Berlin Journal, Winter 1953

The last lights you see from the plane are those of Hamburg; there is a flaring horseshoe of electric light from a vast stadium, and then blackness until an hour later the plane noses down on an island of illumination. This is Berlin. Nothing could better give a sense of the artificial isolation of the place; it is in fact a city besieged and the only way back and forth for its seething overnight population of businessmen, conferenciers and international artists is through the clouds. As I left the Tempelhof I could not resist a last backward glance at the cosy “Pionair” preening itself on the airfield. It takes some days to rid oneself of this feeling of clammy insecurity, the ridiculous compulsion to look back over one's shoulder; and the sound of aeroplane engines one hears so consciously all day bears a twofold significance. Strolling around this devastated capital, now at such pains to ingratiate itself with its guests, one may well wonder how a cultural and creative activity can exist at all. Writers will always write and composers will always forge their nebulous material into potential existence. But how, amidst these unbelievable expanses of rubble with isolated skyward-pointing digits of habitable rooms, maintain the players to play, the orchestras that breathe life into a score, the theatres and opera houses?