Lunch with our consul, Mr. Kuykendahl, who is helpful and aware of his key position. John Gunther turns up from nowhere for lunch. Afterwards John and I taxi over to Zoppot, the Baltic’s leading summer resort, whiling away the afternoon and evening on the pier, the beach, in the gaming rooms of the Casino (where we both lose at roulette), talking a blue streak, settling the world’s problems. Towards midnight he dashes off for Gdynia to catch the night express for Warsaw.
DANZIG, August 12
I have more and more the feeling that Danzig is not the issue and I’m wasting my time here. The issue is the independence of Poland or German domination of it. I must push on to Warsaw. Have been on the phone to Berlin several times today. The Berlin radio people are stalling on facilities for my broadcast from here tomorrow. Will phone Polskie Radio in Warsaw to see if they have a microphone at Gdynia. I could do my talk from there. I don’t like the idea of the Germans keeping me from talking altogether since I’ve come all this way and have something to say. The local Nazis very cool to me.
IN A WAGONLIT, GDYNIA—WARSAW, August 13, midnight
I did my broadcast to New York from Gdynia instead of Danzig. The Germans in Berlin wouldn’t say yes or no. The Poles in Warsaw pitched in gallantly. Pleased at defeating Nazi efforts to silence me. I had planned to drive the twelve miles from Danzig to Gdynia, but my German chauffeur got cold feet, said we’d be shot at by the Poles in a Danzig car. I dashed down to the station and caught a train. A devil of a time finding the radio studio in Gdynia. No one knew where it was. It was not in the phone book. The telephone central didn’t know. The army—the navy—the police—none knew. Finally, after I’d given up hope of broadcasting at all, we discovered it in the Post Office building. The radio telephone circuit with London, from where the talk was short-waved to New York, was completed only at the last minute. But reception, London said, was good. Chatted with two Polish radio engineers who had driven over from Thurn to do the broadcast. They were calm, confident. They said: “We’re ready. We will fight. We were born under German rule in this neighbourhood and we’d rather be dead than go through it again.”
After dinner, waiting for the Warsaw Express, I had time to look at this port town. The Poles, with French backing, have done a magnificent job. Fifteen years ago, Gdynia was a sleepy fishing village of 400 souls. Today it’s the largest port in the Baltic, with a population of over 100,000. Lacking natural facilities, the Poles have simply pushed piers out into the sea. The city itself looks like a mushroom growth, much like some of our Western towns thirty-five years ago. It is one of the promises of Poland.
LATER.—A point about the Danzig situation: Hitler is not yet ready for a showdown. Otherwise the Danzig Senate would not have backed down a week ago when, after informing Poland that the Polish customs officials in Danzig must cease their functions, it gave in to a Polish ultimatum and withdrew the order. But this may be only a temporary German setback.
WARSAW, August 16
Much excitement in official Polish circles today. Conferences between Smigly-Rydz, Beck, and the generals. A Polish soldier has been shot on the Danzig frontier. Result: an order tonight instructing Polish troops to shoot anyone crossing the Danzig border on sight and without challenge. Lunch at Ambassador Biddle’s. He is full of enthusiasm for his job and chock-full of good information, though I do not always agree with his conclusions. He is very pro-Polish, which is natural, and all right with me. Biddle is afraid the French and British are going to try appeasement again and suggests that Professor Burkhardt, the League High Commissioner in Danzig, and a Swiss, who saw Hitler at Berchtesgaden last week-end, may turn out to be another Runciman.
WARSAW, August 20
Broadcast to America at four a.m. today. Walking home to the hotel at dawn, the air was soft and fresh and the quiet soothing. Getting off to Berlin tonight on orders from New York—my fate always to get caught, I fear, on the wrong side. All in all, the Poles are calm and confident and Berlin’s gibes and Goebbels’s terrific press campaign of lies and invented incidents leave them cold. But they are too romantic, too confident. You ask them, as I’ve asked a score of officials in the Foreign Office and the army this past week, about Russia and they shrug their shoulders. Russia does not count for them. But it ought to. I think the Poles will fight. I know I said that, wrongly, about the Czechs a year ago. But I say it again about the Poles. Our Embassy is divided. Most think Poland will give a good account of itself. Our military attaché thinks the Poles can hold out alone against Germany for six months. Harrison, on the other hand, thinks the country will crack up. Major Eliot here. Thinks the Polish army is pretty good, but not sufficiently armed nor fully aware of its awful strategic position. To record: a riotous dinner John [Gunther] gave—much vodka, smoked salmon, and talk; lunch today with young Richard Mowrer, the very image of his father, Paul Scott Mowrer, and with his bride, who is most attractive. And last night before my broadcast a tramp through Warsaw with Maurice Hindus. Polskie Radio new short-wave transmitter not yet ready, which worries me.
BERLIN, August 23
Hans Kaltenborn, our star foreign-news commentator, was turned back by the secret police when he arrived at Tempelhof from London this afternoon. We have been nicely double-crossed by the Nazis. On orders from New York, I had inquired in official circles about his coming and had been told that there was no objection to his visiting here though he could not broadcast from Germany nor see any officials. I became suspicious when the passport officials continued to hold him after all the other passengers had been cleared. His wife, several German relatives of hers, and I waited patiently beyond the brass railing which separated us from him. It was sultry and hot, and as it became evident what was up, we all perspired profusely. The German relatives, who were exposing themselves to possible arrest by merely being there, remained bravely at the rail. I finally complained to a Gestapo man about keeping us standing so long, and after much heated argument he allowed Hans to accompany us all to the terrace of the airport café, where we ordered beer. Hans had arrived at three forty-five p.m. At quarter to six a Gestapo officer came up and announced that Hans would be taking the six o’clock plane back to London.
“Why, he’s just come from there,” I spoke up.
“And he’s returning there now,” the officer said.
“May I ask why?” Hans said, boiling inside but cool outside, though beads of sweat bubbled out on his forehead.
The officer had a ready answer. Looking in his notebook, he said with tremendous seriousness: “Herr Kaltenborn, on such and such a date in Oklahoma City you made a speech insulting the Führer.”
“Let me see the text of that, please,” Hans spoke up. But you do not argue with the Gestapo. There was no answer. Hans rushed out to get in the plane, but there was no room after all, and he came back and joined our table. I asked the Gestapo if he couldn’t take the night train to Poland. By now I was afraid he might have to spend the night in jail. I said I would get the American Embassy to guarantee that he wouldn’t jump off the train in Germany. Finally, reluctantly, they consented. I called Consul Geist. He would play the game. We adjourned again to our beers. Then the Gestapo man came running up out of breath. There was doch a place on the plane for the culprit. They had thrown someone off. And Hans was hustled out. As he got beyond the railing he remembered his pockets stuffed with American tobacco for me. He started to toss some of it to me, but a Gestapo agent stopped him. Verboten. Then he disappeared.
LATER (Four hours after midnight).—Great excitement at the Taverne tonight. About two a.m. we get the terms of the Russian-German pact. It goes much further than anyone dreamed. It’s a virtual alliance and Stalin, the supposed arch-enemy of Nazism and aggression, by its terms invites Germany to go in and clean up Poland. The friends of the Bolos are consternated. Several German editors—Halfeld, Kriegk, Silex—who only day before yesterday were writing hysterically about the Bolo peril, now come in, order champagne, and reveal themselves as old friends of the Soviets! T
hat Stalin would play such crude power politics and also play into the hands of the Nazis overwhelms the rest of us. The correspondents, especially the British, take to champagne or cognac to drown their feelings. Stalin’s step should kill world Communism. Will a French Communist, say, who has been taught for six years to hate Nazism above all else, swallow Moscow’s embracing of Hitler? Maybe, though, Stalin is smart. His aim: to bring on a war between Germany and the West which will result in chaos, after which the Bolsheviks step in and Communism comes to these countries or what is left of them. Maybe, too, he’s not smart. Hitler has broken every international agreement he ever made. When he has used Russia, as he once used Poland, with whom in 1934 he made a similar agreement, then good-bye Russia. Joe [Barnes], who is shaken by the news though he is the only one here who really knows Russia, and I argue the points. We sit down with the German editors. They are gloating, boasting, sputtering that Britain won’t dare to fight now, denying everything they have been told to say these last six years by their Nazi lords. We throw it into their faces, Joe and I. The argument gets nasty. Joe is nervous, depressed. So am I. Pretty soon we get nauseated. Something will happen if we don’t get out…. Mrs. Kaltenborn comes in. I had made a date with her here for three a.m. I apologize. I have to go. Joe has to go. Sorry. We wander through the Tiergarten until we cool off and the night starts to fade.
BERLIN, August 24, seven p.m.
It looks like war tonight. Across the street from my room they’re installing an anti-aircraft gun on the roof of I. G. Farben. I suppose it’s the same one I saw there last September. German bombers have been flying over the city all day. It may well be that Hitler will go into Poland tonight. Many think so. But I think that depends upon Britain and France. If they emphasize they will honour their word with Poland, Hitler may wait. And get what he wants without war. Went over to INS to get the text of Chamberlain’s statement to the house. It sounds firm. Ed telephoned from London an hour ago and said he was in Commons and it was firm. Hitler certainly seems to be standing firm. Yesterday the British Ambassador, Henderson, flew down to Berchtesgaden to see him. He told him the British would honour their pledge to help Poland if Germany attacked, regardless of the Russo-German treaty. Hitler replied no British guarantee could make Germany “forsake her Lebensrecht.”
With Russia in his bag, Hitler is not compromising, apparently. Russia in his bag! What a turn events have taken in the last forty-eight hours. Bolshevik Russia and Nazi Germany, the arch-enemies of this earth, suddenly turning the other cheek and becoming friends and concluding what, to one’s consternation, looks like an alliance.
It all broke Monday night (August 21) at eleven p.m. The German radio suddenly stopped in the middle of a musical program and a voice announced that Germany and Russia had decided to conclude a non-aggression pact. I missed it. I was at the Herald Tribune office chewing the rag with Joe [Barnes] until five minutes to eleven. No inkling of it then, except—I remembered later—a vague hint from the Wilhelmstrasse that there might be a story later that evening. Fatty, a German newspaperman, I think, mentioned it. Actually I got the news from London when Ed Murrow called at midnight. The RRG would not let me broadcast that night. Apparently they were waiting for “editorial” orders. The day before, on Sunday, there had been a hint of something with the announcement of a new trade agreement between Russia and Germany. The friendly words about this in the local press, which until then had been violent in its denunciation of Russia and Bolshevism, should have warned me, but didn’t. The announcement was as much of a bomb-shell for most of the big Nazis as for the rest of the world. Not more than a dozen, persons were in on Hitler’s secret.
The German press the next day (Tuesday, August 22) was wonderful to behold. Dr. Goebbels’s Angriff, the most ferocious Red-baiter of them all, wrote: “The world stands before a towering fact: two peoples have placed themselves on the basis of a common foreign policy which during a long and traditional friendship produced a foundation for a common understanding”! (Exclamation point mine, not Angriff’s.) And Dr. Karl Silex, once an honest foreign correspondent and now cringing editor of the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, in a front-page editorial called the new agreement a “natural partnership.” For years—since he became a Nazi slave—he has been violently attacking Bolshevism and Soviet Russia.
There’s no doubt that Hitler’s amazing move is popular among the masses. On Tuesday I made a point of riding around on the subway, elevated, street-cars, and buses. Everyone was reading the story in his newspaper. From their faces, from their talk, you could see they liked the news. Why? Because it means to them that the dreaded nightmare of encirclement—war on two fronts—apparently has been destroyed. Yesterday it was there. Today it is gone. There will be no long front against Russia to hold this time.
The last of the English correspondents left tonight for the nearest frontier—the Danish—on orders from their Embassy. Selkirk Panton of the Daily Express rushed in to ask me if I would take over his car until the scare was over and he came back.5 He thought he would be back in ten days, he said. Another Munich, you know. The Adlon bar very lonely tonight with the English gone. Much talk that Hitler has ordered the Germans to march into Poland at dawn. I doubt it. The German people haven’t yet been sufficiently worked up for war. No “cause” yet. No slogan. The papers haven’t yet written a word that war is imminent. The people in the streets are still confident Hitler will pull it off again without war. I cannot see war being popular among the masses as in 1914.
BERLIN, August 25
Someone in New York insisting we go ahead with a program planned several weeks ago to be called “Europe Dances”—pick-ups from night-clubs in London, Paris, Berlin. I’m arranging one from St. Pauli’s, a so-called “Hamburger Lokal,” but wired Murrow today suggesting we call it off. War’s too imminent for that sort of thing. Much uneasiness tonight because all afternoon and evening telephones and telegraph communications with the outside world were cut. When I arrived at the Rundfunk to do my broadcast tonight at one a.m., I had little hope of getting through, but the officials said nothing and I went ahead. Apparently it was the first word America had had from Berlin all day, and judging from what we heard on the feedback, there was some relief in New York when I reported all calm here and no war yet. Radio has a role to play, I think. Henderson saw Hitler twice today, and early this morning is flying to London. As long as they find something to negotiate about, there will be no war.
BERLIN, August 26
With Henderson off to London this morning and not expected back before tomorrow (Sunday) night. I think we’re in for a breathing-spell over the week-end. There is certainly no sign that Hitler is weakening. But the Wilhelmstrasse still hopes that Chamberlain will weaken. Our Embassy today issued a formal circular to all Americans here asking those whose presence was not absolutely necessary to leave. Most of the correspondents and businessmen have already sent out their wives and children. The big Nazi rally at Tannenberg scheduled for tomorrow, at which Hitler was to have spoken, has been cancelled because of the “gravity of the situation,” so I shall not have to go there. Talked with Murrow on phone and he readily agreed we should cancel our “Europe Dances” program. Some choice headlines in the German press today: The B.Z.: “COMPLETE CHAOS IN POLAND—GERMAN FAMILIES FLEE—POLISH SOLDIERS PUSH TO EDGE OF GERMAN BORDER!” The 12-Uhr Blatt: “THIS PLAYING WITH FIRE GOING TOO FAR—THREE GERMAN PASSENGER PLANES SHOT AT BY POLES—IN CORRIDOR MANY GERMAN FARMHOUSES IN FLAMES!”
Another hot day and most of the Berliners betook themselves to the lakes around the city, oblivious of the threat of war.
LATER. One thirty a.m.—Broadcast shortly after midnight. Have been trying not to be a prophet, but did say this: “I don’t know whether we’re going to have war or not. But I can tell you that in Berlin tonight the feeling is that it will be war unless Germany’s demands against Poland are fulfilled.” Tomorrow morning’s (Sunday’s) papers reveal for the first time that Hitler is demanding now not only
Danzig and the Corridor but everything Germany lost in 1918, which means Posen and Silesia. Just before I went on the air DNB informed me that rationing will be instituted beginning Monday. There will be ration cards for food, soap, shoes, textiles, and coal. This will wake up the German people to their situation! It is just possible, however, that Hitler is doing this to impress London and Paris. The Nazi Party rally at Nuremberg was called off tonight. This will also arouse the people from their apathy. Tomorrow morning’s papers will steep up the tension. Headline in Völkische Beobachter, Hitler’s own newspaper: “WHOLE OF POLAND IN WAR FEVER! 1,500,000 MEN MOBILIZED! UNINTERRUPTED TROOP TRANSPORT TOWARD THE FRONTIER! CHAOS IN UPPER SILESIA!”
No mention of any German mobilization, of course, though the Germans have been mobilized for a fortnight.
BERLIN, August 27 (Sunday)
Hot and sultry today, which makes for an increase in tension. Henderson failed to return today as expected, causing the Wilhelmstrasse to accuse the British of stalling. (In another fortnight the rains start in Poland, making the roads impassable.) Some Nazis, however, think Henderson’s delay in London means the British are giving in. Tomorrow’s Völkische Beobachter will ask the people to be patient: “The Führer is still demanding patience from you because he wants to exhaust even the last possibilities for a peaceful solution of the crisis. That means a bloodless fulfilment of the irreducible German demands.” This is a nice build-up to convince the people that if war does come, the Führer did everything possible to avoid it. The V.B. ends by saying that Germany, however, will not renounce her demands. “The individual, as well as the nation, can renounce only those things which are not vital.” There you have German character stripped to the bone. A German cannot renounce vital things, but he expects the other fellow to. Hitler this afternoon addressed the members of the Reichstag in the Chancellery, though it was not a regular session. No report of his speech available. A DNB communiqué merely says the Führer” outlined the gravity of the situation.” This is the first time the German people have been told by Hitler that the “situation is grave.”
Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent 1934-1941 Page 16