Destruction Baffles Description

Manawatu Times, Volume 70, Issue 110, 11 May 1945, Page 5

Destruction Baffles Description

(British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, May 9.

A correspondent who was in Berlin at the time of the signing of the German surrender document says: “It is a city of the dead. As a metropolis it has simply ceased to exist. Every house within miles of the centre of the city seems to have had its own bomb. I toured the capital from the east to the centre and back to the south this morning, in company with Air Chief Marshal Tedder and the Russian military commander of Berlin, General Bersarin. The scene beggars description. I have seen Stalingrad. I lived through the entire London blitz. 1 have seen a dozen badly damaged major Russian towns, but the scene of utter destruction, desolation and death as far as the eye can see in Berlin is something that almost baffles description. “The blitz on London was a bank holiday compared with this one. Dozens of well-known thoroughfares, including the Unter den Linden, from one end to the other are utterly wrecked. The town is literally unrecognisable. “The Alexanderplatz in the east end, where the Gestapo headquarters was, is a weird desert of rubble ana gaping, smoke-blackened walls. I’rom the Brandenburg Gate everything within a radius of two to five miles is destroyed. There does not appear to be one house in a hundred which is even useful as a shelter. LANDMARKS THAT HAVE DISAPPEARED “Among hundreds of well-known landmarks which have disappeared or have been irreparably damaged, are the former Kaiser’s palace, the Opera House, the French, British, American and Japanese Embassies, Goering’s Air Ministry, Goebbels’s Propaganda Ministry, and the Bristol and Adlon Hotels. Hitler’s Chancellery in the Wilhelmstrasse is like some vast abandoned ancient tomb of the death It has had several direct hits, and it is impossible yet to tell what lies beneath the rubble. “To know what war means, come to Berlin, ’ ’ was Air Chief Marshal Tedder’s comment. “The only people in the streets who look like human beings are the Russian soldiers. Russian authorities said there are 2,000,000 inhabitants in the city, but they are mostly in the remote suburbs. In the centre of the city you see only a few ghostlike figures of women and children—very few men—queueing up to pump water. “If Stalingrad, London, Guernica, Rotterdam and Coventry wanted to be avenged, they have had it, and no mistake. All observers to-day agreed that it would probably be impossible to rebuild the centre of Berlin for many years, if ever. “Fires are still burning here and there, and the dull sound of an exploding mine or of dynamite being sprung can be heard every few minutes. Several red flags fly on top of the Reichstag, which has been burned hollow. The Tiergarten, opposite the Reichstag, looks like a forest after a big fire. There has been heavy street fighting here.’’ CITY OF COMPLETE SILENCE

The correspondent says he motored from the Templehof airport in a car driven by a Russian who had come all the way from Stalingrad, and during the drtve of 30 minutes he saw only six houses which he was unable to see straight through and where there were signs of habitation. The population and troops of the Red Army were trying to clear some of the streets, but it was like trying to shovel sand from the 'Pyramids of Egypt. The Russian High Command has already erected huge sketch maps at the main squares and crossings, without which it would be impossible to find one’s way in this now unrecognisable city. Except for the noise of an occasional Russian army car or the gentle trot of small horse-drawn carts there is complete silence over the city and the air is permanently filled with rubble and dust. “However, one sign of life,” says the correspondent, “is the interminable columns of displaced people of all European nationalities who appear to be animated more by the homing instinct thau by any clear idea of whither they are going. These columns are sometimes a mile long, of people two and three abreast, drawing tiny carts or wagons. FEEDING OF THE PEOPLE “The Russian military command is already feeding hundreds of thousands of Berliners. The Red Army has seized what food stocks the city had and added to them from its own supplies. Berliners get daily a little meat, sugar and coffee, and a few potatoes, and more bread than many people got in Moscow during the winter of 1942. The Russians obviously are not taking any vengeance against the population.’’ The troops are cheerful, enduring and goo'd-natured, the correspondent says. He asked a well known Russian writer who was attending the surrender ceremony why the Russians bothered about the population. He seemed surprised at the question and replied: “We must look after the people. We cannot let two million people die.’’ German executives of public utility undertakings voluntarily placed themselves at the disposal of the Russian command, and Berlin workers reported to Russian command posts saying, “We are your soldiers —we will work for you.’’ Many wounded German soldiers from underground hospitals were sent to hospitals organised by the Russians, where German doctors and nurses attend them. The Russians hope to have part of the underground railway system working by the middle of this month. In the meantime, hundreds of burnt-out tramcars stand on tho street tracks, dead horses still lie in some streets, and many parts of the city are dangerous because of the risk of thousands of walls collapsing.