a plane ticket to Nuremberg, which had to be paid for in dollars. Newspapermen in the hotel in the Kurfürstendam which was the Berlin press camp affirmed that British scrip could be turned into American scrip in a certain bar; and authority, asked for an assurance that this could safely be done without risk of deportation, looked embarrassed and pretended not to hear. In the bar the service was rendered by a number of persons whose manner was disconcerting, for they voluptuously drooped their lids and dilated their nostrils while haggling over the exchange value of British and American scrip, in obedience to habits formed before the war, when they lived by procuring cocaine and other pleasures of the flesh. It was an odd experience to owe to authority. But let none mock at such disorganization. No great international event can be efficiently organized. There are conceivable feats of coordination which are beyond performance.
There came an afternoon which, it seemed to the two correspondents who had met on the plane from London, might well be spent visiting the Führerbunker, the air-raid shelter under Hitler’s Chancellery. But authority pronounced that impossible. It was in the Russian Sector, and the Russians had set their face against any more visitors, and had just recently flatly refused to let a very distinguished party of Britons see it. It was plain that there was complete understanding on this point between the Four Powers’ administrations at a high level; and from this, given the incoherence of the general situation, a conclusion could be drawn. It proved to be sound. The place was quite easy to visit. From the shadows a courteous and informed presence detached itself, who knew the terrain well, who had visited it often from the very first days after the fall of Berlin, who was anxious to earn some cigarettes, which were then the only hand-to-hand German currency. He knew at what point it was prudent to stop the Allied automobile, which had come into service for the afternoon’s expedition without anybody’s consent or knowledge, but not against anybody’s expressed wish. The Russian sentry at the portal, snub-nosed and squat and smiling, was glad to see visitors, glad to accept a carton of cigarettes.
The Chancellery was another of these Berlin shells, flooded with sallow light; and the yellow-skinned Russian sentries, standing about in its vast punctured halls, looked like so many submerged Buddhas. In Hitler’s Hall of Mirrors, a specially genial soul, with several chins and jolly slit eyes, who had been impassively watching a party of workmen hacking down the slabs of marble and porphyry which lined the walls between the shattered mirrors or their empty sockets, complained that people were losing interest in the place and hardly ever came there now. Another soldier paced out the Banqueting Hall to show its excessive length, which seemed to him a huge joke. It was obvious that none of them had ever heard of any order that visitors must be excluded. It might have been, however, that the Russians had meant to give such an order. They may have wanted the world to forget the bunker. This was probable because of the difference between the Allies regarding Hitler’s fate. It was the British and American theory that Hitler had committed suicide in the bunker on April 30, 1945, and the Russian authorities publicly accepted this view. But in Moscow at the end of May and in June, and again in July at Potsdam, Stalin informed various American officials that he believed Hitler to be still alive; and this was in 1946 (and indeed up till Stalin’s death) the Soviet doctrine.
The bunker, however, was wide open to anyone who cared to call. The Chancellery filled a corner site, the two blocks containing the Gallery of Mirrors and the Banqueting Hall forming a right angle, within which lay a garden, now overgrown with long grasses. Under a tree which autumn had just touched two English soldiers sat with two German
There came an afternoon which, it seemed to the two correspondents who had met on the plane from London, might well be spent visiting the Führerbunker, the air-raid shelter under Hitler’s Chancellery. But authority pronounced that impossible. It was in the Russian Sector, and the Russians had set their face against any more visitors, and had just recently flatly refused to let a very distinguished party of Britons see it. It was plain that there was complete understanding on this point between the Four Powers’ administrations at a high level; and from this, given the incoherence of the general situation, a conclusion could be drawn. It proved to be sound. The place was quite easy to visit. From the shadows a courteous and informed presence detached itself, who knew the terrain well, who had visited it often from the very first days after the fall of Berlin, who was anxious to earn some cigarettes, which were then the only hand-to-hand German currency. He knew at what point it was prudent to stop the Allied automobile, which had come into service for the afternoon’s expedition without anybody’s consent or knowledge, but not against anybody’s expressed wish. The Russian sentry at the portal, snub-nosed and squat and smiling, was glad to see visitors, glad to accept a carton of cigarettes.
The Chancellery was another of these Berlin shells, flooded with sallow light; and the yellow-skinned Russian sentries, standing about in its vast punctured halls, looked like so many submerged Buddhas. In Hitler’s Hall of Mirrors, a specially genial soul, with several chins and jolly slit eyes, who had been impassively watching a party of workmen hacking down the slabs of marble and porphyry which lined the walls between the shattered mirrors or their empty sockets, complained that people were losing interest in the place and hardly ever came there now. Another soldier paced out the Banqueting Hall to show its excessive length, which seemed to him a huge joke. It was obvious that none of them had ever heard of any order that visitors must be excluded. It might have been, however, that the Russians had meant to give such an order. They may have wanted the world to forget the bunker. This was probable because of the difference between the Allies regarding Hitler’s fate. It was the British and American theory that Hitler had committed suicide in the bunker on April 30, 1945, and the Russian authorities publicly accepted this view. But in Moscow at the end of May and in June, and again in July at Potsdam, Stalin informed various American officials that he believed Hitler to be still alive; and this was in 1946 (and indeed up till Stalin’s death) the Soviet doctrine.
The bunker, however, was wide open to anyone who cared to call. The Chancellery filled a corner site, the two blocks containing the Gallery of Mirrors and the Banqueting Hall forming a right angle, within which lay a garden, now overgrown with long grasses. Under a tree which autumn had just touched two English soldiers sat with two German
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