Berlin at War (72 page)

ever-increasing momentum’. The question of who was going to win

the war, he believed, had now been answered: ‘the collapse of Germany

[is] regarded as inevitable’.41

In the circumstances, Berliners resorted to the sort of dark, wry

humour for which they are famous. It was in evidence most often in

the whispered jokes and quips that increasingly punctuated ordinary

conversation in the city. It was not usually the cause of belly laughs –

life was too grim for that – rather it would result perhaps in a half-smile,

or a shake of the head. Many jokes centred on the leading figures of

the Third Reich: Goebbels and Göring were the two most common

targets for caricature. The voracious sexual appetite of the former was

one popular subject, and it was quipped that the angel atop Berlin’s

350

berlin at war

Victory Column was the only virgin left in the city, as she was the only

woman beyond the diminutive Propaganda Minister’s reach. Göring,

meanwhile, earned himself ridicule for a number of reasons – not least

his own ‘larger-than-life’ character and his legendary vanity – but most

pertinently for his proclamation, early in the war, that he would change

his name to Meyer if the enemy ever penetrated German air space.

Accordingly, in the height of the air war, the capital’s air raid sirens

were popularly known as ‘Meyer’s Bugle’.42

The Nazi mania for abbreviations was also a natural target for

humour. The ‘German Girls’ League’, for instance, which was abbre-

viated as the BdM (for
Bund deutscher Mädel
) was often rendered

as the
Bund deutscher Matratzen
(German Mattresses’ League), or as

Bedarfsartikel deutscher Männer
(Commodities for German men). Painted

on many walls in the German capital, the initials LSR indicated the

location of the nearest air raid shelter, or
Luftschutzraum
. Towards the end of the war, however, LSR was popularly taken to mean
Lernt schnell

russisch
– or ‘Learn Russian quickly’.43

As this last example demonstrates, humour easily crossed over into

subversion, especially as the fortunes of war turned against Germany.

Towards the end of 1944 and early in 1945, dissent was increasingly

expressed via graffiti, often scrawled on Nazi propaganda posters. One

example involved the so-called
Schattenmann
, or ‘shadow man’, a life-

size silhouette of a figure with a hat, which was officially painted on

walls, often with the motto
Feind hört mit
– ‘The enemy is listening’

– to remind Germans to exercise caution and discretion in their conver-

sations. In Berlin, however, as the war neared its end, the
Schattenmann

was often given the subversive title
Adolf türmt
– or ‘Adolf scarpers’

– thereby expressing the hope that the Führer himself would soon be

on his way. And, as if the mysterious figure in a hat did not do enough

to suggest a departure on a long journey, the
Schattenmann
was some-

times given a suitcase.44

By that late stage of the war, there were many in Berlin who would

have welcomed the chance to ‘scarper’ themselves. Yet, the ties of

family, community and work bound tightly for most, quite apart from

the restrictions imposed by a regime keen to know precisely where

its citizens were and what they were doing. Then, in October 1944, a

new responsibility was foisted upon them.

All those males between the ages of sixteen and sixty, who were

to unreason and beyond

351

not already in military service, were to be conscripted into a newly

formed ‘National Militia’ – the
Volkssturm
. The idea of the
Volkssturm
already had a long pedigree by the winter of 1944, having been inspired

by the Prussian
levée en masse
of the end of the Napoleonic Wars and

mooted in the last desperate months of the First World War. Now,

with the Red Army encroaching on the eastern frontier of the Reich,

and the western Allies poised at Aachen in the west, Hitler ordered

the creation of this new force, whose determined defence of their

own home towns, he expected, would turn the tide of the war.

For all the rhetoric, the
Volkssturm
was scarcely an impressive force.

The Nazis had been so efficient in conscripting menfolk for military

service that, with the exception of those of military age who were

released from professions that were now deemed expendable, all that

was left to recruiting officers were youths, old men and invalids. It

was a fact not lost on ordinary civilians, who quipped, in a parody of

the popular song, ‘
Die Wacht am Rhein
’:

Lieb Vaterland, magst ruhig sein

Der Führer zieht die Opas ein.

Dear Fatherland, set your mind at rest,

The Führer has called the Grandpas up.

One potentially rich source of recruits was the legions of injured

soldiers, recuperating in the hospitals of the Reich, and party agen-

cies duly patrolled the wards, looking for anyone who was still fit

enough to hold a gun and could be pressed back into service. Peter

Siewert was one of the lucky ones. He had already been seriously

wounded serving with the Wehrmacht in the Ukraine in the summer

of 1943 and was recovering after a series of operations in a Berlin clinic.

When his nurse suggested that he start picking at his injuries that

winter, he immediately grasped the reason. By the time the
Volkssturm

recruiting sergeant arrived the following week, Peter’s wounds were

suppurating nicely, and, while much of his ward was marched off to

fight again, he was deemed unfit for further service.45

Others employed rather less painful methods, feigning illness or

procuring fraudulent doctor’s notes. Ruth Andreas-Friedrich recalled her

partner Leo Borchard visiting a doctor acquaintance in November 1944.

352

berlin at war

‘“I think it’s about time for you to be preparing for the Home Guard”,

the doctor told him. “Better to have things ready in good time, and then

when the moment comes they won’t look too new.”’ Borchard duly

picked up ‘a predated weak heart and alarmingly high blood pressure’,

which, in due course, would excuse him service in the
Volkssturm
.46

It was not necessarily cowardice that made people go to such lengths

to avoid service in the
Volkssturm
; neither should such behaviour be

glibly equated with opposition to the Nazi regime. Rather, there were

a number of quite understandable reasons why many Berliners sought

to avoid the call-up. For one thing, many were already buckling under

the strain of the war, and resented having to shoulder new responsi-

bilities. For another, it was widely suspected at the time that the Soviets

would not treat
Volkssturm
men as legitimate combatants, and that

they risked being executed as spies or partisans, if captured.47

Nonetheless, many did as they were ordered and duly turned out

for the Berlin
Volkssturm
. After taking an oath and attending a rather

perfunctory four-day training period, they were provided with a simple

armband, reading
Deutscher Volkssturm
, and allocated to their local

battalion for further instruction. There were no formal uniforms, just

the order that bright-coloured clothing was inadvisable and that items

should be dyed
einsatzbraun
, or ‘field-service brown’. Indeed, the

opening month of 1945 would see a nation-wide initiative to collect

clothing for the
Volkssturm
, donated by members of the public. The

result was that those men who turned out in uniform at all usually

wore a bizarre mixture of components, with Luftwaffe tunics being

paired with Hitler Youth caps or Wehrmacht overcoats.48

The training was also rather haphazard. If they were lucky, recruits

might undertake courses in map reading, tactics and fortification, but

many of them did nothing beyond the four-day induction. They might

also receive weapons. The standard-issue item for the
Volkssturm
was

the
Panzerfaust
single-shot, disposable bazooka, which was cheaply

produced and became the staple of the German defence against Soviet

tanks. Yet in practice,
Volkssturm
men were issued with whatever weapons were available, including obsolete rifles and captured foreign weaponry.

The alternative was that they would receive nothing at all.

In November 1944 a mass oath-taking for new recruits was staged

in Berlin, timed to coincide with the commemoration of the Beer

Hall Putsch, a sacred date in the Nazi calendar. The main event was

to unreason and beyond

353

held in the Wilhelmplatz, where many thousands of
Volkssturm
men

gathered in the rain. Similar ceremonies were held at ten other loca-

tions across the city with the speeches relayed by loudspeaker. In all,

over 100,000 Berliners took the
Volkssturm
oath that day:

I swear before God this sacred oath,

that I will be unconditionally loyal and obedient

to the Führer of the Greater German Reich, Adolf Hitler.

I swear that I will fight bravely for my homeland,

and that I would rather die than surrender

the freedom and the future of my people.49

Thereafter, Goebbels gave a short speech from the balcony of the

Propaganda Ministry, in which he reminded the new recruits of their

oath, spoke of their ‘determination to fight’ and their ‘unshakeable

will never to surrender to the enemies of the Reich’. Writing his diary

that evening, he was predictably upbeat, noting that the new force

‘made an excellent impression’. Clearly mindful of the criticisms that

were already circulating, he concluded that it was wrong to view them

as ‘a levy of old men and children’.50

Few would have agreed with this assessment. The oath-taking in

Berlin was certainly well attended, but it can have done little to improve

the public mood. Though the creation of the
Volkssturm
was intended

to demonstrate the determination of ordinary Germans to defend

their home towns and cities against their enemies, in practice it smacked

of desperation. The
Volkssturm
men, newly sworn in, marched in the

drizzle along Unter den Linden and beneath the Brandenburg Gate,

like the proud and victorious armies of the past. Yet with their greying

hair, their assorted raincoats, flat caps and fedoras, and with a plethora

of captured and obsolete weapons across their shoulders, they could

scarcely have looked less like soldiers.

On the evening of 30 January 1945, a prestigious film premiere was

held in the UFA cinema on Alexanderplatz. It was an auspicious day:

the twelfth anniversary of Hitler’s seizure of power had been chosen

as the date for the presentation of Goebbels’ newest propaganda spec-

tacular – the film
Kolberg
.

Telling the story of the defence of a small German town during

354

berlin at war

the Napoleonic Wars,
Kolberg
was a monumental undertaking.

Produced in glorious Agfacolour, it was a feast for the eyes, with

battle scenes of hitherto unrivalled grandeur and scale and the rather

unusual feature of having its French characters speak French. Begun

in 1943, it was the most expensive film of the Nazi era, costing an

estimated 80.5 million Reichsmarks, about eight times that of most

contemporary films. Six thousand horses were employed, as well as

a hundred railway wagons full of salt, for use as snow in the winter

scenes.51 The film’s director, Veit Harlan, claimed in his memoirs

that 187,000 soldiers were drafted in to feature in the film’s military

scenes – more than had fought in the original battle. Though this

claim must be treated with some scepticism, it is nonetheless clear

that Harlan and Goebbels planned to ‘create the biggest movie of

all time’.52

The reason for this enormous outlay and expense – all during the

most critical phase of the war and in a time of dire shortages on the

home front – was obvious. Goebbels believed that
Kolberg
, with its

messages about honourable sacrifice and the inspirational power of

popular resistance against the invader, was of critical importance in

galvanising Germany’s civilians for the coming struggle against their

enemies. He deemed it so important that he even wrote many of the

set-piece speeches himself. The result, he immodestly confided in his

dairy, was ‘a true masterpiece . . . [which] is as important for the mood

of the German people as a victorious battle’.53

Kolberg
told the story of the Pomeranian town of the same name,

which had been besieged by the French in 1807. Aside from the oblig-

atory ‘love interest’, insisted on by Goebbels and played by Kristina

Söderbaum, the main protagonists of the film were the town’s mayor