In Europe

wheelbarrows, on foot, limping along on crutches. ‘The birds are singing; nature shows no sympathy with the final days of fascism.’
    A total of 2.5 million men, 14,000 pieces of artillery and more than 6,000 tanks were involved in Operation Berlin. In the eyes of the Red Army, Berlin was the ‘main prize’ to which the Soviets had a right after all their hardships. In the West, on 7 March, the Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine had fallen intact into American hands; the Allies could now move through the Ruhr, and the end of the war was suddenly a matter of weeks away rather than months. That gave the Soviets a sense of urgency. Stalin was convinced that the British and Americans would try to take Berlin before he could.
    Churchill and Montgomery were indeed inclined to push on as quickly as possible: they saw the steady advance of the Soviet troops as a new threat to Europe. The Americans were not interested in that; they had enough problems on their hands already. Very few policymakers in Washington realised that the political boundaries of post-war Europe were being drawn up during those last weeks of the war. Eisenhower's reasoningwas simple: he wanted to be done with the war in Europe as soon as possible, and with as few casualties as possible, in order to turn his attention to the war against Japan. To do that, he needed Stalin's support and he had absolutely no desire to endanger that relationship by unleashing a race for Berlin. As far as he was concerned, Stalin could do as he pleased, and he let him know that as well. Eisenhower shifted his attacks to southern Germany and Hitler's
Alpenfestung
. Churchill was furious.
    Yet the race for Berlin was about more than prestige; it was also about the nuclear research being carried out there. Thanks to the communist spy Klaus Fuchs, the Kremlin had known since 1942 about the American Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, and about its German counterpart at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut in Dahlem. The Soviets were keen to get their hands on as many atomic researchers and laboratories – and as much research material and uranium and other raw materials – before the British and the Americans arrived. Then the Soviet Union could finally make an atom bomb of its own within the foreseeable future. Four years later, indeed, that objective had been realised.
    On Monday, 23 April, our anonymous diarist went out in search of coal. Her neighbourhood was still in German hands. The viaduct under the S-Bahn had been closed off: people said a soldier had been hanged on the other side with a sign around his neck: TRAITOR. Barricades had been thrown up on Berliner Strasse, and were being guarded by members of the
Volkssturm
in their makeshift uniforms. ‘You see mere wisps of children there, baby faces under oversized helmets, you're startled to hear their high voices. These boys can be no older than fifteen, so thin and puny in their flapping uniforms.’
    It was clear to everyone that the war had been lost once and for all. Victor Klemperer, who collected Nazi jargon the way others collect stamps, added a few marvellous specimens to his collection in those final days in Berlin. A propaganda paper, the
Panzerbär
(Armoured Bear), continued to appear to the end. The final edition, on 29 April, spoke of ‘
der Schicksalkampf des deutschen Volkes
’ (the fateful struggle of the German people), and about ‘
neue Eingreifkräfte
’ (new interventionary forces) being brought in day and night. The worse the situation became, the more strident the language: a chunk of concrete containing explosives – particularly dangerous to theone throwing it – was labelled a
Volkshandgranate
45
. A unit ordered to attack the enemy almost unarmed was a
Sturmzug
. A group of youngsters sent to fight against Soviet tanks on foot or by bicycle was a
Panzerjagdkompanie
. The panicked press-ganging of the last remaining schoolboys and old men was called the
800, 000 Mann-Plan
.
    For Albert Speer, the crucial turning point had come much earlier, in late January, with the fall of Silesia: a region full of mines, foundries and steel factories. It was then that he understood that within a few weeks the German war economy would grind to an irretrievable halt. Yet he calmly continued to take part in the broadcasting of comforting reports. Arms production would ‘run like clockwork’, all kinds of new weapons were on their way: he hinted at things including rockets and jet fighters.
    Speer did all this on