Chapter 20: Trip to Berlin.

Early in November 1945 when we had settled into the Kasserne we were offered the opportunity to take a trip to Berlin and watch the 3rd Division Football team play another team. I have forgotten now which one. This would be a real treat. See Berlin. Who cared about football. We were to take a bus and stop overnight in a British Military station. How they can get these guys to fight is a mystery. We had fish for breakfast. WOW.
When we started the trip the sharks and black marketeers came out. I didn't know what some things were worth. I reported before that a carton of cigarettes brought 10 dollars on the black market. A bar of soap, $10.00. A 1/5th of whiskey $90.00. A chocolate bar five or ten I don't remember now. Reminds me of one of my trips to Le Harve to deliver an officer for shipment home I joined a tour group in the Notre Dame Cathedral being led by a priest. and when they got finished I had no money to pay with. I thought the tour was free. Silly me! But that got fixed up easily by offering him a couple cigarettes. When you are starving , money or gold means nothing. Food has value.

When we got there and got our instructions we were told not to bring any guns into Berlin. Another bad decision on my part I took my Walther pp. Nothing happened though I brought it home and sometimes in the kid's growing up it got stolen. Not by my kids I am sure. I suspect some of their friends as we didn't have any break-ins when it disappeared. No doubt there were no secrets in the house. A good thing I didn't keep the German Sub-machine guns. No telling what would have happened with the kids playing with them. Bayonets disappeared, other things disappeared. They were cutting weeds with my souvenir sabre from Poland.

But on to Berlin. We were put up in a building used for barracks. I don't remember where. In the American zone of course. The next day we looked in on the dedication of a monument to the victorious Allies in the Tiergarden. With representatives from the Americans, British, French, Russians and others perhaps. I have a picture of it somewhere. I wonder what happened to the monument. I think it was made of wood in the main for easy demolishing. I am sure it has disappeared by now. I can't imagine the Germans allowing it to stand a moment longer than they had to. I then walked back to the Brandenburg gate and had my picture taken that I am showing here. If you look at the picture to the right you see a sign informing you that you are entering or leaving a zone. I don't know which zone Hitler's bunker was in. Then my friend and I went to the Reich Chancellory. Hitlers bunker was located in the back. My friend and I went down into it but got run out shortly by a Russian guard. He wasn't too agitated. Just told us to leave. Of course there was nothing left by then of any souvenir value. I think there was some rubble near the entrance to the bunker. Of course it was a mess all around. Nothing was cleaned up to any extent. You never know for sure lo these many years if your memory is correct or if it is colored by something you read or saw over the years when it comes to what was there at the bunker. But we did go down into it.

That night we went to a circus. I still have the program for it. Here is a picture of the front of the program. I cant remember of anything more of the trip to Berlin. Nothing at all of the trip back.

Next: Vacation in Rome