BERLIN

Short History

After the seizure of power by the National Socialists (Nazis) in 1933, Berlin became the capital of the Third Reich. The Nazis used the 1936 Summer Olympic Games in Berlin for propaganda purposes. There were also plans to rebuild Berlin as “Germania, Capital of the World.” However, these plans were put aside because of World War II.

Nazi rule destroyed Berlin's Jewish community, which numbered 160,000 before the Nazi seizure of power. After the brutal pogrom of Kristallnacht in 1938, thousands of the city's Jews were imprisoned in the concentration camp at nearby Sachsenhausen. The last Jews in Berlin (except for a few married to non-Jews) were marched to the Grunewald railway station over several weeks in early 1943 and shipped in cattle cars to death camps such as Auschwitz.

During the war, large parts of Berlin were destroyed by bombs and street combat. After the occupation of the city by the Red Army and the German surrender in 1945, Berlin was divided into four sectors, analogous to the occupation zones into which Germany was divided. The sectors of the Western Allies (the United States, United Kingdom, and France) formed West Berlin, while the sector of the Soviet Union formed East Berlin.

For Berlin as a whole, all four allies retained shared oversight. However, the growing political differences between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union led the Soviet Union, which controlled the territory surrounding Berlin, to impose the Berlin Blockade, an economic blockade of West Berlin from 1948 to 1949. The Allies successfully overcame this blockade through the Berlin Airlift.
 

In April 1967 the regiment left Tidworth in Hampshire bound for Berlin, no one was sorry to leave the ancient barracks with its Coronation street type quarters (married quarters) an awful place with Salisbury plains as my back garden. Pete bate my mate lived next door and we were so poor we soon run out of money to buy coal and had to go scrounging in the woods on the plains. Sadly Pete and Betty lost their young son Robert, he died very quickly after a short time, It was an awful period it devastated Noi and I as we were very close to Pete and Betty and baby sat Robert for for them in Malaya.

On arrival in West Berlin we were allocated married quarters, Noi, Theresa and Susan were given a fantastic flat in Charlottenberg strasse, a couple of miles away from the barracks we were told as we went straight to the flat and marched in and signed the papers, the living room was huge, with great bedrooms, very nice 'I must say' The Germans really knew how to build great housing.

The following morning, Pete Bate who lived nearby (Neighbours) joined me and we walked to Montgomery barracks, at Kladow our new working home for the next two years. The barracks reminded me of the solid well built German barrack in Hilden, Germany my first posting abroad. These barracks were great everything you could want, EXCEPT the border that run across the bottom of camp where on occasions East Germans used to climb over the barbed wire and ask for asylum.

The battalion settled in well, and soon got to grips with the border patrols, and the guard duties in the City, one of these was guarding Hess the Deputy to Hitler in the 2nd World War, I heard tales that Hess was a proper nuisance but not being one of the guards someone else might be able to be more specific. I did one guard at the commandatura, along with an American soldier who was loaded with money, The Yanks were always rich compared to its allies.

The Band and Bugles were heavily involved in the ceremonial with the other bands in Berlin we did a lot of marching in the Berlin stadium, a great stadium built on the orders of Hitler for the Olympic Games in 1936, To vie slightly off the subject i did my second class English army exams in Berlin, part of the Syllabus was the 2nd World War ?, it was mornings in the classrooms and the afternoons trawling the Nazi  killing sites in Berlin, then essays, I enjoyed ever minute.

My wife Noi and children loved west Berlin, At weekends in the summer we would go to the Havel (River) and do some sun bathing swimming, and cruising down the lake on the pleasure boats, In winter it snowed a lot and it was out with the sleds There was social evenings at the social club at Gatow Airport which was run by the RAF. I forgot to mention we all had push bikes, no one had a car, could not afford one at that time, So every morning and evening hundreds of soldiers would leave barracks on their push bikes for home, and back the following morning.


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