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.