In April 1945, Soviet director Yuri Reisman makes a film
about the end of the so-called Third Reich.
He has 38 Red Army cameramen at his disposal.
The title of the film - Berlin.
The liberation of the city by the Red Army is being documented.
It begins on April 16th at the Oder with the battle
of the Seelow Heights, 70km outside of Berlin.
16 days later, the city is conquered and the red flag is blowing
in the wind over the Reichstag.
On May 8th, Germany signs its unconditional surrender.
War in Germany is over, Joseph Goebbels is found dead,
Adolf Hitler's fate remains unknown.
Over two million people are still living in Berlin -
men and women, young and old, guilty and innocent.
Soon, only diaries and memories, files and pictures, ashes and dust
remain to tell the tales of their city.
TRANSLATION: May 9th, Wednesday. We all had to show
up with buckets to clear the barricades at the church.
It was a lot of work and the Russians were keeping watch.
We are supposed to hand in our radios or we'll be punished.
And not just our radios, but cameras too.
After lunch, I went to the firm with Mum.
Out of habit, I stupidly greeted colleagues
in the yard with "heil Hitler".
TRANSLATION: The Reichstag is a huge, dark building, not pretty.
The inside is a mass of brick and iron.
In one of the city halls, there was a huge throne
with a portrait of the Kaiser on the back.
I had my picture taken in the chair.
The walls were covered in countless writings of our victorious Russian
soldiers and officers.
Here, there were soldiers from Stalingrad.
One from Smolensk stood here.
We're in the Reichstag, everything is OK.
TRANSLATION: Close to Hitler's Chancellery,
next to his personal bunker,
two bodies were discovered - one male, one female.
The corpses are badly burnt and it is impossible to identify them
without further information.
TRANSLATION: We can say that the man
is between 50 and 60 years old, 1.65m tall.
The body is charred and smells of burnt meat.
The glass splinters in his mouth suggest he used a thin vial.
TRANSLATION: Experts remove the teeth and lower jaw.
His teeth are surprisingly intact.
Dr Blaschke had a private dental practice
at number 230 in Kudamm. He was Hitler's personal dentist
from 1932 onwards.
His assistant, Kathe Heusermann,
was the only person we could find there.
She knew and remembered all the important details
about Hitler's teeth.
I held the dental bridge in my hand,
I looked for irrefutable evidence.
I immediately found it, took a deep breath and burst out,
"These are the teeth of Adolf Hitler."
TRANSLATION: I went to the Russian Kommandantur.
It's incredibly difficult to find someone who understands you there.
They couldn't believe there were still Jews in Berlin.
I managed to get permission to move back into our flat.
Yesterday, I went to the Jewish hospital in Schulstrasse.
The kids had been there last year but were taken away again.
I was told they were taken to Auschwitz.
I want to maintain my strength for all of you
until you are with me. I will not surrender hope.
This Friday, we had our first public service in the small
synagogue of the Jewish hospital.
I gave the sermon, but I couldn't speak much because the room
was filled with crying and sobbing.
Only now did the reality sink in of just how many were missing.
TRANSLATION: May 13th.
The town mayor, Berzarin,
was introduced to the members of the first post-war magistrate of Berlin.
The independent anti-fascist Dr Arthur Werner was selected as mayor.
TRANSLATION: In a classically Saxon accent,
Ulbricht explained to us, "It needs a semblance of democracy.
"We must retain control of everything".
Later, Erpenbeck rushed into my room. He is supposed to write
text for my radio announcement, he tells me.
We had the newest Pravda figures in front of us,
which we translated into news with anti-fascist democratic demeanour.
RADIO, TRANSLATED:
We are now on Moscow time - the clocks were set two hours ahead.
TRANSLATION: The first German newspaper has been published,
but it's difficult to get hold of a copy.
TRANSLATION: Page one contains a message from Stalin,
also announcements from the Soviet military command,
including food rations per person, per day.
People in artistic professions are to receive the same amount
as heavy-duty workers.
600g of bread, 100g of meat,
one portion of potatoes.
Also each month, 100g of coffee, 20g of tea.
My housekeeper wonders whether all of this will be in the shops.
Hundreds of people are queuing in Reichsstrasse.
A kind of camp life has emerged.
Three quarters of the people waiting are sitting in chairs.
Many women are knitting or mending socks.
Some, like me, are reading.
TRANSLATION: For lunch, we had horse meat.
It was very tasty.
May 17th.
Listened to the radio at Schops
and went to the store at 10am.
A few of us girls were there today.
Charlotte Henning was raped several times
and Edith Gasenza five times.
We all described our experiences.
TRANSLATION: I'm now trying to acquire gynaecological instruments
to be able to perform all necessary examinations.
The results for gonorrhoea are horrifying.
Just today, I examined a 15-year-old girl who'd been infected.
In the afternoon, my friend Ruth came with her daughter.
Four Russians.
Swab inconclusive but certainly antibiotics.
This is what you protect your child for.
Suddenly, an order came through for all foreigners to leave Berlin,
they were to leave immediately.
I made the final decision to leave the city by bicycle or on foot
at the repatriation committee.
I was pretty much the only one.
None of the French guys who were there with me agreed.
In the morning, I left Berlin by bicycle.
TRANSLATION: Farewell, Berlin,
a city of misfortune and tristesse.
We took the motorway towards Magdeburg by truck.
Ten minutes later, we had crossed the Elbe
and arrived with the Americans.
The loudspeakers announced, "On Sunday, you will be in France."
I can't quite process it yet.
I will only wake from this nightmare when I'm standing amongst
French-speaking civilians.
TRANSLATION: One afternoon, someone knocked on my door.
Two young Jewish girls wearing
concentration camp clothing were standing there.
They told me they'd just arrived from the concentration camp Stutthof
with 30 other Jews.
We immediately went down the street with two trolleys
to take them all upstairs.
TRANSLATION: When I saw Berlin for the first time,
destroyed and broken, I didn't feel pity for the Germans,
only bitterness and resentment against the people who caused us
such unbearable suffering.
They deserve it.
I met a Mr David, who had walked back from Auschwitz.
He told me that the kids are almost certainly still alive
because they only arrived last September
and they had hardly killed any children since then.
Schatze, it's a horrible thought.
They killed children, and maybe mine are among them.
Mr Scheppes came upstairs and said
that, starting tomorrow, all members of the party had to report for work.
Apparently, we start at 6am in Christburger Strasse.
If it's only work, it's certainly bearable.
But there's a lot of talk of deportation and detention.
The time has come to do penance for my affiliation with the party.
TRANSLATION: A lady appeared and insisted
that my husband accompany her to the Kommandantur.
He has been missing ever since.
My husband is 71 years old and has trouble with his bladder.
He was a member of the party,
but never actively involved in anything.
TRANSLATION: The yard of the Kommandantur was full of Russians.
Two officers came in through the gateway.
As they walked past me, one said to the other, "Shot in the neck."
One Russian started emptying my bags.
The only thing he didn't take was my spoon and a handkerchief.
Then he pointed to the cellar room.
The floor was full of sleeping people.
TRANSLATION: Suddenly, everyone gave a Jew
at least two loaves of bread, or 10 lbs of potatoes once.
Somewhere, sometime.
Everyone listened to foreign radio.
Everyone supported the persecuted.
Tales of awesome heroics are coming to light.
The bigger the fear, the more ridiculous the excuse.
Carried debris to the mountain of rubble
in Jablonskistrasse at six in the morning - row of buckets.
We had to work very hard.
I was there with Lotti Martin.
She was there because her father had been a party member.
I was home at 10pm. That's 16 hours of hard work.
If it goes on like this, many of the women
won't be able to continue.
It's dreadful how us Germans have to demean ourselves.
Are the Americans coming or not?
Will they divide Berlin or leave it to the Russians?
"Who is even in charge?" I ask Endrich.
He shrugs.
"Whoever's turn it happens to be."
Today, the papers show how Germany will be divided.
The English, Americans, French and Russians are coming to Berlin.
Berlin will have a government made up of four powers.
The Americans, British, French and Russians will have to agree
on every detail soon, from education to food sharing.
Theoretically, there should only be problems
with the German population.
It's hot in Berlin, each day is hotter than the last,
and June heat smoulders over the city.
Under the thin layers of dust, the dead are moving.
The scent of their dying hangs in the air like a toxic cloud.
The fumes wafting up from Landwehrkanal are so unbearable
that passers-by have to hold a handkerchief to their nose.
At lunchtime - three children who'd
been badly injured by hand grenades
while playing among the ruins.
I had to splint, bandage and stitch.
Since noon yesterday, we've had some water in the boiler room.
Nice clean water.
And as of 5.30pm today, we have electricity.
We're like children, always switching the light on and off.
You're no longer stumbling around in the dark.
You can see each other while talking.
Plans are being developed for a European Cultural Association -
exhibitions, theatre, lectures.
We've never been as hopeful as we are today.
Concert in our school.
MUSIC: Lied Der Nachtigall by Erna Berga and Sein Orchester
The Philharmonic Orchestra played and Mrs Erna Berga sang.
There were many familiar faces.
Some guys had even dressed up again.
It was a wonderful night.
The first perm in a long time.
June 16th, Saturday.
There's a Nazi special operation today.
At 7am, we were standing in rank and file like convicts.
A youth leader came and told everyone under 20 to step forward
to receive their youth assignment.
Later, two young men showed up and collected the work cards.
Mine still had a big N on it and Horst said,
"We have no use for Nazis."
But the youth leader said that it was all how it was supposed to be
and I could get a different card.
I should just go home and report back at 2pm.
Then I should go to a meeting of the anti-fascist youth
and write a protocol.
On June 30th, I was ordered to drop all my plans and head to Berlin.
Instead of wasting time on an orderly start,
we grabbed our hats and hurried down the Autobahn on July 1st
as if the Cossacks were right behind us.
Russian officers in old confiscated vehicles rushed up and down
our column to check us.
Some wanted a victory toast with us.
Others acted like little commissars.
We reached Berlin late afternoon.
The Russians had not allowed us to view our sectors beforehand.
Nobody knew exactly where to go.
Hundreds of officers and soldiers were looking for places to stay.
RADIO: Hello, BBC, this is Richard Dimbleby speaking from Berlin.
The official Allied occupation of Berlin has begun.
The United States' 2nd Armored Division is entering
the American zone of the city today.
This is the first BBC broadcast from Berlin.
At Reichstrasse, many tanks with white stars drove past us.
Suddenly one tank pulls up at the kerb.
A soldier leans out and asks,
"Excuse me, how do we get to Grunewald?"
We reached Gruneweld with field equipment, helmets and rucksacks.
We set up our vehicles in a circle under the trees,
like in the prairie in the olden days.
In the new Antifa office, work is fun.
It feels like they want the same thing as the Nazis,
just under a different name.
There are the same expectations,
the same manners of speaking.
The young people, they say, are working best.
The ones that are most suited to become team leaders are usually
the Hitler Youth leaders.
It got serious on July 4th.
Outside of the former Adolf Hitler SS Barracks,
now the McNair Barracks,
the Russians moved in with two companies.
MUSIC: Soviet National Anthem
When we saw them, we also positioned two companies there,
along with a row of Sherman tanks.
MUSIC: US National Anthem
Their artillery fire to salute.
Our artillery responded.
I want to greet the American Allied forces in the name of the commandant
of the city of Berlin and in the name of the Soviet forces.
MUSIC: US National Anthem
The next day, Colonel Howley sent his men to the town halls,
raised our flag and instructed the Germans that from now on
they would be taking their orders from the Americans.
Mum had to be at Mrs Schwiering's at half past seven.
They have established an officer's casino in the big villa
at Harnackstrasse.
Mrs Schwiering speaks English fluently.
Mum brought wonderful things we haven't seen in six years.
If ever the fate of Berlin had hung by a thread,
it was on July 7th at the meeting with Zhukov.
He brusquely announced, "And now, gentlemen, let us discuss
"the question of how you intend to supply Berlin with food and coal."
An icy wind from the steps swept through the room.
Zhukov insisted.
He said that there was not only a food shortage in East Germany,
but also in the Soviet Union and that the Soviet administration
could no longer feed the whole city.
TRANSLATION: In the beginning, we were expecting
just over two million Berliners and printed the respective number
of food ration cards.
But soon the situation evolved.
Men, women and children from all over poured into the capital
and we had to print new cards.
Berlin was the transit point for all refugee transports,
even though the Allied Kommandatura had locked down the city.
In July, 500,000 refugees arrived in or were moved through Berlin.
TRANSLATION: We have arrived at Stettin train station,
the end of the line, completely bombed out.
You can only see the sky, rubble, and people, people, people.
Refugees, all drifters like us.
Who should welcome us?
One Berliner said, "There's still space next to that burnt-out
"station wall over there. You can lie down there."
TRANSLATION: Red Cross nurses showed
us to the camp where we were to be housed.
Soon, we stood in front of the surface air raid shelter
and they said, "Here, you can stay."
Then they sent us away to wash.
TRANSLATION: Lice were like humans' pets at the time.
We had to go for delousing repeatedly.
Children and elders alike had to go through it.
It was an all-around cleansing
and afterwards the lice were gone.
Most of the time, anyway.
TRANSLATION: Returnees and those who have been deported
are in poor health.
Babies and toddlers suffered most.
Many have severe nutritional problems.
This has caused a lot of deaths.
July 15th.
At 9.45, we flew to Germany to the Potsdam Conference
in a transport plane.
We were received by a guard of honour at an airport.
After a 20-minute drive, we reached our accommodation in Babelsberg.
It was made up of a series of villas all looking out
over the lake - very pleasant.
In the evening, I tried to catch a pike.
Berlin is like an island in the South Seas,
isolated from the world.
Yet Stalin, the British prime minister and the American president
are in Potsdam to decide our fate.
At 1.30pm, I went to lunch with the Prime Minister.
He had just read the American reports about the results of secret
experiments with the atom bomb.
It would not be necessary, he said,
for the Russians to enter the war with Japan -
the new bomb was enough to end the war.
The bomb would also change the relationship with the Russians.
Then we could just say, if you insist on doing this or that,
then we will wipe out Moscow from the map,
then Stalingrad, Kyiv, Sebastopol and so on.
The day ended with a dinner of the heads of state.
July 25th.
At home, I finished the blue blouse with the cut-off sleeves.
At 8pm, I went to the movies with Mother.
The film was called "Berlin".
It was a Russian film about the Battle of Berlin.
LOUD EXPLOSIONS
We were exhausted when we left.
They shouldn't show us something like that.
We only just managed to get through it.
If you were to see this in a few years, it would be different,
but after three months, that's not clever.
On July 28th, I did the first consecration of a boy
in the small synagogue of the Jewish hospital.
The following day, on July 29th, I married the first Jewish couple
in Berlin in the small synagogue in Rykestrasse.
Amid all the terrible suffering, murder and savagery in Auschwitz,
two people had found each other.
This was the first joyous day for the newly awakened
Berlin congregation.
Oh, Schatzel, how wonderful to be lying in one's own bed,
knowing one is within one's own four walls.
Goodnight.
I hope you are all relatively comfortable as well,
if you are still alive.
Even though I escaped the gas chambers,
the locked doors, the screaming and the beatings,
the dogs and the roll calls,
at night it caught up with me.
It all came back. The barbed wire fences,
the young girl dead in the dirt,
Gad waving goodbye.
The past and the present were merging,
the future was an empty sheet of paper.
Huge headlines in all papers.
The Potsdam Agreement.
Common policy in all occupied territories,
mutual consent on the order of peace in Europe.
It sounds too good to be true.
This is a historic occasion.
We have conclusively proven
that a free people...
..can successfully look after the affairs of the world.
Here we have it - no invasion,
but the atom bomb on the city of Hiroshima.
If Hitler had managed to create such an instrument of destruction,
I dare not think it.
TRANSLATION: August 12th.
The Americans are met with great sympathy.
Yes, the behaviour of some Germans is actually disgraceful.
Every day, one can observe how German men greedily bend down
to pick up cigarette butts thrown away by Americans,
or German women strolling through the streets and parks,
arm in arm with American soldiers.
Imagine your own son, 18 or 19 years old,
free of any supervision,
provided with almost unlimited resources
and fortunate enough to be as attractive as Clark Gable.
Now imagine him being exposed
to a people bereft of any moral standards.
Berlin women are hungry and lonely.
INFORMATION FILM NARRATION: The problem now is future peace.
That is your job in Germany.
You are soldiers on guard.
You will not argue with them.
You will not be friendly.
You will be aloof,
watchful and suspicious.
Every German is a potential source of trouble.
Therefore, there must be no fraternisation
with any of the German people.
The guards have taken possession of all the motorboats at the end
of their lake.
When they're not on duty,
they race up and down the lake with German girls in their boats
and enjoy themselves.
TRANSLATION: You become numb.
I alone have diagnosed 50 cases of gonorrhoea.
Now the cases of unwanted pregnancies are mounting.
TRANSLATION: I herewith politely ask for your attention
for the suffering of a mother and wife of a man
who is currently a prisoner of war.
She got into this terrible situation without any personal wrongdoing
and is in the deepest agony of the soul, begging for your help.
TRANSLATION: I was raped by Russians
on the 21st and 22nd of April this year,
which brought about this pregnancy.
Due to my condition, I'm suffering from depression
and therefore ask for a termination of the pregnancy.
I'm a paediatric nurse by profession.
TRANSLATION: During a small festivity
where alcohol was involved, I was raped by an American.
This evening now has consequences
and I therefore politely ask for the termination of my pregnancy.
TRANSLATION: The termination of the pregnancy of Mrs Gerda Karl,
resident of Berlin-Neukolln, is hereby approved.
TRANSLATION: Dear Mum, dear Dad.
What a terrible place, Berlin.
You cannot begin to imagine the bleakness of this megalopolis.
Even more horrifying are those Berliners dwelling in the cellars,
dying of starvation.
TRANSLATION: What we got on the Russian card
wasn't sufficient at all. We just had to try and organise
something on the black market.
My parents scrambled together anything that could
possibly be fobbed off -
our toys, doll houses, scooters, skates.
Sometimes, that would get some good stuff - a little butter,
some extra bread or a piece of bacon.
Everything is being bartered, trafficked
and sold to people at outrageous prices.
Our GIs have had cheap watches and cigarettes sent to them,
which they now sell around Alexanderplatz or in the Tiergarten
to their Russian comrades at fantastic prices.
Mickey Mouse watches fetch 10,000 marks apiece.
They could exchange the money, one-to-one, into American dollars.
Fancy visiting antique shops with no money
and cigarettes in one's handbag instead.
For four packets, I got a lovely Venetian glass
and a large tortoiseshell comb.
How valuable cigarettes are.
September 10th.
A few days back, there was a great military parade
celebrating the end of the war.
Thousands of Russians, thousands of French, thousands of Americans,
thousands of British.
For us, it was great that the French took up as much space as the others.
Just as many men, just as many flags.
The German Reich is shattered.
The German economy is shattered.
The German culture is shattered.
We no longer have a voice in the League of Nations,
but are treated like mere indigenous people in a colony.
These are the bitter fruits of five and a half years of war,
full of struggle and deprivation.
I'm afraid the Germans have still not learnt the lesson
of this terrible war.
They're only sorry for themselves,
not for all those they murdered
and tortured and tried to wipe from the face of the Earth.
October 1st.
Went to see a film with Gunter in the evening.
"Jenny and the Gentleman in the Tailcoat," with Johannes Heesters.
It looks as though Gunter is completely infatuated with me.
I told Mum I'm at the meeting or she'd get upset and scold me again.
Mrs Schulze received a letter from Kurt.
So Kurt is alive, thank God. I'm very happy.
November 8th. The flat is now halfway cosy and nice,
the beginning of an existence in the making.
But my great anxiety about my husband and children
remains my all-encompassing concern.
I've left no stone unturned to try and find the children,
but have remained unsuccessful.
I don't know how I am to bear the certainty of their death,
should this come about.
And the only person who ever understood me,
he, too, will not return.
In Nuremberg, an International Court of Justice,
has convened to pass judgment on the main war criminals.
24 defendants.
The bill of indictment filled seven closely typed newspaper pages.
Watching the people flicking through this document of shame
with indifference, it seems as though none of this concerns them,
neither crime nor perpetrators,
neither guilt nor punishment.
These 21 men, these zeroes,
these hardworking and confident monsters,
were the last survivors of a gang that had ruled Germany.
Because of them, millions of soldiers, sailors, pilots
and civilians died in the war,
and millions died in gas chambers and furnaces.
No famine, no plague, no punishment of God ever accomplished
what these men were able to do.
They caused destruction such as the world has never seen,
and there they sat, stony faced.
Hermann Wilhelm Goring...
..you must plead guilty or not guilty.
Rudolf Hess.
Wilhelm Keitel.
Alfred Jodl.
December 8th.
Feast of the Immaculate Conception,
Day of Remembrance.
The first snow, very cold,
wind beating against the windows.
At 7am with mother to the Borgsdorf forest to fetch wood.
It was terribly heavy,
and the forester was about to confiscate our tools
when we wanted to saw a trunk.
We had two large sacks, a rucksack and a bag,
and still we had to run for the train.
December 10th.
It's said to be almost minus 20 degrees Centigrade.
My hair has turned very grey.
In general, we all age rapidly now.
Snow outside, scrunching underfoot.
Everybody's complaining about the cold.
I hope it won't last for long.
With the lack of coal,
the malnourished will freeze to death in their flats.
It's been happening already.
First post-war Christmas.
How different from what we had imagined.
No tree, no presents, no Andric.
But the curfew was lifted yesterday
and those brave enough are allowed out after 11pm.
Eaten lots and well.
To church with Hansels and Schulzes at quarter to five.
It was crowded so we stood on the upper gallery.
Another Christmas without the children.
Last year, I often thought about it and wished for the next one
not to be so sad.
Now, Christmas will soon come around and I have even less hope.
Monday, New Year's Eve.
Mother was angry with me when I left in the evening.
I took my records, first to Gunter,
then to Hayo, who lives in Weissensee. His parents were out.
Gunter was quite jealous because I was flirting with Rudi and danced
the first dance of the New Year with him. It was "Lantern, Lantern."
# Laternchen, laternchen
# Laternchen... #
At 5am, I went to another family, who were also celebrating
and in high spirits.
At 6am, I returned.
Mother was livid.
I went to bed and slept until 11 the next morning.
In 1949, Brigitte Eicke married her childhood sweetheart Kurt Schulze.
The couple had two children, a boy and a girl.
Brigitte spent her entire life in Prenzlauer Berg and died in 2016
at the age of 89.
The trial against the main war criminals at Nuremberg concluded
with 12 death sentences, seven long-term or life prison sentences
and three acquittals.
Hermann Goring eluded his punishment by committing suicide.
In 1947, over 98% of all registered
NSDAP members were back at work.
Even high-ranking SS functionaries were able to build a career
after the war, as doctors, judges, teachers, professors,
civil servants or journalists.
Only in 1946 Alice Lowenthal received confirmation
that her second husband and her daughters, Gitti and Ruth, had died.
All three had been murdered at Auschwitz concentration camp
and were declared dead in 1950.
Alice married again, the son of the family who had hidden her.
The pair had another daughter they named Eva Ruth Gitti.
Alice died in 1985.
Eva still lives in Berlin.