43 pages • 1 hour read
AnonymousA Woman in Berlin
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1953A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Food, Alcohol, and Ration Books
A key signifier of the plight of the German residents of Berlin is the absence of food, alcohol, and ration books. When the diaries begin, Marta and her neighbors are running low on food. They eat their meagre rations and forage for nettles and dandelions in order to survive. These conditions lead to starvation and malnutrition, and soon, their clothes no longer fit and their bones become visible through their skin. The Russians change this situation when they introduce a barter system and exchange food for sex, a situation that reveals the lust of the soldiers and the desperation of the civilians. The food represents the stark differences between the forces who are winning the war and those who are losing the war. When the Russians eventually depart, they take the food with them, leaving behind the memories of food and the trauma of rape.
The Russians also have access to alcohol, which is a key factor in the overwhelming number of rapes. Alcohol reduces inhibitions, allowing the Russian soldiers to act on the basest of instincts. The mass rapes are fueled by alcohol like the army’s war machine is fueled by oil. Alcohol represents danger: whenever Marta sees Russians drinking or smells alcohol on her breath, she knows to be worried. Though many people bond over drinks and shared alcohol at different points in the narrative, alcohol carries a threat for most of the book.
The ration books are a pitiful attempt to bring order to a chaotic world. Very quickly, the German-issued ration books become worthless. When the Russians arrive, they issue new books with seemingly more generous portions. Marta notes that the German psyche appreciates this return to order, but neither the order nor the gratitude last. Supplies dwindle and people continue to starve. Marta’s rations are pitiful at best, reflecting the way in which the arrival and departure of the Russians has left her with nothing but a useless ration book and a lifetime of trauma.
Flags and Nazi Paraphernalia
The changing of the flags represents the changing fortunes of Berlin and various attempts to salvage order from the ashes of their city. At the beginning of the narrative, before the Russians arrive, the only flags visible are those of the Nazi party. Just like mentions of Hitler’s name, Nazi textbooks, or anything else associated with the Nazi party, these flags are no longer beacons of pride. Each Nazi flag is a reminder of the extreme cost of the war and the crazed way in which Hitler swept through the nation on a tide of fascism. People burn the Nazi books for heat or to cook food. They tear down the flags and remove their uniforms, worried that the sight of them will become a source of a shame for the German people and a point of antagonism for the arriving Russians.
Despite these efforts, the Russians need no catalyst for their anger. When the Russians arrive, they bring mass rapes, extreme violence, and a new flag. The Soviet flag flies over the conquering military units as the Nazi flyers and posters on the walls are torn down. Within a few days, all forms of Nazi paraphernalia become taboo, and the Nazi ideology becomes a relic of the past; even previously fervent Nazis hide their beliefs out of fear of reprisal.
The residents of Berlin make a conscious effort to appeal to the invading armies. They take down the Nazi flags and cut them up to make components of the flags of the conquering armies. Women of Berlin make Russian, American, French, and British flags by removing the swastikas and sewing new colors and shapes into the material, symbolizing how quickly and easily allegiances can change. The resulting flags are not well made because the resources are meagre, but they are flown a desperate effort to appease the conquering armies. This treatment of Nazi paraphernalia over the course of the narrative represents the collapse of the Third Reich.
Bodies and Human Waste
In the diaries, Marta often refers to human corpses and the vast quantity of human waste present in the streets of Berlin. The imagery of these descriptions illustrates the apocalyptic situation in which she finds herself. Corpses are clear indicators of death and destruction, and as the war rages at the beginning of the memoir, bodies accumulate in the street. The bodies cannot be removed without risking death, so bodies lay in blown-out buildings and the street while the residents of Berlin cower inside their bunkers.
The corpses also represent the danger that awaits outside. When the Russians arrive, the front of the war shifts, and no military campaigning takes place in the streets around Marta’s building. Instead, a conquering army marches through the area, leaving behind human waste in the streets and in the buildings. The soldiers urinate and defecate where they please, and the stench overwhelms Marta on a number of occasions. The descriptions of human waste in open spaces demonstrates the extent to which society has collapsed. As toilets and plumbing represents civilized society, the complete abandonment of these tools reflects the extent to which the men both arriving to and leaving the city have become barbarous and uncivilized. The war has exorcized their humanity and left them behaving like animals. The city itself is filthy, and those who occupy it no longer operate in a civilized world. Berlin has completely fallen, and Marta sees evidence of this collapse wherever she goes.
Another key motif is the presence of the graves for German and Russian soldiers that are dug in any patch of land left in the city. So many die, and the city has no space in which to bury the bodies. Furthermore, the Russians have brought with them thousands of memorials, which indicate the level of ferocious fighting that the Russians have endured on the eastern front. The numbers of expected death are so great that they have mass-manufactured burial memorials and brought them to the front, along with their food and armaments.
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