Turning Enemies into Allies Part I: The Gemans

 The transformation of enemies into allies was not inevitable. All parties to the war had been subjected to wartime propaganda that demonized the other side. In addition, most leaders had fought in the war and many individuals had endured hardship, suffering and trauma as a result of it. By the summer of 1945, when the Allied occupation of Germany began, the liberation of the Concentration Camps had increased hostility to Germany to new heights. The Nuremberg Trials served to highlight further the magnitude and depth of Nazi perversity. For Western leaders and troops, there was little desire to treat Germans as "ordinary humans" much less friends.

 

From the German side of the divide the transformation process was not quite as difficult. By the time the War ended, the Germans had long since lost their arrogance or sense of superiority and the fear and hatred of the Soviets had made them look to the West. As mentioned earlier, many Germans seriously believed that the Western Allies ought to join forces with them to fight the Soviet threat. They had then undergone a greater or lesser amount of disillusionment with the Western Allies, but at no time did they see them in the same negative light that was the case in reverse. The issue for the Germans was therefore less one of transforming an enemy into a friend than of regaining faith and trust after a perceived “betrayal.”

The sense of “betrayal” intensified at the very start of the Blockade. From the Berlin perspective, the Soviets had behaved badly from the moment they entered the city, but the use of a Blockade to starve them into submission after all the other humiliations was the absolute “last straw.” At the very moment in time when the West was offering an unprecedented gesture of friendship and material support to all of Europe - including the defeated Germans in the form of the Marshall Plan and a sound currency - Soviet policy used the threat of starvation to force an entire city into submission. Even devoted and life-long Socialists and Communists felt that the Soviets had now gone too far and in so doing revealed their true nature. Residents of the Eastern Zone wrote to relatives in the West begging them to tell the Americans that “the inhabitants of the Russian Zone are happy about each plane…which in spite of all SED propaganda brings food for a besieged city, which is not a fortress but a helpless heap of stones.” [i] 

The more the Russians tried to vilify the Airlift, the more they made themselves look ridiculous – and Berliners, East and West, didn’t like being “treated like idiots.” As Reuter’s speech makes very clear, the Berliners were determined to resist the Soviets not because of the Western Allies, but rather despite them. As one Berliner put it:

Of course we noticed the increased number of flights by the DC-3s going into Tempelhof, but we thought the Allies were just flying in the necessary food and supplies for themselves and their families. No West Berliner ever dreamed that the Airlift was meant to support all the people in the Western Sectors.[ii]

In short, the Berliners expected to be left in the lurch, but they chose not to cave into Soviet pressure despite that expectation because they wanted to show the world that they were not being “sold” willingly.

Nor did the Berliners see themselves as being “in the same boat” as the Allies. The Allies, after all, could always “go home.” The Americans particularly had a nation untouched by war and producing unimaginable surpluses of everything. That made them different from the Berliners – quite apart from the better clothes, food, accommodation, heating, pay, etc. etc. etc. of the Occupation forces. The Berliners noted cynically that the Allied HQ were not subject to the electricity black-outs that affected the rest of the city and that the NAAFI and PX still sold luxury goods – which found their way onto the Black Market just as before. The issue was not one of being in the same boat, but rather of temporarily sharing the same goal: breaking the Soviet Blockade and defying the Soviets.

Just as Berlin’s defiance surprised the Allies, the Allies’ willingness to try an Airlift of the civilian population surprised the Berliners. A Berlin taxi driver was quoted in Stars and Stripes saying:

Sure we lost our faith at first…We thought the West would pull out. Now we have [our faith] back again…You hear? There is another plane. And there another. Our faith, Mister, doesn’t come from our hearts or our brains anymore. It comes through our ears.[iii]

Put another way: one Berliner admitted, “he was at first dubious over the possibility of the Airlift’s success, then hopeful, and finally, he noted with jubilation, he reached the stage of ‘earplugs on the bedside table.’”[iv] Another Berlin resident remembers it like this:

They turned and came in over Neuköln and it was terrible because they had to go between houses to land. And, you know, if an airplane or two didn’t come you actually woke up because something was missing. You knew something was wrong. The noise of the planes didn’t bother us at all. As a matter of fact, we felt secure. As long as we heard those planes flying, we felt like everything was all right. But I remember waking up sometimes and thinking something was wrong. There was no plane.[v]

Another Berliner reports:

As the number of aircraft increased from day to day, we started to hope. Daily I went to the edge of the airfield and I counted the incoming planes…I was very impressed. And then the C-54s arrived.[vi]

Adding:

General Tunner and General Clay often drove through West Berlin in their military vehicles. Wherever they stopped, they were recognised by the Berliners and enthusiastically greeted. It made a great impression on us that these two, notoriously not very German-friendly Generals, now offered us their hand in friendship. [vii]

And it was not just the Generals they admired and thanked. Cliff Wenzel had flown Halifaxes in WWII with Bomber Command. He was on one of the first crews to be deployed on the Airlift by the RAF. He was then flying with his own brother as his navigator, and on the first night after their arrival the Wenzel brothers went around to the “local” for a beer. The Germans seeing the RAF uniform walked out. “Just three weeks later,” he claims, “with the Airlift in full swing, we couldn’t buy a drink – the Germans insisted on buying every round.”[viii] Another Berliner reports:

Everyone, even people like me, who had previously viewed the Victors with suspicion, abandoned this attitude and sought every sort of possible contact with the fliers and soldiers. If you ran into soldiers or airmen on the street, you would stop, shake their hand, and say simply “thanks.” [ix] 

But a British report noted that although the Airlift had done  “considerably more than pronouncements by Anglo-American leaders” to persuade the people of Berlin that the Western Allies intended to stay in Berlin, the Berliners still felt that the West Powers ought to “bare their teeth still further” if they were to obtain any concessions from the Russians. American opinion polls revealed, furthermore, that although 87% of Berliners thought the Blockade would succeed and 95% of Berliners preferred the Blockade to being absorbed into the Soviet zone, 24% of the population still wanted all occupying powers to leave.

Thus it was not the Airlift as such - or rather the Airlift alone – that transformed “Enemies” and “Occupiers” into “Allies” and “Protecting Powers” but rather, again, personal contact with the people involved in the effort. Some of this was the result of official efforts. There were open-houses at the departure bases, where the Germans were invited in to see what was going on. In Berlin there were concerts, dances, parties, award ceremonies and the like to bring Germans and Allies together in benevolent settings for friendly interaction. German youth organisations volunteered to help out with loading and off-loading on Sundays as volunteers to enable regular workers a day off. Most important, there were a large number of German workers, whether working as loaders, off-loaders, mechanics, cleaning-women or canteen-help, who came in daily contact with the Allies. One of those workers remembers:

As you know, things weren’t exactly booming in Germany at the time and one was happy to get hold of any sort of job. It was particularly advantageous to get a job with the “Amis” because of the one ‘square meal’ a day. And even the work clothes were provided by the Army in the form of black-coloured, practical and completely indestructible canvas fatigues. I still wear my overalls to this day whenever I work in the garden. I owe the not exactly popular Soviets for some of the most pleasant months of my life.[x]

Another worker remembers with approval:

The working environment was collegial and relaxed. Sometimes one didn’t even notice that one was talking to a high-ranking officer. We couldn’t read American rank insignia. There was always one in the group who could speak a little English so soon small deals developed between the Germans and Americans…. The Americans also took us along to Friedrichstrasse [in the Soviet Sector of Berlin] where there were two great restaurants, the “Alt Bayern” and the “Rheinterrasse.” We’d exchange 5 West Marks for 30 East Marks in advance and then we’d sit there at the same table with the American and Russian soldiers acting as the interpreters.[xi]

For others the encounter was brief but the impact lasted a lifetime. Ingeborg Lee wrote decades after the event the following story:

I was born and raised in Celle and was almost three years old in early 1949. My mother had taken me in my stroller to look at the first dolls available in Celle after the War. We were admiring the beautiful dolls displayed in the window of the small toy store, when an American flyer…approached us. He said something that my mother couldn’t understand and lifted me from my stroller. He then walked into the toy store with me and said something to the sales lady. I remember vividly his turning to me and telling me to pick out a doll. I pointed to a large one and it was handed to me. This wonderful American than placed me and my beautiful doll back in my stroller, mumbled something to my mother (who, I guess, was still in shock) and left.[xii]

Children often seem to be the best ambassadors. An RCAF navigator coming to Berlin to visit the grave of his elder brother, shot down over Berlin flying a Halifax on the night of Jan. 20/21, 1944, remembered how he came with hatred in his heart, but found he could not keep it burning when confronted by the children playing in the rubble of the shattered city.[xiii]

 

[i] Parrish, p. 228.

[ii] Erhard, Cielewicz, letter to the author, Nov. 28, 2005.

[iii] Haydock, p. 223.

[iv] Tunner, p. 217.

[v] Karin Hueckstaedt, quoted in Parrish, p. 224-225.

[vi] Erhard Cielewicz, letter to the author, Nov. 28, 2005.

[vii] Erhard Cielewicz, letter to the author, Nov. 28, 2005.

[viii] Clift Wenzel, telephone call to the author, Aug. 22, 2005.

[ix] Erhard Cielewicz, letter to the author, Nov. 28, 2005.

[x] Walter Rölz, letter to the author, Sept. 27, 2005.

[xi] Hans Günther, quoted in: 75 Jahre Zentralflughafen, 50 Jahre Luftbrücke.

[xii] Ingeborg Lee, Berlin Airlift Veteran’s Association Website.

[xiii] The author’s uncle, John B. Heaton, in conversation with the author. His brother Kencil Heaton is buried in the British Cemetery in Berlin.

 

NOTE: The content of this blog post is based on Helena P. Schrader. The Blockade Breakers. Pen & Sword, 2008.

The Berlin Airlift is the subject of Bridge to Tomorrow, a trilogy of novels starting with Cold Peace.

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