The events of the fourth decade of the century, in Germany, are
authoratitively and extensively documented elsewhere and need
nothing further added here. Suffice it to say that the 1930s saw
the decisive march towards war and domination. In the Spring of
1939 Hitler's forces invaded and annexed the Sudetenland, a disputed
area of Czechoslovakia, causing alarm and vociferous condemnation
from the Western powers but no direct action. In September 1939
Hitler's armies invaded Poland employing the lightning and devastating
tactics of Blitzkreig. This time the Western Forces couldn't
ignore what was happening in eastern Europe and England and the
Allies were at war with Germany. Again, there is no necessity,
here, to document the progress of The Second World War.
Berlin suffered the death throes of Nazi Germany
for the last months of the war as the city was bombed relentlessly
and Allied forces drew ever nearer. By the end of April 1945 Berlin
was encircled by 1.5 million Soviet troops and the fighting overflowed
onto the streets as Hitler committed suicide and Berlin surrendered.
Only days later, Germany itself declared defeat and surrendered.
If Berlin and its regions had suffered in the aftermath of the
First World War it was nothig to what was still to come
.
Half the buildings and a third of Berlin's industry had been
destroyed by the end of the war. The city had lost around 125,000
lives. The population of the city was down to just over a half
of it's pre-war total and the majority of those were women. These
women formed the majority of the taskforce that took on the labour
of clearing the phenomenal amounts of rubble from the war damaged
city, creating enormous mountains of rubble known as trurmmerberge.
The tallest of these, Teufelsberg in the Grunewald,at 115m high and with 25 million cubic metres of rubble accumulated
over 20 years, has been transformed into an activity area for
scrambling, mountain-biking and winter sledging.
Following the cessation of hostilities in 1945 Germany was divided
into 4 zones of occupation and Berlin itself into 20 administrative
areas. The British sector contained the areas of Charlottenburg,
Tiergarten and Spandau; the French zones were Wedding and Reinickendorf;
the American zones were Zehlendorf, Steglitz, Wilmersdorf, Tempelhof,
Kreuzberg, and Neukolln. These combined areas were destined to
become the beleaguered city of West Berlin. Soviet control was
over the remaining 8 areas including Mitte, Prenzlauer Berg, Friedrichshain,
Treptow and Kopenick, later to be known as East Berlin. Significantly,
the city was surrounded by Soviet controlled zones.
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