Transcript of Letter from Katherine Fite to Mr. and Mrs. Emerson Fite

IV 2td 4 Friday, July 27th 45 S. TRUMANA And a Happy Birthday tomorrow. Dearest Mother and Daddy,- c I am groggy This time I've been to Potsdam and Berlin! s who Hotel this evening. And when I told the little morning, the putting Cumberland it on paper and you must save the letter. Berlin this start with fatigue and a million impressions, but I must out brought of the me tea and sandwiches, she said Were you really, and maid know too well think what they it means. hate to hear what happened to the Germans - they are so decent I room and I had to run after her to tip her. The British sidled buildings struction in in the center of the city is colossal- those enormous The Berlin is fantastic, like something out of another world. de- what and the stolid, expressionless I mean, seem unreal, and one realize dull of course ruins, how and few I people mean ruins. have been It's into staggering Berlin). and And unreal. the Teutonic people, (You horrible routine of their daily lives is. And every once in wonders have been on the sidewalks. Sometimes you see piles of bricks still huge piles stench of sewage and I suppose corpses. The rubble a is while that in and children pulled out- and lines of women passing bricks down the that line, an the on top of the piles looking for God knows people are not badly dressed and you see umbrellas what. raincoats. And yet The that destruction is bad out in the Charlottemburg and the hundreds took one night to destroy. But the thing that area you too can't - they say is riages, and on the roads and hundreds around Potsdam. of people All on their the move worldly in and out of forget the city Occasionally ing out and little as wagons, Justice Jackson big wagons, said some "Where going in God's into the name goods city, in baby some com- car- where will own wagons. And you see them eating pienic they're pulling their they have tubercular looking horses - but mostly are they going?" nently and well rested. The German Communist Party headquarters are her air as she they sleep? I saw one pld lady running a comb suppers, through and Stalin one we saw was flying the American flag also! We saw a huge picture lodged in Potsdam and Berlin with bright red banners promi- - normous across the big avenue going into Berlin, and at another of that pictures of Stalin, Truman abd Churchill (they'll have to place e- the one) and across the street a huge painting in shades of brown change of famous photo of Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin at Yelta ran. German. Every here of course are Russian signs - some in Russian, or Tehe- some in my mind. I got started in the wrong order because Berlin was uppermost in Mr. along Byrnes and Mr. McCloy and some Control Council people and took Let's go back to the fact that the Justice flew over to see onel - me and his secretary (woman) and his military aide and the Col- me self who runs our trips. I'm blase about flying now - so the trip it- four they look very naked and exposed - just a long line of beach. It took and seens uneventful excepting that we saw the beaches of Dunkirk office (McCloy is Assistant Secretary of War). At the ai port, McCloy's the Brit- hours to Potsdam where we were met by an officer from Mr. o ish, American and Soviet flags are flying, the American on the pole, zone. which I don't understand, as I think the airport is in the highest British Soviet passes to move around. I have mine as documentary proof that I Anyway we had to have Soviet permission to bring the plane in and was there - the red flag superimposed on British and American. On the drive to Potsdam we first saw the Germans plodding along the roads and Soviet sentries every six inches (the President was expected back from Pronkfurt). Potsdam is baddy, badly destroyed and smells like a char- not technically Potsdam, I think, a very pleasant suburb with tree- house. The compound for the Conference is however an untouched part lined streets and villas, the Hollywood of Berlin. (Everyone cleanedout