Cold War

They had miscalculated, Liebherr registered with almost paralysing shame. They had miscalculated terribly, stupidly, and criminally. Those thirty thousand Berliners who had cheered them last week had vanished. Perhaps they had been visited in the dark of night by men whose fists reminded them which “side of history” they wanted to be on. Or maybe their rations had been cut or their jobs taken away or their children thrown out of university. Maybe little reminders had been slipped under doors about mothers and fathers in villages far away who needed housing or medicine. Whatever had happened, they had stayed at home, kept their heads down, and looked the other way when the hired thugs of the Soviet dictator again assaulted the city’s historic symbol of democracy, the “Rote Rathaus”, Berlin’s town hall.

The “clever” tactic of bringing police from Stumm’s new police force with them into the Soviet Zone hadn’t worked either. It had not provided the deterrent and protection they had expected. They had taken a hundred trustworthy men with them, only to be confronted by thousands. They’d had to fight their way through angry crowds shouting: “Stop the Enemies of Democracy,” “German Greatness through Germany Unity,” “Socialism 1948!” and “Down with the Dividers!” With their police escort, the elected city councilmen managed to enter the City Hall and the president was on the brink of calling the City Assembly into session when the mob — with the obvious assistance of the Markgraf police and the Red Army — smashed its way into the building again.

The thugs were armed with sledgehammers, clubs, industrial wrenches, and crowbars. They surged into the Assembly chamber and took over the galleries. Their slogans turned violent. They screamed for blood: “Death to the Traitors!” “Death to Enemies of Peace!” “Hang Reuter! Hang Reuter!”

None of the elected assembly members could make themselves heard above the shrieks of the hate-filled horde. The shouts for violence threatened to turn into action at any second. The contorted faces and confidence of the attackers overwhelmed the psychological defences of the representatives of the people. Someone must have been the first to flee, but it felt more like a spontaneous, simultaneous, and shared act of self-preservation.

Their escort went into action. A cordon of Stumm’s police protected the politicians as they fled in undignified panic. Behind them, thumps and crashes became curses and insults and then changed into howls of pain and desperate screaming. There was no doubt who was winning the battle. The hundred unarmed and orderly policemen were helpless against brutalised men wielding blunt but lethal weapons. All their escort could do was delay the mob long enough for the members of the City Assembly to escape.

They fled without hesitation, without looking back. They burst from the City Hall and scattered like leaves in the wind. They ducked behind buildings and vehicles, dashed for the nearest alleyways, and sprinted towards the closest U-Bahn stations. They bolted down the stairs to mingle and merge with the waiting passengers or leapt aboard moving trains.

Perhaps, if someone had stood up to the mob, they would all have found their courage again. But no one was brave. No one faced the violence. No one shouted defiance or declared: “Here I stand!” No, the Berlin City Assembly collapsed like a house-of-cards and the representatives of the people ran like rabbits.