Mikhail Semiryaga marched into Berlin with the Red Army in 1945, and stayed on as part of the Soviet military administration following the war and during the Berlin blockade and airlift. He was interviewed for the COLD WAR series in December 1995. The interview has been translated from the Russian.

On reaching Berlin at the end of World War II:

Well, it was great happiness. It was the feeling that we have done our bit, not only for our people but for humanity, together with our allies. That was [our feeling]: the feeling of winners who saved humanity from Nazism. ...

We came to the outskirts of Berlin on the 25th, 26th of April 1945. The outskirts of Berlin were beautiful. They were not ruined: there were cottages, orchards. It was April, spring -- you can imagine that it was beautiful. But the closer we came to the center [of the city], the picture was changing dramatically. Ruins were drastic. Allied aviation forces worked hard on Berlin. All the streets were covered in stones, buildings were damaged, and our tanks couldn't go forward. Only infantry could go on, tanks couldn't; it was necessary to clear the streets so the tanks could go on.

So the view of Berlin was horrible. It's difficult to imagine. Even for Berliners it was difficult. But it was the payment for the war which they had planned and they started from Berlin.

On the first days of the occupation:

The immediate task was to feed the Germans. The citizens of Berlin hadn't received any food on ration, because the routes to Berlin were blocked. And they didn't have any food for the whole week while they were fighting around Berlin. So the first task was to give them food: to children, to the elderly, to women. For that, Marshal Zhukov gave an order that trucks from our food stores should bring their moving kitchens, [and] the Germans were supposed to get food from them.

The second thing we were supposed to do was open the stores, which could sell milk and bread for children. ... I found the owners of a bakery, we opened everything, we brought flour, opened everything. ... It was the first task: to feed people and to save them, because there were a lot of cases of suicide. People didn't know what life had in store for them. They were in shock. ...

On the behavior of Soviet soldiers in Germany:

I can't say that all the people and all the officers felt the same way, good or bad, about the Germans. No, of course we should differentiate. Those officers who were highly educated, who knew the history of Germany ... didn't think that the German people were to blame for falling victim to fascism. ... [They felt] the blame should be put on the forces who were interested in the war: fascist forces, imperialists, monopolies who produced weapons. Those were the forces that were responsible for war. ...

The second category of people -- part of our officers and soldiers whose families lived in the occupied territories and who were terrorized by fascism -- of course, they didn't think the same way [as] the first category. They thought all the Germans were responsible for spreading fascism. And this point of view was reflected in ... published articles [urging], "Take revenge for their atrocities, kill a German whenever you can see him." ... Many of our soldiers [adopted] that slogan ... and of course it was bad. ...

There was an order from Stalin in February 1945 that all the Germans who could work should be taken to the Soviet Union to work. You understand that the order was anti-humane; it contradicted international law. We understood that, and some people protested against it. Probably you know that Solzhenitsyn protested against it, and also Kopolev, another well-known writer. And they were punished for that, for calling for humane treatment of German civilians. Fortunately, only one month and a half passed and Stalin annulled the order and said that at the time we didn't send Germans to the Soviet Union; on the contrary, those Germans were returned to Germany. ...

Of course there were criticisms of violence and raping women, but those cases happened not only with us, but with British and American soldiers too. But this is war: Soldiers who risk their life lose control of themselves. Did you know that in the American sector 200,000 black children were born? Do you know this fact? What does this fact say? How did [the U.S. soldiers] behave? [Did they] rape women? ... Of course, we also had such cases. But when the [Red] Army was demobilized, from 1946, when the troops left ... order was introduced. ...

On reparations:

The Germans didn't have the right to say that they were robbed. We took less [than we lost in the war]. ... That was the way they paid [for] the damage [we endured]. ... We took equipment -- that's what we needed to restore our economy. ...

The Americans and the British didn't take reparations. The Americans [already] had enough [resources]. The British, of course, needed something, but it cannot be compared [to the Soviet situation]. They took their share and they sold back to the Germans and received currency. The Americans took [German] experts and gold. They took the experts in atomic energy and rockets, [because] that's what they were interested in. ...

We had to take into consideration our interests. Millions of our people didn't have houses for living. They were living in the caves, because houses were destroyed during the war and because we had no means. We had to take certain things. And not because we were robbers.

On the role of Soviet secret police during the occupation:

Our security organs, SMERSH and NKVD, played in our occupation policy a dual role. On the one hand, their role was positive: They stabilized the situation in Germany, struggling against [the Nazi] "volksturm," who went underground and [had been] shooting and killing our soldiers. It was their just role, that [the fascist hold-outs] should face trial and should be punished. ...

But unfortunately, those organs [also] played a negative role, a destabilizing role. They arrested people on the pretext that they were Nazis, when they had other reasons for arresting them. Some Germans [who] didn't like communists ... were arrested [because] the security organs believed that those Germans didn't like the Soviet Union. ... On April 20, 1946, Social Democrats and Communists united into one party. ... Unfortunately our security services were involved in it on the side of the communists: they arrested those who opposed the unification ...

Some KGB leaders ... took away gold items; they didn't leave them, they took them. There were cases about which we learned only not long ago: They arrested the Germans, took their flats, cottages, furniture, jewelry, and sent all of the things home. They used airplanes and sent all those things home. Of course, all those activities were criminal, against the law, and soon the German people learned about it. And of course, it compromised the Soviet forces' [ability] to win the souls of German people, to reach friendship with the German people.

Of course, our security organs ... didn't only deal with German problems, but they were supposed to supervise us too, and make sure our behavior was pro-Soviet. Liberty was not allowed. Freedom of speech or critical words were not allowed. Of course, [if we uttered] unjust words against Stalin, we were sent home immediately. ...

On whether the Soviet administration favored German communists:

We treated them differently. The Communist Party, of course, was our favorite. ... We thought this was just, because the German Communist Party was the major opponent of fascism and was fighting for democracy against fascism. But of course they might be blamed in part for Hitler's regime. But in general, during that period they opposed fascism. They were imprisoned more than anyone else; 300,000 communists were arrested and they were in concentration camps. And of course, we could respect them and we could trust them. ...

We took the communists as our allies, and of course we tended to cooperate with them -- though sometimes they let us down, because they wanted to be more Catholic than the pope himself. They wanted socialism immediately, in their sector. We had to curb them a bit. We said, "It's too early to speak about socialism." ... We received a lot of letters from communists who said, "While Soviet troops are in Germany, we need social revolution, because when the Soviet troops leave, it would be more difficult for us."

On the Berlin blockade and airlift:

We expected that the allies could introduce the army, and some military units might accompany trains and cars [crossing the border]. And we realized what might be the result: There might be some accidents with the soldiers, [and] it might be used to start a fight between the armies. We felt it. And we had a directive from Moscow to [have our families] leave Berlin. The families should leave, only in case of necessity. Families, children, wives should be evacuated. That was the situation. And we also knew that some British and American people also left [their] zones. They were returning to the States and Great Britain, tension was high. ...

Using that air corridor airlift, 250 planes -- 150 American, 100 British -- were involved, and one [arrived] every minute. ... Where I was living they flew 20, 50 meters over my house and touched down at Tempelhof, which was 2 kilometers away. We couldn't sleep, because the planes were huge B-29s. They brought everything to Berlin. Not only bread, meat, milk, but even coal. Wood. Anything. ... And they saved the situation.