Extracts from a confidential report from Thomas J. Kiernan
to Seán Murphy (Dublin)
'The Soviet Sector of Berlin'
(D/16) (Secret)

1. The contrast between West Berlin, — alive with activity, a miracle of reconstruction in which over 615 million bricks were redeemed from the ruins and cleaned for use in new buildings, — and East Berlin, where fallen masonry still chokes the streets, and only one ‘show-street’, Stalin-Alleé, has been rebuilt in flats for employees of the Communist régime, — is dramatic. At the entrance to East Berlin, I passed the site where the pre-war Irish Legation had been,¹ showing weeds and debris as far as the eye could see. The West Berlin which I had just left was buoyant with commercial and industrial optimism, the shops fully-stocked at prices about 20% lower than in Bonn, the streets thronged with new models of motor-cars, the people busy and cheerful. The entrance to East Berlin is a waste land; only trucks, and police or army cars, are on the streets; the privately-owned shops are grubby, thinly-stocked with inferior goods; the people lethargic and passive.
2. There is a strict system of rationing; and with ration cards, essential goods, for eating and wearing, can be bought by the residents at prices somewhat lower than in West Berlin. These goods are purchasable only in the ‘Consums’, or stores owned by the Municipality. The rations allowed are, however, meagre; so that those who can afford it, go to West Berlin to shop at prices five times dearer. The prices are so much dearer because the currency in East Berlin, the East-Mark, has a legal exchange of 5 East-Marks for 1 West-Mark. The distribution of all commodities in East Berlin is controlled by the Municipality, which explains the scarcity of stock in the privately-owned shops. If one of these shops shows signs of prosperity, it is inspected by the Municipal officers and may then be taken over by the Municipality to be turned into a ‘Consum’ and the owner given compensation based on the ration-value of his stock.

[matter omitted]

6. The general impression from a visit to East Berlin is that the people are patiently waiting for deliverance from an enforced régime; are going about their work mechanically, listlessly, with none of the almost fierce reconstruction activity evident in all parts of Western Germany. On the streets, and in the shops, there is a weird silence. Nobody speaks aloud.

   The Unter den Linden was cleared by the Russians to make room for the construction of the Marx-Engels-Platz, where mass demonstrations, such as that staged to greet the Kremlin visitors (reported in the East Berlin papers as numbering 250,000 East-Berliners), are organised. The former offices of Hitler and von Ribbentrop are still in ruins, and in a field of weeds near-by is the ruin of the bunker in which Hitler ended his life.

[matter omitted]

16. Meanwhile, in the grey East-Berlin part of a great city, where one million two hundred thousand people live under duress, within a bus-ride of the two million inhabitants of bustling, thriving West Berlin, there is an air of apathy, as if, after ten years of disappointed hopes, nothing matters for these most governable people.