Berlin полностью

Berlin’s situation was all the more desperate because of a massive influx of refugees from the ethnically cleansed regions of Poland and the Baltic states. There were almost 5 million displaced people on the roads in east-central Europe, and for many of them Berlin was the first port of call on the trek west. By the time they got there they were true wretches of the earth, filthy, sickly, emaciated, and, in the case of the women, often suffering the effects of multiple rapes. In an effort to prevent them from putting unbearable pressure on the strained resources of the city, the occupation powers banned them from entering Berlin. Thousands managed to get in anyway. If caught, they were immediately escorted to railway stations and ordered to take the first train out. One of the most haunting images from that era is of refugees huddled in bombed-out depots waiting for transport. Margaret Bourke-White, a Life magazine photographer, captured such scenes at the Anhalter Bahnhof. One of her photos shows a train pulling out with emaciated creatures filling every space and even clinging to the sides and top. Her coolly distant commentary reads, in part: “The long train was rushing past now, and the people clinging to the top and sides lost their identity as human beings and began to resemble barnacles. As the train gathered speed it might have been a chain of old boat hulls, whipping into the distance. I turned back to the station platforms and found them as thickly studded with humanity as they had been before the train had carried anyone away.” It is easy to see a symbolic symmetry between these overloaded trains and the boxcars that carried Jews out of Berlin in the previous half-decade. But of course, as miserable as these refugees were, most who had made it this far (thousands had died in the initial expulsions) were destined to survive. For them, Berlin was not a gateway to death but a way station on the road to a new, if often difficult, existence.

In an effort to improve conditions for the remaining population in the ruined capital, the Western Allies joined the Russians in rationing food and regulating the sale of necessities like fuel and clothing. Inevitably, this generated a black market—indeed, several black markets scattered across the city. Because just about everything was scarce in Berlin except misery, the markets embraced a vast range of items, from bread and potatoes to caviar, drugs, and fake identity papers. To trade in the markets Berliners used barter, and occasionally their bodies. The main “currency,” however, was cigarettes, especially American cigarettes. During a visit to Berlin in November 1945, Hans Speier noticed that a pack of cigarettes was worth one hundred marks (then the equivalent of about ten dollars), with Pall Malls fetching a bit more because they were longer. A nostalgic collection of five photographs of Berlin sights before their destruction was selling for ten cigarettes, a price that Speier’s American driver found exorbitant because he could buy a whole pack of smokes at the PX for four cents. The preciousness of cigarettes in the local economy created a new profession: that of Kippensammler, or butt collector. Hovering near the entrances to soldiers’ clubs and cinemas, the butt snatchers swooped down on discarded fag ends as soon as they hit the pavement. Berlin’s waiters also got into the butt business, selling the leavings from ashtrays. At the Café Wien waiters received five dollars for the seventy-five to one hundred butts a day they collected.

Taking full advantage of their enormous buying power, the occupiers became major profiteers of the black market. It was alleged that the wife of General Clay bought up huge quantities of artwork, which she sent back to America in her husband’s personal airplane. President Truman’s adviser, General Harry Vaughn, bragged that on a trip to Berlin he peddled his spare clothes for “a couple thousand bucks.” Berliners resented this exploitation of their vulnerability, but they flocked to the markets themselves, for, as Speier noted, “it enables them to get something additional, for example a package of dried milk in exchange for a valuable glass of crystal.”

Recognizing that the black markets were fostering a criminal environment of racketeering and speculation, the occupation authorities threatened to shut them down, but nothing much came of the threats. Moreover, for all the sleazy practices that this economy undoubtedly encouraged, it also provided good training for the budding capitalists of the “economic miracle” of the 1950s and 1960s.