February 22, 1946

Factory photos

     I have just returned from a trip to Essen and Duesseldorf, where I visited what is left of Krupp and saw some big plants, which have been less damaged, and am working again at good speed. The English officer now in charge of Krupps took us to the roof of the only building left in the town center. It was an imposing, but terrible spectacle to look over miles and miles of flattened buildings, Krupps kingdom certainly received good attention by the RAF and US Airforces. All the towns are a terrible heap of ruins, Essen, Koeln, Koblenz, or Duesseldorf, ruins wherever you look. I have the impression that the Germans have recovered from the great shock which the war brought, but that they are losing confidence in any future. I am afraid that the communists will reap the benefit of all this, if nothing is done, although for the time being they are generally hated. The standing of the British was certainly higher than that of any other power, but the recent cuts in food rations are taken very much amiss. I am gaining the impression that the Russians are the only ones who have a clear policy in mind and a clear aim and will make progress. They may be hated in Germany for the time being, but in the long run their efficiency is superior to the indecisiveness of the other Great Powers. The Russians keep their part of Germany completely cut off from the rest, and nobody knows how this country will ever be put on its feet again. My opinion of the Russians has not changed much. I saw factories completely stripped of their equipment, countrysides stripped of their cattle and foodstuff, houses of their furniture.
     We live in German towns amidst ruins, and hear and see the greatest misery. But on the whole, one does not meet any Germans excep on business. Fraternization means one thing only , and one can hardly mix with Germans. We live in a compound behind barbed wires and Germans are not allowed to enter that part of the town, except the women who keep the houses clean. All this is very different in Austria where fraternization means a real interest in the problems of the population and occupying forces and the Austrians have real friendly relations.
   

April 20, 1946

     Last weekend I went to Nuremberg and listened to the trials for a morning. It was Rosenberg's turn and the actual questioning was not very exciting, but the arrangements are very interesting. One listens to the trials through microphones which are attached to each seat, and one can switch a little knob, in order to hear everything in English, French, Russian or German. Translators translate while the men are speaking. It is quite marvellous how they are doing it. Nuremberg itself is the most depressing sight of all I have seen, not one single house stands in the old part of the city; only rats can live there now. Atomic bombs could hardly have been more efficient. The town the "Reichparteitage, of the Nurenberger Gesetze" does not exist anymore. It is sad - is there eternal justice?
     Germans coming from the Russian zone speak unanimously about the efficient rebuilding and reorganization, and about the suppression of free thought. It all reminds me very much of Hitler times. People are arrested without reasons, for political opinions only, and freedom from fear certainly is a beautifully dream in that part of the world. But some of the other freedoms do not exist in the western zones either, and I wonder what the Germans will choose eventually, freedom or food. They have made the same choice once before and decided for Hitler. This time it will be Stalin.
     Last week I went to the French zone for the first time, and had to go first to Offenburg, our French clearance center. The zone is rather different from the British and US zones, far less is organized properly, civilians live much more intermixed with Germans, in the same houses very often. From there I managed to slip over to Strassburg, which is a lovely old town again, where the shop windows show goods, the people sit in cafes, and everything looks peaceful and normal. Strassburg is France proper, a big poster behind the Bridge at Kohl informs you, "you are entering the country of liberty". The French are extremely suspicious, and it was quite a job to get some information in Saarbruecken.
     I shall have to move out of my nice billets, and so have hundreds of other officers and civilians because the  officers' dependants are arriving in force and are taking over all the nice houses. Nobody knows what they are going to do with us, everybody is struggling for new billets.The rooms are classed according to the rank you hold, so I have the right to a fairly decent room.

July 1946

     I tried to get my Czech passport and citizenship papers in order because it is always better to have some kind of passport. They refused my application for renewal of passport and are not willing to consider me as a Czech citizen because I did not fight in the Czech army, which I of course, could not have done.
     I went for a visit to Belsen where friends of mine work at the D.P, camp. We went over the area of the infamous Belsen camp, mass graves all over the place - the ghosts of the camp can almost be felt. One furnace where people were burnt is left as a remembrance and a big poster at the entrance reminds you of the great new German culture. There are still millions of DP's, Jewish and non-Jewish who have lost everything and wait for a solution for their lives. The American Joint Distribution Committee is doing very good work there for Jewish D.P.s but it is a hard and unpleasant task. The old Belsen camp has been burnt down last year because of typhoid fever, but they live quite near to it in a new camp.  Many thousand of Jews are there and have nothing to do all day long so many indulge in the blackmarketeering and other nonsense. Most want to go to Palestine and wait for a place to go so they can settle down. They did not come on their own free will, and wait for help and rescue. Palestine is a difficult question. It is difficult for Great Britain to intervene in the highly explosive area expecially since the Russians have made themselves supporters of Arab nationalist claims, and the Americans criticize Britain but refuse to take a share of the responsibilities.
      I now work for the publications board scheme of the Department of Commerce. We are going to microfilm all important German scientific and technical research, and make it available to all Allied industrialists or government departments. One goes from one factory to another, or to universities, or institutes, and screens what seems to be of importance and not well know in general. A few days later microfilm operators arrive and film all the material. Then it is sent to Washington, indexed, short English summaries are attached and bibliographies are then sent to any interested agency. The Russian government has ordered copies of every film. Private industries can order either copies of the films or photostats for little money and avoid repetition of experiments and research previously conducted in Germany. That will be the only reparations which America will ever get out of Germany. I travel mostly though the British zone, as that is where the bigger metals plants are located. We work only in the three western zones.
     .

August, September 1946

     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.

October 1946

(From a letter to a friend, Dr Judith Miller, who immigrated to Palestine)
I am interested in whether you managed to go to Palestine this year. Conditions there, I gather, are anything but enjoyable. It is a great pity that all this trouble had to come. The British, of course, are in an extremely difficult situation as long as the American government is not willing to back them up and to help them to face the consequences of the large number of immigrants. The Russians are doing everything possible to stir up trouble and support the Arabs, and the British alone feel not strong enough to face a big Arab opposition. Their main fault, in my opinion, lies in fact, that they did not try to settle the Palestinian problem before the war. But what did Chamberlain do after all? I think very much indeed of the present Labour government, and believe that they are the most progressive and positive influence during the last ten years, and perhaps the last century. And yet, they still have difficulties all over the world.
     I have had enough of Europe and am rather unhappy my visa has not yet been granted. I expected it to take six months and that was a year ago. I would like to get settled and find a real permanent job. I still hope it will be during 1946, but my hope is getting fainter every day. People who come out of concentration camps or have been persecuted by the Nazis get preference, rightly so, over those who are not in the same plight. Still, I wish my turn would come soon and sometimes I wonder whether I should not go back to England after all. But very much attracts me to the Sates. I have been working with Americans for more than a year now, and I like them, their open-mindedness, the fact that you are not a b... foreigner, the quickness with which they correct mistakes, and the technical progress which you feel in every detail.
     I have no interest in going to Moravska Ostrava. (Where the family steel factory was in Czechoslovakia) Conditions there are impossible for anyone who is not a real true blue Czech, and a good Communist as well. I am neither and prefer not to return. The country is recovering speedily, living conditions are better than elsewhere in Central Europe, but I hear and see too much of Communist pressure and dictatorship to wish to live under those circumstances. You can hardly imagine what life looks like in the Eastern Zone of Germany. It reminds you very much indeed of Germany in 1934. There is no freedom of thought, fear of arrests, concentration camps exist in Oranienburg (although with better treatment than under the Nazis) ( read about Oranienburg here ) arrests occur without reason, and for undetermined periods.
      Men lose their jobs, and their ration cards if they remain social democrats. I am seeing a rather dark future and am skeptical that our way of thinking and the Russian way will ever compromise. Germany is in a terrible mess. The Western Allies did not realize that one has to get industry going  to some extent, until it became frightfully too late. They have not given the Germans anything to live for- no creed or belief. That is where the Russians have gained the upper hand. They are still detested by many, but economic success will count for a lot and hunger in the West, plus unemployment and the cold will hardly convince Germans of the better way of democracy. We have to do something better, otherwise we shall have chaos in Europe once again in the near future. The American Zone is the best organized at the moment, but the American taxpayer has to pay for it, and that can hardly go on forever.

November, 1946

Life in Germany has not changed much. It is still very easy going for us here inside the compound gates, and yet so very many difficulties and frictions, poverty and distress on the other side of the gates. You may have heard that FIAT men live in Bad Homburg now, which means a great amount of travelling every day. I have been in the field very much during the last few months, and have more and more to work on with the microfilm project. I spend much of my time in the British zone and I can judge with my own eyes that conditions there are anything but good and are deteriorating. More and more plants have to reduce their output, steel production is declining and fewer goods are available in the open market than ever before. It is slightly better in our zone, due to the greater agricultural area and the great amount of money which the Americans are putting into the country. But on the whole it looks pretty bad and if this winter is very cold, it will be anything but lovely. Starvation and famine exist, particularly in the British zone in the big towns of the Rhine and Ruhr. A manager of a factory tells me he and his family of three have been living on four beet roots for the last two days, bread being unobtainable in Dusseldorf as well as potatoes and any other food.  The whole country looks like it is becoming a slum. One can only be surprised that there aren’t riots. The conditions in the Russian Zone are not much better and have the added scourge of fear. People do not dare to talk aloud in the tramcars and are arrested and taken from their homes without reason or warrants.  
      Central Europe is anything but decent. People hate each other and do everything possible to make life disagreeable. You can hardly imagine the attitude of the average Bavarian to the refugees from the East, and the amount of running to the police and denouncing one’s neighbors. The food situation, particularly in towns like Essen or Dussledorf is grim beyond description. People sit in the cold, the light fades out or is dimmed to almost uselessness every day, and  there is nothing to eat. Millions of refugees have to  be crammed in the overcrowded area. Why one agreed to accept several millions of refugees from Eastern Germany without making provisions to feed them I do not understand. Most of the good will which England and the western democracies enjoyed a year ago has gone. They believe that England is starving them purposely. One has the feeling the Ruhr is near complete collapse.
          My mother and some other friends want me to stay in England, but I am hoping to go to the states before very long. I personally never got to like England enough, or to put it better, England never got to like me enough. I always feel there as a stranger. I don’t feel that way with the Americans. I have met many very nice and good people, many rather primitive ones, but on the whole, I like them.  I had planned to go to the States during 1946, but the reorganization of the quota system made this impossible.

Christmas, 1946

I feel rather disappointed that I had to celebrate Christmas in Germany, although I am trying to make the best of it. Just before Christmas, rushed imports from the US Zone restored some of the bread distributions and at least the bread rations were honored. The black market flourishes more than ever. The general manager of  one of the biggest companies tells me he spends half his time bartering minute quantities of steel and erecting barns and huts for farmers in order to get potatoes from these farmers. The potatoes are then distributed to workers who attend fairly regularly, because their wages cannot but buy their ration and one cigarette. It is astonishing and surprising that a great part of the workers and staff have enough conscience to come to work, to do their best and not give up hope. The US zone is very much better off, America is pumping quantities of food and other raw materials into their zone, and that can be felt.  People in our zone are much better fed, better clad and have more coal to heat their houses.  Machine factories in the British zone could not get permission to resume work, no mining machinery was produced, no consumer goods available for the miners, and the whole way of life has almost collapsed.The Americans have greatly enhanced their good will, whereas the British have lost it.  People sit in the cold, in dark or dimmed houses, without food, sometimes with only a beet root to eat for a day. The people believe that England is starving them purposely, and it takes a few years of living in England to be convinced that it is just British inefficiency and lack of imagination and lack of forethought rather than bad will. There is no hope and no work. They blame the British occupying government and with it democratic socialism has lost very much of the goodwill it held a year ago.The British have blundered terribly in their zone, forbidding all kind of work, sending some of their most inefficient civil servants over here, and trying to run the country.

January 12, 1947

     We have moved from Hoechst to Karlsruhe. We are billeted in Durlach, about 6 miles away. In order for us to have our places to live, the Germans were cleared out of their houses, and the "organizing" or what was really looting of furniture reminded me of the tales I heard of Oynhausen (headquarters of the British army of occupation - this is what one article said about it: After the war the city was closed for the people of Bad Oeynhausen, and 2/3 of the inner city was fenced in with barbed wire. The people in this area had to leave their homes within 24 hours and what was left in the houses was burned by some (not all) of the British soldiers, regardless of being precious, sentimental or important to the owners. Also excrement was deposited in rooms or on beds......you see, not all the houses were used for accommodation.). The Germans sent protest telegram to their minister presidents, but the army wanted us there. One tried to evacuate Nazis and exempted politically sound people as far as possible, but the fact remains, that the people had to leave most of their belongings in their homes.

      I cannot understand what delays my visa so badly. I write and cable to Washington, but so far without success. I hope this year will see me in the states.
      I heard from my friend who lives in southern California. She writes a very interesting description of life there as follows: "I hope you will visit here for a while to gape and marvel and shake your head at southern California, and wonder whether the Creator in His whim has fashioned it as a kind of funny relief to Europe of the present. Life here is so much  "the other side of the coin" that it really looks as if it had been done on purpose. I never knew that sun, warmth, and abundance of food and goods could do so little to remedy the core irritation and dissatisfaction in people's lives. But there it is, undiminished - let me explain. One of Los Angeles' biggest newspaper men, Manchester Boddy  (read about Manchester Boddy ), wrote from Berlin the other day, that when he saw the tired food queue in front of a baker's shop break up in anger and disappointment because the rations had given out and they had waited for hours in vain and had to go home hungry, he was reminded of the same sights he had seen time and again at the ticket counters in Los Angeles before the annual football match. Reading such a comparison before I got here would have outraged me. Now I understand only too well what Boddy means, for similar comparisons simply force themselves upon me every day.
      At first you will enjoy it all tremendously. You will love the pretty practical house of our neighbor the truck driver. You will enjoy the ever-ready sun and the orange trees full of fruit, and the roses and carnations that will be flowering for your welcome as much as they are flowering now on the 2nd of February. A neighbor, an old woman, who had lived in Frankfurt throughout the war and gone through the whole post-war period, found sunny, abundant, overfed Los Angeles too much to bear. She now sits in her luxurious room or under the laden orange trees in the garden wrapped up in a desperate melancholia, a woman who was never given to deep brooding before in her life."

February 6, 1947

I still have not gotten my visa as my quota is oversubscribed. The Department of Commerce has taken us over, and started the Publications Board Microfilm Program. I am now coordinator for metals, minerals, and machinery for the microfilm program.  We work in the three western zones exclusively. I meet the best German scientists, write reports on subjects in my line, and can study this strange life in Europe. I supervise 15 of our screeners, discuss their problems and targets, and visit the targets myself. In addition to writing reports on special aspects of German metallurgical industry or science, we now screen and film all German documents in industrial establishments, universities, research centers, etc. The DOC is publishing a weekly bibliography and anybody in the States or England can order copies of the films on the latest German research in almost an field. You can now read about the latest research on rubber conducted by IG Farben, or order the film on aluminum cladding or on synthetic shoe polish. Krupps latest research on deep drawing steels or low temperature steels is thus made available. (Speaking of Krupps, I heard from my friend that her cousin, Dr Benno Strauss, who was the inventor of Stainless Steel and director of Krupp before the war, died in 1944 in a concentration camp after being denied a visa to the US. )
     I visited hamburg and the Ruhr last week hamburg was bitterly cold. People were skating and bicycling on the frozen lake. People can only heat their dining rooms and their bedrooms are around the freezing point. The condition in The Rhineland is awful. I remember when I read about famine in China and it sounded very sad, but did not affect me too much- it was too far away. That is different now, you see workers at the furnaces who can't carry on after a few hours work.  You speak to a manager of a factory who tells you that he and his family of three had three beet roots for last two days and nothing else. Rooms are without light and heat and the people are without hope.
      Germany is in a rotten position now, particularly the British Zone is on the brink of collapse. There are regulations forbidding all kind of essential production. There is a lack of mining machinery and of skilled miners. Many have been killed and many are POW's in Russia or France. Those who are left have no incentive to work, and not enough food to keep them fit. The machinery is worn out, and replacement can't be made because the machine factories do not produce anything.  There is an influx of refugees from the East. The black market flourishes. One carton of cigarettes sells at 1000 to 1200 marks in the British Zone, at 500 in our zone, where conditions are better and supply is greater. In the British zone, ration cards are often not honored. I do not pity the Germans, but it was bad policy to let things go so far and now one has to start with loans and imports to get the country going. In addition, the presence of a slum in the center of Europe can't be anything but a source for more trouble. So far, Germany has not gone communist because the conditions in the Russian Zone are even worse than in the British. It reminds one of Nazi Germany, people are scared to speak in the train cars, they are taken from their homes and shipped to Russia or lose their jobs because they do not join the party. Our Zone is by far the best run, partly because it was less destroyed and had more agriculture, and partly because the US government realized much earlier than the British that we can control German industry at a top level, but we have not enough good men to spare to run and manage it. The British had too many second and third rate people over here, made them managers of big plants, and they don't know any details of production, but know enough about essentials. The British have lost most of the good will they held a year ago, and the chief problem will exist in a year or two, what kind of philosophy or way of life will the Germans choose. The Russians will certainly try to demonstrate theirs. I personally do not think that free trade and private enterprise will succeed in Germany, if the British have nationalized the coal mines in the Ruhr and the Russians all the industry in their zone. The competition will be between planned democracy, and communism. Democracy does not seem to mean much to the average German as it brought worse living conditions than ever, he thinks.The communists are clever and absolutely unscrupulous. I sometimes wonder whether and when we shall see another war. I don't see how one can cooperate with people who have no moral principles at all.
     I have also recently been to Brussels. It is an amazing place, full of the newest motorcars, light, unrationed food and clothes, oranges and sweets and hundreds of things I have not seen since 1938 can be bought there, rather expensively, but quite unrationed. I was asked to visit an Aluminum foil plant in the French zone, in which  US industry, apparently, is interested and to report on it. But I can hardly imagine that German rolling mills, eight or ten years old, can be very useful for the US Industry.

May 6, 1947

I am still in Germany, which is very much against my liking I applied for a US visa in 1945. Although I am a Czech citizen, but as I was born in Vienna, I have to go to the states on the Austrian quota , which is badly oversubscribed. I was told by my lawyer that there will be no more visas issued before July. I am trying to make the best of it, but I should prefer to be in the States and to get a permanent job.

It is somehow surprising and amazing to watch the speed with which things are done by the US government, being used to European conditions.The work here is coming to an end, more quickly than expected. Many things may have to be left undone, and a fair proportion of all the investigational  and microfilming work will not be utilized, because no time is left to index and process it properly. Very much of good material was and is in the mill just now and can hardly be processed without help of the German scientists in the Document Branch. But the army wants us out of Germany. Gen Clay wanted us out of Germany as the new policy will rebuild Germany and he does not want anybody here who tries to get knowledge or information out of this country. The DOC is trying to get a three month extension, which would be all that is necessary. I sometimes wonder how much benefit will derive to the industry as a whole. My impression is that the dissemination of German reports in the form of microfilm will be a difficult job and would take so long that most industries will not be willing to wait for it. That may be a pity in many cases, as a lot of effort and work has been put into this organization.  I personally would prefer if FIAT could carry on for just that time, but if it doesn't, I shall say thanks for everything I had here and take another job. The Krupps' team of the war crime people want somebody with experience in metals so I may be in Nuremberg next month.

I bought a Volkswagen. Gasoline is furnished by the army, as transportation here is getting worse and worse. Conditions in general are very bad. It is difficult to find a German of the younger generation who would not like to emigrate and leave his country. Germany is too weak now to recover on its own strength alone, particularly if no unity can be reached on any major issues. The credit of the US army is high. This based to fair degree on the PX and not on the belief in democracy. More than 50 % of German youths joined American sponsored youth clubs largely because of additional food, and to a lesser degree because they want to learn English. Everything over here can be bought for a few cigarettes or a pound of coffee, whether a shop keeper, policeman or a pretty girl. Democracy does not mean much the average German. He thinks it brought worse living conditions than ever. Of course he is wrong, it was not democracy, but he himself and Hitler who brought all this about, but people have short memories, and remember that Hitler did much for them and now the communists preach a new millennium and they will fall for it again. It seems that many of the Germans hope for an early clash between East and West, and the country is full of rumors of an oncoming war. The communists are clever and absolutely unscrupulous, more than ever. I wonder whether we shall see another war. I don't see how one can cooperate with people who have no moral principles at all.

June 14, 1947

I have taken a job with the Krupps team at the war crimes trials in Nurnberg. They needed somebody who knows a little about steel. The job is interesting, but would have been thrilling 2 years ago. But now no one cares so much about reading secret letters from Goering to Krupp officials, or on the building of the "Maus", (learn more about "Maus" tank) and on the damage inflicted by Allied air raids, or on the treatment of Eastern laborers, etc. I certainly think these Krupp leaders should hang, but it seems rather difficult to prove their guilt if one sticks to normal standards. Of course they just say that they got their orders from higher up, and so on. I personally am working on the aggressive war team and we have to show that Krupp or Houdremont (manager at Krupps) or others were guilty of preparing and fostering aggressive war. I personally should prefer to do something more positive. I become familiar with US law by meeting lawyers all day long and talking about other problems as well. My immediate boss is a very intelligent woman lawyer. ( Cecelia Goetz - for more about Cecelia Goetz  https://sites.manchester.ac.uk/wilnet/2017/05/15/cecelia-goetz-first-female-prosecutor-nuremberg-trials/  )Four other people and myself spent two weeks in Essen and Herford to check Krupp documents, it was quite strange to re-visit old places.

I would like to go to Vienna, but no permits are issued. the US authorities don't like visitors because billets are scarce and every bit of food has to be shipped for such a long distance. One can go to Salzburg or Innsbruck, and I have applied again. As Vienna was out I went to Prague and Moravska Ostrava last week. ( my note:  Moravska Ostrava is now the third largest city in the Czech Republic and the second largest urban agglomeration after Prague. Located close to the Polish border. Its history and growth have been largely affected by exploitation and further use of the high quality black coal deposits discovered in the locality, giving the town a look of an industrial city and a nickname of the “steel heart of the republic”  during the communist era of Czechoslovakia. Many of the heavy industry companies are being closed down or transformed, yet the city remains one of the most polluted in the EU.)  Prague is as beautiful as ever. The country has recovered to an amazing degree. Food is better than in England, they have a ration card, but in restaurants you pay 25% more and get everything without the cards. I spent an evening with an old friend who is in charge of the office of the World Jewish Congress. Both he and his wife had been in several concentration camps and luckily enough found each other again after everything was over. They, as well as other people I met, do not want to stay. One has a feeling slightly comparable to the one in 1938. Also then Prague was lovely, food plentiful, industry working- but a big shadow of uncertainty loomed over it all. One can talk freely in Prague, as one could in 1938, papers from London and New York are sold in the streets. But the question felt everywhere is how long will it please Stalin to permit all this? When I was in Moravska Ostrava, I visited my cousin Irma. No one from her family survived at all, except her sister, Stella, who is in New York.

I also visited the factory ( Elbertzhagen & Glassner - family steel factory that he managed until 1939, and was confiscated by the Nazis). Mr Bucala, who worked under Wluka in the old days in the accounting office, is now the procurist, and a new man from Witkowitz is the director. The factory has been enlarged very much during the war. Now it is called First Ostrauer Machine Factory, Nationalized Undertaking. Like all the big mills it has been nationalized, and there is not the slightest hope or chance ever to get this factory back. Laws about compensation have not been passed yet, but one may get finally a few thousand Kronen, if one is lucky, and if everything would be slightly less involved than it happens to be, due to the skill of Hugo, Tony, Ludwig and Alfred (his uncles). But the feeling against everything German, and capitalist is very strong, and it is absolutely ridiculous even to consider for a moment to return there, except on holidays to the Tatra ( a mountain range which forms a natural border between Slovakia and Poland, and are the highest mountain range in the Carpathian Mountains ) or Prague. I was not permitted to enter the factory, which made me rather sad, being slightly sentimental. But as the factory is working on government orders they still have got these silly orders, and since they think of me as "American" they were not willing to let me in. I spoke to one of the old bosses, who was very good and nice, but the other people did not like seeing me. They are Czechs, and antisemitism and anti-capitalism is very strong in these nationalized mills. Hatred of the Germans is terribly strong everywhere, much more than in Belgium or France. Ostrau itself is rather poor. There is hardly any damage, but most civilized people have gone. I went to the old cafe and felt glad to get out again. On the other hand, the workers seem to profit under the new system. Everybody agrees that the spirit of the workers is high and their condition is good.  I went to see Dr Kraleczek, who was and is a lawyer, and who looked after my things in 1939. His wife is Jewish, and all her family has been killed.

September 7, 1947

Germany is the poorhouse of Europe. Conditions have not improved much although you can see a fair number of houses repaired, and more goods seem to be available than six months ago. This particularly applies to the Ruhr, where the miners get big extra rations and live comparatively well off now. But otherwise, all incentive for work has gone and people do not care anymore. They cannot buy anything with their marks, earn much more if they spend a day in blackmarketeering than a week at honest work. This lack of incentive applies as much to large industries as to the tram conductor. Taxes are too high and factories lose money because they can never replace goods they have to sell at fixed prices. Germany is heading for a a tough winter. The army of occupation is less popular than ever. One can notice it quite often by the attitude of the Germans who have changed from extreme servility a year ago to an underlying hostility and passive resistance now. It does not seem that the Germans are ready for democracy.

My work here is steady and we have several interesting cases including Krupp, IG Farben, and Einsatzgruppen case .

( my note- SS paramilitary death squads that were responsible for mass killings, typically by shooting. The units targeted Jews in particular, but also significant numbers of other population groups and political categories; including Gypsies, and Soviet political commissars. The Einsatzgruppen operated throughout the territory occupied by the German armed forces following the German invasions of Poland, in September 1939, and later, of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. The Einsatzgruppen carried out operations ranging from the murder of a few people to operations which lasted over two or more days, such as the massacres at Babi Yar (33,771 killed in two days) and Rumbula (25,000 killed in two days). The Einsatzgruppen were responsible for the murders of over 1,100,000 people, and they were the first Nazi organizations to commence mass killing of Jews as an organized policy.)
I occasionally find time to listen in on the other cases for short periods and find it amazing, inspite of everything one knows. Some of the defendants are very interesting people. I listened several times at the IG Farben and SS general trials. It seems incredible how harmless these SS generals appear. One could be an old professor and in fact he killed 150,000 Jews in a few months and has no guilty conscience whatsoever. My work with FIAT brought me in contact with mostly decent Germans, and one tends to forget what happened here for eight years. Nuernberg is a dreary bombed out city and one cannot do much in town.

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.  )

December 3,1947

I came back from Vienna yesterday and am very glad that I could go. Vienna was a most agreeable surprise to me. I had not seen it for two years, the last time being Christmas of 1945. I could hardly believe my eyes. It is very different from Germany. One can see repaired houses everywhere, people are working, they do not look starved, and are well clad. The country is far from normal, but the progress made is great, unlike Germany where one has to spend all their spare time in getting a few additional rations in the black market. The American help is very great. 60% of all food consumed in the towns comes to Austria as free gift. All the people I visited had at least one warm room, and fair food. Very many people in Vienna get additional CARE packages as well. The   Opera is open, and the theaters are good. Prices are exorbitant, though. Just now they are converting their money to Schillings at a rate of 3:1. Everybody wants to buy as much as possible and get rid of the bad old Schillings. Consequently the shops are almost empty of goods and the shop owners refuse to sell anything. People pay debts to their enemies with the old Schillings, but not their friends. There are good jobs now and men and women who could not get any work before 1939, are in leading jobs now.Vienna is not what it used to be- the town is now without Jews, and somehow without culture. A new generation has come. My impression may be comparable to the one that one may have had in 1922, looking at Old Vienna of 1912. Perhaps it will be nice again- it certainly is interesting. Austria is the only country where the communists are losing ground, surrounded by communist dominated Eastern Europe. I felt strongly that I do not belong to Austria any more.

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.

February, 1948

I finally received the good news that I will get my Visa. I have been waiting for this for almost three years!  I am planning to finish work here at the end of March and then, after a brief vacation in Italy, go to England and say good bye to my mother and the rest of my family. I will be sailing for the United States on May 7.
     I was in Vienna recently. Vienna has recovered very much indeed. The currency reform was a real success. Many goods are now available and the black market has lost and the Schilling has a recognized value.
     The political situation with the Czech crisis is a great shock. The plight of the Eastern refugees is worst of all. As Nuernberg is the nearest large town to the Czech border, refugees come here by the hundreds. No committees have been formed yet and millions of Sudeten German refugees, expelled by the Czechs a short time ago and living in camps all over the zone, doesn't make it easy for these Czechs to find friendly reception.

May 16, 1948

Well, this is America! I arrived May 13 at about noon. The trip was unexciting. The boat was neat and clean, but otherwise "Polnische wirtschaft" exists in communist Poland as much as ever. About half the passengers were British, the rest Danes and Poles. There was nobody interesting on the boat. I slept, ate and read most of the time. The weather was mostly cloudy, windy, and cold. The last morning, when we entered the harbor, the sun came out again and it was a grand spectacle to move slowly into the port, passing the statue of liberty and seeing all the skyscrapers, just as one has seen in pictures, but in reality more impressive.The immigration authorities did not take 30 seconds to check my papers, but the customs authorities were very exact and looked through every trunk and case and bag. That took almost an hour. Then I was released into America. Funny, I had no feeling of being in a strange place. When we went into a drugstore to have a cup of coffee I felt almost as if I were in the PX in Nuremberg. The latest American cars look exactly like those my friends had in Germany. The traffic is not denser than in London.

May 23, 1948

The first week in America has passed pretty quickly. I had to go three times to different parts of New York in order to get my boxes released from the customs people. I had sent part of my belongings directly to New York from Germany and a  case like mine has not existed before, where one is not coming as Germany immigrant, but the mail is sent from an APO address, but not from an American either and still the army had taken care of the transportation. But everything eventually got straightened out and I had not to pay a cent. I have not decided yet whether to change my name. I shall not do it while I am here in New York. Pollitzer does not seem to have the tinge it has in Europe. People here seem to have the impressions that it is a good old English name, except for Europeans, who know better.
     America is a wonderful country and California more than all the other states. The greatness, the speed, the lack of tradition, and the dimensions of everything are more than impressive.
     I went to the top of the Rockefeller building last night - a 72 story building. It is actually a group of seven or eight skyscrapers, all built between 1932-1937. During the day 150,000 people work there and they are almost a town on their own with a post office, hospital and station. There are roof gardens on the 50th and 70th floors, or whatever is the top of the various buildings. Midnight on Broadway in New York is remarkable: so much light! There are still so many people, there are shops that are still open, restaurants and drugstores crowded, millions of neon lights, cars, and buses. The sky scrapers are overwhelming in their mass, one would be impressive, but hundreds are more than astonishing. The shops on Fifth Avenue are not like anything I had seen in Paris or London or anywhere in prewar days. The shops are open as much at midnight as during the day. The port with the Queen Elisabeth and Mary are five minutes from the town centre. Lights and traffic and people are overwhelming. New York is much more beautiful than one would think. Water is everywhere. There is a beautiful beach just 25 minutes from the city where one can swim or sail. You can also go to the port which is close to the center of town and you can see the Queen Elizabeth and other big ships. I am staying in a hotel on the 21st floor and have a nice little room for $4.00/night. I get clean linens daily, a radio, a bath room with a shower with hot and cold water and iced water for drinking.

June 12, 1948

I had an opportunity to visit Washington. It is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen. It is quite modern and very well planned and at times reminded me of Paris. There are huge office buildings, palaces would be a better description, and green squares wherever you look. The Potomac is not much smaller than the Thames, but is a friendly, well organized river with big reservoirs through it. The National Art Gallery is the best laid out museum you can imagine. It has perfect light conditions and air conditioning to keep the temperature and moisture the same all year. I didn't know they had so many first class paintings here in America.
     The trains here are marvelous- except they don't run on Sundays. All the windows are closed all the time but there is air conditioning which creates cool air. No matter how stuffy and hot it is outside, you feel just right as soon as you enter your compartment. I did decide to shorten my name and took the official papers already.

June 28, 1948

Pittsburgh is the dirtiest town I have ever seen in my life. It is dirty, hot and disagreeable and I should not like to live here if I can avoid it. I went to the Mellon Institute where many of the big companies have special fellowships for chemical and all kinds of industrial research problems. It is very well equipped and the building alone looks like a palace. I saw the university of Pittsburgh, called the cathedral of learning because it looks like a Gothic cathedral, but is a skyscraper at the same time. It is an amazing building. I have been offered a good job, but will try my luck in California.
     The country is full of convention news and everything else is pushed into the background. Europe seems to be getting worse, news from Vienna and Berlin is rather bad. I remain rather pessimistic, although certainly not for this year. People here have become rather anti-British, or more so than in the past. The Jewish question pays a big role in the news. In New York, in the Jewish parts, one could see posters to boycott England, English goods and denouncing England very strongly. I think myself that Britain behaved abominably, breaking all promises and forfeiting all the good will.

July 6,1948

I am now in Los Angeles, my journey's end. I would like to write about the journey. After I left Pittsburgh, I went to Detroit and picked up my new car, a Kaiser-Frazer. It is a very large car and I have ample room for all my luggage. The car has a built-in radio. Detroit is full of traffic but has a a very beautiful and extremely well laid out center. I t also has wide boulevards like the Ringstrasse. There are apartment buildings 30 floors high and good shops.

After Detroit, I went to Ann Arbor and visited cousin Martin where he lives in a fraternity. Ann Arbor is a pretty place, one of the colleges is built in Oxford college style. Everywhere is green space and squares. After that I passed Gary, the biggest steel plant in the world, where more steel is made than in the whole of France and almost as much as in England. I passed a huge oil refinery which seemed like a city on its own. I then made it to Chicago. There is a big highway, with eight lanes for cars that goes all along Lake Michigan for miles and miles. All of the lanes in each direction are crammed with cars which was an amazing sight. People were swimming in the lake, sailing, and rowing. Downtown there are the most beautiful stores with much better taste and hundred times more goods than at Harrods. The Wrigley chewing gum people have a huge skyscraper that is floorlit, just like the Viennese Rathaus on May 1st. The central park has fountains in all colors, 60 feet high- everything is so rich, big, and yet still often tasteful.
     After Chicago, I drove through Illinois and Missouri and then on to Kansas City. The country side is hilly, green, and hot, but is also pleasant with some rivers. There are good streets but no superhighways. and the small towns have lots of stop signs. There are much fewer cars on the roads and there are big farms, mostly corn. I never knew that one uses so much corn, not only for hogs, but here humans consume it in corn flakes, popcorn, etc. Kansas City is one of the biggest cattle and grain centers, a hot, sunny , modern wealthy town.  After leaving Kansas City, I drove on through Kansas. For hundreds of miles one drives through wheat and corn fields. The wheat was ripe and yellow and beautiful. But there are no "wogende weizenfelder" in this country. The wheat is much shorter and a different resistant type. There are golden lakes. The big harvesting machines were busy all along the way. They cut about four or five inches off the stalk, including the ear, thresh it, cut the straw to little pieces which is strewn over the stubble field, and then the harvest is over. It is all very impressive, but it sure lacks the romanticism of our harvests. No women or children are seen as helpers, just two or perhaps three men on the machines, which proceed at ten or twelve miles an hour.
     The further I drove, the fewer people could be seen. There are many miles between villages, no cow or horses, just a car every five miles or so. Nothing for miles on end but wheat fields. The country is not absolutely flat, but permanent waves, ups, and downs. Slowly, then without noticing it you go higher and higher on a very straight road. Finally I arrived in Denver. The capitol is a beautiful building with a golden roof and has a flight of steps leading into the building. On one of the steps you find engraved: one mile above sea level. From Denver one can see the high mountains. Although the place itself lies rather high, it is not mountainous yet. The next day I drove right into very high mountains- up to 12,000 feet high. At Loveland Pass (learn more about the Loveland Pass ) I crossed the Continental Divide. To the left water flows into the Atlantic, to the right into the pacific Ocean. I walked a little but found it rather strenuous and so did the car. The vegetation is poor, not comparable to the Swiss mountains or Dolomites. Going down I came through Glenwood Springs, with the largest open air swimming pool. ( read more about the Glenwood Pool ) One one side it has a hot spring and the other end a cold shower, so you can swim in whatever temperature you choose. The Next day I entered Utah, the Mormon state. Beautiful mountains and real green meadows greeted me for the first time near Glenwood Springs. I drove down stream to Grand Junction, still four or five thousand feet high. Now began the worst part of the trip. It was very hot and I came into the desert. I think the temperature was near 120 and the water in the car got to boiling. I had to stop and wait 'til the car cooled down a little. The desert was unpleasant and I had no idea that it was so long and extended. Strange hills and mountains in blue and yellow stretch all through this part of the country. I was very glad when it was all over and I reached a town. I stopped at a snack bar in the mountains of Utah. Very friendly people asked me whether I would like to hunt for lions. While they insisted they were lions, when I saw the photos, my impression is that they were pumas. Very near the lion place I entered Zion National Park. The national parks are areas where everything has to be left untouched- no hunting, fishing, etc. The lions can breed undisturbed in the park and can be shot only when they leave the park. Zion leads into the Virgin Canyon. Fantastic mountains of sandstone, shapes comparable to the Dolomites, deep red and blue and brilliant white from the base for this Canyon. The mountains are bare, nothing grows. But the soft stone gave the rivers opportunities to cut fantastic shapes into the stone. All the mountains have very Biblical names. A tunnel more than 1 1/2  miles is cut through one of the mountains and you have to use this road when coming down. I was glad to find a small swimming pool at the bottom of the canyon and enjoyed all this very much.
     I then drove on until Las Vegas, the Monte Carlo of the USA. At the end of a long desert stretch, hot and void of all living beings, one comes to the gayest and brightest town one can imagine. The streets are lit as is Broadway in New York. The hotels and shops are exquisite and gambling is everywhere. People lose money in large quantities, not only with roulette but with little automats where you throw money in, turn a crank and sometimes figures show up and you win, but mostly you lose. In Roulette, they have invented the double zero here, to give the house a greater chance, in addition to the single zero well known in European casinos. Every hotel room is air conditioned. Out side it may be 100 degrees but your room is cool.
      The next morning was my final stretch of the journey. There were three hours of bare desert, gilded by mountain ranges and then down into San Bernadino. Orange groves are everywhere, green country, flowers and beautiful colors. Three more hours and I finally made it to my sister's house in a suburb of Los Angeles. Los Angeles really is a town of miracles. The climate is lovely, very cool at night, but rather hot during the day. Here you pick your oranges and grapefruit from the tree for breakfast. There are oil wells right in the center of town and a little tar lake. There are beautiful mansions that belong to the movie stars. Taxis have radios to communicate with and be directed to and from headquarters. One can swim in the blue Pacific, almost as blue as the Mediteranean.  Greater Los Angeles is a fairly large industrial center now. Mainly aircraft and consumer goods industries, but also a fair amount of foundries and other heavy industry are located here now. Only two or three of a hundred inhabitants were born here, most of them come from the midwest. Four million have migrated to California since 1940. It is a strange part of the world, where you need not be surprised when quite large bungalows and even houses are moved through the streets at night. When you go through the streets at night, you see huge trucks with houses on them. They drive through town at 6 mph. I could imagine that someone could come home from a vacation and find that their house has been stolen! The mail is delivered by helicopter to the outlying suburban post offices from the main office.
     I have visited San Francisco and will look into work there. The Highway between San Francisco and L.A.  is an old Mission path and runs along the Pacific. It was one of the most beautiful trips. Once I went to Lake Tahoe in the High Sierra, the mountain tops were full of snow, the lake blue and very much like Alpen lakes. I then went to Reno, which is a crazy little town, quite pleasant for one night. From there I went to Virginia City which is one of the ghost towns where everything reminds you of  old glory and wealth of the silver days and the colored past of the wild west. We had a drink in the "Bucket of Blood Inn".
     Europe seems now very remote. All the information I get comes second or third hand. Even here one is not very optimistic. I wonder whether I will have to unpack my uniform again. I am glad I made the the right decision to leave as friends who returned to Czechoslovakia are desperately trying to get out again. My friend writes to tell me that "Prague is celebrating the great victory over capitalists and reactionaries. Flags are flying everywhere. My brother's fate and the fate of the rest of my family is uncertain. Such is the personal security in the "People's Paradise"."