AFTER THE WAR WITH HANNELORE
A Berliner war child’s testimony from 1945 to 1982
A film by G. Scott MacLeod
Intro
The scale of human tragedy by the end of the war is beyond the imagination of everyone who did not live through it, but especially of those who have grown up in the demilitarized society of the post-Cold War age. Yet this moment of fate for millions of people still has much to teach us.
The Fall of Berlin 1945
Preface xxxiv - Antony Beevor
Vignette 1 - The Hospital 1945
But pray ye that your flight be not in winter, neither on Sabbath day.
And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!
Saint Matthew
Vigette 2 - The Russian Occupation & Apple Cellar 1946
The Red Army is the most advanced moral army in the world. Our soldiers attack only an armed enemy. No matter where we are, we always set an example of humanity towards the local population and any displays of violence and looting are totally foreign to us.
Senior Russian Lieutenant Berlin 1945
On 5 February, frontline troops of the Red Army entered the town. They came into the cellar where we were hiding and pointed their wepons at me and the other two women and ordered us into the yard. In the yard twelve soldiers in turn raped me.
Emma Korn
The fall of Berlin 1945
p.29 - Antony Beevor
Vignette 3 - Home, my father and the railways 1947
Keep the home fires burning,
While your hearts are yearning,
Though your lads are far away
They dream of Home.
There’s a silver lining
Through the dark cloud inside out,
Till the boys come home.
Lena Guilbert Ford
We journey all on the same old train
Through time on our spinning star.
We look outside. It’s too much pain.
We journey all on the same old train.
And no one knows how far.
Erich Kästner
Vignette 4 - The Blockade & Airlift 1948
As I looked down below I wondered to myself how we were bitter enemies, these Germans and ourselves, such a short time ago, trying to exterminate each other. Now through the greatest air transportation effort in history, we were risking whatever it took to keep the Berliners alive.
Gail S. Halvorsen
The Berlin Candy Bomber
First comes food, then morals
Three Penny Opera,
Bertolt Brecht
Vignette 5 - School Years 1951 to 1967
Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
B.F. Skinner
Vignette 6 - The Wall - 13th of August, 1961
I like it. It pleases me tremendously. The working class of Germany has erected a wall so that no wolf can break into the German Democratic Republic again. Is that bad?
Nikita Khrushchev
1961 in East Berlin
Freedom has many difficulties, and democrasy is not perfect. But we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us. All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin. And therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words ‘Ich bin ein Berliner.’
John F. Kennedy
1963 in front of the Brandenburg Gate
Vignette 7 - Checkpoint Charlie 1982
How are things up there?
We have ten tanks at Checkpoint Charlie… the Russians have ten tanks there too. So now we are equal. Mr. President I’ll have to rectify that statement. The Russians have brought up twenty more tanks.
President Kennedy in coversation with General Clay October 28th, 1961
Die mauer muss weg – The wall must go
A popular in the pro-democrassy movement
Die mauer ist weg
Now on the east side wall
Here we are at Check Point Charlie the famous crossing between east and west Berlin. This border crossing was not for us Berliners, but only for foreigners. The wall separated us completely from our friends and families for many years. And within one generation we were divided, both mentally and culturally.
