On Moscow Time

Berlin's end came two years and four months after the salvation of Stalingrad. It came 16 days after the armies of Marshals Georgi K. Zhukov and Ivan S. Konev lunged for the Nazi capital, twelve days after they reached its streets. The date was May 2 and the time was 3 p.m.--Moscow time.

It had almost ended sooner. In the gloomy dawn of May Day a German colonel bearing a huge white flag appeared at a ruined side street held by the Russians. "Will the Soviet Command receive emissaries to discuss negotiations?" he asked. Red Army Major Belousov agreed and walked with the Germans toward their lines, trailed by a Russian soldier with a field telephone. Suddenly a shot cracked out. Belousov dropped with a Nazi sniper's bullet through his head.

The raging Russians answered with the greatest artillery barrage they had yet loosed on the capital, continuing without letup through the day, the night and the next morning. Then the German commander--Nazi Artillery General Kurt Webling, in charge of Berlin defenses--came himself with a white flag, and did his surrendering within the Soviet lines. Just to make sure, the Russians loaded special sound trucks with Nazi officers, sent them to broadcast the terms.

Fiery Ruin. The Berlin that surrendered was the pounded corpse of a city. Wrote a Soviet correspondent:

"Ruins, craters, burned-out tanks, smashed guns, tramcars riddled with holes, half-demolished trenches, heaps of spent cartridge shells, fresh graves, corpses still awaiting burial, masses of white flags, crowds of glum and hungry inhabitants lie before our eyes. . . . On Friedrichstrasse ... it is impossible to pass on foot. . . . The pavement has sunk into the ground. The ceiling of the subway which runs just below the street has caved in. ... The Tiergarten is burning; trees crack and writhe in flames. The Reichstag is smoking. . . . The new Imperial Chancellery, Hitler's Berlin residence, is also burning. The windows are blocked with heaps of books, and machine guns stick out between them. . . . Inside it is hot--fire is spreading nearer, floors are glowing with heat and about to collapse. . . . Across the street is the Air Ministry, the Ministry of Goring, protected by a thick stone wall. . . . The building is burning and we cannot enter it. The gigantic air-raid shelter is untouched."

Through this smouldering shambles the sullen Germans--orderly to the last--filed in columns to lay down their arms at collection points. Men with grey, stubbly beards crept out of cellars, subways and dugouts under white flags to surrender trudge silently out of the city under guard. Said Moscow: 507,000 Germans were killed or captured in the Battle of Berlin.

Before the week was out, Radio Berlin went back on the air. A Berlin edition of Pravda appeared.

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