to run to their respective bunker, like Alexanderplatz for example.
Q: And were there skirmishes, jostling, and panic then? Who can still come in, who can’t? Or how should one imagine that?
In the apartment building itself the situation was clear. It was more or less the same group of people who were received by the air raid warden and hurried along, so to speak. In the central shelters, however, the composition of the occupants was quite varied. In Alexanderplatz trains arrived with soldiers on leave from the front, who likewise left the trains and attempted to cross the square to reach the bunker. The example of Alexanderplatz demonstrated, however, that one can produce certain effects, such as panic, through structural measures. One did not have to negotiate any stairs in order to enter into the bunker. Rather, one affixed slides to such slopes. One ran downwards. For children it was to some degree even pleasant, in that they could run down such a ramp. Consequently there was little congestion in coming into these complexes. I still remember that clearly.
Q: Was fear noticeable, or was it disciplined?
I would make that dependent upon the year in which one experienced it. At the beginning of the war all of that turned out to be somewhat easier. I can remember precisely, in 1942 we had a relatively quiet year in Berlin. There are said to have been only nine bomb attacks, which is not many for the city. In this year there was complete steamboat traffic in the city. One could visit popular destinations for day-trips. My mother went with us to the Müggelsee and also the Spree baths. In other words, we still enjoyed the summer.
That changed abruptly after 1943. Behind every action which one undertook dominated the question, “Where is the next air raid shelter?” That was something which one could by no means forget. Parents didn’t let their children out of their sight.
Q: How long did it last? Did one perceive somewhat the attack itself? Did you perceive it when you were in the bunker?
Here, too, one must differentiate between the people who had to descend into the shelters of the residential buildings, which was the majority of the population. Here in Berlin the determination came about that it was approximately 80 percent that sought protection in the cellars of their buildings. Only 20 percent had the possibility to ride out the incident in a so-called shellproof concrete bunker. In these home air raid shelters the lights often gave out immediately upon bombardment, and that led to an outcry, particularly from the children. That was fear. Women were also often in over their heads in this situation. Reassuring words were offered by the air raid marshal, and the situation then often quieted itself. In the central bunker complexes one had little to fear along these lines. There, neither the noise of bombs nor other noises were as intensely perceptible as in the home air raid shelters. Directly on Alexanderplatz, I myself witnessed in 1943 impacts in the vicinity of this bunker complex which did not lead to the eruption of panic.
Q: The people were so accustomed to that? Or how must one envision it? Was that a fate to which one acquiesced? One tried to survive. How must one imagine the mindset of the people with regard to that?
The mindset of the people has to be viewed in various ways. Often there were women there, and I can remember such scenes myself, that the women sat in the cellar and had a letter, an official letter, and that they absolutely could not grasp that they had received a death notice from the front. These women were near despair. I still remember that, as the light became somewhat darker for whatever reason, a woman there attempted to slit her wrist. That was an act of desperation.
After 1945, as I rediscovered my former neighbors who had also survived the war, I learned of other things. For example, that in air raid shelters, even in home shelters which were in no way bomb-proof, national socialist songs were sung during the bombing. For example the Horst Wessel Song.
Q: How does one react as a child to the