Hitler's Final Fortress - Breslau 1945 (60 page)

5.
Thum, p.120.

6.
Ibid., p.254.

7.
Thum, pp.248-51 and Höntsch, pp.298-302.

8.
Bolesław Drobner, ‘Bilans miesica’,
Nasz Wrocław
10-16/6/45. Cited in Gleiss, vi, p.115; and
Dziennik Polski
16/6/45, cited in Gleiss, vi, p.113.

9.
Based on Thum, pp.187, 261, Kaps,
Tragödie Schlesiens
, p.347, and Höntsch, p.303.

10.
Based on
Vertreibung und Vertreibungsverbrechen 1945-1948: Bericht des Bundesarchivs vom 28 Mai 1974
, p.261, Gleiss, v, p.827, Gleiss, vi, pp.82, 151, Kaps,
Tragödie Schlesiens
, pp.346-7 and Mondwurf, Friedhelm, ‘Als Bettelmann in Breslau’ in Hupka, Herbert (ed),
Letzte Tage in Schlesien
, p.178.

11.
Food shortages based on Gleiss, vi, pp.138, 470, 562, 583-4, Gleiss,
Breslauer Exodus
, p.37, Vertreibung, ii, p.330, DDRZW 10/2, pp.617-18, Mondwurf, Friedhelm, ‘Als Bettelmann in Breslau’ in Hupka, Herbert (ed),
Letzte Tage in Schlesien
, p.179.

12.
Black market based on Gleiss, vi, p.1018,
Breslauer Exodus
, pp.94-5, Thum, pp.190-3.

13.
Starvation and deaths based on Gleiss, vi, pp.631, 668, 583-4, Gleiss, viii, pp.1553-54, Kaps,
Tragödie Schlesiens
, p.355, Böddeker,
Die Flüchtlinge
, p.241, and Borodziej, Docs.181, 192, 197.

14.
Gleiss, vi, pp.249, 494 and Kaps,
Tragödie Schlesiens
, p.347.

15.
Gleiss, vi, pp.584.

16.
Peikert, p.20.

17.
Hartung, pp.100-2.

18.
Life as PoWs based on Bannert, pp.98-108, Gleiss, vi, pp.527-8, 789 and Gleiss, viii, p.1681.

19.
Kaps,
Tragödie Schlesiens
, pp.497-9 and Knopp,
Grosse Flucht
, pp.196-7.

20.
Gleiss, vi, p.172.

21.
Ibid., vi, pp.173-6.

22.
Weltwoche
, Zürich, November 1945. Reprinted in Aust, Stefan and Burgdorff, Stephan (eds),
Die Flucht: Über die Vertreibung der Deutschen aus dem Osten
, pp.149-54.

23.
Gleiss, vi, pp.173-6.

24.
Ibid., vi, p.515.

25.
Ibid., vi, pp.194-6.

26.
Hofmann, pp.215-16.

27.
Borodziej, Doc.188.

28.
Borodziej, Doc.203.

29.
Vertreibung, ii, pp.344-5.

30.
Gleiss, vi, p.432.

31.
Waage, p.68.

32.
Höntsch, pp.308-10, Gleiss,
Breslauer Exodus
, pp.396-7.

33.
Scholz, p.61, Borodziej, Doc.168 and Thum, pp.115-16.

34.
DDRZW, 10/2, p.609.

35.
Gleiss, vi, pp.895-900.

36.
Based on Gleiss, vi, p.950,
Microcosm
, p.422 and Borodziej, Doc.211.

37.
Hofmann, pp.113-14.

38.
Thum, p.164.

39.
Ibid., p.155.

40.
Höntsch, pp.302-04.

41.
Thum, pp.350-9 and Jerrig, pp.49-50.

42.
De-Germanisation based on
Als die Deutschen weg waren
, pp.55, 97, 98 and Thum, pp.380-1, 482-4.

43.
Thum, pp.279-80, 327-8 and
Wrocław 1945 1965
, p.20.

44.
Thum, p.136.

45.
Gleiss, vi, p.1067.

46.
Gleiss,
Breslauer Exodus
, p.53.

47.
Ibid., p.1.

48.
Gleiss,
Breslauer Exodus
, pp.120, 176, Gleiss, vi, p.113 and Thum, pp.182-3.

49.
Gleiss,
Breslauer Exodus
, p.45.

50.
Böddeker,
Die Gefangenen
, p.296.

51.
Gleiss,
Breslauer Exodus
, pp.30-1.

52.
So Kämpfte Breslau
, p.111 and Gleiss,
Breslauer Exodus
, pp.13-14.

53.
Gleiss,
Breslauer Exodus
, pp.225, 266, 269, Mondwurf, Friedhelm, ‘Als Bettelmann in Breslau’ in Hupka, Herbert (ed),
Letzte Tage in Schlesien
, pp.182-3.

54.
Gleiss,
Breslauer Exodus
, pp.478-9.

55.
Ibid., pp.344-5.

56.
Gleiss, ix, p.277.

57.
Gleiss,
Breslauer Exodus
, pp.377-8, 478-9.

58.
Konrad, pp.35, 43.

59.
Borodziej, Doc.261, Gleiss,
Breslauer Exodus
, pp.857-88 and
Hannoversche Presse
, 3/1/47 and 7/1/47.

60.
Borodziej, Doc.286.

61.
Höntsch, pp.308-10, Gleiss,
Breslauer Exodus
, pp.396-7.

Chapter 10

Quiet Flows the Oder

For old Breslauers who visit the former capital of Silesia,
it is a journey into the past which becomes present only in the memory

Hans Eberhard Henkel

O
n a late summer’s evening there is a buzz around the bars and restaurants which run all around the Rynek. There is lively chatter at the tables beneath the awnings in a Babel of languages, not just Polish, as diners enjoy a
piwo
(beer). The Babel of tongues is complemented by the food of every imaginable nation offered by the hostelries – Greek, Mexican, Italian, German, Indian, and Polish, of course – plus the ubiquitous global fast food chains – KFC, Pizza Hut, McDonald’s. As darkness falls, the
Ratusz
(city hall) is bathed in gold from the lights which surround it. The 700-year-old building looks much as it did seven decades ago. The baroque and art nouveau houses which surround the huge square have changed little too, and the the imposing structure of the modernist Bank Zachodni (Western Bank – formerly the
Sparkasse
); survived the siege largely intact. Fire eaters move among the restaurants, while the strains of guitars and accordions – playing less-than-authentic Polish tunes such as
Que sera sera
– struggle to be heard above the conversations. At the end of their performances they pass plates around, hoping for a tip.

As it ever was, the Rynek (Ring) is the heart of Wrocław. Vratislavians realized it as soon as they settled in the city. It was here that they focused their efforts to rebuild the shattered city after the apocalypse of 1945. The reconstruction was sympathetic. Planners tried to restore the pre-war appearance of Wrocław’s historic heart – the Rynek, the old town, the cathedral district. But the rest of the city took decades to rise from the rubble. Hundreds of buildings were pulled down; the salvaged bricks and other raw materials were sent to rebuild Poland’s other ruined cities. This new rape of Wrocław reached its climax in the early 1950s. As many as 165 million bricks a year were sent from the city to central Poland. “Every Vratislavian gives fifty bricks for Warsaw – we are helping to build the capital,” the
Gazeta Robotnicza
declared proudly at the end of August 1953.
¹

It was hardly surprising that the city still had not shaken off its ‘wild west’ label.
Wrocław jest brudny
– Wrocław is dirty – Poles complained. “Yardsticks which apply to other Polish towns, even for the newly-acquired Szczecin, do not count in Wrocław,” a German visitor observed in 1949. But it was not all bad. There were now a dozen hospitals with more than 3,000 beds catering for Wrocław’s sick, while three dozen schools educated the city’s youth. As Hugo Hartung had predicted, performances had resumed in the opera house – now renamed Teatr Miejski (municipal theatre). They had resumed as early as September 1945 with the Polish national opera
Halka
, performed by a German orchestra and ballet – all Breslauers –and a Polish choir and soloists. Some of the cinemas were back in service. For wealthier visitors, the Hotel Monopol had re-opened, although it possessed little of its former grandeur. “Our room is by no means clean,” one guest complained. “Several light switches don’t work, the beds are extremely bad.” Ordinary Vratislavians liked nothing more than relaxing in one of the city’s 400-plus restaurants and bars, as the editor of the newspaper
Pionier
, Wiesław Glogowski, wrote:

Where the low Silesian sun blazes,

Oder and Neisse roar in the distance,

The settlers have come

And opened pubs and bars.
²

Wrocław needed bars. It needed restaurants. Schools. Hospitals. But in the early 1950s, what it needed most was homes. As the
Gazeta Robotnicza
was trumpeting Wrocław’s sacrifice of bricks, the decision was finally taken to concentrate on rebuilding the city. New apartment blocks, shops and offices were erected around Plac Kościuszki (Tauentzienplatz) in keeping with the surviving buildings. But this was a slow – and expensive – process. The pressing need for housing saw flagship projects such as Plac Kościuszki abandoned in favour of utilitarian tower blocks which began to spring up across the city in the late 1950s and early 1960s, at the central railway station, on the edge of Nowy Targ (Neumarkt), in Gajowice (Gabitz) and Grabiszyńska (Gräbschen), and especially on the western outskirts of Muchobór Mały (Mochbern). “When there are tens of thousands of people who need a roof over their heads, you can’t spend ages discussing it,” a builder told Vienna-born journalist Charles Wassermann. “You have to build with what you’ve got.”
³

Wassermann visited Wrocław in the summer of 1957, one of scores of towns and cities in the former German East he toured with his wife. By then, the Rynek had largely been restored, so too the cathedral – minus its twin spires. But for the most part Wassermann found a city which was part building site, part rubble. Nowy Targ was a wasteland, framed by ruined buildings. In some places weeds and bushes devoured the rubble, in others there were still large gaps in rows of houses. Wrocław was slowly being rebuilt “with primitive means,” he observed, but it would probably remain the same for some years to come. “The overall impression remains that of a very badly destroyed city.”
⁴

Poland’s Communist leadership would champion the new Wrocław which arose in the late 1950s and 1960s. It scoffed at the “old, crowded, monotonous buildings” which once lined the Oder. They were gone. In their place, new apartment blocks surrounded by green space which “let air and sunshine into all apartments”. As for the eleven- and twelve-storey tower blocks which rose in Gajowice, they “harmonize well with the slender spires of the Gothic churches of old Wrocław”. No one was fooled.
⁵