CITY THAT WAS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 290, 7 December 1944, Page 4

CITY THAT WAS

BERLIN BEFORE WAR HUGE PRODUCTION CENTRE Capital of the German Reich, Berlin stands with most of its war factories and public utilities in ruins, awaiting the return of the armies which went forth to spread over the wcrld the Nazi regime of which Berlin was centre and which was, in Adolf Hitler's words, to "last a thousand years."

A communications ganglion, Berlin is also the irreplaceable centre of German business, banking and skilled industry, formerly employing 10 per cent of all the Reich's workers on the conversion of raw materials —largely from the Ruhr—into usable goods. Furthermore, Berlin is the hub of the administrative system, and, as first capital of the German Empire which in IS7I replaced the former congeries of German States, has been to Germans the symbol of their comparatively recent rise to European importance.

The city stands on the small but navigable river Spree, 600 air miles east of London, 155 miles bv air-south-east of Hamburg, 80 "miles south by west of Stettin, 105 miles west of the Polish border, 340 miles east by north of Aachen and 290 miles east of the Rhine at Coblenz. Before the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, Berlin was a notoriously ill-paved, badly-drained city of some 800,000 people. Installation of the Government and the development of international railways had by 1905 raised its population to 2,033,900 and by 1933 to 4,236,410. At the outbreak of war in 1939, with 4,339,242 inhabitants, it was the fourth citv of the world, after London, New Ycrk and Tokyo, and the most important manufacturing centre in Europe. <§> Well Oißaniscd City The city's development depended largely on its position at the focal point of ranges of low hills rising from the European plain. Valleys made it easy to connect the Elbe and Oder Rivers by canals, with each other and Berlin; the same configuration of laud led roads and railroads to converge at Berlin, where the Ringbahn and Stadtbahn, outer and inner local railroads, were developed to interconnect main rail lines. In later years, efficient elevated and underground electric railways were installed, and the city—before the war one of the best organised in Europe—was served by a complex , system of omnibuses and trams running through broad streets among imposing buildings. ,

Last news from Berlin, which as one of the most vital military targets has been subjected to heavy air raids, is that communications, p*aving and drainage are new worse than they were in 1870, and that the city is ringed with wooden ersatz dwellings limited by police regulation to a floor area of 237 square feet. Berlin, intersected ■ from southeast to north-west by the Spree and formerly bounded on the south by the Landwehr Canal, has grown from an area of 25 square miles to its present 332 square miles by the incorporation of adjoining communes — Charlottenburg, Schoeneberg, Neukoelln, Wilmersdorf, Lichtonberg, and the administrative circles of Teltow and Nlederbarnim. Greater Berlin is served by municip-ally-owned electric works and by a water system drawing from the Mueggel and Tegeler Lakes through 12 radial supply networks, each with its own pumping station. Many War Industries To name a few of the war-impor-tant industries of Berlin—in Spandau and Charlottenburg, the west-central area of the city, are located the great Siemens - Schuckert and SiemensHalske manufactories of electric gear and cables, the Bayerischc motor works, Ornstein and Koppel, who build locomotives, field railways and similar equipment; and a factory of Scherings, the great pharmaceutical firm. The second and third : largest of Berlin's electric power stations are also in this area. To the north-west lie Tegel and Reinickendorf, where the gigantic plant of Rheiiimetall-Borsig makes munitions—and locomotives—from the steel produced in its Dusseldorf works; the Berliner Maschinenbau, ] similarly employed; the Deutsche Waffen-und Munitionsfabrik, man- ] aged by Goebbels' brother-in-law; the Bei'gmann factory making steam turbines, electric motors and vehicles, and component plans of the Dornier and Heinkel aeroplane companies. South of the city, in Mariendorf, Tempelhof and Britz, are the Daimler-Benz plants making aeroplane engines, engines for ground vehicles, and Diesel machinery; the Lorenz plant, one of the foremost in Germany for production of communications equipment; the AskaniaWerke, making compasses, rangefinders, altimeters and similar instruments, and a great number of minor engineering works on war production. In Lichtenberg, east of Berlin, Siemens makes electrodes and other electrical carbon products; Knorr-Bremse turns out air i brakes and other essential equip- j ment for railways, and the Osram I plant of Siemens-Halske manufac-' tures light bulbs and radio valves.

Together, the plants surrounding Berlin and especially in the textile industry—scattered through the central part of the city—make the capital the Reich's largest producer of parachutes, precision instruments, electrical equipment and locomomotives, and comparable with any German town in production of tanks, military vehicles, aeroplanes and components, optical goods, precisiontj instruments, machine tools, small arms and ammunition, torpedoes, mines and bombs, chemicals and medicines. The magnitude of industry in the city may be gauged by Berlin's pre-war coal consumption of 6,000,000 tons annually.

Traffic Centre Fourteen main rail lines radiate from the capital, the largest railway centre in central Europe, giving through connections with all parts of the Continent. The pre-war traffic to and from Berlin—four-fifths inward bound and one-fifth outward —amounted to 30.000,000 freight tons annually, of which, incoming twothirds was by rail and one-third by water, and outgoing (of manufactured, less bulky and more valuable goods) four-fifths by rail and onefifth by water. Seven great marshalling yards ring the city, which also has extensive docks. Stettin :s its seaport, connected with the capital by a canal 63 miles long and floating barges up to 600 tons. Another canal system links Berlin easterly to the Oder River and via the Spree and Havel Rivers westerly to the Elbe and the great port of Hamburg.

In the West Harbour of Berlin, with its three basins and two miles of quays, 70 ships of 1000 tons each can be loaded and unloaded simultaneously; while at the smaller East Harbour, lying along the north bank of the Spree, the quays, a mile in extent, were handling annually, before- the war, almost 1,000,000 tons of goods. Seven smaller harbours complete the port.

i* Pre-war Berlin was also a centre of air traffic, nine lines to various parts of Europe making use of the Tempelhof field in the southern part of the city. Heart of the capital, around which cluster the government offices, is Unter den Linden, the famous avenue 198 feet wide and about two-thirds of a mile long running from west to east between the Brandenburger Tor at the Tiergarten Park and the former Royal Palace, near which stands the modern cathedral. The Hotel Adlon, still usable by high Nazis and distinguished visiting quislings, is on Unter den Linden. A little to the northwest is the Reichstag; to the southeast on the Wilhelmstrasse are the Foreign Office and Hitler's personally designed Reiehschancellery. Southwest of this, near the

Potsdamer Station and facing the Tiergarten on the north, is the War Ministry; and south of this again is the Sportpalast, scene of many of Hitler's once-triumphant speeches. A little further south is one of Berlin's largest gas works. Many Broad Streets The official quarter of the capital, south of llnter den Linden, is known as Friedrichstadt and consists of broad, straight parallel streets. It extends to the Leipzigerstrasse, which runs from Potsdamerplatz to the Donhoeffplatz. With the Friedrichstrasse. which crosses it and llnter den Linden in its course of two miles it formed the main shopping district of the city. Other notable streets in the city proper are the Koenigstrasse and tho Kaiser Wilhelmstrasse. the latter a continuation of Tlntcr den Linden; in the fashionable south-western district are the Viktoriastrasse, Bellevuestrasse, Kurfuerstenstrasse and the Kurfuerstendamm. The most important squares are the Opcrnplatz, Schlossplatz, Koenigsplatz, Wilhelmplatz, the circular Belle Alliance Platz and, to the west, the great Luetzowplatz. The environs of Berlin, five miles from the city centre, are wooded. To the west, these woods continue along the chain of the. Havel lakes, where there is a villa colony. Canals and hills —the highest near Berlin rising 200 feet from the sandy plain—form theoretically defensible obstacles on other sides of the city.—United States Office of War Information.