Year Zero: Berlin 1945

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Christmas has always been a magical time in Germany, even in Hitler’s atheistic state the yuletide season was celebrated (albeit in a modified form). By 1944, the focus on civil celebrations had shifted towards a commemoration of the nation’s war dead. That year, there was little to celebrate. In Berlin, people continued about their daily business, drawn and haggard from the relentless Allied bombing which had reduced much of their city to rubble. Food was in short supply. The public had been subject to strict rationing from the very beginning, all but the privileged few living on a monotonous starch based diet. For many, the traditional Christmas goose was a faraway memory.

The irrepressible wit of ordinary Berliners was expressed in its darkest form during the winter of 1944. The most common jokes doing the rounds were, ‘Be practical: Give a coffin’, ‘Enjoy the war while it lasts, the peace will be terrible’, and a prescient quip based around the initials for air raid shelters (LSR – Luftschutzraum) which became (LSR – Learnt Schnell Russisch) ‘Learn Russian Quickly’. Fear of invasion by the barbarian hordes from the east resulted in an atmosphere in which the individual consciousness began to reassert itself. People began to care for each other again, as the traditional greeting of ‘Heil Hitler’ gave way to the more solicitous ‘Survive’.

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