I am not sure when Daddy’s battalion arrived in Berlin. It must have been soon after the war but they stayed until November when the Battalion was mustered out.
I do have some of their first meeting with the Russians outside Berlin.
There are civilians in some of his photos so I don’t think it was cordoned off.
They were busy clearing and also building. They hired German civilians to do some work and Daddy described them as extremely hard working.
They constructed two mess halls for the Potsdam Conference in only two days. The Americans were hard workers too.
Thanks to your dad for what he and others did.
I was told that that section of Berlin was on lockdown until the Soviets found the dental assistant for Hitler’s dentist and other higher rank NAZIs. Lockdown meant nobody went anywhere without questioning (or worse). The dental assistant knew the dental history of Hitler’s jaw, information that would help identify his corpse (if he was indeed dead).
The Soviets (due to this extraordinary control) found the dental assistant and got a thorough picture of the Hitler’s dentition, which matched very closely a skull they had.
Only after all this information was collected (May and June) were other nation’s military personnel allowed nearby and civilians allowed to enter certain areas.
I was also told that even though Stalin knew he had Hitler’s body, he would not confirm it publicly. He used the “Hitler is somewhere in the capitalist west being sheltered” as a propaganda weapon.
This is just what I was told; perhaps it sheds further light on your photos.