Directly after the war the full political and practical implications of the military division of Berlin were not immediately apparent, least of all to the city's traumatised residents, preoccupied with simply staying alive. People could move freely between the western enclaves and the eastern half of the city, administered by the Soviet Union, until well into the 1950s. In 1948 Ingeborg Euler learned for herself that there were differences, however. As early as April 1946 she had placed herself on record as an advocate of open free speech. Writing a review in about a meeting at the local cinema in Rangsdorf, held in anticipation of the first democratic local elections since 1933, she urged her young readers, who had grown up till that point learning the advisability of remaining "silent" on political matters, to speak out: "How can we seek to built a democratic state if we dare not say what we think?" ("Wie wollen wir uns denn einen demokratischen Staat aufbauen, wenn wir nicht einmal wagen, unsere Meinung zu sagen?"). With the twelve Nazi years having come to an end, it was a time of hope. During the next couple of years the cinema became a regular meeting point for a group of young people who founded a theatre group, on the initiative of the local Soviet commander: Ingeborg Euler became a star of this improvised local stage.