Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - We begin our Work in Germany
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opinion I have expressed before about the destruction
in Germany. Flying over it and seeing village after
village undamaged and apparently prospering, one
must say that anyhow there still is room for life.
The destruction is concentrated in the towns.
After a fast flight, we landed at Tempelhof, which
was then under American control. I was really
curious to see Berlin again. The last time I left the
city was on the 20th of April, Hitler’s last
birthday. It was just before the Allied forces had
surrounded the city, and since then violent street fighting
had occurred, especially in the center of town.
Artillery fire had completed the devastation begun by
the bombings. I must admit that I got a shock when
we drove from Tempelhof to the so-called
Harnack-Haus in the residential district of Dahlem, where the
chief of the American public health department for
Berlin was located. On the way, we made a tour of
the different sectors of the town. As is known, Berlin
is divided into four different sectors under
American, British, French and Russian administration.
There were no difficulties in passing from one sector
to another. Only signs in certain streets indicated
that one was leaving one sector to enter another.
I soon realized that there was not much left of the
center of Berlin as we knew it before the war. It is
true that the Brandenburg Gate is still standing,
though badly damaged. However, looking east and
west, one sees nothing but destruction. The houses on
Unter den Linden are almost all gone. *
1, In the spring of 1948, one new house was under con-
struction on the Unter den Linden, which lies in the
Russian Sector: the building which will house the
Russian Embassy. Author.
105
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