Five Days That Shocked the World: Eyewitness Accounts from Europe at the End of World War II by Nicholas Best
Authors: Nicholas Best
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cellar full of civilians and tried to join them, hoping for some shelter from the constant fire in the streets. The civilians were mostly women and children, sitting on kitchen chairs around a single candle stub, waiting passively for the Russians to arrive. They weren’t pleased to see Knef and the others.
“Go away!” they yelled. “We don’t want any soldiers here. They’ll kill us if they find you here. Go away!”
“We just need some water,” said one of the soldiers.
“Have a heart.” A fat woman was indignant. “We’ve got children here.”
Another woman, a toothless old hag, took pity on them. Emerging from a corner, she shoved a bottle of water into the soldier’s hands. “God have mercy on us,” she mumbled, as she turned away. Like everyone else in the room, she was under no illusions about what was going to happen when the Russians arrived.
They all seemed mad to Knef, like sheep in a slaughterhouse patiently waiting to be killed. Leaving them to it, she was glad to rejoin the others outside. The whole street appeared to be in flames as she emerged. There was no more talk of marriage as she and Demandowsky linked up with some other soldiers and set off at a run for Hohenzollerndamm, where they had orders to dig in at the cemetery and be ready to hold the Russians again when they attacked at dawn.
* * *
THE WOMEN IN THE CELLAR were quite right to fear the Russians. Thousands of women were being raped every day as the fight for Berlin intensified. It was often the first thing the Russians did when they arrived, after disarming everyone and pocketing their wristwatches.
Some said that the front line troops were well disciplined and that it was the ones who came after who could not be trusted. Others, that the rapists were recently liberated prisoners of war or soldiers avenging similar assaults on their own womenfolk during the German advance. Whatever their motives, the result was always the same for the women. Young and old alike, they were all in danger as the Russians advanced. Some were raped again and again, so often that they lost count after a while. Others were assaulted so brutally that they couldn’t walk afterward and could only crawl away, hoping not to be attacked further. After all they had endured on the Eastern Front, the Russian army was not inclined to show any mercy to the German women of Berlin.
Ursula Köster was hiding in a Zehlendorf cellar with her parents and three children when the Russians came for her. She was raped by four soldiers that night and another two the next morning. Staggering outside afterward, she found an upturned bathtub lying in the rubble of the communal gardens. She crawled underneath it and hid there with her six-year-old twins and her seven-month-old son.
Hannelore von Cmuda, aged only seventeen, was raped repeatedly by drunken troops, then shot three times and left for dead. Anneliese Antz was dragged from her mother’s bed just before dawn and taken screaming to an apartment, where a Soviet officer roughly assaulted her. Her sister Ilse was stripped naked by another soldier who mistook her half-starved body for a man’s before realizing his mistake and raping her. “That’s what the Germans did in Russia,” he told her, after he had finished.
Eighteen-year-old Juliane Brochnik hid behind the sofa in her father’s cellar when the Russians came. She was safe until two elderly Germans in the adjoining cellar told the Russians where she was. Margarete Probst concealed her blond hair under a cap, dirtied her face, and put a large bandage on her cheek to make herself unattractive. She succeeded, but other women in the shelter with her at Kreuzberg were less fortunate: “The girls were simply rounded up and taken to the apartments upstairs,” she remembered. “We could hear their screams all night. The sound even penetrated down to the cellars.” 9 One of them, a woman of eighty, was raped repeatedly by the Russians despite her
“Go away!” they yelled. “We don’t want any soldiers here. They’ll kill us if they find you here. Go away!”
“We just need some water,” said one of the soldiers.
“Have a heart.” A fat woman was indignant. “We’ve got children here.”
Another woman, a toothless old hag, took pity on them. Emerging from a corner, she shoved a bottle of water into the soldier’s hands. “God have mercy on us,” she mumbled, as she turned away. Like everyone else in the room, she was under no illusions about what was going to happen when the Russians arrived.
They all seemed mad to Knef, like sheep in a slaughterhouse patiently waiting to be killed. Leaving them to it, she was glad to rejoin the others outside. The whole street appeared to be in flames as she emerged. There was no more talk of marriage as she and Demandowsky linked up with some other soldiers and set off at a run for Hohenzollerndamm, where they had orders to dig in at the cemetery and be ready to hold the Russians again when they attacked at dawn.
* * *
THE WOMEN IN THE CELLAR were quite right to fear the Russians. Thousands of women were being raped every day as the fight for Berlin intensified. It was often the first thing the Russians did when they arrived, after disarming everyone and pocketing their wristwatches.
Some said that the front line troops were well disciplined and that it was the ones who came after who could not be trusted. Others, that the rapists were recently liberated prisoners of war or soldiers avenging similar assaults on their own womenfolk during the German advance. Whatever their motives, the result was always the same for the women. Young and old alike, they were all in danger as the Russians advanced. Some were raped again and again, so often that they lost count after a while. Others were assaulted so brutally that they couldn’t walk afterward and could only crawl away, hoping not to be attacked further. After all they had endured on the Eastern Front, the Russian army was not inclined to show any mercy to the German women of Berlin.
Ursula Köster was hiding in a Zehlendorf cellar with her parents and three children when the Russians came for her. She was raped by four soldiers that night and another two the next morning. Staggering outside afterward, she found an upturned bathtub lying in the rubble of the communal gardens. She crawled underneath it and hid there with her six-year-old twins and her seven-month-old son.
Hannelore von Cmuda, aged only seventeen, was raped repeatedly by drunken troops, then shot three times and left for dead. Anneliese Antz was dragged from her mother’s bed just before dawn and taken screaming to an apartment, where a Soviet officer roughly assaulted her. Her sister Ilse was stripped naked by another soldier who mistook her half-starved body for a man’s before realizing his mistake and raping her. “That’s what the Germans did in Russia,” he told her, after he had finished.
Eighteen-year-old Juliane Brochnik hid behind the sofa in her father’s cellar when the Russians came. She was safe until two elderly Germans in the adjoining cellar told the Russians where she was. Margarete Probst concealed her blond hair under a cap, dirtied her face, and put a large bandage on her cheek to make herself unattractive. She succeeded, but other women in the shelter with her at Kreuzberg were less fortunate: “The girls were simply rounded up and taken to the apartments upstairs,” she remembered. “We could hear their screams all night. The sound even penetrated down to the cellars.” 9 One of them, a woman of eighty, was raped repeatedly by the Russians despite her
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