I have spent most of my time in British Zone recently, where general conditions are very bad indeed. The whole economic life in the Rhine and Ruhr is not very far from collapse. The British government has been waiting too long, perhaps in the vain hope they will come to some agreement with the Russians first, perhaps because they do not quite appreciate the seriousness of the situation. One can only hope the merger of the two Western Zones might bring alleviation, because production is not only not improving, but actually getting worse in many cases. Nothing is done, production goes down everywhere because there is no coal, and coal cannot be produced because the workers have no food, no machines, etc. The Potsdam agreement slowly but surely shows itself in all its impossibility. (Read more about the Potsdam agreement ) It is tragic to see all the plants idle. People want to work, but can't as there is no fuel or raw materials. Sometimes only small items are missing, like nails, and that holds up a whole factory. On top of it all, is the refugee problem. Refugees come from the East by the thousands. I met Oskar Roesner, his wife, daughter, and father in law in Karlsruhe. They had to work as miners and laborers for several months and were then expelled without a penny. It is very similar to what was done in 1938. Oskar has a poor, little job with an engineer's office as a draftsman. He is so thin that I would never have recongnized him.
I returned from Berlin two days ago. I was much impressed this time. I flew there from Frankfurt in a little under two hours, arrived in Thempelhof airport just in time for tea, having had lunch in Hoechst. A bus took us to Headquarters and the Visitors Bureau. Streets are clean and cleared of all rubble. I could hardly believe my eyes. Only one year ago, streets were littered with tank wrecks and one could not walk on the pavement anywhere because masonry and rubble were blocking the roads. Now Berlin is better organized than any town I have seen in the British or US Zone. Tramcars and underground, gas, water and telephone all work again. There are two opera houses, numerous theatres, shows and clubs of all kinds. The competition between the four powers, plus the innate industriousness of the Berliners has certainly achieved miracles. They publish eleven daily papers in Berlin, against one or two bi-weeklies, no dailies in Frankfurt or Munich. Shops have reappeared on Kurfurtsendamn, packed with luxury goods (but no common consumer goods). These goods are sold at fantastic prices, unobtainable for any normal wage earner. It looks a little like inflation in 1923, but the basic food rations remain available at very low prices indeed and the quantity, although not big, is greater than in the US zone, and much greater than in the British Zone. In some of these open shops, and in many black market shops you can buy anything you like, from the most beautiful porcelain to carpets, to fabric, to cameras, to typewriters and motorcars. Fabric for a man's suit may cost 5000 Mark. The good which has almost replaced currency is the cigarette. It is dished out to US personnel at the rate of 200/week. And if you are not a heavy smoker, you can save quite a lot. Each cigarette is sold on the black market for 7 Marks, or 140 Marks for pack of twenty or 1500 for one carton, although the price varies according to the laws supply and demand. In areas where many Americans are stationed, prices go down, and in areas where the good and general shortages are particularly bad, they go up. But, in general, one can buy a portable typewriter for 800 cigarettes, and so on. I was offered a dicta-phone in perfect condition for only one carton. It really amounts to the fact that everything has gone up in price, but cigarettes and food much more than luxury goods. If you happen to have the first you can trade the latter very cheaply, without consideration of the price in Marks. All this is very unhealthy, it just shows that people have to trade their last belongings, china, carpets, and art goods in order to obtain the essentials of life (food, shoes, and clothing)
What is even more interesting is the whole atmosphere of Berlin. The fact that Berlin forms an enclave inside the Russian Zone, and that the four powers meet there continuously stamps the life of the occupation forces as well as of the Germans. The US and British personnel in Berlin seem to be of much higher quality than the average in the Zones. I met a great number of really intelligent people who know much about conditions in Germany. I visited Siemens again. I had a long talk with general manager of Siemens, one of the best industrialists I have ever met. He was not a Nazi and is still in charge of the same job as during the war. They are employing 10,000 people. They have started making transformers and electric motors and already produce flat irons and electric lighters. They also repair underground and tram cars. Above all, they have a big department set up as a repair shop and make new lathes and tool machines out of old ones they buy on the scrap market or barter for some of their goods. They have a fair number of working machines, and showed me some of the junk they buy. They have to barter their goods for deliveries from the Russian zone, even if they get supplies from their own plants located in the Russian Zone. For example, the insulating porcelain comes from a Siemens plant in Saxony, but they have to trade it for switches. The Siemens plants in the Russian Zone have been nationalized.The industrial development in the Russian Zone in general has a very different trend from the Western Zones. Very much equipment has been evacuated and more plants which are left are working at full capacity. The products are again left only partly in Germany. Much of the goods made in the Russian Zone is shipped East. The Russians dismantled all kind of factories, put a Russian man in charge in the bigger plants they leave here. Under him any efficient German may work, whether Nazi or not. I heard of one case where a bad Nazi , but good engineer, had been dismissed by the British, and the Russians gave him a job two days later, paying double the salary. The Russians try above all to make the intellectuals and leading engineers friendly towards them , whereas little contact is made with the Germans in the US sector and hardly any in the British sector in Berlin. The Russians conduct a very clever propaganda campaign. Russian organizations send parcels to Germans and at the same time make it impossible to ship any packages from the States to Germans in Berlin or the Russian zone. The Russians have opened a club for the leading artists, where high ranking Russians and German top artists can meet. The Germans get good meals off the ration. They further get special food packages once or twice a month. The best people, who get ration card No. 1, because of their jobs, get big packages in addition to the so called general package. The lower people are bribed with smaller parcels. In spite of all these efforts the Russians are still disliked, but my impression is that they are making headway. Their ruthlessness, suppression of bad news, utilizing the communist party for their purposes, and a number of intelligent and good administrators they have sent to Germany, gives them often advantage over the other Allies. Suppression of freedom is complete in the Russian Zone and even in the Berlin Russian Sector the official US paper was forbidden and could not be sold one time because it reported the Byrnes speech from the Paris conference in full. ( read the speech ). All the Allies publish their own paper in German in addition all the parties have their papers. Social Democrats in the Russian Zone are persecuted again, lose their jobs, may be taken from their homes. Concentration camps exist again. The conditions there, I was told, are not too bad, but people are arrested without charge and kept in prison for indefinite periods -like the "Anhaltelager" (detention camps, but not extermination camps) in Austria under Dollfuss (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engelbert_Dollfuss. The Germans tell me one feels just as one did after one year of Hitler in power. The Eastern Zone of Germany is going to be included in the Russian economy more and more, and I cannot see anyway to avoid or stop this trend. Germany looks as if it will split for good.
While in Berlin, I went to the Social Democrat party congress. Berlin is the only place in Germany where the United Labour Party (the communist party plus Labour party, but absolutely dominated by Moscow) exist together with the true Labour Party. Most of the people I spoke with hate dictatorship and would like more freedom, but it looks very different in the east.
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