"Plans for the evacuation [of Berlin] were made two months ago, when évacué centers were set up east of Berlin. Last week stores of food, blankets and other supplies waited for the refugees, and the people of Eastern Germany were urged to welcome them. Berliners with relatives in the country were instructed to take refuge with them. Others were issued food ration cards and told to take along cooking and eating utensils. In the city teen-age boys and girls were forbidden to leave and were mobilized into fire-fighting patrols; Reich Ministers skipped to the country each night and advised newspapermen to do the same. Berliners who stayed were instructed in the ways of blitz warfare, while Goebbels begged them to stand up under bombs as stoutly as the British did in 1940. They dug more trenches and built bomb shelters. In their houses they filled tubs with water, extinguished fires labeled their furniture and waited fearfully. Refugees from Hamburg told them what to expect."
