Germany – Page 2 – David Enzel

The second and final volume of German historian Volker Ullrich’s biography of Adolf Hitler, Hitler: Downfall 1939–1945, opens with high praise for the wartime diaries of Friedrich Kellner.

Kellner, a court official in the small town of Laubach, had no special access to inside information. Yet he was repulsed by the Nazi regime and began keeping a detailed diary, recording what he read in the German press and what he heard from those around him. He hoped his writings would serve as a warning to future generations against blind faith and dictatorship.

Ullrich explains that Kellner’s diaries “show that it was entirely possible for normal people in small-town Germany to see through the lies of Nazi propaganda and learn of things like the ‘euthanasia’ murders of patients in psychiatric institutions and the mass executions carried out in occupied parts of eastern Europe.”

The Kellner diaries were first published in German in 2011 and are now available in English. They are also the subject of a moving 2007 television documentary created by Kellner’s American grandson.

Deutscher Bundestag, Berlin – © David H. Enzel, 2018

I’ve had the pleasure of visiting Berlin twice. The first time was in the early 1980s and the second time in 2018. The transformation was dramatic.

Berlin Before the Fall of the Wall

I visited Berlin in the early 1980s. Berlin was then a divided city. I stayed in the Western zone near the Kurfurstendamm, which at the time was the heart of Berlin. I took a one day bus tour to the East. We crossed through Checkpoint Charlie. The bus was thoroughly searched by East German border guards. In contrast, the American military just let us pass freely.

The West was vibrant with shops, restaurants and people everywhere, In contrast, buildings in the East still showed signs of the bombing it received in the war. There were Soviet style memorials throughout East Berlin.

Our East German guide was openly dispirited and seemed to be reciting a script he was told to speak, especially when he spoke of “warm relations” with the then Soviet Union. At the end of the day, I was glad to be back in the West where I felt free and comfortable.