Berlin, 1945, April

Finished Road to Berlin a bit ago, and as always rekindled especial interest in those last days of the war in Europe. Sometime in high school I'd read Cornelious Ryan's The Last Battle, and anecdotal driven history of the last days in Berlin. Great read - Y'll like it - but what really got me back then was the insane atmosphere in Hitlers bunker. Doomed men, but still attempting to stave off final oblivion. And the leader of it all is flat mad, and only having fleeting glimps of reality through all the attempts at rearranging unreality.

The Russians basically started their last attack on Berlin in late April, and in context of other battles, it didn't really last too long. Stalin had assembled two massive army groups to encircle the city, and the Germans had no chance. The Russians had been alternatively steamrolling through Germany and then being held at certain strong points. For example, there were advances where the Russian tanks would burst into German cities while the trams were still running and shoppers in the stores; then there was the Seelow Heights to the east of Berlin - an important obsticle that really halted the Russian advance. Reading the first of Ericksons two books on the war really taught me a lot about the strenght of the Russian defense in the beginning of the war. The second book likewise taught me a lot about the German defense. We always learn, I guess.

Berlin '45, too - what a setting. Heavily bombed before the battle by the Allies trying the destroy the city, it was hit one last time before the final attack. Nightmare world. Cut off, encircled, total defeat in the war imminent, there came a time when Hitler finally realisased it was over. There was a final 'situation conference' where the top Field Marshal basically informed the conference that 'there's only 24h left' before the Russians overrun the bunker. Here - and I love this - Hitler then turns to the Waffen SS commandant of the bunker and asks his opinion - he had to get on final opinion from a dude far less in rank than the field marshal. Erickson writes that Hitler then prepared to kill himself w/in a few hours.

If you've seen that film "Downfall", you know of the atmosphere of the bunker at the end. Hitler trying to defend Berlin, trying to regain Vienna , armies still in Norway and Curland, and him trying despertley to get two different German field armies to attack through the russian encirclement of Berlin. Wow. The end.

This whole summer has been like Berlin 45 for me. The end of the war for me is leaving the school ive been @ for the last three years - i didnt get ejob here. For sure I thought i was gonna get the damn job, but they brought in someone from outside. Terrible. I know full well that th school had every rite to hire whoever - but fuck, I also know full well I worked well and hard there for three years. I kinda got a bad feeling in the interview - it was too short and the principal seemed really preoccupied with my classroom career. Coulda been a superlibrarian they brought in, somebody the principal knows, or someother reason - whatever it is, I know I have to leave th school as I have no future there.

I now have to leave the situation I loved so much, library, frenz, soccer teams, etc. And I have to enter a totally new situation, somewhere. Really terrible. I figgerd I'd not gotten the job a ahile ago - but like hitler, i denied it. What - no call for s few weeks? Lets wait another! I tried to keep my empire - when I was working during the summer, i still used my desk in the library, got the library magazines from the mailroom, and coached soccer. Bit by bit, theyhave been all carried away. I know full well i will have to step down as the girls varsity coach, since my JV coach will actually be working @ the school. What i am left with is to be an assistant coach on the freshman boys soccer team, unpaid. Sorta like vienna, I guess.

But my time @ a school i love deeply now ends. I cannot fucking believe it.