Suicide in Berlin
Sir: In his interesting article on Berlin, Mr Frank Whitford refers to 'the astonishingly high suicide rate' there now. This is nothing new. Writing of the extraordinary times of 1945 and 1946 in my book, Berlin '45 (Macmillan, 1966). 'liked that, 'suicides averaged five a day, but for some reason they have always been high in Berlin.' Now a writer in the Sunday Express tells us that the suicide rate in Sweden is currently the highest in Western Europe. I seem to have heard this before over some years. Perhaps someone more learned medically and sociologically than am would explain what particular frustrations may lurk behind these phenomena, if such they be, when the circumstances of the two areas seem very different. Mr Whitford also mentions that the population of West Berlin is now 2.200.000. Despite great changes in conditions there in the last twenty-five years, and despite the apparently thriving economy. this figure is remarkably close to that given by General Bedell Smith for people living in West Berlin when the Soviet blockade began In June 1948-2,240.000. Odd.
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