Berlin, Germany

Adolph Jerome Bennett stationery — typed

Dear Sweetheart,

It was so wonderful talking to you dear. Whenever I do, it is a touch of heaven and a touch of reality brought together, and in that coalescence I am happy. You are so wonderful and I am so completely and devotedly in love with you that it aches to be separated.

I took their word when they said they were doing all they could to speed up the civilianization, but in my heart I didn't trust that they would, for the people here, as usually elsewhere, operate solely for their own benefits and the heck with the others. But I had no choice in the matter. When the opportunity arose Monday morning I took it. I had phoned Berlin and they told me I would be notified, but I knew that was hogwash and because the personnel officer of OMGUS REAR was in our office at the time I turned to him and asked his advice in such a way that the answer could only be "Go to Berlin yourself."

In the ensuing excitement of making arrangements and clearing up some outstanding business I didn't have a free moment to pause, reflect, and write you. I did attend the seder service Monday night at the Palmgarten – about 500 were there – including Gen'l McNarney. Nothing to talk about because it was

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a cut and dried proposition without any beauty. Then Tues. it was hurry here and there and finally catch the 4 o'clock plane to Berlin and then of course it was Berlin which absorbed me.

Ever since I have been here it has been running, running around. This business of straightening out the civilianization is not easy. Overwork and not giving a damn combine to make it difficult. I have reached the stage where Maj. Gen. Adcock, assistant to Lt. Gen. Clay is to be consulted. Much as I would prefer to do it myself I have to leave it to the organizational secretary to consult with Adcock, and now I am awaiting for the results of that interview. He was supposed to have the matter out with the Gen. Sat., but when I saw him on Sat. he said done in Mond. Well, I'll see, for I am not going to be put off.

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Of course that is all business. By far the enjoyable aspects of my trip here have been with Bob, and Robbie. Immediately after the phone call on Sat. we went to the Staatdtsche Opera (City Opera) to see Othello. Lo and behold tho when we arrived the program had been changed to a ballet evening, which turned out to be quite mediocre and was quite a disappointment for Othello is really a magnificent drama and XXX Verdi does a magnificent job with it. Well after that it was back to the billets of the fellows and they had a birthday party for me. (I am enclosing my place card). Nothing ostentatious but a very nice gesture on their part. Then we spent the evening talking, talking and more talking. Bob used to teach English at Abraham Lincoln High School in N.Y. and Robbie used to be a reporter on the Boston Journal-American (politi-

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cal writer).

Sunday I got up late as is my practice and met Paul, another fellow I know for lunch. With us Father Power(s) ate. I understand he is a quite well known chaplain. He was very interesting and the Easter meal was quite nice. The Father is writing a book, not his first I was led to believe, which will be in the editors hands the 1st of July. It is to be called A Chaplain with the Armored or something like that.

Then Paul and I met Bob and Robbie and we took the tour of Berlin. We went all over Berlin, in all sectors, and I was very much impressed with the destruction in Berlin. There isn't a street which doesn't show street fighting. And blocks upon blocks of gutted houses. Very impressive. An ironical point was that the whole of the business district of Berlin is completely gutted or destroyed – blocks upon blocks – but the air ministry of Goering was virtually untouched. I don't believe any place compares with Berlin in its destruction. Among other places we went to the Reich's Chancellry which was Hitler's Hdgs. and then by a lucky break we were able to get into the bunker, rather air raid shelter would be more accurate, where Hitler committed suicide. I was in the actual room where his body was found. The whole shelter is about 25 feet below the ground. He used it for work, and sleep. Not impressively constructed or anything to compare with the XXXXXXXX Maginot Line for this was just a shelter, but I think it could have withstood anything but a direct 4,000 XX lb. bomb. I went all through it, and couldn't help but feel a little smug and quite satisfied that

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I was able to be alive in the exact place where the death of the anti-Jew took place. The fellows took pictures throughout the tour and when they are developed I am sure they will give me a print. The picture outside of the shelter had Russians, French, English and Americans in it. We met several Russians in our tour and they were very friendly. I am enclosing the filter of a Russian cigarette which a Russian offered me in return for the American cigarette I gave him. I had to smoke it right there and then, but thought you might like to see the filter. We walked around the Olympic Stadium, where Jesse Owen made a monkey of the "aryans". A very beautiful place, no getting away from it. At the Alexander Platz there was a little carnival, a touch of Coney Island, so we walked about there. It was nice seeing children enjoying themselves.

As yet I can't get over the cigarette butt situation. I have had people, men, women and children, practically take the butt out of my hand, I have had a man follow me to retrieve the butt, I have seen a man shove a woman aside when I have tossed a butt away, it is something I can't forget. Berlin 1946. I have seen Russians walk about with their families, and they were dressed in materials and style which the janitor and his family wore in the 1920s – good substantial stuff, but coarse. Very self conscious and awkward the Russians are, and I can't but help think that they would make a so much better impression upon every one if they but knew how. How can a poor boy from the other side of the tracks fit into the "ele-gant" society? Probably not this generation of Russians, for they are too much like the X unknowing people who come off a cattle

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boat at Ellis Island. But if they are given the opportunity, if we don't look down our noses at them, they will, like so many of second generation Americans, fit into our way of doing things and be accepted. So much depends upon the mutual desire to like each other, and that can only be fostered by good will on the part of the Russians and the Americans.

I do so much want you with me Jeandear. I want you to experience the things I do. And, conscientiously I try not to find these experiences, for I would so much rather have them with you at my side. I am holding everything in abeyance for us so that in our mutual partaking of these things we can be more "one" than two. You are my life. And so in Berlin, like Frankfurt, I shant look for those things we shall, when together, do when when you are with me. It is enough that I sleep, eat and go to a few concerts (without that, when alone, I would dry up) and keep waiting not patiently but anxiously for our reunion. I love you wholly and the only significance to life for me is you and our love for each other.

Always in all ways I am

Your devoted husband,

Dolph