January, 1948

     Last week there was a bomb in our dining room in the Grand Hotel, which is our mess. I happened to be present when the thing went off; it was quite noisy. A big window was smashed but nobody was injured. I expect more trouble of that kind. It won't help them to get more food. But some stupid Nazis feel they have done something and so they rob cars, throw bombs and just try to stir up disorder. The bombs they dropped over London were rather more unpleasant. I shall be glad to be out of Germany, but not because I am scared, there is very little, so far, to be scared of. Bevin's speech and all it implicates is much worse. I am rather pessimistic concerning the general future of Europe. Conditions here are very bad. Yesterday the meat and fat ration was cancelled without warning and they won't get anything for the next two weeks.  The standards for decency and morality have disappeared. There is no German official who could not be bribed for a pound of coffee. In addition, the little food and goods which are available are badly distributed. Everybody tries to hoard whatever they can. The local shoe shop owner may have cement, or kitchen stoves which are urgently needed somewhere else.
     The Krupp's trial is at an interesting stage at the moment as most of the defending lawyers are in jail for contempt of court. I take it they will be released soon, but the whole atmosphere is rather strained. The other day two young Jewish girls came in as witnesses. They had been transferred from Auschwitz to a camp in Essen as slave workers and testified how they had been treated. Krupp did not use many concentration camp inmates, unlike IG Farben, who used many thousands. But the way these girls were treated was more than bad enough. Now they will go to the States, being DP's they have high priority, especially as they were born in what is now Russian territory. The trials are in my opinion too late in the game. Two years ago all this was necessary and important, today other problems overshadow the deeds of Krupp ( read more about Krupp) , Schnitzler (Read about Schnitzler here), and Flick.  ( Despite being found guilty in the Nuremberg Flick Trial, he quickly became one of West Germany's richest people by the 1950s and the largest shareholder of Daimler-Benz. He was awarded numerous honors, including the Grand Cross with Star and Sash of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1963 and the Bavarian Order of Merit, and was an honorary senator of the Technical University of Berlin. At the time of his death, his industrial conglomerate encompassed 330 companies and around 300,000 employees.   read more about flick here) and Darre (read about Darre here). Three years ago it would have been thrilling to read through all these secret and top secret documents, to see Krupp, Weizsaecker, Darre, Flick,  Hans Malzacher, Schmitz, and VerMeer and many other leading industrialists as witnesses or as defendants and to talk to them. But now I think it is outdated and new problems overshadow everything else.
     Vienna was a pleasant surprise for me. I had not been there for almost two years. I could compare the progress made in Austria with the stagnation in Germany and wit the misery which existed in Vienna in 1945. Certainly conditions are bad, but I did not see as many repaired houses in any German town. People in Vienna work again and not every conversation turn round black market or food in general. The American help is tremendous, of course, but I had the impression the Austrians are pulling their weight, whereas the Germans complain and work little or not at all. The Russian question overshadows everything else. Austria and Germany are terribly short of good people. All my old friends have high positions in government or industry now. They all hope that Russia will not interfere too much in Austria and that they will be able to rebuild an Austrian democracy. Germany seems to be in utter misery. People have lost all will and initiative for work. They spend their energies on acquiring a few bags of potatoes and a pair of shoes and blame the allies for their plight. They have completely forgotten that they started the war. The plight of the Eastern refugees is worst of all. They have nothing to trade with, no friends, no home, and very often no profession or knowlege. Mostly women and old people and children came from the Sudenten areas and the German East. The standards of decency and morality have disappeared as there is no German official who could not be bribed for a pound of coffee. In addition, the little food and goods which are available are badly distributed. Everyone tries to hoard whatever one can. The shoeshop may have stocks of cement, food, or kitchen stoves which are urgently needed somewhere else. Money can hardly buy anything except the official rations. . Factories trade in the "grey" market (goods for goods), whether the partner needs the goods is another question. Five tons of potatoes are not shipped in one rail car but 200 individuals with rucksacks spend two days to bring that amount back home, offering the farmers outraeous prices and filling two railroad cars with their bodies, wasting working time and energy. It is difficult to see how all this can be remedied. Only a big injection of money from the outside might do the trick. Communism does not gain much ground her. POW's returning from Russia tell their tales.