Page 35 - Excerpts from the diary

3. Girls.

Only the third group of prisoners was kept. The Russians, who proved to be no more than nineteen, were shot first.
From the third group the men began taking “trophies” into houses and beds and, for several days, subjected them to things that cannot be
described on paper. The German women were afraid. Those older than the soldiers did not resist the young men and, to avoid violence,
asked to sleep with the younger ones. Andreyev was also of the fortunate age. He chose the youngest and took her away to sleep with
him.

When he made clear what else he wanted, she shook her head and whispered timidly in broken Russian and German that it was “nicht
gut”—not good—and that she was still a virgin. Her final words excited our hero even more, and he began insisting more persistently.
She refused for a long time, until he drew his pistol. Then she fell silent and, trembling, lowered her underwear. He asked whether she
understood what he meant. For a long time she did not, but eventually answered that she understood. He pointed to the pistol and made it
clear that she had better comply. She understood, clung tightly to him, and moved toward him. Together they reached the desired end. He
felt something tear; the girl cried out and moaned, “Oh, Gott, Gott,” but soon managed to force herself to smile.

He dressed her in civilian clothes, and she left looking cheerful and innocent.

In the middle of the day Kanonenko and I were summoned by Rysev. He was polite and kind. He invited us to sit down and almost
timidly began explaining what he wanted.

I was assigned to direct all trench construction and defensive work, for which the entire divisional personnel was placed at my disposal. I
listened and left. While waiting for the men, who were at the bathhouse washing with Shitikov in charge, I began rereading letters and
preparing replies to them. I am easily appeased. After such a pleasant reception from Rysev, for some reason I began to regret the official
report I had sent to the chief of the political department yesterday, which Kanonenko had helped me draft and send the day before.

I regretted it again somewhat later when, just before being sent away on assignment, I learned that Kanonenko had been given five days’
arrest and once again met a smiling Rysev with the supply platoon in the battalion rear. But it was already too late, and there was nothing
I could do.

The fact is that while I am away a commission will arrive and investigate, and God knows what they may say about me. I should not have
hurried. Shitikov stayed aside and will probably come through unscathed again. But now there is no time to think about it.

Dead of night. Mörin is asleep, except for the commandant’s office and military units on its outskirts.

16 or 17.06.1945

What a job has fallen to me—to plunder the Academy of Sciences! I would never have thought myself capable of such dirty work, yet
people and circumstances compel me. Desecration in a temple of science—nothing else!

The fact is that our political officers decided to create a library for the regiment. Somewhere the propagandist had once discovered a large
store of Russian books that time and the negligent attitude of the department’s staff had left abandoned.

After bribing the guards—“washing down” his stay at the academy—he gained access to all its corners.

He decided to start with me. I was duty officer at the battalion when he had me summoned through the battalion commander, ordered me
to collect seven men who knew literature, put us in a vehicle, and drove us into the center of the city by a long, twisting route that would
have been almost impossible to retrace without a map. The order came unexpectedly. I trusted that I would be back soon and left all my
notes, drafts, letters, and poems in my bedside table.

I returned in the evening and learned with horror and despair that the battalion had left. I could not find my papers or even the bedside
table. A few letters lying alone on the floor were all that remained to remind me of them. I picked them up, searched the now-empty
room, and, in despair, ran out into the yard. There I immediately ran into the regimental propagandist. He made me get into the vehicle,
and we set off. Seven men went with us.

For the first two days we sorted books bearing Russian stamps and seals—books plainly stolen from our libraries. For that reason I did
not yet feel remorse; if anything, the opposite.

The one great inconvenience for all of us, and for me especially, was the sticky, suffocating dust that covered every book, inside and out,
and lay in a thick layer along the walls of books. Only the day before I had washed my uniform, but now it looked so dreadful that I was
ashamed to appear in the street. My face and hands were black, my collar was filthy, and the peaked cap I had acquired in exchange for
my old one [...]
and which had looked quite ordinary before, was now greasy on top and covered in spots [...].

25.04.1945
Berlin. The Spree.

The infantry crossed the Spree yesterday and the night before and began fighting near the railway line. We, the divisional headquarters,
have until now been settled on one of the riverside streets of a Berlin suburb in large, partly ruined multistory buildings.