Martha Gellhorn and Major General James Gavin – Berlin, 1945

With the war at an end the precise status of Germany had to be determined, and even the Yalta conference had left things rather vague other than to say that the country would be governed by the Allies, and that Berlin itself would lie within the Soviet area of control. But things didn’t quite work out that way with Soviet, American, and British zones quickly set up.

Although the heaps of dead had been cleared away, and anything of value looted, the city was little more than a huge heap of rubble as a result of the months of heavy shelling and bombing. The water mains were leaking in over three thousand places, and there was little or no food to be had, with prostitution – male and female – rife.

Major General James Gavin, who now controlled the American sector, was quickly given a tour of his domain, introduced to his Russian counterpart who saluted him and gave him vodka. Gavin saluted back, took another slug of vodka, and then went off to meet Bob Capa at one of the few bars still standing to drink Armagnac and take a look at some of the photographs Capa had been taking of the terrified Berliners.

In a letter to Martha, Gavin wrote:

” I have been entrusted with the care of 887,000 very hungry, but rather docile Krauts, and have to find 600 tons of food every day to feed them. I’m wonderfully excited about the whole goddam thing. At last we, and hopefully the Russians too, are doing humanity some permanent good. But God how I love and miss you. Darling, I love you I love you I love you. It is a good love now. It is sturdy, dependable and solid. Something one can count on.”

In September Martha joined Gavin and was given a room in the staff quarters of the 82nd Airborne HQ. The official reason given for the preferential treatment was that she was writing a feature on Gavin’s leadership qualities for the Saturday Evening Post. Over more steaks and wine, served by the ever present, and ever helpful gold-toothed orderly, the two of them resumed their old routine of making love into the early hours then playing gin rummy, and reading to each other, and talking about the war. They laughed a great deal and criticised their political, and military leadership.