BERLIN A CITY OF THE DEAD

Southland Times, Issue 25669, 11 May 1945, Page 5

BERLIN A CITY OF THE DEAD

Metropolis Laid In Ruins (Rec. 9 p.m,) LONDON, 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 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 Sir Arthur Tedder and the Russian military commander in Berlin, General Bersarin. The scene beggars description. I have seen Stalingrad, I lived through the entire London blitz, I 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 Unter Den Linden from one end to the other are utterly wrecked. The town is literally unrecognizable. Alexander Platz in the east end, where the Gestapo headquarters was, is a weird desert of rubble and gaping, smoke-blackened walls. From the Brandenburg Gate everything within a radius of from two to five miles is destroyed. There does not appear to be one house in a hundred which is even useful as a shelter.

Among the 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, Reichmarshal Goering’s Air Ministry, Dr 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 dead. It has had several direct hits. The correspondent of Reuters says that the only people in the streets of Berlin who look like human beings are the Russian soldiers.

The Russian authorities said there were two million inhabitants in the city but they were mostly in the remote suburbs. GHOSTLIKE FIGURES

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, Guernida, Rotterdam and Coventry wanted avenging they have had it and no mistake. All observers today agree that it would probably be impossible to rebuild the centre of Berlin for many years if ever. Fires still burning here and there and the dull sound of exploding mines or dynamite being sprung can be heard every few minutes. Several red flags fly on the top of the Reichstag, which is burned hollow. The Tiergarten, opposite the Reichstag, looks like a forest after a big fire. There has been heavy street fighting here. 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 thirty minutes’ driving saw only six houses which he was unable to see straight through and where there were signs of habitation. The population and the Red Army troops were trying to clear some of the streets, but it was like trying to shovel sand from the Pyramids of Egypt. The Russian 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 unrecognizable city. COMPLETE SILENCE 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 dust. However, one sign of life is the interminable columns of displaced people of all European nationalities who appear animated more by a homing spirit than by any clear idea whether they are going. These columns are sometimes a mile long of people two and three abreast drawing tiny carts or wagons. The Russian Military Command is already feeding hundreds of thousands of Berliners. The Red Army seized what food stocks the city had and added thereto from its own supplies. Berliners get daily a little meat, sugar, coffee, a few potatoes and more bread than many got in Moscow during the winter of 1942. The Russians are obviously not taking any vengeance against the population. Russian troops are cheerful, enduring and good-natured, the correspondent says. He asked a wellknown 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 2,000,000 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 have been sent to hospitals organized 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 the month. In the meantime hundreds of burned-out tramcars stand on the street tracks, dead horses still lie on some streets and many parts of the city are dangerous because of the risk of thousands of walls collapsing.

RESTRICTIONS LIFTED. — The Director of War Mobilization, Mr Fred Vinson, has announced the immediate lifting of the midnight curfew and the ban on horse and dog racing. Travel restrictions will remain unaltered. (Washington).