March 1st, 1945. Comrade Ehrenburg is back in Moscow after a trip to the raped East Prussia. One can feel, he was relishing those two glorious weeks. We know what he saw everywhere: mountains of corpses of murdered and raped women, children and the elderly. Afterwards he reportedly complained about the mass rapes to the military leadership. A few days later, understanding that the events in Prussia may become a liability internationally, he saw it necessary to write an article about the chivalrous Soviet soldier who does not desire German women but despises them.
In this article, he says nothing of this kind. This article is an indictment against all Germans for crimes of the “fascist” regime, based on what he allegedly found in the streets and in the deserted homes. A deep Talmudic satisfaction pervades the whole text.
VENGEANCE
I have just spent two weeks in eastern Germany
– it’s overcome by fear, fire and smoke. On long roads, in snow and mud, trail German men and women. The roads are littered with furniture, utensils, rags. The towns are burning. Errant pigs rummage in the empty town hall. Wind ruffles the rags of town flags with eagles, lions and deer. We could say: to each his turn, but we are above schadenfreude. A different feeling inspires us: we see the triumph of justice. Talking of revenge, many thought only of paragraphs in the future treaty. …
But retribution has already begun. Germany is learning what war is. And who knows, maybe the Germans will remember these weeks and months of the war on German soil much better than all the obligations of peace treaties?
Street fighting went on for several days in Elbing. And when the shooting ended, I saw quite a picturesque scene: the Germans stood at the gates of a prison in a long line. Nobody was driving them there. The prison seems to have appeared to these “supermen” as the most calm, even cozy place….
They desperately resist, they shoot from every house, they look irreconcilable. But when the officer is killed or they’ve ran out of ammunition, the most “irreconcilable” immediately stretches to attention, salutes our sled, even horses, and begins to prove his innocence in conquering the world. Not only the lowly “fritzes”; Colonel Heinschenk has changed very quickly too. First, he repeated out of inertia: “Germany is unbeatable,” and then – as if changing the plate – added in another voice: “Am I a Nazi? I was married to a Jewess.
The population is trying to escape. Thousands and thousands of wagons are moving west. You’ll find everything is these carts – chests, featherbeds and furniture, warm clothing, and (under the hay) several Italian rifles, knives, granted by kreisleiters, with an inscription: “All for Germany” or “Blood and Honor”: with these knives German men and women were going to kill Russians. But the Red Army cut off their path. …
Thousands of featherbeds are lying around (Germans sleep under featherbeds) and clouds of feathers of all the geese, since the Bismarck era to the present, obscure the skies of Prussia. As for the Germans whom we have overtaken, they are trying to get rid not only of knives, but also of their past: “I am French … I have non-Aryan blood … My mother is Dutch … I am half-Polish, half-Lithuanian … “.
Hastily, they are taking off their hats before us. The girls are looking seductively at the passing soldiers, as if they were not burghers’ daughters but waitresses in the night cabaret. The Germans know by heart all the orders of our commanders. They devoutly repeat: “This is the order of Herr Russian commander!” … The Germans, who had recently scurried to the West and vowed to kill all Russians, now march eagerly to the east and bow deeply to the Russians. The further we move to the west, the more German population we meet: there is nowhere to run. In West Prussia, I saw the residents of the eastern areas, many hundreds of thousands. They informed on each other: “He is a butcher – an active Nazi … Herr Muller used to beat Russian girls … Willie the stableman shot a Pole … Frau Schmidt received a gift from the Gauleiter … ” Everyone is trying to prove his innocence. One man brought an eleven years old certificate that the Nazis kept him in jail for a month. Another proudly showed a certificate signed by his slave – a Belgian prisoner of war. The third has unearthed a ticket of a Social Democratic Union – from 1928.
Here a German woman climbs the facade of a house to remove the flag with a swastika. No one told her not to do it, she is sweating but happy – she thinks that she is rehabilitated before history. But do not try to ask how she tormented the Russian girl Galya … Here a German moves the arrow of the clock for two hours in advance, and solemnly says: “it’s exactly three hours twelve minutes, Moscow time.” He is shining: he is willing to live not only in Moscow, but on Vladivostok time, if only you don’t ask him how the four Frenchmen had to slave from morning till night on his farm. A venerable doctor says, “How could I be a Nazi? After all, I’m a doctor, that is, a humanist, and the Nazis – they are animals.” A vicar, rubbing his hands, babbles: “The Catholic Church has always condemned Hitler; of course, I could not criticize him loudly, but I condemned him. But the evangelical church … ” A Lutheran pastor in turn swears: “We also condemned that ungodly regime …” An engineer in Elbing says: “As a man of progress, I’m against Hitler” – and with a sly smile, adds: “I can work for the Russians.” A worker keeps saying, “Who would consider me a Nazi? My father was a true social democrat. I once voted for the communist list. Of course, I could not speak openly against the regime because it was strictly forbidden. But now I am willing speak even against Hitler … “
None of them can be trusted. Now they seem to be sheep, but they were wolves, and they remained wolves. They throw their rifles and daggers away, but who knows what will happen in a month? A German is unable to fight on his own initiative, he is waiting for orders. Among the confused, frightened crowds there are people who are entrusted with organization of sabotage and coups. Now they are lurking: too great is the fear of their own countrymen, they need time to catch their breath. And if we let them, soon the most obedient, the ones that scream “Rot Front” and trample images of the Führer, will start raving about “Greater Germany” and, obeying their camouflaged lieutenants or rotenführers, will again take up rifles, bombs and knives. After all, in none of the Germans I have met I’ve found a true remorse: there was just fear and hypocrisy.
The only ones to pity on German roads today
are bewildered children, maddened cows which nobody milks, and abandoned dogs and cats, only those are not guilty of atrocities. Honor and glory to the Soviet man who does not believe in the magic of blood, and for whom a baby – is just a baby! We are not fighting against children and old women – we are not fascists, and we are not in Germany to take its soul, but in order to destroy even the memory of the vampire state.
Germans repeatedly claimed that they went to war because of need, that Germany was too small. Now, our people see how these robbers were lying: not hunger drove them out of their den, but greed. For them, the war was not ruin, but a profit opportunity, and when the war was raging on the Seine or on the Volga, it seemed attractive to them. They had enough living space and goods. Here is a home of a Prussian kulak (farmer – s.). Spacious rooms with tiled stoves; on the walls – a clock, paintings, and, of course, antlers. A dozen pedigreed Dutch cows, pigs, geese. His farm has suffered little from the war: the Fritzes ate other people’s cows and ruined someone else’s huts. I have been to dozens of German towns. A month before the arrival of the Red Army, the burghers still reveled in their impunity. In Rastenburg someone purchased a hotel. In Gutstadt a landlady of 42 years, “dark brown hair, young looking ” (so says a newspaper ad), was looking for a groom. In Deutsch-Eylau a furniture workshop was preparing a luxurious cabinet for someone called Demke. Near the town halls – apartments of mayors, beautifully furnished, with portraits of Hitler and green glasses for Rhine wine. … It may be added that the Germans spend the bulk of their income on decoration of apartments. In peace time did not waste money on entertainment and dressed modestly, but filled their apartments with sofas and armchairs, cushions and vases, statuettes, mountains of dishes, various “souvenirs”. During the war, they dragged to their homes many different things, utensils, trinkets from Paris, Rotterdam, from Florence, from Warsaw and from Kiev. Their apartments look like second-hand shops, and, jokingly, one soldier said: “You can live in a den like this.” But it was not enough; greed pushed them to the Urals and to Iraq. Slaves worked for them. In a small, remote town of Rastenburg, not only the rich, but also families of workers had Russian servants – because they were for free.
German laborers who looked with respect on the Prussian landowners, did not dare to dream about the estates of junkers. They waited for the allotment of land in the Ukraine – in fact, Erich Koch has promised each Prussian a good piece of Russian land. German workers believed that if their masters take over Russian manganese and French bauxite, they, the German workers, will to get a chunk of the windfall. Here in Germany, you see how fascism has corrupted hearts, and it’s not easy to divide between the deceivers and the deceived.
In the cupboard of a saddle maker we found twelve German sheets and two Ukrainian – “a present from my son.” Why would he need those two? Read the maxims on the walls: “Order is your wealth” and “A day of useful work, a pleasant night’s sleep,” and finally, “One more never hurts.” The poor saddle maker thought that the two stolen sheets would not hurt him, but it turned out otherwise: his son was killed on the Dniester, he lost his workshop, the bed and the German sheets too …
You can reset the clock, you can tear off a tablet “Hitlerstrasse” but you cannot destroy evidence, and it is looking at you at every turn. After all, next to the terrified slave owners, everywhere we see radiant slaves: they have just been released. So many Frenchmen, Poles, Czechs, Belgians, Dutch! So many girls from Ukraine, Belarus, who cried their eyes out ! Some miraculously surviving Soviet prisoners of war.
A French military doctor told me “Of course, the Boches tormented us, but we lived like gods, compared to the Russians. We have tried to share our meals with them, but the Germans sent us to the penal camp Graudenz for this, saying, “If you help the Bolsheviks, you are betraying the idea of the new Europe.” In the Russian camp raged typhus. Every morning, bodies were dragged out. The Germans shouted: “Take these too!” I saw how they took the living with the dead and buried them alive … “No, resetting the clock will not take away the German crimes!
Now the world knows that the Germans killed six million Jews. They killed all the Jews – from infants to the elderly. Near Elbing, until recently, the Germans kept the last thousand of Jews alive for sadistic pleasure. Here were architects from Prague, a composer from Amsterdam, a few doctors from Kaunas, a professor from Belgrade. They would put them naked on a stool and hosed with icy water. Then they killed them. Is it enough to remove a board with the name to forget to such atrocities?
They come and swear: “We did not know. We are not guilty … “The evidence is obvious. In the hurry, they not only threw away the flags of their towns, not only stamps and police archives, they even left their personal papers. Here are some notes of an Erich von Bremen. This is not just an ardent young man – he is 57 years old. After reading his autobiography, I’ve learned that he was married to Ursula von Ramm and that his two sons took part in the conquest of the world. This pedigreed German, fleeing, left two memoranda. One is devoted to the colonization of the Baltic states, the other – to the development of the Caucasus. Here is an excerpt from the last one: “We must have Caucasus in order to supply our economy with the oil of Grozny and Baku. In this way we will be independent of the United States … The grain of North Caucasus will feed South Caucasus, and from here we will be able to bring out not only oil, but also wood, fruits, canned food, wine and tobacco. Thus, the Caucasus will become a German colony.” I assume that the Red Army will find Erich von Bremen somewhere in Stettin, the author of the memorandum on Caucasus. Without a doubt, he will say: “I am against Hitler and I have already moved the clock to Moscow time.”
Next to affluence we see barbarism everywhere. In every apartment – a library. Such wonderful covers! Only do not open these books – “Mein Kampf” of the cannibal, collected writings dedicated to Himmler, “Campaign in Poland”, “Racial hygiene”, “Jewish plague”, “Russian subhumans”, “Our faithful Prussia” … Misery, spiritual poverty. However, it is obvious that these books were little read; the volumes were a decor like vases and porcelain cats. In vain I searched for town libraries in Lützen, Rastenburg or Tatziau: they were not there. I have found only one museum – in Bartenstein. What does it exhibit? Portraits of Hindenburg and shoulder boards of imperial army officers with a caption: “Victory at Tannenberg.” A uniform of a Polish officer and photographs of destroyed Warsaw: “Campaign in Poland.” Skeletons of monkeys, no less than one hundred images of Hitler, a beer mug from Bismarck era, a model of barracks, and photographs of philanthropists of the town. That’s the whole museum. In Heilsberg – a club of Nazi party, – a beer hall, a bar, where they dispensed beer, and a few bloodthirsty booklets. Everywhere stand huge police buildings: here the Germans thought, composed, fantasized repented. World maps with small, faded paper flags still stuck in El Barani and Maikop. An excellent school building at Lützen, where I found a songbook. I quote from a few songs for young supermen “Fall down with joy, bombs on England …” “Yes, let the Jewish spurt …” “Let the Bolsheviks writhe from the roar of our drums …”, “We drove the French pigs from Strassburg …” And a huge picture: Hitler, and in front of him a brat of five or six years with a toy gun. No, you cannot live in such a den! Culture is not determined by vacuum cleaners and a meat grinders. We see the ugly face of Germany, and we are proud that we’ve gutted the hideous lair of the beast.
I do not know what the diplomats will talk about at a round, oval or long table, but I know what people from ten countries are talking about on German roads, the people liberated by the Red Army, the French and the Poles, the British and the Czechs, Belgians and Serbs, the Dutch and the Greeks, Americans and Australians. I spent many hours with them in intimate conversations. I saw talkative and silent, light and dark, serious and joyful, but I did not meet one defender of the Germans. Maybe there are still people in Paris, who wish to restore the climate of Munich; the French, whom I met, say one thing: “Let us be sent to Germany … And let Germany disappear … ” I spent an evening with the British. These people have gone through a lot. It would be good to transfer them to London and show them the Honourable MP who recently called the Germans “brothers.” I am afraid that they would not treat this tender-hearted gentleman like brother. People who lived through the German camps, all these Oflags and Stalags, know very well what Germany is like. People liberated by the Red Army are well aware of what Soviet Russia id like. People from ten different countries on the roads of Germany do not yearn after a suspicious “balance” between good and evil, but the triumph of justice. That’s why you hear so often in Germany, in all languages, the same words: “Death to the Germans! Long live the Red Army! “
Retribution has begun. It will be brought to an end. Nothing will save the rogue Germany. The first words of the treaty, which will be called peace, has been written with Russian blood. Germany hears these words now. And as for me – for a Soviet citizen, a Russian writer, for a man who has seen Madrid, Paris, Orel, Smolensk, the greatest happiness is to trample the land of villains and to know: no accident, no luck, no speeches and no articles saved the world from fascism. It was done by our people, our army, our hearts, and our Stalin.
Pravda, 1 March 1945
