"I am thirsty, I am hungry and I am so cold!" Rolf to his mother during the Berlin blockade when there was virtually nothing available.
Berlin, May 14, 1945
On May 1, 1945 the city had surrendered to the Russian army. Berlin had, for all practical purposes become uninhabitable, with over 90% of all housing destroyed and municipal services non-existent. There were only women, a few old men and very few children left in the city. Slowly some former residents started to return, dragging carts with their belongings. The search for surviving loved ones started. Most of the children had been evacuated to rural areas to escape the bombings. I had been left for reasons unknown to me. When I walked out of the bunker on May 2, 1945, I saw what is depicted in this movie shot by an unknown Russian officer. It was only recently found in some archives in Moscow.
Since little heavy equipment was available to remove the rubble, all woman were required to work every day clearing bricks; which was hard labor. The Russian soldiers patrolling the streets were on a rampage of plundering and rape, which was only slowly brought under control by the Command and did not really stop until the western allies took control of their designated zones.
As a five year old I wandered through the streets and thought this was the way it was supposed to be. The memories have never left me.
Since little heavy equipment was available to remove the rubble, all woman were required to work every day clearing bricks; which was hard labor. The Russian soldiers patrolling the streets were on a rampage of plundering and rape, which was only slowly brought under control by the Command and did not really stop until the western allies took control of their designated zones.
As a five year old I wandered through the streets and thought this was the way it was supposed to be. The memories have never left me.
Chapter II - The Post War Child
This chapter takes us from Dieter's return to his mother shortly after the war ended throught the rough immediate post war years, the Russian blockade of Berlin and the family's move to a luxurious villa in an upscale suburban lake area of Berlin. His sense of independence and thoughts for his future formulated in a totally unstructured family life. In fact, he rarely saw his mother and was alone most of the time.
Dieter ca. 1942
Daily outings in the park by Isolde Strasse were routine before the bombings started.
This picture was taken at the Isolde Strasse Park
Rosie and Sylvia, with Dieter ca. 1942
Isolde Strasse Park - ca 1942 just before the bombings started
Dieter with Rita at their daily trip to the park
Reflections - The Russians
After the surrender of Berlin Dieter remained in the Apartment with Oma and Opa. Within a few days there was a constant flow of Russian Soldiers checking every remaining building and it's occupants. The plundering began. The early troops were mostly Mongolian fighters who did not speak a word of German and were brutal. Officers were rarely seen. They took everything they could carry away.
The raping went on unchecked for several weeks. Within the next twelve months over 100,000 crude abortions were performed. Untold thousands were not registered. Tens of thousands of young woman committed suicide.
Dieter remembers being frightened of the soldiers and their never ending demand for things. The words "Uri Uri" became a symbol of those days. It was their demand to give them watches, which they had never seen. By the end of May the Russian authorities started to restore some order and tried to stop the mayhem.
There is only one positive memory about the early occupation period. By the beginning of summer some train service had been restored and Opa had decided to try to get to his summer house and see if he could get the gardens going. On the way to the station someone threw a hand grenade at them. There was a blinding flash and Dieter felt a sharp pain on his right hand. A piece of shrapnel had hit him and the hand was bleeding profusely. Opa was not injured. Someone gave them a rag to wrap around the hand and they went on the train. Dieter started to feel faint. When a Russian officer came to check their papers he saw the blood and motioned them to follow him to the front of the train which was reserved for the military. He took them to a medic who proceeded to bandage Dieter. He also gave him a piece of ham, a rare treat.
Since medical services were not available, the hand was never stitched and to this day Dieter has a large scar on his right hand.
The raping went on unchecked for several weeks. Within the next twelve months over 100,000 crude abortions were performed. Untold thousands were not registered. Tens of thousands of young woman committed suicide.
Dieter remembers being frightened of the soldiers and their never ending demand for things. The words "Uri Uri" became a symbol of those days. It was their demand to give them watches, which they had never seen. By the end of May the Russian authorities started to restore some order and tried to stop the mayhem.
There is only one positive memory about the early occupation period. By the beginning of summer some train service had been restored and Opa had decided to try to get to his summer house and see if he could get the gardens going. On the way to the station someone threw a hand grenade at them. There was a blinding flash and Dieter felt a sharp pain on his right hand. A piece of shrapnel had hit him and the hand was bleeding profusely. Opa was not injured. Someone gave them a rag to wrap around the hand and they went on the train. Dieter started to feel faint. When a Russian officer came to check their papers he saw the blood and motioned them to follow him to the front of the train which was reserved for the military. He took them to a medic who proceeded to bandage Dieter. He also gave him a piece of ham, a rare treat.
Since medical services were not available, the hand was never stitched and to this day Dieter has a large scar on his right hand.
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A Rape about to happen
Picture taken by a third Russian soldier, participating in the attack. Pictures like these came to light after the collapse of the Soviet Union. |
9 Isolde Strasse, Berlin Wilmersdorf - Late 1945
A Night Remembered
Dieter was in bed in his mother's huge apartment. He was alone. She had gone out earlier trying to find some food, but would not be able to return as a curfew was in effect until daybreak. There was total silence in the city only broken by the sound of the military patrols enforcing the curfew. There was no electricity and only the moonlight filtered through the open windows. Dieter was afraid and he could not sleep. He stared at the ceiling with it's extensive ornamental religious decorations on it which in the dim light looked menacing.
He was cold, hungry and thirsty. Dieter got out of bed, wrapped a blanket around himself and wandered into the dark hallway heading for the kitchen, envisioning monsters and ghosts around him. He knew that there would be no food. His mother had warned him not to drink any water if some should come through the pipes, but there was none anyway. She had told him that a lot of people were dying from the bad water. He did not understand why. Nor did he understand why there had been so many dead people in the streets. Dieter thought that it was supposed to be that way. On a table was a bottle with some stale beer, Dieter drank it, not really liking the taste. Standing with his back to a wall, as he was afraid something would sneak up on him, his mind was racing as to what to do.
Having no concept of the time, as there were no clocks, he stepped into the hall closet and sat in a corner and started crying. After a while he decided to go back to the bedroom and wait for daylight.
When it finally came he was tired. There were now a few women in the street hurrying about, but little else was visible. The bombed out buildings across the street looked interesting. Dieter thought that maybe later he would go and explore. He saw some people digging around in the rubble like they were looking for something.
He laid back down in bed. the angels on the ceiling looked less threatening and Dieter drifted off to sleep. When he woke up his mother was holding him, blankets wrapped around them. She did not say anything, gave him a piece of bread and gently rocked him. He drifted back into sleep.
The Winter of 1946/47
'We cannot go to sleep as we may never wake up" Dieter's mother said to him during a brutally cold night, when they sat huddled together in an empty room in the apartment. All the windows were covered with thick ice, there was nothing to eat nor drink. Everything in the apartment was frozen solid.
There was a tiled stove, but nothing to start a fire. All the wooden furniture had already been cut up and burned. Rosie had gone out and collected some branches, it did not make a difference. They wrapped whatever blankets they had around them and used some of the heavy curtains. She kept talking to Dieter to make sure he did not doze off. When the first light filtered through the windows she walked outside to stand in line at the corner grocery store. The weekly ration card would become available that day and Rosie did not want to wait too long. It would be almost two hours before the store opened and there were already a lot of people waiting. When they got their meager rations they went home and ate for the first time in two days.
About this time Fritz started to get involved in black market dealings and their food supply situation rapidly improved as a result of his contacts with the American occupation troops. Trading pre-war treasures, such as jewelry, china and antiques, that had survived the Russian plundering, for PX food, cigarettes and nylon stockings became an everyday affair. In effect, cigarettes became the unofficial currency, replacing the worthless Reichsmark. Fritz rented a large store a few blocks away from Isolde Strasse, which he named 'Spielzeuge fuer die Kinder' (Toys for Kids). Since toys were not yet available, nothing was ever sold. There was, however, a never ending stream of soldiers and customers dealing with Fritz. This went on until the US Army and German police started to clamp down. One night Fritz got a warning from an informer that the MP was going to raid the store within hours. Rosie packed all US Dollars into a suitcase (it was illegal for Germans to own US Dollars) and ran out the back, trying to get back to the apartment. She made it to a small old graveyard a couple of blocks away from the store when she heard the sirens. The MP's blocked off the area, so Rosie had to hide behind a large gravestone laying on the ground for several hours. Fritz was arrested, but released a couple of days later.
Early Post-War Memory Flashes
During the Berlin Airlift a number of planes crashed delivering supplies to the city; one of them into an apartment building around the corner from the apartment on Isolde Strasse. The two pilots were killed. Today there remains a memorial plaque on the reconstructed building.
Airlift Crash Site by Isolde Strasse
The plane crashed in the middle of the night. This picture was taken the following morning. One of the pilots had been pinned under a fallen tree in front of the building and died of his injuries later.The other pilot died in the cockpit.
The back of these buildings were about 100 feet away from our residence around the corner.
The back of these buildings were about 100 feet away from our residence around the corner.
The Memorial Plaque on the crash site was recently re-dedicated
"During the Berlin Blockade two American Pilots died on July 25, 1948 at this site as a result of their supply plane crashing into this building. They gave their lives for the freedom of our city"
I remember that night and I remember my mother restraining me to go around the corner to the crash site where one of the pilots pinned under a tree could not be rescued.
Isolde Strasse 9 Apartment - Second Floor
The building was never touched by the bombings and street fighting. All surrounding buildings had been destroyed by war end. The apartment covered the whole second floor and back to the interior courtyard.
Picture taken in 2006.
Please note that in Europe the second floor is called the first floor (German; Erste Etage). The ground level is the Mezzanine.
Picture taken in 2006.
Please note that in Europe the second floor is called the first floor (German; Erste Etage). The ground level is the Mezzanine.
Berlin Blockade by the Soviet Union 1948/49
The blockade was the first sustained action of the Cold War. All access to the encircled city was cut off. The Allies decided to provide the over two million West Berliners with an airlift to bring in minimum amounts of food and fuel. With Tempelhof in the middle of the city being the only airport, low flying planes brought back memories of the war. Except the 'Raisin Bombers', as they were called, carried only food. Dried potatoes, carrots and eggs became part of the diet. Only those fortunate to have some land in the city were able to grow some vegetables. It was a huge logistical feat. In May 1949 the Soviets gave up.
The Air Lift Memorial at Tempelhof Airport
In 2011 it was announced that the former airport site will be turned into a memorial for the airlift, with the rotunda building being restored with an observation platform, restaurants and shops.
A referendum was held in Berlin to determine what was to be done with the site. The vote was overwhelming to turn the whole facility into a park and memorial.
The Post War Child - 1945 to 1952
Isolde Strasse 9 - Berlin Wilmersdorf
After her divorce Rosie resumed her career and moved with her son into a large apartment in Wilmersdorf.
The flat took up the whole second floor of the building. The entrance opened to a long hallway, with the kitchen, pantry, servants quarters and bathrooms on the left. There was a servants and delivery entrance to the kitchen. At the end of the hallway were two rooms, one facing into an interior court yard of the building, the other with a terrace facing the street.
On the right were two bedrooms, a sitting room; and two large rooms separated by full sliding doors with stained glass led windows. The whole place was over 3,000 Square Feet.
Two years later she would give her son to Opa for safe keeping. When he was returned to her after the war, he had no memory of the apartment and only fleeting images of his mother, such as getting caught in an air raid outside the Zoo public bunker.
When he moved back, the apartment had no window glass, no electricity and no running water, so there was no sanitation. The ‘potties’ were brought to the street every morning and emptied into foul smelling bucket trucks, which would be emptied into fields outside the city as fertilizer.
Winter was rapidly approaching and there was no heat. His mother had been able to finally get the window glass replaced
A Night to Remember
The winter of 1946/47 as a brutal one. It was bitter cold and there was thick ice on all the windows. There was no heat. Tiled wood burning ovens had been installed, vented through the window, which was obviously dangerous. The problem was that there was no wood to burn.
One night when the temperature dipped to record lows, Rolf and his mother were sitting on a flat sofa with no back rest in the middle of one of the rooms, wrapped in whatever blankets they had. They took some of the drapes down and used them as covers. Fritz had chopped up some cabinets and started a fire, but it took hours for the tile to get a little warm. They moved the sofa by the stove and sat with their backs to it, huddled together.
It was impossible to sleep and Rolfs mother told him that they could not go to sleep, as they may not wake up. Rolf found out later that as your metabolism slows down for sleeping, freezing will cause death. It was supposed to be a beautiful one. Rolf had a hard time understanding how anyone would know that.
When dawn broke they were alive and hungry. The weekly ration card would become available that day and they would have some basic food by noon.
The cold would last another month, but not get as severe as it had been that night. All wooden furniture would be gone and burned up by the time it was over.
Something was wrong with Dieter. He rarely talked and stared at the ceiling while laying in bed. He apparently was still in shock; the events and impressions from the war were burnt onto his mind and increasingly effected him.
He was left alone a lot in the darkness and almost complete silence of the city. To Dieter the silence was as frightening compared to the deafening sounds of war.
As time passed and a kind of normalcy started to return, Dieter would start to get mischievous; mostly out of boredom. He cut the material of the back of sofas and shortened the drapes and tried to sell these things to people coming to the apartment for black market deals. He told them that there was an endless supplies of the pre-war luxuries.
Around that time someone had given Dieter a couple of white mice. He decided to let them loose in the apartment and they moved into the hall closet to breed. It took some time to round them all up.
One of the more memorable experiences was the day Fritz brought home a chicken he had caught somewhere. It was put into one of the rooms. The Idea was to get an egg once in a while. The chicken, however, got no calcium and proceeded to lay shell-less eggs, which made a big mess in the room. It ended up landing in a pot for a rare treat.
Dieter had been enrolled into the school down the road and was bored, cold and hungry. After a couple of months he decided to stop going and hang around the street lorries, which were removing the building rubble left from the war. When he came home, Dieter did a couple of hours of homework. The teacher thought he had moved. Since there was no telephone service, there was no way to communicate.
One day Dieter got too lazy to take his potty out to the collection wagon; he just started throwing it out the window in the back, one time hitting the building manager on the head with the stuff.
One of the best days of his young life occurred a few days after the blockade was lifted. All of a sudden there was all kinds food that he had never seen or tasted before. There were oranges, bananas and pineapples, none of which Dieter knew how to eat.
About that time the nightmares started to come. Dieter now re-lived some of the horrors he had seen in graphic details. He was frightened again and he wanted the dreams to stop; he did not know how to do that. Sometimes it got so bad that he did not want to go to bed. His fear of darkness got worse..
The Nightmares
They started to come about when Dieter turned eight. They came frequently and with a vengeance. As time went by they became less frequent, but more intense.
The main recurring one about the walk of terror from Friedersdorf to Berlin was always intense and remained so. Less frequent dreams were images of scenes Dieter had observed.
They include visions of people on fire running from burning buildings, women screaming in front of collapsed residences were their loved ones were buried under the rubble and bloated corpses floating in the water that filled the subway entrances.
In later years when Karin was with him, the dreams became less severe. She also had nightmares of her experience with having lost her baby sister in their collapsed home and seeing the conquering Russians raping most of the woman in her area. She was too young to be a victim, but would forever carry those memories.
Between the two of them, they were able to comfort each other when necessary.
Rolf never discussed those matters with his first wife; and he did not do so with Patricia well along in their marriage; about twenty-two years after they first met. There were many times that he was frightened that she would notice that something was wrong, but he was always to cover up well.
There were many sleepless nights, when he would just get up and go to work or do something to get his mind off the images. That pattern has persisted; however, the need for closeness when the dreams come has over time diminished.
It is perhaps that background that formed Rolf’s sleep patterns, which would always be short, intense and deep.
The Musical Career
Having been born into a highly musical family, it was expected that Rolf would follow the same path.
Sometime in 1947 Rolf’s mother hired a piano teacher, who would come to the apartment four times a week to give him a one hour lesson. There was little food or heat, but there now was a piano teacher.
Rosie owned two Grand Pianos, which were tuned every month. Rolf was to be taught in the drawing room. From the beginning there was friction with the teacher, as Rolf was rebellious and did not want to do this. He knew how to read music sheets but continued to hit the wrong notes on purpose, totally frustrating the teacher.
One day, after about six month of useless lessons the teacher started yelling at Rolf, who slammed his fist down on the keyboard breaking two of them. He then slammed the cover, breaking the hinges.
That was the end of the piano experiment. Further efforts with harmonica lessons and an accordion ended with the same results.
When Rolf started to go to school in Schlachtensee he was assigned to the school choir. He did not have a choice. His voice at that time started give signs of puberty, with occasional deep sounds and high pitched squeaks. It was so bad that the director shouted at him ’Dieter, shut up, just mouth the words’. He became quite adapt at that, over-acting like an opera singer and showing deep emotions. His fellow choir members were sometimes unable to keep a straight face; and Rolf was ultimately thrown off the choir.
Shortly after his budding movie career started, which was cut short by Franz, who put his foot down and forbid any further involvement. Ironically Rolf had liked that atmosphere and environment.
Isolde Strasse 9 - Berlin Wilmersdorf
After her divorce Rosie resumed her career and moved with her son into a large apartment in Wilmersdorf.
The flat took up the whole second floor of the building. The entrance opened to a long hallway, with the kitchen, pantry, servants quarters and bathrooms on the left. There was a servants and delivery entrance to the kitchen. At the end of the hallway were two rooms, one facing into an interior court yard of the building, the other with a terrace facing the street.
On the right were two bedrooms, a sitting room; and two large rooms separated by full sliding doors with stained glass led windows. The whole place was over 3,000 Square Feet.
Two years later she would give her son to Opa for safe keeping. When he was returned to her after the war, he had no memory of the apartment and only fleeting images of his mother, such as getting caught in an air raid outside the Zoo public bunker.
When he moved back, the apartment had no window glass, no electricity and no running water, so there was no sanitation. The ‘potties’ were brought to the street every morning and emptied into foul smelling bucket trucks, which would be emptied into fields outside the city as fertilizer.
Winter was rapidly approaching and there was no heat. His mother had been able to finally get the window glass replaced
A Night to Remember
The winter of 1946/47 as a brutal one. It was bitter cold and there was thick ice on all the windows. There was no heat. Tiled wood burning ovens had been installed, vented through the window, which was obviously dangerous. The problem was that there was no wood to burn.
One night when the temperature dipped to record lows, Rolf and his mother were sitting on a flat sofa with no back rest in the middle of one of the rooms, wrapped in whatever blankets they had. They took some of the drapes down and used them as covers. Fritz had chopped up some cabinets and started a fire, but it took hours for the tile to get a little warm. They moved the sofa by the stove and sat with their backs to it, huddled together.
It was impossible to sleep and Rolfs mother told him that they could not go to sleep, as they may not wake up. Rolf found out later that as your metabolism slows down for sleeping, freezing will cause death. It was supposed to be a beautiful one. Rolf had a hard time understanding how anyone would know that.
When dawn broke they were alive and hungry. The weekly ration card would become available that day and they would have some basic food by noon.
The cold would last another month, but not get as severe as it had been that night. All wooden furniture would be gone and burned up by the time it was over.
Something was wrong with Dieter. He rarely talked and stared at the ceiling while laying in bed. He apparently was still in shock; the events and impressions from the war were burnt onto his mind and increasingly effected him.
He was left alone a lot in the darkness and almost complete silence of the city. To Dieter the silence was as frightening compared to the deafening sounds of war.
As time passed and a kind of normalcy started to return, Dieter would start to get mischievous; mostly out of boredom. He cut the material of the back of sofas and shortened the drapes and tried to sell these things to people coming to the apartment for black market deals. He told them that there was an endless supplies of the pre-war luxuries.
Around that time someone had given Dieter a couple of white mice. He decided to let them loose in the apartment and they moved into the hall closet to breed. It took some time to round them all up.
One of the more memorable experiences was the day Fritz brought home a chicken he had caught somewhere. It was put into one of the rooms. The Idea was to get an egg once in a while. The chicken, however, got no calcium and proceeded to lay shell-less eggs, which made a big mess in the room. It ended up landing in a pot for a rare treat.
Dieter had been enrolled into the school down the road and was bored, cold and hungry. After a couple of months he decided to stop going and hang around the street lorries, which were removing the building rubble left from the war. When he came home, Dieter did a couple of hours of homework. The teacher thought he had moved. Since there was no telephone service, there was no way to communicate.
One day Dieter got too lazy to take his potty out to the collection wagon; he just started throwing it out the window in the back, one time hitting the building manager on the head with the stuff.
One of the best days of his young life occurred a few days after the blockade was lifted. All of a sudden there was all kinds food that he had never seen or tasted before. There were oranges, bananas and pineapples, none of which Dieter knew how to eat.
About that time the nightmares started to come. Dieter now re-lived some of the horrors he had seen in graphic details. He was frightened again and he wanted the dreams to stop; he did not know how to do that. Sometimes it got so bad that he did not want to go to bed. His fear of darkness got worse..
The Nightmares
They started to come about when Dieter turned eight. They came frequently and with a vengeance. As time went by they became less frequent, but more intense.
The main recurring one about the walk of terror from Friedersdorf to Berlin was always intense and remained so. Less frequent dreams were images of scenes Dieter had observed.
They include visions of people on fire running from burning buildings, women screaming in front of collapsed residences were their loved ones were buried under the rubble and bloated corpses floating in the water that filled the subway entrances.
In later years when Karin was with him, the dreams became less severe. She also had nightmares of her experience with having lost her baby sister in their collapsed home and seeing the conquering Russians raping most of the woman in her area. She was too young to be a victim, but would forever carry those memories.
Between the two of them, they were able to comfort each other when necessary.
Rolf never discussed those matters with his first wife; and he did not do so with Patricia well along in their marriage; about twenty-two years after they first met. There were many times that he was frightened that she would notice that something was wrong, but he was always to cover up well.
There were many sleepless nights, when he would just get up and go to work or do something to get his mind off the images. That pattern has persisted; however, the need for closeness when the dreams come has over time diminished.
It is perhaps that background that formed Rolf’s sleep patterns, which would always be short, intense and deep.
The Musical Career
Having been born into a highly musical family, it was expected that Rolf would follow the same path.
Sometime in 1947 Rolf’s mother hired a piano teacher, who would come to the apartment four times a week to give him a one hour lesson. There was little food or heat, but there now was a piano teacher.
Rosie owned two Grand Pianos, which were tuned every month. Rolf was to be taught in the drawing room. From the beginning there was friction with the teacher, as Rolf was rebellious and did not want to do this. He knew how to read music sheets but continued to hit the wrong notes on purpose, totally frustrating the teacher.
One day, after about six month of useless lessons the teacher started yelling at Rolf, who slammed his fist down on the keyboard breaking two of them. He then slammed the cover, breaking the hinges.
That was the end of the piano experiment. Further efforts with harmonica lessons and an accordion ended with the same results.
When Rolf started to go to school in Schlachtensee he was assigned to the school choir. He did not have a choice. His voice at that time started give signs of puberty, with occasional deep sounds and high pitched squeaks. It was so bad that the director shouted at him ’Dieter, shut up, just mouth the words’. He became quite adapt at that, over-acting like an opera singer and showing deep emotions. His fellow choir members were sometimes unable to keep a straight face; and Rolf was ultimately thrown off the choir.
Shortly after his budding movie career started, which was cut short by Franz, who put his foot down and forbid any further involvement. Ironically Rolf had liked that atmosphere and environment.
Perceptions - The Street Lorry Tracks
Starting in early 1946 virtually every street in Berlin was occupied by mini train tracks laid to help remove the immense amount of rubble created by the destroyed buildings. Thousand of women were working to clean and salvage bricks for ultimate reconstruction projects. It was backbreaking work. Dieter spent much time standing in the streets watching and being fascinated by the endless trains going by. He would climb into the ruins and go exploring. It was obviously dangerous, but he did not know that. There was no one around to tell him so. There were few people about and no police presence; everyone was pre-occupied with finding shelter and food to survive another day.
At the end of Isolde Strasse by the Park stood a burned out Panther Tank. The tracks had to be laid around it as there was nothing available yet to move the massive hull. Dieter sometimes climbed into the turret, but was frightened by the darkness and the stench inside the tank.
It took several years to clear the area, although some of the ruins were still standing when Dieter moved to Schlachtensee with his family in 1951.
At the end of Isolde Strasse by the Park stood a burned out Panther Tank. The tracks had to be laid around it as there was nothing available yet to move the massive hull. Dieter sometimes climbed into the turret, but was frightened by the darkness and the stench inside the tank.
It took several years to clear the area, although some of the ruins were still standing when Dieter moved to Schlachtensee with his family in 1951.
Two homeless Children
A common sight in the days following the collapse. Over 90% of residential dwellings were uninhabitable.
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Bundesallee, Wilmersdorf
A main avenue a block away from Isolde Stasse, it was virtually completely destroyed by the bombings.
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After the end of the war most women were required to work cleaning bricks from destroyed buildings for re-use in new construction. There were few man available to perform this backbreaking work
Post War Food Rationing and Availabily
Although food rationing had been introduced at the beginning of the war, it was purposely kept liberal to maintain civilian morale. After the war with the collapse of the transportation system and industrial production capacity, serious shortages developed. Replacement items, called "Ersatz" with little or no nutritional value became part of the diet. Citrus fruits, chocolate, most meats and dairy items disappeared. Coffee was made from roasted barley, egg powder contained no eggs, etc. Lungs, Hearts and brains became part of the diet. Fats were scarce. Overall the minimum caloric intake was maintained and supplemented every possible way by growing things on every empty piece of land and in parks.
Clothing and leather for shoes also was not available. Wooden clogs were worn and people wore whatever they could find.
Those who could afford it dealt on the black market.
Clothing and leather for shoes also was not available. Wooden clogs were worn and people wore whatever they could find.
Those who could afford it dealt on the black market.
The Russian War Memorial
One of the smaller memorials, it used to be located on the Kaiserdamm. After re-unification it was moved. The main Russian war memorial and cemetery is located by the Treptower Park.
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Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp
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Tewes Grundschule (formerly West Schule) - Schlachtensee
The school as it looked in 1952 when Rolf first attended it. It was a 10 minute walk from his house on Matterhorn Strasse. Below is an addition built in later years.
There were extensive sports facilities behind the complex where Rolf did play soccer and ran intermediate distances.
Class sizes were small, although the school did draw students from a relatively large area.
There were extensive sports facilities behind the complex where Rolf did play soccer and ran intermediate distances.
Class sizes were small, although the school did draw students from a relatively large area.
Tewes Schule as it looks today
Dieter 1947 - Portrait taken for studio marketing purposes
Dieter's mother was trying to get him to be part of the fledgling revival of the German movie industry. However, Berlin's isolation, the blockade and shift of major production facilities from Berlin to Munich proved to be insurmountable. It was not until 1953 that he was recruited for the filming of an American movie shot in Berlin.
The Nightmares
The dreams started when Dieter was about eight. This is the main recurring one that has been with him all his life, others come and go.
This dream is the result of their walk from the summer house in Friedersdorf to Berlin when the Russians were closing in. When they reached the apartment building they went straight into the bunker and remained there until Berlin fell.
Dieter is standing in a field looking at the pretty flowers when he heard Opa calling him. They start walking toward the road where a long line of people is slowly moving along with horses, donkeys and carts that are piled high with furniture and other things. There is total silence. They start walking slowly along. A humming starts, slowly getting louder, turning into a roar intermingled with a rapid cracking sound. A plane is coming down from the sky, leveling off at low level shooting at the column. Opa throws Dieter into the roadside ditch and jumps on top of him. He screams, Opa's weight is hurting him. Something below him is moving. The plane disappears. They climb out of the ditch and start walking again. In the fields there are dying animals; and people raising their hands, moaning, 'bitte helfe mir' (please help me). Dieter turns, he suddenly is all alone, Opa is gone. On the horizon flames are reaching to the sky. The humming starts again. The plane is coming back, straight at Dieter, he screams again 'bitte helfe mir' He wakes up.
The Lietzensee
A beautiful park with the small lake by the Kaiserdamm. across the street from Oma and Opa's apartment.
The Church as it looks today
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View of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in the 1930ties, looking down the KuDamm
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