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Rockets and People
Yes, these were difficult questions to answer just five days after taking Berlin.
Of course we promised that everything would be looked into; they had a good
factory and so they would not remain without work.
However, the Telefunken factory in Zehlendorf soon ended up in the American
zone of West Berlin, so we never found out if the women who attacked us on
9 May 1945 were provided with work.
234
DIARY ENTRY. 10 May 1945.
We barely managed to make our way to the Lorentz company in Tempelhof.There
was a large crowd of women and children.They stood silently
looking through a high lattice fence separating the façade of the building
standing in the interior of the courtyard, away from the street. Our soldiers
with automatic weapons guarded the entryway and in the courtyard were
several Jeeps with officers scurrying about between them loading cardboard
packages.When we had managed to pass through, after long negotiations,
we determined that it was not secret radar instruments that had been
hidden in the Lorentz basement, but over a hundred barrels of fruit
preserved in alcohol—some sort of base product for all kinds of liqueurs.
To be on the safe side, the first wave of the assaulting Red Army soldiers
who had discovered this basement had filled the darkness with bursts from
their automatic weapons before investigating its contents. A curious liquid
began flowing from the perforated barrels. When subsequent echelons of
attackers realized what was in the basement, the liquid was already ankledeep.
Nevertheless, they feverishly filled all sorts of military-issue containers
with the precious nectar.
The garrison authorities found out about the disorder only after the
emboldened women and youth had started to “help” the Red Army soldiers,
showing them that, in addition to liqueur and wine, Lorentz also had a store
of chocolate products made by the renowned Sarotti company. And in fact,
it was Sarotti that had given up its basement to Lorentz and not the other
way around. It was this, and not Lorentz’s output, that was tempting the local
residents. Given their half-starved existence, the possibility of obtaining the
finest quality chocolate overcame any fear of the enemy, who were right in
the basement drinking a mixture of wines ladled out of broken barrels. Until
the arrival of the garrison patrol, they had quite a party.
Now order had been established and chocolate and wine was being
distributed only with the permission of the commandant’s office and the
Bürgermeister. But the crowd standing in the street was counting on the
kind-hearted nature of the officers who were carrying out the boxes and
packets of chocolate, powdered milk, and bags of powdered sugar. I must say
that they were convinced of Russian generosity.To begin with, we also went
down to the basement, which was illuminated with flashlights.After making
sure that our imitation leather boots were watertight, and on the advice of