Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent 1934-1941

by William L. Shirer

  Food rations were fixed today and I heard many Germans grumbling at their size. Some: meat, 700 grams per week; sugar, 280 grams; marmalade, 110 grams; coffee or substitute, one eighth of a pound per week. As to soap, 125 grams are allotted to each person for the next four weeks. News of rationing has come as a heavy blow to the people.

  Representative Ham Fish, who seems to have been taken in completely by Ribbentrop, who gave him an airplane to rush him to the inter-parliamentary meeting in Scandinavia the other day to tell the assembled democrats how serious was the situation, arrived today and struck us as very anxious to continue on his way. Joe [Barnes] and I observed him talking very seriously at lunch in the Adlon courtyard with Dr. Zallatt, a minor and unimportant official of the Foreign Office who is supposed to be in charge of American press matters there, but whom no American correspondent bothers with because he knows nothing. Later, after keeping the press corps waiting an hour, Fish emerged from lunch and in a grave tone said: “Excuse me, gentlemen, for being late, but I have just been having a talk with an important official of the German government.” The boys suppressed their laughter only with difficulty. Fish left this afternoon on the first train. Geoffrey Parsons, chief editorial writer of the Herald Tribune, calm, intelligent, tolerant, profound, left last night for Paris. He had seen Churchill last week and believes it will be war.

  Despite everything the odds in the Wilhelmstrasse today are still for peace.

  BERLIN, August 28

  They’re all putting themselves way out on a limb. Difficult for any of Europe’s leaders to retreat now. At two this morning we get the text of letters exchanged Saturday and Sunday between Daladier and Hitler. Daladier in a noble tone asks that Hitler hold back from war, says that there is no question which cannot be solved peacefully, reminds Hitler that Poland after all is a sovereign nation, and claims that France will honour its obligations to Poland. Hitler regrets that France intends to fight to “maintain a wrong.” And then for the first time he reveals his demands. Danzig and the Corridor must be returned to Germany, he says. He realizes full well the consequences of war, he claims, but concludes that Poland will fare worse than anyone else.

  There was a fine line in Daladier’s letter, the last sentence: “If French and German blood is now to be spilled, as it was twenty-five years ago… then each of the two peoples will fight confident of its own victory. But surely Destruction and Barbarism will be the real victors.”

  Ed [Murrow] phones from London at one thirty p.m. He is tired, but in good spirits. We are both broadcasting four or five times a day—from noon until four a.m. Ed disagrees with what Bill Stoneman told me on the phone last night from London: namely, that the British were selling out. Ed says they can’t now. He thinks Henderson, who is returning to Berlin from London this afternoon, will bring an answer to Hitler “that will shock him.” Announcement of food cards and the publication of the text of the letters of Hitler and Daladier seem to have made the people in the street at last realize the seriousness of the situation, judging by their looks. An old German reading the letters said to me: “Ja, they forget what war is like. But I don’t. I remember.”

  Troops, east-bound, pouring through the streets today. No crack units these. They were being transported in moving-vans, grocery trucks, et cetera. Germany has assured Belgium, Holland, Luxemburg, and Switzerland that it will respect their neutrality in case of war.

  LATER.—Henderson arrived back by plane at eight thirty p.m., went to the Chancellery at ten thirty p.m., and stayed until eleven forty. No reliable news about this crucial meeting, though the official line at the Wilhelmstrasse at midnight was by no means pessimistic.

  BERLIN, August 29

  The average German today looks dejected. He can’t get over the blow of the ration cards, which to him spells war. Last night when Henderson flew back with London’s answer to Hitler’s demands—on a night when everyone knew the issue of war or peace might be decided—I was amazed to see that less than 500 people out of a population of 5,000,000 turned out in front of the Chancellery. These few stood there grim and silent. Almost a defeatism discernible in the people. One man remarked to me last night: “The Corridor? Hell, we haven’t heard about that for twenty years. Why bring it up now?”

  LATER. Three a.m.—At seven fifteen tonight Hitler gave Henderson his reply to the British proposals.6 To the surprise of the Wilhelmstrasse, the British Ambassador did not fly off to London with it, though the Germans had a plane ready for him at Tempelhof. He merely filed it in the regular diplomatic way. It looks as though the British were getting tough at last. Some of the correspondents, including myself, at the Taverne tonight had the feeling that the British had the corporal on the run. The German editors were not so boastful tonight at the Taverne. The truth is, Hitler is hesitating. Many ardent Nazis think he should have moved last Friday. If it’s true that the British have him on the run, will the English conservatives still make a deal to save him? I dropped into the British Embassy this evening to see an old friend. The halls were full of luggage. “We’re all packed,” he laughed.

  BERLIN, August 30

  The British reply to Hitler’s latest came bouncing back to Berlin tonight. With what result, we don’t know. Henderson has seen Ribbentrop again, but no news of it. Tonight may well be decisive. DNB [the German news agency] has announced it will be issuing news all night tonight. This sounds ominous. The Wilhelmstrasse took pains this evening to point out to us that the non-aggression pact with Russia is also a consultative pact and that this part of it had been put into operation the last few days. This puzzles me, but I said in my broadcast tonight: “That would seem to mean—and, indeed, informed circles in the Wilhelmstrasse leave no doubt about it—that the Germans and Soviets also have been doing some talking the last few days, and, as one writer says tonight, ‘talking about Poland.’ In this connection the German press tonight does not omit to mention a dispatch from Moscow to the effect that not only has Russia not withdrawn her three hundred thousand men from its western frontier, as reported, but on the contrary has strengthened her forces there—that is, on the Polish border. I don’t know the significance of that. I only know that it’s given some prominence here.”

  LATER.—Poles ordered general mobilization at two thirty p.m. today. It isn’t terribly important, because Poland has already mobilized about as many men as it has guns and shoes for. But the story gives the German press an excuse to hail Poland as the aggressor. (Germany has mobilized too, though not formally.) Since Hitler now has publicly demanded the return of Danzig and the Corridor, the German people ought to know who the aggressor is liable to be. But they are swallowing Dr. Goebbels’s pills, I fear.

  At midnight Hitler announces formation of a War Cabinet—to be called a Ministerial Council for the Defence of the Reich. Göring to preside; other members are Frick, Funk, Lammers, and General Keitel.

  The sands are running fast tonight.

  BERLIN, August 31 (morning)

  Everybody against the war. People talking openly. How can a country go into a major war with a population so dead against it? People also kicking about being kept in the dark. A German said to me last night: “We know nothing. Why don’t they tell us what’s up?” Optimism in official circles melting away this morning, I thought. Huss thinks Hitler may have one great card left, an agreement with Stalin to attack the Poles in the back. I highly doubt it, but after the Russo-German pact anything is possible. Some think the Big Boy is trying to get off the limb now—but how?

  LATER.—Broadcast at seven forty-five p.m. Said: “The situation tonight is very critical. Hitler has not yet answered the British note of last night…. An answer may not be necessary…. The new Defence Council sat all day. The Wilhelmstrasse has been seething with activity…. There has been no contact between the German and British governments. Instead… between Russia and Germany. Berlin expects the Soviets to ratify the Russo-German pact this evening…. The British Ambassador did not visit the Wilhelmstrasse. He had a talk w
ith his French colleague, M. Coulondre. Then he saw the Polish Ambassador, M. Lipski. Bags at these three embassies are all packed….”

  LATER. Three thirty a.m.—A typical Hitler swindle was sprung this evening. At nine p.m. the German radio stopped its ordinary program and broadcast the terms of German “proposals” to Poland. I was taken aback by their reasonableness, and having to translate them for our American listeners immediately, as we were on the air, I missed the catch. This is that Hitler demanded that a Polish plenipotentiary be sent to Berlin to “discuss” them by last night, though they were only given to Henderson the night before.7 An official German statement (very neat) complains that the Poles would not even come to Berlin to discuss them. Obviously, they didn’t have time. And why should Hitler set a time limit to a sovereign power? The “proposals”—obviously never meant seriously—read like sweet reason, almost. They contain sixteen points, but the essential ones are four: (1) Return of Danzig to Germany. (2) A plebiscite to determine who shall have the Corridor. (3) An exchange of minority populations. (4) Gdynia to remain Polish even if the Corridor votes to return to Germany.

  Tonight the great armies, navies, and air forces are all mobilized. Each country is shut off from the other. We have not been able today to get through to Paris or London, or of course to Warsaw, though I did talk to Tess in Geneva. At that, no precipitate action is expected tonight. Berlin is quite normal in appearance this evening. There has been no evacuation of the women and children, not even any sandbagging of the windows. We’ll have to wait through still another night, it appears, before we know. And so to bed, almost at dawn.

  BERLIN, September 1

  At six a.m. Sigrid Schultz—bless her heart—phoned. She said: “It’s happened.” I was very sleepy—my body and mind numbed, paralysed. I mumbled: “Thanks, Sigrid,” and tumbled out of bed.

  The war is on!

  PART II

  The War

  WLS

  BERLIN, September 1, later

  It’s a “counter-attack”! At dawn this morning Hitler moved against Poland. It’s a flagrant, inexcusable, unprovoked act of aggression. But Hitler and the High Command call it a “counter-attack.” A grey morning with overhanging clouds. The people in the street were apathetic when I drove to the Rundfunk for my first broadcast at eight fifteen a.m. Across from the Adlon the morning shift of workers was busy on the new I. G. Farben building just as if nothing had happened. None of the men bought the Extras which the newsboys were shouting. Along the east-west axis the Luftwaffe were mounting five big anti-aircraft guns to protect Hitler when he addresses the Reichstag at ten a.m. Jordan and I had to remain at the radio to handle Hitler’s speech for America. Throughout the speech, I thought as I listened, ran a curious strain, as though Hitler himself were dazed at the fix he had got himself into and felt a little desperate about it. Somehow he did not carry conviction and there was much less cheering in the Reichstag than on previous, less important occasions. Jordan must have reacted the same way. As we waited to translate the speech for America, he whispered: “Sounds like his swan song.” It really did. He sounded discouraged when he told the Reichstag that Italy would not be coming into the war because “we are unwilling to call in outside help for this struggle. We will fulfil this task by ourselves.” And yet Paragraph 3 of the Axis military alliance calls for immediate, automatic Italian support with “all its military resources on land, at sea, and in the air.” What about that? He sounded desperate when, referring to Molotov’s speech of yesterday at the Russian ratification of the Nazi-Soviet accord, he said: “I can only underline every word of Foreign Commissar Molotov’s speech.”

  Tomorrow Britain and France probably will come in and you have your second World War. The British and French tonight sent an ultimatum to Hitler to withdraw his troops from Poland or their ambassadors will ask for their passports. Presumably they will get their passports.

  LATER. Two thirty a.m.—Almost through our first black-out. The city is completely darkened. It takes a little getting used to. You grope around the pitch-black streets and pretty soon your eyes get used to it. You can make out the whitewashed curbstones. We had our first air-raid alarm at seven p.m. I was at the radio just beginning my script for a broadcast at eight fifteen. The lights went out, and all the German employees grabbed their gas-masks and, not a little frightened, rushed for the shelter. No one offered me a mask, but the wardens insisted that I go to the cellar. In the darkness and confusion I escaped outside and went down to the studios, where I found a small room in which a candle was burning on a table. There I scribbled out my notes. No planes came over. But with the English and French in, it may be different tomorrow. I shall then be in the by no means pleasant predicament of hoping they bomb the hell out of this town without getting me. The ugly shrill of the sirens, the rushing to a cellar with your gas-mask (if you have one), the utter darkness of the night—how will human nerves stand that for long?

  One curious thing about Berlin on this first night of the war: the cafés, restaurants, and beer-halls were packed. The people just a bit apprehensive after the air-raid, I felt. Finished broadcasting at one thirty a.m., stumbled a half-mile down the Kaiserdamm in the dark, and finally found a taxi. But another pedestrian appeared out of the dark and jumped in first. We finally shared it, he very drunk and the driver drunker, and both cursing the darkness and the war.

  The isolation from the outside world that you feel on a night like this is increased by a new decree issued tonight prohibiting the listening to foreign broadcasts. Who’s afraid of the truth? And no wonder. Curious that not a single Polish bomber got through tonight. But will it be the same with the British and French?

  BERLIN, September 2

  The German attack on Poland has now been going on for two days and Britain and France haven’t yet honoured their promises. Can it be that Chamberlain and Bonnet are going to try to sneak out of them? Hitler has cabled Roosevelt he will not bomb open towns if the others don’t. No air-raid tonight. Where are the Poles?

  BERLIN, September 3

  Hitler’s “counter-attack” on Poland has on this Sabbath day become a world war! To record the date: September 3, 1939. The time: eleven a.m. At nine o’clock this morning Sir Nevile Henderson called on the German Foreign Minister and handed him a note giving Germany until eleven o’clock to accept the British demand that Germany withdraw her troops from Poland. He returned to the Wilhelmstrasse shortly after eleven and was handed the German reply in the form of a memorandum. The extras are out on the streets now. The newsboys are giving them away. The D.A.Z. here. Its headlines:

  BRITISH ULTIMATUM TURNED DOWN

  ENGLAND DECLARES A STATE OF WAR WITH GERMANY

  BRITISH NOTE DEMANDS WITHDRAWAL OF OUR TROOPS IN THE EAST

  THE FÜHRER LEAVING TODAY FOR THE FRONT

  A typical headline over the official account:

  GERMAN MEMORANDUM PROVES ENGLAND’S GUILT.

  I was standing in the Wilhelmplatz about noon when the loud-speakers suddenly announced that England had declared herself at war with Germany. Some 250 people were standing there in the sun. They listened attentively to the announcement. When it was finished, there was not a murmur. They just stood there as they were before. Stunned. The people cannot realize yet that Hitler has led them into a world war. No issue has been created for them yet, though as this day wears on, it is plain that “Albion’s perfidy” will become the issue as it did in 1914. In Mein Kampf Hitler says the greatest mistake the Kaiser made was to fight England, and Germany must never repeat that mistake.

  It has been a lovely September day, the sun shining, the air balmy, the sort of day the Berliner loves to spend in the woods or on the lakes near by. I walked in the streets. On the faces of the people astonishment, depression. Until today they have been going about their business pretty much as usual. There were food cards and soap cards and you couldn’t get any gasoline and at night it was difficult stumbling around in the blackout. But the war in the east has seemed a b
it far away to them—two moonlight nights and not a single Polish plane over Berlin to bring destruction—and the papers saying that German troops have been advancing all along the line, that the Polish air force has been destroyed. Last night I heard Germans talking of the “Polish thing” lasting but a few weeks, or months at the most. Few believed that Britain and France would move. Ribbentrop was sure they wouldn’t and had told the Führer, who believed him. The British and French had been accommodating before. Another Munich, why not? Yesterday, when it seemed that London and Paris were hesitating, everyone, including those in the Wilhelmstrasse, was optimistic. Why not?

  In 1914, I believe, the excitement in Berlin on the first day of the World War was tremendous. Today, no excitement, no hurrahs, no cheering, no throwing of flowers, no war fever, no war hysteria. There is not even any hate for the French and British—despite Hitler’s various proclamations to the people, the party, the East Army, the West Army, accusing the “English warmongers and capitalistic Jews” of starting this war. When I passed the French and British embassies this afternoon, the sidewalk in front of each of them was deserted. A lone Schupo paced up and down before each.