OBSESSIONS OF BERLIN
sanification of hunger. His mind is occupied with food and the question
how to get it. All other thoughts are secondary and rather meaningless
as long as the primary need remains unsatisfied. The rationed food is
no problem. It is so little, and is sold at stable prices, so that anyone who
works can pay for it. The only question it arouses is whether to eat it
all at once or to distribute it over the larger part of the week. The answer
depends on the individual's connections on the black market and on his
ability to pay its prices.
The search for food goes on relentlessly, in and outside of Berlin.
For food anything expendable will be exchanged. For a few pounds
of potatoes great hardships are endured; hours of standing in line for a
railway ticket; the brutal rush for a front place at the gate; the struggle
for a place inside the train or even for hanging on its sides; the dodging
of the police, and the long marches from farm to farm. Whoever cannot
leave the city is busy visiting the grocery stores and black market centers
so as not to be late for the last delivery of bread or butter. They are al–
ways on the run for food, always asking for information about food, al–
ways excited about food, always thinking in terms of food, and all the
while hungry to the bones.
There are many types of hunger, and the Berliners have experienced
them all. There is the hunger for specific commodities that disappear in
times of war. There is the desire for a balanced and pleasant diet, in–
stead of stuffing the belly with whatever is on hand. There were the
rations during the Hitler regime, which were seldom sufficient, and be–
came hunger rations toward the end of the war. And then came the abso–
lute hunger with the collapse of the distribution system during the siege
of Berlin. To survive this period meant to eat whatever was found on
the streets,
in
the ruins, and during frantic searches in abandoned stores.
Wounded horses were ripped apart as soon as they had fallen. Most
of the people turned butchers; like ant-heaps they hovered over the
carcasses. They hunted for dogs and cats, picking from the asphalt what
was red and bloody, even the innards of men blown to bits by artillery fire.
Only to live through this ordeal, to be alive when the war was over, to
enjoy once more a normal life, and to eat as much as one liked.
But the hunger remained; it was now organized and categorized.
Former class divisions lost their meaning before the food-commissions,
only to have their illegal comeback on the black market. The law made
new classifications in terms of ration-cards with different numbers of
calories, dividing the population into groups that were to live and func–
tion, others that were to die off slowly, and still others destined to die
quickly. The counting in calories may be good for the statistician and it
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