[The following takes place immediately following the Second World War in Europe. In many areas of East Germany, German Communists were immediately given posts in local government under the supervision, and nominally with the support of, the Russians. Unfortunately, where they had expected to finally be in a position to bring what they believed to be a righteous and fair form of government to Germany at last, they in fact ended up powerless against reprisals against the local population. They had expected the Soviets to help them usher in a new golden age; they had not expected the Soviets to do little in the way of preventing mass rapes and murders of the population.]
Three days later the Communists (including Erich Wiesner) in the German municipal administration drafted a bitter protest to the Soviet Command in the city, describing ‘the simply indefensible conditions under which the population is suffering’:
The series of rapes of women and girls is not abating. […] In addition flats occupied by Germans are continuing to be looted. Arrests and the day-long detention of inhabitants on their way to work, or on the streets, without any or any valid justification are continuing.
The food supply is completely insufficient and is heading irresistibly towards catastrophe. […] Our infants are dying because we cannot give them milk in sufficient quantity, as the cows provided were requisitioned.
Numerous diseases cannot be treated, as neither doctors no medicines are available.
Source:
Bessel, Richard. “The Loss of the East.” Germany 1945: From War to Peace. New York, NY, HarperCollins, 2009. 230-31. Print.
Original Source Listed:
‘Nicht signierte Kopie eines Memorandum der Kommunisten in der deutschen Stadtverwaltung Stettins vom 20. Mai 1945’, printed in Bialecki, Stettin 1945-1946, pp. 113-115.
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