But their ordeal was not over. There were Communist demonstrators inside too, hundreds of them. They had to fight through the corridors. In the meeting hall the demonstrators were everywhere – not just in the visitors’ gallery but on the floor of the chamber. Their behaviour here was just as aggressive as outside.

Some Social Democrats were here, and others arrived after Carla. Somehow most of the sixty-three had been able to fight their way through the mob. She was relieved. The enemy had not managed to scare them off.

When the speaker of the assembly called for order, a Communist assemblyman standing on a bench urged the demonstrators to stay. When he saw Carla he yelled: ‘Traitors stay outside!’

It was all grimly reminiscent of 1933: bullying, intimidation, and democracy being undermined by rowdyism. Carla was in despair.

Glancing up to the gallery, she was appalled to see her brother, Erik, among the yelling mob. ‘You’re German!’ she screamed at him. ‘You lived under the Nazis. Have you learned nothing?’

He seemed not to hear her.

Frau Schroeder stood on the platform, calling for calm. She was jeered and booed by the demonstrators. Raising her voice to a shout, she said: ‘If the city council cannot hold an orderly debate in this building, I will move the meeting to the American sector.’

There was renewed abuse, but the twenty-six Communist councillors saw that this move would not suit their purpose. If the council met outside the Soviet zone once, it might do so again, and even move permanently out of the range of Communist intimidation. After a short discussion, one of them stood up and told the demonstrators to leave. They filed out, singing the ‘Internationale’.

‘It’s obvious whose command they’re under,’ Heinrich said.

At last there was quiet. Frau Schroeder explained the Soviet demand, and said that it could not apply outside the Soviet sector of Berlin unless it was ratified by the other Allies.

A Communist deputy made a speech accusing her of taking orders directly from New York.

Accusations and abuse raged to and fro. Eventually they voted. The Communists unanimously backed the Soviet decree – after accusing others of being controlled from outside. Everyone else voted against, and the motion was defeated. Berlin had refused to be bullied. Carla felt wearily triumphant.

However, it was not yet over.

By the time they left it was seven o’clock in the evening. Most of the mob had disappeared, but there was a thuggish hardcore still hanging around the entrance. An elderly woman councillor was kicked and punched as she left. The police looked on with indifference.

Carla and Heinrich left by a side door with a few friends, hoping to depart unobserved, but a Communist on a bicycle was monitoring the exit. He rode off quickly.

As the councillors hurried away, he returned at the head of a small gang. Someone tripped Carla, and she fell to the ground. She was kicked painfully once, twice, three times. Terrified, she covered her belly with her hands. She was almost three months pregnant – the stage at which most miscarriages occurred, she knew. Will Werner’s baby die, she thought desperately, kicked to death on a Berlin street by Communist thugs?