ABSTRACT
we leave prague early and are at the frontier by noon, schrecker retches us with a car. he lets the car taking our luggage overtake us on the road: 'have you brought anything with you, i'm hungry.' chewing bread and sausage he tells us that we are in power but face great difficulties, a meal with speeches in a suburb, present: renn, theatre people, party people very nice and very hungry, photo-call as in the usa and in broadcasting, the party chairman points out that nowadays it is 'morals the first thing, food follows on', a car takes us on towards berlin. the driver, who has a thin jacket and shrapnel in his lung, tells us how hard life is, no shoes for his son, they eat two slices of bread in the morning and drink ersatz coffee, then potatoes at midday and in the evening, the russians have imported soya-oil which helps, autumnal woods, here and there a bridge which has been blown, rusting tanks at the roadside, at the zonal border the papers for the car are missing, i go into the german police station and phone the deutsches theater in berlin. we are fetched by a few cars, abusch of the kulturbund. becher, jhering and dudow are at the kulturbund club, the press was at the station so they are off our backs for the moment, we are housed in the adlon.
