November 14, 1947

     The Krupp's case will finally start on Monday. The trials show how big business helped Hitler in waging his war, but the average German has the impression that the choosing of just a few industrialists is an injustice or that the whole trial is just a stage show. In Essen, it seemed that everybody there was most antagonistic towards the idea of bringing the Krupp leaders to trial. One hardly has the feeling one is doing anything very useful, whether from a point of justice or of propaganda value.
     Germany is getting rather tense. The friction between East and West can be felt everywhere, and many Germans see their opportunity- particularly in the British Zone. I would not drive alone at night this winter. The hatred against the Allies is increasing and bad policy adds to the prevailing feelings. The Germans hate the Allies. They blame the Allies for all their misery and forget they started, waged and lost a war.  British women have been spit at in shops. I offered a girl at Krupp's, where I worked at Essen, a bar of chocolate, because she had been typing for me all day. She refused to take it as Krupp's employees feel particularly embittered. Democracy cannot be taught amidst hunger and ruins, and I think all such attempts will come to nothing. Money has lost its value and factories as well as private people try to barter goods for goods. Consequently, large stocks of odd material are kept at the wrong places. The cement factory may have traded a few tons of copper sheet for it cement, and has to put the copper in their store room until they can trade it for a small furnace, or food for workers. The Germans complain bitterly about the conditions they are living in, but they hardly ever make any efforts to improve them.
     The political situation seems to be deteriorating. Reports from Eastern Germany are sometimes uncanny. More and more people disappear, everything is much as it was four years ago, except the master have changed. But fear exists more than ever. The country is thoroughly demoralized and there is no ideal to which they may look to. Only the behaviour of the communists in the Russian zone prevents spreading of communism. There, concentration camps exist again, and people do not dare to talk on the streets. US Mil. Gov happened just to catch the few directors of the Askania Works in Berlin producing fuses for the Russians, but they can hardly catch all the Managers in Saxony and further east.(Askania was a manufacturer of aircraft accessories - from Wikipedia " The Askania works had a branch in the Mariendorfer Ringstrasse during the Second World War .  In Mariendorf, Marienfelde and Lichtenrade therefore there were numerous barracks for forced laborers of Askania works. Due to forced labor, the number of employees rose to around 20,000 in 1940. These came from western occupied areas such as Belgium , France and the Netherlands , but also from eastern areas such as Poland and later the Soviet Union, In a major air raid on Berlin by the Allies on August 24, 1943, at least 16 forced laborers from the Soviet Union died in a camp on Ringstrasse.  It is also known that near the end of the war, in 1944 to 1945, children of forced laborers from France and the eastern territories who were in camps of Askania works were starved.  )