Honor Page - 8 Guest Authors Excellent history stories from proud veterans

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BERLIN 1947 written by Private First Class, Harry F. Reinert, US Army - 298th Army Band

 

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BERLIN 1947
written by
Private First Class
Harry F. Reinert
US Army - 298^th Army Band



       

Guten Tag, Reinhard! Thank you for your memory work. Here is a little story from my Berlin experiences. It started in your year of birth. I never will forget that time.

In March 1947 we arrived in port at -Bremerhaven- at the end of what was reported to have been the most severe winter in Europe in more than 50 years. The waterway through which our ship glided was contained by concrete walls on each side. From these walls, the ground sloped gently down but since the earth was now thawing, the slope was completely muddy.

Gathered along the banks was a large assembly of old men and young boys looking for anything that might be tossed to them. Many of the men aboard the ship began tossing candy bars and packages of cigarettes onto the bank, then laughed as they watched the men and boys go slipping down the muddy slope and fighting one another for whatever had been tossed overboard. I was horrified, both by the insensitivity of the men throwing the candy and cigarettes and by the feral way in which the Germans fought over the booty.

The next day, we were shipped out to the Replacement Depot (called the Reppel Deppel) at -Marburg-, a pretty town located in central Germany. The drive along the curving road up to the Kaserne, a former German army camp where we were billeted, reminded me much of home. A local musical group entertained us in the evening, playing American pop tunes without the syncopation that makes them American. But here at last, I had a chance to actually try out my German in conversation with some of the musicians. One evening we were even able to get to an old beer hall in the town itself.

After a few more days, all bandsmen were shipped to -Assmannshausen a/ Rhein-, a pretty little town situated on the wine growing slopes of the Rhine River. We were billeted in the hotels in the former resort and took our meals in the elegant dining room of one of the largest hotels. We sat at tables covered with white linen and were served by liveried waiters. I felt that this was what the army ought to be. Sometime we had auditions, and I wrote home that I was told I had a "good tone," whatever that was supposed to mean. Waiting for our assignments, we spent the days wandering along the Rhine and looking at -Schloss Rheinstein- directly across the river. The castle was located in the French Occupation Zone, however, and we did not have a chance to go over there.

After about ten days in Assmannshausen, orders came through assigning me to the band in Berlin. We boarded what I called the "square wheel express" going from Assmannshausen to Frankfurt, where we transferred to another train going into Berlin.

This square wheel express was comprised of very old railroad carriages of the sort seen in pre-war European movies. Along with the scattering of soldiers on the train were quite a few German civilians. One white bearded old man started telling me-in German-that now the Amis (Americans) would need to fight the Russians. As part of our orientation sessions when we first arrived in Germany, we were exhorted to remember that we were the victors, we were the conquerors, that each of us soldiers represented the Army of the United States of America which had crushed the greatest evil in the history of mankind. We were warned that some Germans would try to get us to turn against our loyal Soviet Allies, but we should remember that the Soviets were our allies. I bought the whole spiel, so I responded to the old man on the train that the Americans would never fight the "Russkis", because they were our friends. It was another four months before I got concrete evidence that the Cold War was already under way, although it did not become public knowledge for another year.

When we arrived in Bremerhaven, we were shepherded into a large warehouse-like building and were then soon after shipped on our way to Marburg, so we never saw much of Bremerhaven. Marburg and Assmannshausen had been virtually untouched by the war, so my first view of the destruction wreaked on Germany came when we arrived in Frankfurt. We had a layover of several hours, so a group of us went for a stroll through the area surrounding the -Hauptbahnhof-. What we saw were piles of rubble everywhere-the streets had been cleared, but virtually no buildings were standing. We were told that in warm months the stench of rotting flesh from bodies still buried beneath the rubble filled the air. The Red Cross Club located near the station, however, served lunch while a small musical ensemble played Strauss waltzes. This stood in sharp contrast to the scene in the surrounding area.

Black Market

While in Frankfurt, we were also introduced to the economic reality in Germany. Genuine American dollars had an exorbitant value on the black market in Germany, so before we arrived in -Bremerhaven- we had to exchange all our U.S. currency for army script which was the only legal tender for Americans in Germany to use at American facilities such as the PX . Although the -Reichsmark- was still the legal currency among Germans, we quickly learned that the real -Bargeld- (hard currency) was the American cigarette. If we wanted to obtain -Reichsmarks- to make a purchase in a German store, the legal exchange rate was four Marks for a dollar. On the black market, however, a pack of American cigarettes brought 80-100 Marks in Frankfurt and would bring as much as 120 Marks in Berlin.

Not only cigarettes but other commodities such as soap, coffee and candy also had value on the black market. In the army's attempt to limit the amount of black marketeering carried on by the troops, we were rationed to a limited amount of each of these each week: twelve packs of cigarettes, a half dozen cigars, three bars of soap, a half pound of coffee, one pound of sugar, and a certain number of candy bars and gum. Standard practice was to go to the PX on Saturday and buy our week's quota of each rationed product, then pack the goods into the army issue canvas hand satchel-which we called our "black market bag"-and head to a local fence on what we called "Schwarzmarktallee" and convert the contraband into -Reichsmarks-. For example, a bar of soap brought about 50 Marks, a half pound of coffee 200 Marks, a pound of sugar at least 150 Marks, candy bars at least 35 Marks each, and cigars 25-50 Marks. These Reichsmarks we could then use for legitimate purchases at German businesses, such as buying books or paying for opera tickets.

Every Saturday afternoon in Berlin, a group of us trekked down to a music store on -Argentische Allee- where we would exchange our week's supply of goodies for Reichsmarks. The owner of the shop was a white haired man with a gorgeous walrus mustache. The magic of the store for me was that in that particular place I was able to understand everything anyone said in German and I could actually carry on a conversation in German.

I invested many of my Reichsmarks in books. At a bookstore in Berlin, for example, I bought a complete set of -Goethes Werke- for 125 Marks. I was very anxious to buy a copy of Hitler's "Mein Kampf", which the occupation government of course forbade any German to own. When I casually asked a young man in the bookstore where I could find a copy, he first of all told me that they did not have it. Then he added that he knew someone who did. I was told to come back in two hours. When I returned, I was directed to the -Apotheke- across the street. The pharmacist saw me come in and motioned for me to follow him. We went through three doorways down a hallway in the rear of his store, with him closing and locking each door as we went through. Finally, we stepped into a little room furnished only with a table. Lying on the table was a package wrapped in newspaper. Inside was a copy of "Mein Kampf" in mint condition. The pharmacist said in German that he had never read the book. In my best sceptical, conquering-army-soldier manner I responded, "Oh, yeah, sure!" He wanted 500 Marks for the book, which was outrageous, but I gladly paid the price, since the book was in fact illegal for the German even to have in his possession.

Cigarettes themselves, however, were almost never converted into Reichsmarks, for they were in and of themselves currency. Germans were hired to drive American jeeps around the city to run various errands. We would hail a jeep and give the driver two cigarettes to take us wherever we wanted to go. Prices for German goods that were in real demand, especially -Leica- cameras, were always quoted in terms of packs or cartons. My portable Olympia typewriter, for example, cost four cartons. I bought a clarinet for three and a half cartons and a beautiful antique pocket watch for a pack and a half. A Leica camera, however, could cost as much as 35 cartons-an exorbitant price. To help fill this need, however, several outfits in New York placed ads in the Stars and Stripes offering to ship cases of cigarettes to Americans in Europe.

In the earliest days of the occupation, soldiers were allowed to convert Reichsmarks into dollars and send the money home, but the army put an end to that after a few months. One fellow in my outfit had an ingenious way of making the most of his opportunities. Both he and his father were stamp collectors, so he would buy valuable postage stamps from Berlin dealers using Reichsmarks and then send the stamps home to his father in a letter. The lesson in economics that I learned as a result of all this activity was that it did not take long before we began to evaluate goods in terms of the cost in cigarettes just as earnestly as if we were using dollars. The fact that we could buy the cigarettes for 80 cents a carton was irrelevant; what mattered was getting the best value for the cigarettes we spent. Since cigarettes were consumable goods, this created an even heavier pressure; I and just about every other smoker soon learned to smoke each cigarette two or three times before finally discarding the butt, for when we lit up, we were literally burning $5 bills.

At the end of World War II, Germany was divided into four Occupation Zones, and the city of Berlin into four sectors, each controlled by one of the Big Four powers. The American, British and French zones were combined to form the West German Federal Republic (Bundesrepublik) as an independent entity in 1948 and the three Western sectors of Berlin were combined into West Berlin. From 1945 onward, however, the three Western powers were guaranteed access to Berlin along specific corridors through Soviet territory . The train ride from Frankfurt to Berlin along that corridor in 1947 took about ten hours. I arrived there April 6 on a cold, rainy Easter Sunday.

By the spring of 1947, more than a year before the Cold War was acknowledged and before Winston Churchill had given a name to the Iron Curtain, Berlin had already become the keyhole through which Western diplomats could peek into the East. It seemed that every footloose .politician in the country managed to find an excuse to come to Berlin and each arrival was met at -Tempelhof- Airport by the Army Band. As part of impressing the visiting dignitaries, the Army Band in Berlin was being increased from the standard 28 piece organization to a showcase unit of 56 or more musicians. My group was the first contingent of new arrivals intended to make the band- according to a letter I wrote Mother-"the European equivalent of the Army Band in Washington, D.C." To give us a sharper look, we each had tailored uniforms which we wore with white scarves, white sam brown belts, paratrooper boots and white helmet liners.

Ever since I had first joined a band in junior high school, my dream had been to play first clarinet. On the train ride to Berlin, I tried to evaluate my competition for a first clarinet position. One of the fellows was a tall, straw headed kid carrying a battered clarinet case with him. I figured I could write him off right away. In one of the first rehearsals after arriving in Berlin, this kid was seated on solo chair first clarinet along with a former music instructor from Duke University. We were set to sight read a piece of music. The notes were so thick on the page I thought the printer probably had used white ink on black paper. The piece went by so fast I was having trouble even keeping my place, never mind playing the music. When we finished running through the number, the professor turned to the kid and said, "You missed that note back there... it's supposed to a sharp." The kid replied, "Yeah, I know. I realized that when it was too late." After our real auditions the next week, I wrote Mother that I was pleased to have made second chair, second clarinet. But I also was going to get to transfer to bass clarinet, which was my preference, as soon as an instrument was delivered.

We were billeted in a group of four-plex apartments located near -Onkel-Toms- Huette- arcade and subway (U-Bahn) station. I have identified the address of my unit as -Wilskistrasse- #32. When my sons Harry and Ted and I went to Berlin 25 years later, I was finally able to find the buildings which we had called home. Living conditions for the troops in Berlin were very good. We had four men in each three bedroom apartment and our mess hall was the dining room in the building that was formerly -Hermann Goering's- headquarters. We could reach the dining hall by riding the subway to the next stop (occupation forces, of course, could ride the subway free of charge). At tables seating only six to eight men each, waitresses gave us a printed menu of what was available for that meal and we would mark our selections which were then served a short time later.

       

Rather than ride the subway, whenever possible we would hail a jeep with a German driver and have him drive us back to our billets. After lunch one day, three of us were walking along the sidewalk hoping to hail a ride when a staff car pulled up to the curb and a general sitting in the back seat opened the door and offered us a ride. For a buck private who was still somewhat awed by a captain, this was quite an experience. The general chatted with us very genially and insisted on delivering us right to the gate of our compound. The -Berlin Observer-, the local army newspaper, a few weeks later carried a feature story about this same general-Brigadier General Robert A. McClure--as he was preparing to head back to the States. Apparently he was famous around Berlin for exactly the sort of hospitality he had shown us. I realized then that he could be friendly with the troops because he felt secure in his own position-he did not have to prove anything to anyone. This observation later carried over into civilian life as well, e.g. when I was active in regional and national foreign language organizations, occasionally I would meet someone who insisted on being addressed as "Doctor So-and-so," whereas most of my colleagues-at least, the ones who knew their stuff and knew they knew it-were totally unconcerned with their titles.

Mom Neubauer

For each four-plex, the army hired a -Putzfrau-, a cleaning lady, whose job it was to keep the places clean. But we were told that we were responsible for cleaning our own gear, including the white scarves which became soiled very quickly. The Putzfrau in our unit was Frau Ella Neubauer, whom we all called "Mom." She was a short, wiry woman in her 50s with a marvelous sense of humor. Mom knew only two words of English, which she had undoubtedly learned from the American GIs-"shit" and "OK." She would tease the men by doing such things as switching off the bathroom light while someone was shaving, then stand in hallway laughing as her victim came storming out of the bathroom swearing fiercely. In spite of her orders to the contrary, she would insist on washing our white scarves for us, undoubtedly believing that we would not be able to do an adequate job ourselves.

Mom knew I was trying very hard to improve my German and she would help me by correcting my pronunciation and grammar and feeding me new vocabulary. From her I learned the truth about the "ch" sound-neither the kid in Bremerhaven nor the girl in Assmannshausen was correct, it was a different sound altogether. On my 18th birthday, I had a dental appointment in the morning and when I returned to the billet. I complained to Mom that this was a lousy way to spend a birthday. She suggested I should just go lie in the sun and forget rehearsal that day...as though I had a choice. When I got back to my room after breakfast the next morning, there was a bouquet of flowers in a vase on my desk. "Where did the flowers come from, Mom?" I asked. "They are for your birthday, from your mother in America," she explained.

Berlin Rubble

My first indication of the level of destruction in Germany resulting from the massive bombing in World War II was what I saw in Frankfurt. But even that could not prepare me for the sights in Berlin. I had of course seen photographs of the bombed out buildings and piles of rubble, but no mere photograph could have the impact of viewing the destruction in person.

The neighborhood where we were billeted was relatively unscathed by the Battle for Berlin which came at the end of the war. The first Saturday after I arrived in Berlin, I took the U-bahn into the center of the city. I got off the subway at Friedrichstrasse and walked up the stairs to come out at the Brandenburg Gate. During the war, I had read everything I could find about Berlin, so I had some concept of what the center of the city had once been. On the west side of the Brandenburg Gate, Unter den Linden boulevard cuts through the middle of the Tiergarten, an enormous park. When I gazed out from the Brandenburg gate in mid-April 1947, the Tiergarten had the look of a moonscape. Where lush gardens had once stood, the ground was scraped bare. On my right was the burned out hulk of the old Reichstag, the torching of which in 1933 had given Hitler an excuse to take total control of the country. In front of it was the Soviet war memorial. Perhaps a quarter mile down the wide boulevard stood the Siegessäule, the Victory Column raised to celebrate the Prussian victory in the Franco-Prussian War in 1867.

The four occupation forces held a musical program on April 12 commemorating the second anniversary the death of President Roosevelt. The French provided a small chamber music ensemble to play a couple of numbers, the British brought on stage a soprano and piano accompanist, and the Americans had the army band play the national anthems of the four occupation powers. Then the Soviets brought on the Russian Army Chorus, about 70 men strong. In one of their numbers, the chorus was singing at full volume when suddenly a tenor standing in the center of the front row began to sing a obbligato above the entire chorus. It was as thrilling a performance as I have ever heard in my life. Even before the Cold War began, the Western powers had already lost to the Soviets on the cultural front, at least.

Because Berlin had become that showcase in Europe, the band had a very busy schedule. We not only played for every military ceremony in Berlin but we were also constantly hauled by trucks to Tempelhof Airfield to meet visiting dignitaries. In May, we began giving a series of outdoor Sunday afternoon concerts. Whenever there were a few minutes to spare, we had rehearsals. The result was that we had in effect a six and a half day work week.

General Lucius Clay was OMGUS (Office of Military Government, United States) chief and had his headquarters in Berlin. On his birthday on April 23, the band formed in the yard outside his residence around 6:30 a.m. and played a group of numbers, mostly Southern tunes, since General Clay originally hailed from the South. Most of us felt this was terrible thing to do to a general, but he came out onto the porch and waved to us. About noon that day, the general's staff car pulled up at the band orderly room and a sergeant began carrying a cardboard box filled with various liquors inside. The commanding officer spotted this and challenged the sergeant, "Sergeant, where are you going with that whisky?"
"Into the orderly room, sir," the sergeant replied.
"Who told you to do that?" the captain demanded.
"General Clay, sir," said the sergeant.
"Well, get on with it then, man," countered the captain.
It turned out that in appreciation for our early morning serenade, General Clay had sent over a rather sizable collection of various liquors for members of the band. The booty was divided evenly among the band members, averaging about one fifth of booze for every three men.

The only time we could be sure of being free was on Saturday night, and that is when most of us repaired Club 48, the nightspot designated for non-commissioned troops. I knew very little about drinks, so my standard order was cognac and Coke, which cost 50 cents. This was first rate cognac which had been "liberated" somewhere, and only many years later did I realize how foolish it had been to ruin good cognac with Coca Cola.

   

About a month after I arrived in Berlin, our band director was replaced with a captain who was a much stricter disciplinarian than the man he replaced. In my letters to Mother, I expressed my increasing unhappiness that I was stationed in Berlin while my cousin Jim was stationed in Garmisch where he spent most of his time skiing and playing bridge. In one letter he wrote that he had won the lottery for a Leica camera.

My girlfriend (meine Freundin)

By the time I reached Germany, the non-fraternization ban imposed when American troops first entered occupied Germany had been lifted. Girls were available on the streets and in the parks, I guess, but I could find no interest in them. Finally, I asked Mom one day if she knew a nice girl who would like to go with me to the opera and have a relationship of pure friendship. Giving it some thought, Mom said she thought she might know such a girl, and she would let me know.

The first several months I was in Germany, my impressions of the ravages of the war were general and impersonal. Because of -meine Freundin-, I was given insight into the personal impact of the war. And I also got an insight into the kind of nobility that can rise above adversity.

Before we went to the opera on our second date, I went by her apartment and met her mother, who served coffee and brown bread with a bit of butter. I knew that in her situation at that time, this involved a tremendous personal sacrifice. But I also realized that it was important for her own dignity to treat a guest as a guest. The next time I went by the apartment, I told the mother that I appreciated her generosity, but I really would prefer that she not bring out food for me again.

Soon after my arrival in Germany, I had learned always to flip a cigarette behind me, not in front of me, for the moment the butt hit the ground one or two men or boys would scramble to pick it up. If I were standing in one spot, then I would keep my foot on the butt until I was ready to move.

What I didn't include in my letter to Mother was that my girlfriend also told me one evening that she had been raped by some Russian soldiers when they first appeared in Berlin. She said she was frightened, "but I wanted to see my mother again," so she felt she dared not resist.

Because of conversations such as this, I found myself in the position of being the personal defender of the United States and the American Way of Life, although I realize now that at best I was uttering platitudes. For example, when she once mentioned that she feared that the Americans might leave Berlin and the Russians would have the whole city, I assured her that we would never do that. I was grateful later that throughout the Blockade and the Cold War my country kept my word.

Because of my increased personal contact these individual Berliners, I became much more aware of the problems faced by individuals. We had a black market trader who made deliveries, i.e. if we wanted a particular item, we told him what it was and a while later he would return with it for sale. That was how I bought a clarinet-a fine instrument but unfortunately pitched in A instead of B-flat, so I eventually traded it in on another horn.

As the trader was leaving the billet one day, I heard Mom mutter "Schurke!" (scoundrel). I asked Mom why she was so upset, and she explained to me that as long as the black market continued in full operation, German economy could never recover. She was right, of course, as demonstrated a year later with the Währungsreform (currency reform) when Reichsmarks were replaced by Deutsche Marks and the black market disappeared literally overnight.

I was particularly struck by a visual presentation in the Stars and Stripes which showed the actual volume of food ration for each German for one week: a piece of meat about 3 cubic inches in size, a half loaf of black bread, less than a pound of flour, about five pats of butter, a half dozen potatoes, two eggs, a pint of milk, and a smidgin of sugar. Altogether, it seemed to me the week's legal ration would have made one really good meal.

The following day, we were spending a warm Sunday afternoon floating in a canoe on Wannsee when I heard myself being paged on a bullhorn. A few days earlier, I had failed inspection because my shoes were not shined and I was supposed to be confined to quarters for a week. However, I had managed to dodge the official notice of this. When I heard the MPs calling for me, my first thought was that the captain had sent them looking for me.

I waved to the MPs calling for me and rowed to shore. One of the men said, "Reinert, you have to go home. Your mother's dead."

Expecting to be returned to Berlin after the 30 day leave, I took nothing with me except a change of clothes. I spent the evening at the MP headquarters waiting for a plane that would fly me out of Berlin early the next morning.

From the conversation among the MPs that evening, I learned that relations between the Americans and Soviets were already severely strained, e.g. when American MPs would pick up drunk Soviet officers careening through the American Sector, they would practically have to return the Soviets to their own sector at gunpoint. Numerous clashes between the Soviets and Americans had never been reported in the press. Such tensions in fact would not be acknowledged publicly for another year.

Unfortunately, the army changed the rules during the month I was home on emergency fulough, so I was not returned to Berlin.

It was another 25 years before I was able to return, and by that time it was a very different city.
My best regards to all my Berliner friends and Army comrades!

Harry

   


remark:
Dear Harry, big -THANKS- for that wonderful Berlin story, I'm very sure, that all my website guests will enjoy to read it!
After his army time, Harry Reinert studied German language at the university. Later on, he has been a teacher for German language at an U.S. High School for 25 years. Since 36 years Harry is married to the wonderful lady Mary Anne. Both are proud parents and grandparents and are living in Vashon Island, Washington.

your old billet, October 2005