anyway. When he couldn’t even dive, not once headfirst into the water the way I can, and instead he timidly climbed down the ladder, my feelings for him sank low, until, when I challenged him to a swim race, and I was nearly halfway around the pool ahead of him, they hit rock bottom. That’s when I lost all respect for him.