Frontline Berlin 1945
Somewhere in Berlin, April 28th 1945,My Dearest Natasha,I am writing to you from just behind the frontline in Berlin. My comrade, Private Yesenin will deliver this letter to you by hand when he returns from the front today, I have sent him on a task, it will save his life, he is too young for this last fight, I can’t bear to have to write to his mother so I’ve sent him back to Moscow to take some messages to General Headquarters and he can carry another message for you. He should be with you in three or four days, I hope, God willing.
I have been pulled out of duties also. That is why I have a moment to write.
I am well and unharmed.We are now camped in some fields near the centre of the city. There are artillery guns going off in the distance and many of those new Stalin tanks. They are odd-looking behemoths, belching smoke and fire like ancient dragons rumbling with their square heads looking like they could topple over at any moment. The Germans can only reply with some field guns and panzerfausts.
I pity them, why don’t they just surrender we keep asking? All around us are wrecked buildings. That is Berlin, in ruins.
Incredibly people still exist in these ruins, children immediately come and beg as soon as the firing stops, and in that way, it is much like Stalingrad. Unarmed women and children caught between butchers. Most of our boys are kind, these poor wretches are starving and in rags, they feed the children. Others, less so, I try to keep order in my dominion.Comrade Nicolai Antonovitch sends his best regards and promises to keep me safe and he asks you to visit Anya as soon as you can and to ask about the children and to let her know that he is also safe and well. We have both been pulled from duties. The war is going to end any day now, there are only a few kilometres that surround the Nazis, I can hardly believe it that we have survived this far.It seems so long ago since we were in Stalingrad.
Frontline Berlin 1945 Pc
I never thought that I would survive that battle. I assumed that I would die and never see your face again. Now with only days to go again, that thought is agony to me.
Will I ever see your face again?Things are becoming more and more chaotic here. As the German forces collapse there is lawlessness. Such terrible lawless behaviour, amongst the civilians and even amongst our own men, I couldn’t talk about in detail if only to say we had to shoot two of our own men only a couple of days ago for outrages. I felt bad, these were good soldiers but there can be no sympathy for such crimes in war. We turn a blind eye to the looting but there are other outrages that do not deserve pity.I wonder how it is this April in Moscow?
I remember our apartment and the first time we met in the Spring. On Chistie Prudie, wasn’t it? The leaves were just beginning to bud. You were with your friend, Christina and Valodia knew your friend. Sometimes, when the situation becomes dangerous, I remember that time, it seems in another age. Don’t worry, I take no foolish actions, my love, I intend to come home and then we can think about making our family once more.
How many years have we been torn apart? And all for a stupid joke. Siberia for a joke, since then a handful of days together in Moscow when they let me out of the camp and then straight to Stalingrad. If I had known when I first met you I would never have put you through this. But today I can dream, here in the sun, perhaps there is a future for us both?
Forgive me perhaps it is the vodka too.The fighting has been hard recently. Only an hour before we were fighting SS troops armed with an 88 gun and panzerfausts.
These had retreated into the ruins, these are the fanatics that are left the fighting and mostly everyone else has given up. They use the same basements where women and children were hiding.“March March, forward go the working classes” Nicolai is singing Varchiavna, he is here.
He tries to keep my spirits up, he is reading my letter, every now and then and making sardonic comments.“I should have had you shot for sedition long ago,” is his latest comment, he just said this as he sat beside me here. It is such a relief to have such a man for a commissar. We who fought side by side since that terrible battle on the Volga are a rare breed. He is laughing now calling me all names under the sun, it is a relief to be away from the front for us both although I still think of our company but they are in safe hands.Please do send Anya Valodnova my own warm regards.
Her husband here is a drunken atheist fool but the bravest man in our battalion. I remember when she came from St Petersburg to Moscow and you wrote to tell us that they had got across the ice road. Lord how thin they all were in those photographs but thanks be to the Lord they are well these days and so are we. Soon we will all be together to raise a toast to the New Year.Back in Stalingrad, the first thing that they said upon one’s arrival was on this side of the river there are only heroes. Well, now the last remaining heroes have finally reached the furthest shore my dearest. The sun is shining today and for a moment I can dream, the Nazis have only a few days, maybe even hours left before we push for the Reichstag.The Berlin streets are covered with debris from the collapsed masonry and bricks that block the road, it takes hours to get around anywhere with the traffic jams of tanks and artillery everywhere.
This is nothing compared to that time when in Stalingrad when we thought we were all going to burn alive after they hit the oil tanks mind you. Nothing compares to Stalingrad. Those were the darkest days my darling, and we can get through these next until the final push.We were called to speak with the commander earlier. He is in a very easy going mood these days. He has assigned us and a few of his own personal guard to go and investigate a mystery. I can’t tell you, it is an operational secret.
We are going this afternoon, however. No doubt high command have been calling him again and telling him to hurry up for May Day and they want some stories for the newsreels.What of you? Write back and let me know what is happening. How are your Mum and Dad? How lucky we all are to have made it through all of this.Remember that I still have your prayers sown into my tunic breast and that you are in my prayers every day.Your DarlingPavel xThe General’s tent had been established in a former sports field and the two were preparing to depart after the meeting as Pavel scribbled his letter to his wife.
The field resembled nothing so much as an oriental bazaar with vehicles of all sorts and various tents scattered everywhere, marshalling, preparing for the final push on the Reichstag, in one corner artillery, kept up a steady barrage. Horses, oxen and even camels had made their way to the field in the centre of Berlin in one long slow caravan of death and the creatures, much like the humans had become accustomed to the artillery guns and were enjoying the sun.“Take a seat,” had said the General a little earlier amidst his cavalcade, sat in his tent. His head of hair was unruly, needing a cut and sprouting in curls that went in all directions, he had a bad temper but was loved by his men for when there was trouble he would be in thick of it.
The tunic was grubby and the General looked as if he had not washed for some time, he smelled of cordite. He rubbed his arm. Pavel noticed the livid red rash that ran down from the neck and out again from the sleeve of the tunic to the fingers, a sure sign that he was under stress, previous war wounds. The General scratched his wrist, it began to seep blood.The General flashed his full set of front gold teeth as they caught the light as he smiled at his comrades, beckoning to some camp chairs that had been set up by an improvised table. On the flimsy painter’s table there lay a map of Berlin that Pavel could read with ease given that it was their sector and on that map there was a mark nearby.The General loomed over the pair and pointed his finger at the mark. “There, I want you to go there and have a look in that building, the anthropological institute.
Don’t take any risks, I don’t think there is anyone in there at the moment but I know that the GRU is on their way to that building and I don’t know why, so get over there as quick as you can and find out what they are after, I will send a few of my lads with you just in case,” his finger left a dirty mark on the map.“What are we looking for Sir?” enquired the captain.“I haven’t got a clue but according to my sources SMERSH men are on their way, so there’s something in there, or someone. Best get there before they turn up, eh lads? Make sure no one sees you. Get a message back to me as quick as you can.”The two Russian officers stood in the summer sun having been dismissed with their orders, preparing to depart for the anthropological institute, sitting in the lend-leased Jeep, as Pavel called Private Yesenin over to his side and whispered in his ear, handing the young soldier an envelope. Pavel patted him on the back and smiled. Pavel was handing the envelope as his friend the commissar was theatrically looking in the opposite direction.“And you will be sending that by the usual route?” asked Nicolai, the young commissar from Leningrad.“And you will, comrade zampolit, as always, pretend that nothing has happened,” replied the captain. They laughed.MathildeMarie-Anne was delirious, she had relapsed with cholera, after the three days walking from Ravensbruck to Berlin.
They had begun the walk through forests and lakes until the land became flat and agricultural eventually the villages became towns as they drew nearer the city. In the summer heat, occasionally met with rain the two has made their way to attempt to cross to the West following the Russian forces as they made their way to the outskirts of Berlin, sleeping in bombed-out houses, having managed to get rid of their prison clothes, emaciated the two had traipsed the roads until Marie-Anne began to become weak and they were forced to stop in a wood that was set upon a small hillock near to a farmhouse by the side of the road. The shadows of the leaves dappled their faces. Mathilde was on her knees, her head was covered, her eyes were cast to the ground. “Please God, help us,” was all that came to mind.
Her years in camps had only deepened her faith as a Jehovah’s Witness obstinately refusing to bow to the Nazi death machine, taking the blows in certain knowledge that she would die for her faith. She and her family had been incarcerated in Ravensbruck for five long years. “Do you remember the time that Himmler himself came to speak with us in the punishment block?” she spoke in a familiar tone with her Maker, one that told of regular conversations. “Himmler told us that all we had to do was to renounce our faith and we could walk out of the camp free women. Well, what did we reply?
We would never renounce our faith and that our Lord would come and save us and if He didn’t then we would die as martyrs. So many times You have come to save me, now please this time save this poor girl.” The young woman was praying in her German which was her native language.Mathilde had found work in the infirmary at Ravensbruck eventually once the camp authorities had relented of their murder of the supposed religious fanatics. The SS doctors however found the law-abiding and passive Jehovah’s Witnesses very useful servants and many survived by their honesty and unwillingness to engage in sabotage. Mathilde was no exception in this case, she would neither steal nor curse and took no part in the illicit economy of the camp, worked hard and hence she was a perfect orderly for the camp medical staff.“I am not praying for myself. You know I wouldn’t do that. I am praying because I love her and if you take her away I will have no one left to love,” with these words the German woman raised her eyes up to the blue sunny sky with a few clouds that threatened rain in the distance.Whilst all of the other horrors had gone on around somehow Mathilde had avoided the worst. This had not shielded her from witnessing the worst however, she had witnessed everything on behalf of her Jehovah, the experiments on the Polish girls, the selection of the weakest for the gas chambers and of course the wholesale murder of Jewish women.
Mathilde had first met Marie-Anne in the infirmary where Marie-Anne had also found work as an assistant and Mathilde was delighted to practice her French. The two had become inseparable and sometimes others would cruelly joke that Mathilde was becoming a J ules, camp slang for those women who would adopt a side parting and who would walk with a swagger, an accusation that could make Mathilde blush but never betray her friend.Turning to her companion Mathilde began to speak in French, “Do you remember Marie-Anne, when you first came to Ravensbruck from Limoges, when we used to talk. You would tell me about the work you did for the French resistance. I know that we should not kill, and forgive our enemies but I want to tell you I found your courage kept me going those nights when we would talk all night. Don’t let me lose her now,” said the tearful young woman as an aside to someone the resided above her present troubles, somewhere in the clouds.Marie-Anne opened her eyes, she was staring through her friend to something or someone beyond and her dark brown eyes seemed to be straining to focus. “The Dark Man, he is coming,” she said in a desperate tone, her curly black hair soaking with sweat.“Yes, I know, now you just rest now Marie Anne,” said the German, she was used to the delirium.“No, you don’t understand, he is coming,” said the delirious resistance fighter seeming to try to push off invisible figures that were assailing her.
“The Dark Man he is coming.”At that moment Mathilde stopped what she was doing with a sense of horror. Creeping over to her friend’s prostrate body. “The Dark Man,” she said out loud in German realising Marie-Anne would not understand, returning to French she enquired, “Tell me more about the Dark Man, there was such a man in Berlin, long ago when I was a child. He came with the circus, they said he could do magic tricks that could not be explained. He made the sun shine inside the circus tent and set rainbows around everyone’s heads.
It was all the rage, people queued for miles to see him they said that even Hitler and Goebbels went to see him. My father forbade me to go, I was only a child he said and beside that magic was always the devil’s work. There was a rumour, I don’t know how true it was that he made dead kings and queens rise up from the afterlife and he made them speak and answer questions from the audience. Some people said it was trickery, yes I remember but how do you know?”“The dogs” came a strangulated cry from the parched throat of the French woman. “She let out a noise that was like that of a cat, hissing as she scrambled to get away from invisible assailants. Mathilde did at that point hear the sound of dogs barking, coming from the woods nearby, the hairs on her arms stood upon end.The Grave Robber“I have become a grave robber,” thought Claude to himself as he worked through the apartment. The apartment was in pieces due to artillery fire and a couple of dead bodies in uniform lay next to the open windows, each surrounded by a pool of blood.
Claude had already searched the maimed corpses and found nothing. Claude was methodically trawling through the rubble looking for anything that he could eat or that might have value. It was a dangerous job requiring the ability to move between the enemy lines and follow the action. “And to think, once I was a king,” continued Claude’s thoughts as he found a scrap of mouldy bread and consumed it like a ravenous wolf. He did indeed have something lupine about his face with a straggly beard and long unkempt hair, his face dirty at not having seen a bath for several months during the ongoing collapse of society.“This was much easier at night when the British were bombing, nobody would be about when the bombs were falling,” continued the one-time cocaine king of Berlin with his internal monologue. Claude was in a reflective mood that day and was casting his mind back to his glory days.
“All those girls, the money, how I used to live.” He envisaged the neon lights of central Berlin’s bars and cafes and the jazz music that were his memories of that time in the 1920s before the Nazis came to power and crushed his burgeoning business beneath their jackboot, sending all his girls into concentration camps and leaving Claude, a Jew and a cocaine dealing pimp to boot, on the run, living by his wits and in a financial crisis that never ended, leading him to depths that he had never imagined in his glory days but he had survived. Claude had the honour of being one of the few Jews that had lived to tell the tale in Berlin. At first, he had used his money and influence to move from one place to another in secret, using false papers until the money had run out just as the conflict was drawing near to Germany’s borders. At this point he was resourceful enough to keep moving from one bombed area to another, living in basements finding scraps to eat. There were plenty of easy pickings in the ruins at that time, only now he was not alone and the competition was fierce as most of Berlin’s residents were doing the same.
Now the one time king of Berlin’s street whores lived like an animal amidst many but at least he was free from the fear of the gas chambers.As Claude continued his thorough search he noticed something at the corner of his eye partially obscured by the remains of a table. He turned to look at it directly and noticed that it was an obelisk. Picking the small object up Claude was greatly surprised by its weight. “The only thing that weighs this much is gold or lead,” thought Claude.
The obelisk itself looked inconsequential, a god like figurine, carved in an antique style depicting a dancing creature with a flute. The metal was a strange colour, with a rainbow sheen that he had never seen before, he scratched the figurine with his nail, thinking that it might be lacquer only to discover that the metal itself had this property. It was smooth and surprisingly cold. “Looks like something from a museum, it will be worth something to someone,” thought the grave-robber. Claude stuffed the figurine into a sack that he had discarded in the remaining corner of the room with the blown out walls through which the breeze was blowing. The sun glimpsed out from a cloud, it was getting warm and Claude removed his tattered jacket and threw it in the sack with the figurine.It was a once a wealthy district that Claude was ransacking, there were, potentially very lucrative findings to be discovered.
“I remember that time during an air-raid when I found all those gold coins, it kept me going for a while, I was able to rent a room for a few weeks. It was an exorbitant price but given who they were harbouring I wasn’t complaining.
Who knows, maybe this is a sign, a gift from God after everything I’ve been through, maybe the good times are back again?” continued Claude’s hopeful thoughts as prepared to leave with his find. The blue sky framed the broken buildings in the streets that and had only recently been fought for, a burning shop belched fire. Claude quickly escaped from the building through the vast hole that a direct hit with artillery can make. And made his way through the shattered ruined streets to the sound a machine guns in the near distance and shouting in Russian coming his way from the second wave, Claude was pursuing the shock troops just before the second line of Red Army soldiers arrived scoruing the ruins before the packs of other Berliners arrived and picked the carcass clean. It was summary execution for all looters if he were to be found, hence he kept up his pace moving towards the gunfire.
As he jogged down the street his mind then went to the idea that it would be ironic if he were to survive all of this recent horror only to be shot by his liberators.“I’ve never once had to thieve from anyone until they took my business away, I had pride. The girls bought cocaine from me and in return I gave them protection and I got rich without ever hurting anyone and everyone loved me. Now, look at me. Scurrying around like a rat, eating rotten food,” continued his self-torturing internal monologue as just for a moment the image of the bodies of the soldiers came into his mind and a subsequent image of roasted meat came into his mind along with the smell of roasted apple so real that he could sob. He thought very briefly of cannibalism and how much their meat might make on the open market calculating what each was worth in gold coins. He shook his head externally to these disturbing thoughts, there were some things that even Claude would not stoop to.
Pimping, drug dealing, thieving and now stealing from the dead, he had to reply yes to each count but to cannibalism no, even the onward sale of human meat in a very lucrative market, he could not face the idea. Claude had discovered his own level of business ethics in these Nietzschean depths.
He felt no pride however in his rejection of the idea, merely continued self-disgust at having the thought and that this was not the first time. The times were hard in Berlin and many desperate people were doing whatever they needed to do, in order to survive.The Anthropological Institute“Pavel, come and see!” shouted Nicolai from the balcony of the anthropological institute. Pavel was in the hallway surrounded by marble busts of the heroic Aryan stereotype, he was monetarily distracted, wondering at the Nazi idea of the superman.
The hallway contained several sculptures of idealised Aryan heads that were juxtaposed with Negroid heads to show the superiority of the Aryan species. Posters on the wall emphasised the purity of the idealised Aryan family.Pulled away from his thoughts he followed the curved staircase up to the balustrade on the first floor. Nicolai was already in the main room that came from the staircase, it was large with many windows through which the sun was flooding for the moment. Pavel stepped into the room and looked about, noticing that it was a library with thousands of books, all of which were antiquated.“What have you found,” asked Pavel of the commissar who waited for him in the hallway entrance.“There is no one here, we’ve found files for the employees,” replied the lieutenant. “There is a library that you might find of interest, some lectures rooms, offices otherwise we are still exploring but I’ve found this.”The library itself was overflowing with books in boxes and Nicolai gestured towards them.
It was clear that many of these texts had only recently arrived and had yet to be unboxed. Pavel opened one of the wooden crates with a hammer that had been left by the boxes. He was not able to read the titles, being only able to read Cyrillic script and turned to Nicolai.“Do you understand any of these titles?” asked the captain of the younger commissar who had a university education.“There are some written by Blavatsky, List, Steiner and Lanz” replied Nicolai, the commissar, rooting through the upper layer. “Mostly occultist German racist works supporting Aryan supremacy.” Continuing to root through the commissar continued. “And several periodicals about magic, see this one is called Luzifer, here is another on the use of magic runes.”“The work of madmen trying to perfect the Greater Germanic species,” said Pavel to himself as he tipped the crate over and the deeper sediment revealed older works. “What of these?” he asked.“This one is in Latin,” said Nicolai. “It is entitled The Mysteries of Magic and the author is called Eliphas Levi.
Here are several that deal with alchemy, Paracelsus, Sylvius and Boyle. This one here is by Robertus de Flucibus is called Pathologia daemoniaca. There is another by Johannes Trimethius called Steganographia.”“Cryptology?” enquired the captain.“Who knows?” was the reply.He opened a further crate, noting that theses tomes were of a more ancient form.“Witchcraft,” said Nicolai holding one of the ancient books in his hand.The two were interrupted in their work by shouting from downstairs, they ran towards the noises. Pavel and Nicolai stopped briefly to throw some of these books into a satchel and then rushed in the direction of the voices.They were met at the bottom of the stairs by Sergeant Krugly.
“It’s Sergei, Comrade Officer,” said the soldier with a look of terror in his eyes. “He went down into the cellar.”Sergei was sitting in the kitchen, a large figure with peasant features sat at the wooden table that dominated the kitchen. He was laughing.“What is going on private?” asked Pavel. There was no reply, the laughing continued.
Pavel waited for a moment and then slapped Sergei across the face, there was a moment’s silence whilst his hand went to his cheek and then Sergei continued with his maniacal laughter.“That’s how he’s been since he came back from the cellar.” Said the sergeant.“Have you been down there?” asked Nicolai.“No one has been down since.”Pavel knew his men better than his own family. They had fought through such unimaginable terror that the sight of the bulky figure of twenty-two year old Sergei sent a shiver down his back. He had seen shell-shocked soldiers before but Sergei had survived it all, he didn’t have the imagination to suffer from shell shock was the first thought in Pavel’s mind. This was the same man, thought the captain to himself, who had stormed countless cellars from the Volga unto Berlin, who had withstood artillery barrage after artillery barrage, tank attacks and on and on. What had he seen down there?“Show me the way,” said Nicolai.The sergeant led the officers through the kitchen indicated towards a hidden door at the back of the pantry. The door was set inside an alcove, to all the world a small pantry where tins and pickled vegetables might have been stored had they not been already eaten. The hidden door in the pantry opened onto a stairway that led down.
There was no electricity in the building due to the fighting and Nicolai used a torch to illuminate his pathway. The lieutenant and the captain followed, each one carrying an oil lantern which cast weird shadows on the walls. The rest of the soldiers waited in the kitchen, Krugly was standing at the top of the stairs, his eyes were screwed as they peered into the darkness.At the bottom of the stairs there led several passageways. The cellar smelled of dampness.
Choosing at random one of the routes Nicolai advanced cautiously, his service revolver in his other hand. The two other remained in the anteroom and began each to explore a different passageway. They did not need to talk, this was a routine task that they had conducted many times before. The dampness of the cellar had begun to destroy the plaster on the walls.
Berlin 1945 Videos
The floors were flagged with stone that could have been laid several centuries hence.Nicolai found himself at an open door and peering into the room that lay beyond was surprised to find a room filled with artefacts. His university degree had been in modern languages and most of the artefacts were unknown to him. The room was established as if it were recently used as a storeroom. The torchlight revealed various items of anthropological nature, various masks and ceremonial spears, what appeared to be a shamanic dress and most striking of all, a large wooden structure which was filled with colourful icons, already slightly mildewed. Nicolai drew near to the images. He noticed that the wooden structure was engraved with swastikas and this image was repeated in the iconography of the images but these were of a different and older style to the hated Nazi emblem. One of the paintings drew his attention.
It was of an ancient gold and red swastika design set on a wooden block, Nicolai began to inspect this hand painted image when he noticed that there appeared to be a further, smaller swastika design within the original. He squinted and to his surprise, almost infinitesimally smaller he could see a further layer, at this he marvelled at the craftsmanship to produce such fine brushstrokes. At that moment Nicolai had a thought that perhaps there was an ever smaller layer of detail and squinting further in the darkness of the room he took one further glance at the painting.The loud delirious laughter came to Pavel from the passageway that Nicolai had ventured down. He took no time to reach the room and found Nicolai giggling to himself before the chest of icons, the young lieutenant rushed in straight after him. Nicolai held the gold and red swastika icon in his hand observing it closely with the torch whilst laughing hysterically. His revolver lay upon the wooden altar. Pavel took hold first of the revolver and then gently of Nicolai.
His eyes rolled in his head. Instinctively Pavel grabbed at the icon as Nicolai deliriously continued in his hebephrenic state. Pavel attempted to take the icon from Nicolai but the younger man retained a firm grip upon the painting staring intently into the image.
Eventually, Pavel managed to pull the wooden block from his friend who turned on his Pavel with a brief wild look of hate in his eyes.“What happened?” asked Pavel, against the flickering of the lantern, of his long-time friend. There was no reply but mocking laughter.
Pavel wondered at the contents of the books upstairs and placing the swastika icon into his tunic, as he led Nicolai towards the light he was overcome with the instinct of the peasant that his forefathers had been and crossed himself in the Orthodox fashion then touched the prayer that had been sown into his tunic above his heart.
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