There is a strange mood in Berlin, a combination of apathy and a craving for pleasure. Let's hope it'll be quickly over. No one saves money anymore. I've noticed ordinary soldiers giving away half a month's salary in tips. A waiter at a bar on the Gendarmenmarkt has bought himself a small country estate from the tips he got every time he brought out a bottle of Moselle wine.
Money flows like water through people's hands.
The answer to the V1 was the heaviest daytime air raid we have ever had. When I emerged from the air raid shelter with Uta, back to the upper world, it was so dark that we could only see two meters ahead of us. Blue-black walls of smoke towered around bright red flames, exactly like the fires of purgatory in medieval paintings. Olive green dust and whitish lime rubble were lying ankle on top of the streets. At the same time the whole scene had a wild beauty about it.