BERLIN, February 25
Learn that Lord Londonderry was here around the first of the month, saw Hitler, Göring, and most of the others. He is an all-out pro-Nazi. Fear he has not been up to any good.
BERLIN, February 28
The French Chamber has approved the Soviet pact by a big majority. Much indignation in the Wilhelmstrasse. Fred Oechsner says that when he and Roy Howard saw Hitler day before yesterday, he seemed to be very preoccupied about something.
BERLIN, March 5
Party circles say Hitler is convoking the Reichstag for March 13, the date they expect the French Senate to approve the Soviet pact. Very ugly atmosphere in the Wilhelmstrasse today, but difficult to get to the bottom of it.
BERLIN, March 6, midnight
This has been a day of the wildest rumours. Definite, however, is that Hitler has convoked the Reichstag for noon tomorrow and summoned the ambassadors of Britain, France, Italy, and Belgium for tomorrow morning. Since these are the four Locarno powers, it is obvious from that and from what little information I could pry out of party circles that Hitler intends to denounce the Locarno Treaty, which only a year ago this month he said Germany would “scrupulously respect.” My guess too, based on what I’ve heard today, is that Hitler will also make an end of the demilitarized zone in the Rhineland, though the Wilhelmstrasse savagely denies this. Whether he will send the Reichswehr in is not sure. This seems too big a risk in view of the fact that the French army could easily drive it out. Much friction in the Cabinet reported today, with von Neurath, Schacht, and the generals supposedly advising Hitler to go slow. One informant told me tonight that Hitler would not send in troops, but merely declare the strong police force he now has in the Rhineland as part of the army, thus giving practical effect to ending its demilitarization. Hitler’s lightning move, according to one man in the Wilhelmstrasse, came after he’d received reports from his Embassy in Paris that the French Senate is sure to vote the Soviet pact in a day or two. Berlin tonight full of Nazi leaders hurriedly convoked for the Reichstag meeting. Saw a lot of them at the Kaiserhof and they seemed in a very cocky mood. Was on the phone several times to Dr. Aschmann, press chief at the Foreign Office, who kept giving the most categorical denials that German troops would march into the Rhineland tomorrow. That would mean war, he said. Wrote a dispatch which may have been a little on the careful side. But we shall know by tomorrow.
BERLIN, March 7
A little on the careful side is right! Hitler on this day has torn up the Locarno Treaty and sent in the Reichswehr to occupy the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland! A few diplomats on the pessimistic side think it means war. Most think he will get by with it. The important thing is that the French army has not budged. Tonight for the first time since 1870 grey-clad German soldiers and blue-clad French troops face each other across the upper Rhine. But I talked to Karlsruhe on the phone an hour ago; there have been no shots. I’ve had our Paris office on the line all evening, filing my dispatch. They say the French are not mobilizing—yet, at least—though the Cabinet is in session with the General Staff. London—as a year ago—seems to be holding back. The Reichswehr generals are still nervous, but not so nervous as they were this morning.
To describe this day, if I can:
At ten o’clock this morning Neurath handed the ambassadors of France, Britain, Belgium, and Italy a long memorandum. For once we got a break on the news because Dr. Dieckhoff, the State Secretary in the Foreign Office, called in Freddy Mayer, our counsellor of Embassy, and gave him a copy of the memorandum, apparently suggesting he give it to the American correspondents, since the American Embassy rarely gives us a lift like this of its own accord. Huss, who needed an early report for the INS, hurried over to the Embassy, and I walked over to the Reichstag, which was meeting at noon in the Kroll Opera House. The memorandum, however, along with Neurath’s oral remarks to the ambassadors that German troops had marched into the Rhineland at dawn this morning, told the whole story.
It argued that the Locarno pact had been rendered “extinct” by the Franco-Soviet pact, that Germany therefore no longer regarded itself as bound by it, and that the “German Government has therefore, as from today, restored the full and unrestricted sovereignty of the Reich in the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland.” There followed then another beautiful attempt by Hitler—and who can say he won’t succeed, after May 21 last?—to throw sand in the eyes of the “peace-loving” men of the West, men like Londonderry, the Astors, Lord Lothian, Lord Rothermere. He proposed a seven-point program of “Peace” in order, as the memo puts it, “to prevent any doubt as to its [the Reich government’s] intentions, and to make clear the purely defensive character of this measure, as well as to give expression to its lasting desire for the true pacification of Europe….” The proposal is a pure fraud, and if I had any guts, or American journalism had any, I would have said so in my dispatch tonight. But I am not supposed to be “editorial.”
In this latest “peace proposal” Hitler offers to sign a twenty-five-year non-aggression pact with Belgium and France, to be guaranteed by Britain and Italy; to propose to Belgium and France that both sides of their frontiers with Germany be demilitarized; to sign an air pact; to conclude non-aggression pacts with her eastern neighbours; and, finally, to return to the League of Nations. The quality of Hitler’s sincerity may be measured by his proposal to demilitarize both sides of the frontiers, thus forcing France to scrap her Maginot Line, now her last protection against a German attack.
The Reichstag, more tense than I have ever felt it (apparently the hand-picked deputies on the main floor had not yet been told what had happened, though they knew something was afoot), began promptly at noon. The French, British, Belgian, and Polish ambassadors were absent, but the Italian was there and Dodd. General von Blomberg, the War Minister, sitting with the Cabinet on the left side of the stage, was as white as a sheet and fumbled the top of the bench nervously with his fingers. I have never seen him in such a state. Hitler began with a long harangue which he has often given before, but never tires of repeating, about the injustices of the Versailles Treaty and the peacefulness of Germans. Then his voice, which had been low and hoarse at the beginning, rose to a shrill, hysterical scream as he raged against Bolshevism.
“I will not have the gruesome Communist international dictatorship of hate descend upon the German people! This destructive Asiatic Weltanschauung strikes at all values! I tremble for Europe at the thought of what would happen should this destructive Asiatic conception of life, this chaos of the Bolshevist revolution, prove successful!” (Wild applause.)
Then, in a more reasoned voice, his argument that France’s pact with Russia had invalidated the Locarno Treaty. A slight pause and:
“Germany no longer feels bound by the Locarno Treaty. In the interest of the primitive rights of its people to the security of their frontier and the safeguarding of their defence, the German Government has re-established, as from today, the absolute and unrestricted sovereignty of the Reich in the demilitarized zone!”
Now the six hundred deputies, personal appointees all of Hitler, little men with big bodies and bulging necks and cropped hair and pouched bellies and brown uniforms and heavy boots, little men of clay in his fine hands, leap to their feet like automatons, their right arms upstretched in the Nazi salute, and scream Heils, the first two or three wildly, the next twenty-five in unison, like a college yell. Hitler raises his hand for silence. It comes slowly. Slowly the automatons sit down. Hitler now has them in his claws. He appears to sense it. He says in a deep, resonant voice: “Men of the German Reichstag!” The silence is utter.
“In this historic hour, when in the Reich’s western provinces German troops are at this minute marching into their future peace-time garrisons, we all unite in two sacred vows.”
He can go no further. It is news to this hysterical “parliamentary” mob that German soldiers are already on the move into the Rhineland. All the militarism in their German blood surges to their hea
ds. They spring, yelling and crying, to their feet. The audience in the galleries does the same, all except a few diplomats and about fifty of us correspondents. Their hands are raised in slavish salute, their faces now contorted with hysteria, their mouths wide open, shouting, shouting, their eyes, burning with fanaticism, glued on the new god, the Messiah. The Messiah plays his role superbly. His head lowered as if in all humbleness, he waits patiently for silence. Then, his voice still low, but choking with emotion, utters the two vows:
“First, we swear to yield to no force whatever in the restoration of the honour of our people, preferring to succumb with honour to the severest hardships rather than to capitulate. Secondly, we pledge that now, more than ever, we shall strive for an understanding between European peoples, especially for one with our western neighbour nations…. We have no territorial demands to make in Europe!… Germany will never break the peace.”
It was a long time before the cheering stopped. Down in the lobby the deputies were still under the magic spell, gushing over one another. A few generals made their way out. Behind their smiles, however, you could not help detecting a nervousness. We waited in front of the Opera until Hitler and the other bigwigs had driven away and the S.S. guards would let us through. I walked through the Tiergarten with John Elliott to the Adlon, where we lunched. We were too taken aback to say much.
There is to be an “election” on March 29, “so the German people may pass judgment on my leadership,” as Hitler puts it. The result, of course, is a foregone conclusion, but it was announced tonight that Hitler will make a dozen “campaign” speeches starting tomorrow.
He cleverly tried to reassure Poland in his speech today. His words were: “I wish the German people to understand that although it affects us painfully that an access to the sea for a nation of thirty-five million people should cut through German territory, it is unreasonable to deny such a great nation that access.”
After lunch I took a stroll alone through the Tiergarten to collect my thoughts. Near the Skagerakplatz I ran into General von Blomberg walking along with two dogs on the leash. His face was still white, his cheeks twitching. “Has anything gone wrong?” I wondered. Then to the office, where I pounded my head off all afternoon, stopping to telephone to Paris my story every time I had three or four hundred words. Remembered it was Saturday when New York came through by cable hollering for early copy for the Sunday morningers. Saturday is Hitler’s day all right: the blood purge, conscription, today—all Saturday affairs.
Tonight as I finished my story, I could see from my office window which looks down the Wilhelmstrasse endless columns of storm troopers parading down the street past the Chancellery in torchlight procession. Sent Hermann down to take a look. He phoned that Hitler was taking the salute from his balcony, Streicher (of all people) at his side. The DNB claims there are torchlight processions all over the Reich tonight.
Our Cologne correspondent phoned several times to give a description of the occupation. According to him, the German troops have been given delirious receptions everywhere, the women strewing their line of march with flowers. He says the air force landed bombers and fighters at the Düsseldorf airdrome and several other fields. How many troops the Germans have sent into the Rhineland today nobody knows. François Poncet (the French Ambassador) told a friend of mine tonight that he had been lied to three times by the German Foreign Office on the subject in the course of the day. The Germans first announced 2,000 troops, then later 9,500 with “thirteen detachments of artillery.” My information is that they’ve sent in four divisions—about 50,000 men.
And so goes the main pillar of the European peace structure, Locarno. It was freely signed by Germany, it was not a Dictat, and Hitler more than once solemnly swore to respect it. At the Taverne tonight one of the French correspondents cheered us up by stating positively that the French army would march tomorrow but after what our Paris office said tonight I doubt it. Why it doesn’t march, I don’t understand. Certainly it is more than a match for the Reichswehr. And if it does, that’s the end of Hitler. He’s staked all on the success of his move and cannot survive if the French humiliate him by occupying the west bank of the Rhine. Around the Taverne’s Stammtisch most of us agreed on this. Much beer and two plates of spaghetti until three a.m., and then home. Must get up in time to attend another Heroes Memorial Day service at the Opera tomorrow. It should be even better than last year—unless the French—
BERLIN, March 8
Hitler has got away with it! France is not marching. Instead it is appealing to the League! No wonder the faces of Hitler and Göring and Blomberg and Fritsch were all smiles this noon as they sat in the royal box at the State Opera and for the second time in two years celebrated in a most military fashion Heroes Memorial Day, which is supposed to mark the memory of the two million Germans slain in the last war.
Oh, the stupidity (or is it paralysis?) of the French! I learned today on absolute authority that the German troops which marched into the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland yesterday had strict orders to beat a hasty retreat if the French army opposed them in any way. They were not prepared or equipped to fight a regular army. That probably explains Blomberg’s white face yesterday. Apparently Fritsch (commander-in-chief of the Reichswehr) and most of the generals opposed the move, but Blomberg, who has a blind faith in the Führer and his judgment, talked them into it. It may be that Fritsch, who loves neither Hitler nor the Nazi regime, consented to go along on the theory that if the coup failed, that would be the end of Hitler; if it succeeded, then one of his main military problems was solved.
Another weird story today. The French Embassy says—and I believe it—that Poncet called on Hitler a few days ago and asked him to propose his terms for a Franco-German rapprochement. The Führer asked for a few days to think it over. This seemed reasonable enough to the Ambassador, but he was puzzled at Hitler’s insistence that no word leak out to the public of this visit. He is no longer puzzled. It would have spoiled Hitler’s excuse that France was to blame for his tearing up the Locarno Treaty if the world had known that France, which after all had not yet ratified the Soviet pact, was willing to negotiate with him—indeed, had asked to negotiate.
The memorial services at the Opera this noon were conducted in a Wagnerian setting (Wagner’s influence on Nazism, on Hitler, has never been grasped abroad), the flood-lit stage full of steel-helmeted soldiers bearing war flags against a background of evergreen and a huge silver and black Iron Cross. The lower floor and balconies dotted with the old Imperial army uniforms and spiked helmets. Hitler sitting proudly in the Imperial box surrounded by Germany’s war leaders, past and present: Field-Marshal von Mackensen in his Death-Head Hussars uniform, Göring in a resplendent scarlet and blue uniform of an air-force general, General von Seekt, creator of the Reichswehr, General von Fritsch, its present leader, Admiral von Raeder, chief of the rapidly growing navy, and General von Krausz in the uniform of the old Austro-Hungarian army, his face adorned with vast side-whiskers à la Franz Josef. Absent only was Ludendorff, who declines to make his peace with his former corporal and who has turned down an offer of a field-marshalship; and the Crown Prince.
General von Blomberg delivered the address, a curious mixture of bluff, defiance, and glorification of militarism. “We do not want an offensive war,” he said, “but we do not fear a defensive war.” Though everyone here—if not in Paris or London—knows that he does, and that yesterday he was terrified that it might come off. Blomberg, obviously on Hitler’s orders, went out of his way in a most unsoldierly way to silence rumours that the Reichswehr generals opposed the Rhineland occupation and have little sympathy for Nazism. I could almost see Fritsch wince when his chief denounced the “whispers in the outside world about relations between the Nazi Party and the army.” Said the general with some emphasis: “We in the army are National Socialists. The party and the army are now closer together.” He went on to tell why. “The National Socialist revolution instead of destroying the old army,
as other revolutions have always done, has re-created it. The National Socialist state places at our disposal its entire economic strength, its people, its entire male youth.” And then a hint of the future: “An enormous responsibility rests upon our shoulders. It is all the more heavy because we may be placed before new tasks.”
Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent 1934-1941 Page 5