The Pittsburgh Press (January 18, 1946)
Barden: Berlin ‘raiding’
By Judy Barden
BERLIN – Raids! Raids! Raids! All the time the British, the Russians and the Americans are raiding in Berlin. It hasn’t completely stopped crime, but it has certainly nipped it in the bud.
Here, there is a phony peace. The sort of peace where individuals, no matter what nationality, are afraid to walk in the streets alone at night. Everybody talks about and wants to carry a gun. There is a sinister silence, sometimes broken by a gunshot ringing out and echoing across the snow-buried metropolis. It is eerie and frightening.
Stray Russians wander about, but usually in twos and threes. The police have their hands full and while one cannot call the odd shootings which occur a crime wave, exactly, it is certainly the start of something which, if not checked, will develop into a problem.
The police, at long last, have been issued instructions. “Shoot first, worry afterward.” These are not the exact words, but they are what the American M.P.’s here understand.
Germans, Russians and Americans are being found all over Berlin, wounded either superficially or fatally. Some Germans have been proved to have committed suicide, but mostly it is murder in all cases.
Call it ‘fraternizing,’ if you wish
It is hard for the police io solve these crimes. Always there are crowds of Heinies willing to testify against each other; testimony which rarely jibes.
It is revolting the way these Germans squeal on each other. Emil Reynolds, Acme photographer who, tonight went on a raid with the police and who speaks fluent German, cited a perfect example of this. In the Russians’ territory, they were raiding for the usual thing, G.I.'s off territory. Breaking into a German house they found two Russian officers “fraternizing” with two frauleins. A third Russian officer was alone.
The police, using Reynolds as an interpreter, asked the German girls for their papers. One girl’s papers were o.k. The second girl requested her pocketbook, in which she stated were her papers. The pocketbook was in a closet.
Reynolds went to the closet, and opened the door, where he was faced with a fraulein who was trying desperately to hide behind the clothes hanging therein. The girl who asked for the pocketbook knew well enough that her comrade was hiding in that closet from the police but just didn’t want her to escape punishment.
“If I’m to get it, so will you, pal,” is their attitude.
British doing reasonably well
Berlin’s plight right now seems to lie in the problems brought about through the four-zone occupation. The British are doing reasonably well by giving the Germans work and encouraging them to set up their industry again. They are not being kind or harsh – they are being firm, just and methodical. The Americans, on the other hand, through the lack of colonization experience, are soft-hearted and gullible. They do not appear to realize that the Germans must be driven, not led.
As for the Russians – well, their territory remains a complete mystery. It is practically impossible to visit the Russian zone, and if permission is received, you are shown just what the Russians want you to see and nothing else. No news leaks out of Russian-occupied Berlin, although many requests from Berliners to get either in the British or American zones are reported in a roundabout way.
The French occupy a relatively small section of the city and therefore are faced with fewer administrative difficulties. However, it is a certain thing that trouble in all the zones isn’t caused by the Germans but by the unruly Russians who are described by their own people as bandits.
Many of these guys have been only to rifle school – if that – have no education, and therefore do not know how to live in a civilized community. The only thing they know is how to use a gun and they use it indiscriminately.
If Berlin could be taken over solely by the Americans or the British, much of this shooting trouble would cease and the headaches of the M.P.’s would be eased. As it is, diplomacy must be the keynote, and while this happens murders will continue.