Winter of the World

Carla went to bed wondering what the Soviets would do. She lay beside Werner, part of her brain listening in case Walli in the next room should cry. The Soviet occupiers had been getting angrier for the last few months. A journalist called Dieter Friede had been kidnapped in the American zone by the Soviet secret police, then held captive: the Soviets at first denied all knowledge, then said they had arrested him as a spy. Three students had been expelled from university for criticizing the Russians in a magazine. Worst of all, a Soviet fighter aircraft buzzed a British European Airways passenger plane landing at Gatow airport and clipped its wing, causing both planes to crash, killing four BEA crew, ten passengers and the Soviet pilot. When the Russians got angry, someone else always suffered.

Next morning the Soviets announced it would be a crime to import Deutsche Marks into East Germany. This included Berlin, the statement said, ‘which is part of the Soviet zone’. The Americans immediately denounced this phrase and affirmed that Berlin was an international city, but the temperature was rising, and Carla remained anxious.

On Monday, West Germany got the new currency.

On Tuesday, a Red Army courier came to Carla’s house and summoned her to city hall.

She had been summoned this way before, but all the same she was fearful as she left home. There was nothing to stop the Soviets imprisoning her. The Communists had all the same arbitrary powers the Nazis had assumed. They were even using the old concentration camps.

The famous Red City Hall had been damaged by bombing, and the city government was based in the New City Hall in Parochial Strasse. Both buildings were in the Mitte district where Carla lived, which was in the Soviet zone.

When she got there she found that Acting Mayor Louise Schroeder and others had also been called for a meeting with the Soviet liaison officer, Major Otshkin. He informed them that the East German currency was to be reformed, and in future only the new Ostmark would be legal in the Soviet zone.

Acting Mayor Schroeder immediately saw the crucial point. ‘Are you telling us that this will apply in all sectors of Berlin?’

‘Yes.’

Frau Schroeder was not easily intimidated. ‘Under the city constitution, the Soviet occupying power cannot make such a rule for the other sectors,’ she said firmly. ‘The other Allies must be consulted.’

‘They will not object.’ He handed over a sheet of paper. ‘This is Marshal Sokolovsky’s decree. You will bring it before the city council tomorrow.’

Later that evening, as Carla got into bed with Werner, she said: ‘You can see what the Soviet tactic is. If the city council were to pass the decree, it would be difficult for the democratically minded Western Allies to overturn it.’

‘But the council won’t pass it. The Communists are a minority, and no one else will want the Ostmark.’

‘No. Which is why I’m wondering what Marshal Sokolovsky has up his sleeve.’

The next morning’s newspapers announced that from Friday there would be two competing currencies in Berlin, the Ostmark and the Deutsche Mark. It turned out that the Americans had secretly flown in 250 million in the new currency in wooden boxes marked ‘Clay’ and ‘Bird Dog’ which were now stashed all over Berlin.

During the day Carla began to hear rumours from West Germany. The new money had brought about a miracle there. Overnight, more goods had appeared in shop windows: baskets of cherries and neatly tied bundles of carrots from the surrounding countryside, butter and eggs and pastries, and long-hoarded luxuries such as new shoes, handbags, and even stockings at four Deutsche Marks the pair. People had been waiting until they could sell things for real money.

That afternoon Carla set off for City Hall to attend the council meeting scheduled for four o’clock. As she drew near she saw dozens of Red Army trucks parked in the streets around the building, their drivers lounging around, smoking. They were mostly American vehicles that must have been given to the USSR as Lend-Lease aid during the war. She got an inkling of their purpose when she began to hear the sound of an unruly mob. What the Soviet governor had up his sleeve, she suspected, was a truncheon.

In front of City Hall, red flags fluttered above a crowd of several thousand, most of them wearing Communist Party badges. Loudspeaker trucks blared angry speeches, and the crowd chanted: ‘Down with the secessionists.’

Carla did not see how she was going to reach the building. A handful of policemen looked on uninterestedly, making no attempt to help councillors get through. It reminded Carla painfully of the attitude of police on the day the Brownshirts had trashed her mother’s office, fifteen years ago. She was quite sure the Communist councillors were already inside, and that if Social Democrats did not get into the building the minority would pass the decree and claim it to be valid.