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Gelfand,
Wladimir. Deutschland-Tagebuch
1945-1946
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German
German Diary 1945–1946 The Mindset of the Victor
Vladimir Gelfand (1923–1983) spent a year and a half in Germany after the end of the Second World War, much of that time in Berlin. The young Ukrainian Jew kept a diary systematically, leaving notebooks and exercise books that his son published after his death. Despite the often high-flown descriptions, the diary contains genuine treasures, expressed in the language of Soviet propaganda that Gelfand himself used.
Gelfand’s diary entries show exhaustion as well as the expectation of an imminent victory. They reveal the difficulties he encountered in his surroundings and the hardships he himself faced at the front. Gelfand was a handsome young man who entered Berlin with units of the Red Army and remained in Germany after the war ended. He also occupied himself with numerous love affairs with German women. The women’s love letters suggest that, at least in these relationships, there was apparently no violence.
The diary documents not only the thinking of a Red Army soldier — what he saw, felt and said about his comrades — but also sheds light on German society and its collapse into chaos, human suffering, hardship and the breakdown of norms. These entries should not, however, be treated as complete: there are omissions and silences. Violence by Soviet soldiers against German women, for example, is not discussed. The traumatic experiences endured by German women, the numerous rapes, looting and drunkenness are scarcely to be found here. Yet the diary also offers no glorified or romanticized view of Germany. On the contrary, Germany was an object of hatred. The time of retribution had come and, in the words of Soviet propaganda, it was the moment for “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”
This diary is an authentic testimony to the end of the war in Germany in 1945 from the perspective of a Red Army soldier. The editor Elke Scherstjanoi aptly explains: “Never before have we been able to penetrate so deeply into the thoughts and feelings of a victor.”