Berlin at War
Roger Moorhouse
Language: English
Pages: 480
ISBN: 0465028551
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
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at first hand. Not only was the city subjected to the full wrath of the Soviet ground offensive and siege in 1945, but it also found itself in the very front rank of the air war. Its wartime military history, therefore, is a catalogue of superlatives. As the most important Allied target, Berlin attracted more air raids, more aircraft and more bombs than any other German city. It was the most aggressively defended target, employing the largest number of personnel in the most elaborate network of
concerts being staged across the capital, from a Bach recital in the music school to a performance by the choir of the Gross-Berlin guard regiment.5 Senior Nazis were also obliged to donate at least a little of their time and energy. Rudolf Hess spoke to the nation by radio that Christmas Eve, from the naval base at Wilhelmshaven. Goebbels, meanwhile, was the special guest at a celebration in the Berlin Theatersaal. ‘Many children present’, he wrote in his diary, adding optimistically, ‘the
Consequently, there would have been much to entertain night owls. Some might have taken in a Richard Strauss opera – such as Wiener Blut, playing at the theatre on Nollendorfplatz, or Ariadne auf Naxos, which was running at the Staatsoper across town on Unter den Linden. Others might have visited one of the city’s many cabaret shows, such as the famous Kabarett der Komiker, or ‘KadeKo’, on Kurfürstendamm, hosted that summer by the renowned cabaret star Willi Schaeffers. In addition, the UFA
concerns – such as Daimler-Benz, AEG and Bosch – down to the smallest independent tradesman or shopkeeper. In the summer of 1943, the number of foreign and forced labourers in Berlin topped 400,000, comprising one in five of the capital’s total workforce.13 Siemens, for instance, employed nearly 15,000 foreign labourers in the capital, housed in over 100 camps. German Railways employed a further 13,000, Speer’s Berlin Building Inspectorate 10,000 and AEG, 9,000.14 The workers themselves came to
the family and enjoyed coming to work.40 In rare examples, that hospitality could take a more intimate form. Frenchman Marcel Elola arrived in Berlin in 1943. A trained butcher, he was allocated to a small business in Schöneberg, whose owner had been called up for military service, and which was now being run by the man’s wife. ‘The serving girls smiled at me’, Elola reported. ‘My first impression was that here was a good atmosphere.’41 On the evening of that first day, however, events took an
