SATURDAY, January 21st, 1933. I walk through the Wallstrasse in the evening with my comrades Richard Hüttig and Franz Zander. We stop at the corner of the Berlinerstrasse. Glaring arc-lamps above us. An unceasing stream of cars and trams. “There comes another batch,” says Richard, nudging me. Three dusty open lorries come from the left. They rumble slowly through the circle of light cast by the lamps. Brown uniforms stand packed together in the lorry. The rays of light from the lamps show up a few boyish faces for the space of a second. They glance at us with curiosity, astonishment at the big town written on their faces. Richard reads the registration number of the last lorry.

“All of them from the country, called up to the last man,” he says.

Franz Zander nods. “They’re all farm workers.”

He leans against the lamp-post.

“I once worked for farmers. It used to be the Stahlhelm1 that got the jobs; now it’s the S.A.2 Otherwise there’s no work.”

An open car drives past; six brown uniforms sit on the collapsible seats.

“S.A. patrol cars!” says Richard.

The Nazi3 headquarters, the Hohenzollernbanqueting-rooms, are only a few streets further on. More of their cars patrol the streets at regular intervals. The police never examinethem for weapons.

“Let’s go,” says Franz curtly, and turns on his heel.

The Wallstrasse, with its crowded rows of houses, dimly lit by a few gas-lamps, lies before us like a long grey defile. Three Schupos4 stand in a doorway. They have buckled their chin-straps under the chin. The barrels of their rifles show up above their shoulders.

“They’ve been reinforced!”

People are standing in front of all the doors. They talk in whispers, as if they feared to wake someone. We nod to them. Richard raises two fingers to his cap, as if he were pacing down the lines of his Buildings Defence Groups. The street makes a sharp bend in the centre. There is a wide gap in the row of houses here. A building site, with rubbish-heaps and a dingy grey fence. Our political slogans, pasted over with the tattered posters of a wandering circus. Close by, the Charlottenburg Power Works, a large modern red-brick building. Low wooden houses stretch away to the left of the works. Lights still burn in all the windows. Temporary billets, run up in the years of the greatest housing scarcity, they have now become permanent dwellings. Nearly all the tenants are unemployed.

Suddenly Richard stops. He looks up at the solitary detached gable on the left that towers above the billets. It is quiet here, ominously quiet. Only the dull hum of the machines that run day and night comes from the huge windows of the Power Works.

“Our party slogans,” says Richard.

High up on the gable in large painted letters:

ANTI-FASCISTS! VOTE FOR LIST THREE! COMMUNIST PARTY!RED FRONT!

Richard and Ede! Ede, the best climber in ourdistrict, lowered at night by a rope from the roof on to a swaying plank to paint our election slogans. The police don’t dare to get up there even during the day, although the words burn their eyes like pepper. The illuminated row of windows in the gable seems to hang suspended in the night.

A gas explosion some years ago demolished the front of the house near the gable. Only the hall door was left, amiserable survival. The crumbling walls of the back yard now face the street. We see a few sticks of furniture behind the windows, the lines on which the washing is drying.

Werner’s beer-house, near the gable, is our meeting-place. We cross the road. Our sentries stand outside.

“Red Front!”

“Red Front!”

There are small round holes in the window-panes. Revolver shots from the S.A. Stormtroop 33. Round brass plates are fixed in the upper half of the pane. Theinsurance company has had the window repaired several times already.

“Anything special?”

“No, Comrade Hüttig, only the police cars….” The sentry stops speaking, nodding his head towards the bend in the street. For a second, headlights blind us. Slowly the car drives past.

Glistening helmets. Rifles.

“They’ve been here twice already. Searching for arms … here … in our place!” says the sentry mockingly.

Richard opens the door. A clamour of voices strikes us. The fat, white-bearded landlord nods to us from the bar. His red-faced wife is washing the glasses. Clouds of smoke float towards the ceiling. A feeling of suspense; my nerves react immediately. An excited group stands round the large centre table.

“… To-morrow is the Nazi’s dress rehearsal. Will the Social Democrats5 ….?”

“I have spoken to a good many; they will be on the streets with us to-morrow,” says Franz quietly.

“Since the 20th of July a lot realise …”

“From realising to fighting …” replies the other dubiously.

“Ready-made” draws a paper from his pocket. He is an assistant at Brennickmayer’s Ready-to-Wear Tailoring Establishment, and has to dress like a “gentleman.” He reads from the paper:

“… It is t