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

by William L. Shirer

  At lunch-time we gathered in the courtyard of the Adlon for drinks with a dozen members of the British Embassy staff. They seemed completely unmoved by events. They talked about dogs and such stuff. Some mystery about the French not acting in concert with the British today, Coulondre’s ultimatum not running out until five p.m., six hours after Britain was at war. But the French tell us this was due to faulty communications with Paris.8

  The High Command lets it be known that on the western front the Germans won’t fire first against the French.

  LATER.—Broadcast all afternoon and evening. Third night of the black-out. No bombs, though we rather expected the British and French. The newspapers continue to praise the decree against listening in to foreign broadcasts! What are they afraid of?

  BERLIN, September 4

  After midnight and no air-raid, even with the British and French in the war. Can it be that in this new World War they’re not going to bomb the big cities, the capitals, the civilians, the women and children at home, after all? The people here breathing easier already. They didn’t sleep much the first couple of nights.

  On the feedback from New York tonight I heard the story of the sinking of the Athenia with 1,400 passengers, including 240 Americans, aboard. The English said it was a German U-boat. The Germans promptly denied it, though the German press and radio have been forbidden to mention the matter until tomorrow. I felt lousy talking from here at all tonight after that story and went out of my way to explain my personal position as an American broadcaster—that I had been assigned to give the news from Germany, that official statements such as the denial that a German submarine had torpedoed the Athenia were part of that news, and that my orders from home were to refrain from expressing my personal opinions. The High Command has installed military censorship of everything I say, but fortunately the chief censor is a naval officer, an honourable and decent man. I have had some warm words with him the last couple of days, but within the limits of his job he has been reasonable.

  The war is starting to hurt the average man. Tonight a decree providing for a surtax on the income tax of a straight fifty per cent and a big increase in the tax on beer and tobacco. Also a decree fixing prices and wages.

  The staffs of the French and British embassies got away today in two big Pullman trains. I was a little struck by the weird fact that while the killing goes on, all the diplomatic niceties were strictly observed by both sides to the very last.

  The faces of the Germans when word came in late tonight that the British had bombed Cuxhaven and Wilhelmshaven for the first time! This was bringing the war home, and nobody seemed to like it.

  BERLIN, September 5

  Very strange about that western front. The Wilhelmstrasse assured us today that not a single shot has been fired there yet. Indeed, one official told me—though I doubt his word—that the German forces on the French border were broadcasting in French to the poilus: “We won’t shoot if you don’t.” Same informant claimed the French had hoisted a streamer from a balloon saying the same thing. Today the RRG9 gave its first broadcast from the front, and it sounded plenty realistic. It was of course a recording. The Germans say they will let me do radio recordings at the front, but American networks won’t permit the broadcasting of recordings—a pity, because it is the only way radio can really cover the war from the front. I think we’re throwing away a tremendous opportunity, though God knows I have no burning desire to die a hero’s death at the front. The fortress of Graudenz fell today and the Germans have smashed through the Corridor. After a slow start they seem to be going awfully fast. In the south Cracow is surrounded.

  BERLIN, September 6

  Cracow, second town of Poland, was captured this afternoon. The High Command also states that Kielce has fallen. Looking for it on my map, I was amazed to find that it lies way to the east of both Lodz and Cracow, almost due south of Warsaw. Nobody had any idea the German army had got that far. In one week the Germans have pushed far beyond their 1914 frontiers. It begins to look like a rout for the Poles.

  I learned tonight that the liner Bremen has succeeded in evading the British blockade and today put in at Murmansk on the northern coast of Russia after a dash from New York. I’m pretty sure I’m the only one in town who knows it and I led off my broadcast with the yarn. At the last minute the military censor rushed in and cut it out; said I couldn’t mention it.

  LATER.—Joe [Barnes] and I met in my room at one a.m. to talk things over. We have an idea that Britain and France will not shed much blood on the western front, but will maintain an iron blockade and wait for Germany to collapse. In the meantime Poland will of course be overrun.

  BERLIN, September 7

  Have heard much talk today about peace! Idea is that after Germany’s victory over Poland Hitler will offer the West peace. I wrote this rather carefully for my broadcast this evening, but the censor wouldn’t allow a word of it.

  It’s just a week since the “counter-attack” began and tonight I learn from an army friend that the Germans are within twenty miles of Warsaw. A new decree today providing the death penalty for anyone “endangering the defensive power of the German people”—a term which will give Gestapo chief Himmler plenty of leeway. Another decree forces workers to accept new jobs even if they pay lower wages than jobs previously held.

  BERLIN, September 8

  The German High Command announces that at five fifteen p.m. today German troops reached Warsaw. The radio broadcast the news at seven fifteen p.m. Immediately afterwards a band played Deutschland über Alles and the Horst Wessel song. Even our military attachés were stunned by the news. There was no wild rejoicing in the streets of Berlin tonight. In the subway going out to the radio studio I noted the strange indifference of the people to the big news. And while Poland is being overrun, not a shot yet—so the Germans say—on the western front! The first person to be executed under yesterday’s decree—Himmler has lost no time—is one Johann Heinen of Dessau. He was shot, it’s announced, “for refusing to take part in defensive work.”

  NBC and Mutual have stopped their European broadcasts. Ed Klauber cables we shall continue alone. Smart we were to build up a staff of American radio reporters. Home early tonight at one a.m. for the first time since the war started and shall get a night’s sleep for once. Heard Ed broadcasting from London tonight. He sounded dead tired, as am I after being on the air night and day with practically no sleep for a month.

  BERLIN, September 9

  The second air-raid alarm of the war at four a.m. today, but I did not hear it, being engulfed in my first good night’s sleep in ages. No more news of the German army’s entry into Warsaw and I begin to suspect yesterday’s announcement was premature. O. W., back from the front, told me this noon that he’d seen some of the horribly mutilated bodies of Germans killed by Poles. He described also how he’d seen the Germans rounding up Polish civilians—men, women, boys—and marching them into a building for a summary court-martial and then out into the back yard against a wall, where they were disposed of by German firing squads. Our military attaché says you can do that, that that’s the way cricket is played with franc-tireurs, but I don’t like it, even if they are snipers, and I doubt from what O. W. says that the court-martial makes any great effort to distinguish actual franc-tireurs from those whose only guilt is being Poles.

  Göring broadcast today—from a local munitions factory. He warned the people it might be a long war. He threatened terrible revenge if the British and French bombed Germany. He said seventy German divisions now in Poland would be released within a week for service “elsewhere.” Apparently the war in Poland is all but over. Most of the correspondents a bit depressed. Britain and France have done nothing on the western front to relieve the tremendous pressure on Poland, it begins to look as though in Hitler we have a new Napoleon who may sweep Europe and conquer it.

  BERLIN, September 10

  One week after the Anglo-French declaration of a state of war the average German is beginning to w
onder if it’s a world war after all. He sees it this way. England and France, it is true, are formally fulfilling their obligations to Poland. For a week they have been formally at war with Germany. But has it been war? they ask. The British, it is true, sent over twenty-five planes to bomb Wilhelmshaven. But if it is war, why only twenty-five? And if it is war, why only a few leaflets over the Rhineland? The industrial heart of Germany lies along the Rhine close to France. From there come most of the munitions that are blowing up Poland with such deadly effect. Yet not a bomb has fallen on a Rhineland factory. Is that war? they ask. The long faces I saw a week ago today are not so long this Sunday.

  Life here is still quite normal. The operas, the theatres, the movies, all open and jammed. Tannhäuser and Madame Butterfly playing at the Opera. Goethe’s Iphigenie at the State Theatre. The Metropol, Hitler’s favourite show-house, announces a new revue Wednesday. The papers tonight say two hundred football matches were played in Germany today.

  Berlin, September 11

  The High Command says a gigantic battle in Poland, with the prospect of the annihilation of the Polish army, is nearing its end. They are fighting now along the San River, south-east of Warsaw. For the first time today the war communiqué mentions French artillery-fire on the western front. The Protectorate government in Prague announced today that any Czechs captured fighting with the enemy would be shot as traitors.

  LATER (midnight).—In the subway, going out to broadcast tonight, I heard considerable grumbling about the war. The women, especially, seemed depressed. And yet when I came back after the broadcast, a big crowd, mostly women, got on at the station under the Deutsches Opernhaus. They had been to the Opera and seemed oblivious of the fact that a war was on, that German bombs and shells were falling on the women and children in Warsaw. I doubt if anything short of an awful bombing or years of semi-starvation will bring home the war to the people here.

  Classic headline in the D.A.Z. tonight: “POLES BOMBARD WARSAW!” The press full of the most fantastic lies. Latest is that two British secret-service agents organized the slaying of Germans at Bromberg. When I kidded my military censor, a decent fellow, about it, he blushed.

  But one thing—is it possible that if the British and French decide upon a long war of attrition, the mass of the German people will forget their feelings towards the regime and regard it as their duty to defend the Fatherland? Some things I’ve heard today from Germans make me think so.

  BERLIN, September 14

  Yesterday from Führer Headquarters came an official announcement signed by the Oberkommando (but obviously dictated by Hitler) saying that as long as Polish civilians insisted on resisting the German army in the towns, Germany would use every means at its disposal, especially air bombing and heavy artillery, to show the civilians the “pointlessness of their resistance.” D. and H. and W., who were at the front for three days this week, say that almost every other town and village in Poland they saw was either half or totally destroyed by bombs or artillery.

  All of us here still baffled by the inaction of Britain and France. It is obvious from the broadcasts of Ed and Tom from London and Paris that the Allies are exaggerating their action on the western front. The Germans maintain that there have been only skirmishes there so far and point out that the French are not even using airplanes in their “attacks.” Y. of our Embassy took issue today with Ambassador Biddle’s telegrams from Poland telling of the terrible bombings of the Polish towns. Y. holds Hitler is justified in bombing and bombarding towns where the civilian population offers resistance. Guess I’m losing my balance, but I disagree.

  The maid came in tonight to say how terrible war was.

  “Why do the French make war on us?” she asked.

  “Why do you make war on the Poles?” I said.

  “Hum,” she said, a blank over her face. “But the French, they’re human beings,” she said finally.

  “But the Poles, maybe they’re human beings,” I said.

  “Hum,” she said, blank again.

  BERLIN, September 15

  I heard today on very good authority that Russia may attack Poland.

  A few words on a dry subject. How does the Allied blockade affect Germany? It cuts her off from about 50 per cent of her normal imports. Chief products of which Germany is deprived are: cotton, tin, nickel, oil, and rubber. Russia might supply some cotton, but her total exports last year were only 2.5 per cent of Germany’s annual needs. On the other hand Russia could probably supply Germany all the manganese and timber she needs, and—with Rumania—enough oil for military purposes at least. Iron? Last year Germany got about 45 per cent of her iron ore from France, Morocco, or other places from which she is now cut off. But Sweden, Norway, and Luxemburg provided her with eleven million tons. These supplies are still open. All in all, Germany is certainly hard hit by losing the sources of 50 per cent of her imports. But with the possibilities open to her in Scandinavia, the Balkans, and Russia she is not hit nearly so badly as she was in 1914.

  Just two weeks ago today the great “counter-attack” against Poland began. In fourteen days the mechanized German military machine has rolled back the Polish army more than two hundred miles, captured a hundred thousand prisoners, and practically liquidated Poland. Today one German army stands before the citadel in Brest-Litovsk, where Germany dictated a harsh treaty to Bolshevik Russia in 1918. Another German army is nearing the Rumanian border, thus bringing Germany to the front door of vast oil sources and stocks of wheat. To be sure, a gallant Polish army, completely surrounded at Kutno, seventy-five miles west of Warsaw, holds out. But for how long? Warsaw too holds out. But for how long? The war in Poland is over. German divisions are already being rushed to the west. My censor did not object when I suggested tonight that Russia will now step in and occupy the parts of Poland inhabited by Russians. More talk about peace today.

  Example of how our isolationists are appreciated in Naziland: Headline in the Börsen Zeitung: “SENATOR BORAH WARNS AGAINST THE WAR AGITATORS IN U.S.A.”

  BERLIN, September 16

  Every German I’ve met today liked Colonel Lindbergh’s broadcast. The story gets a good play in the Berlin newspapers, which is more than Roosevelt’s speeches get. The headlines are friendly. The Börsen Zeitung: “COLONEL LINDBERGH WARNS AGAINST THE AGITATION OF THE WESTERN POWERS.”

  An American woman I know bought a tin of sardines today. The grocer insisted on opening the can in the shop. Reason: you can’t hoard tinned food if your grocer opens it first.

  LATER (midnight).—The Germans have just announced that if Warsaw does not surrender within twelve hours, the German army will use all military methods to subdue it. That means bomb it and bombard it. There are more than half a million civilians in the city, the majority women and children.

  BERLIN, September 17

  At six o’clock this morning, Moscow time, the Red army began an invasion of Poland. Russia of course had a non-aggression pact with Poland. What ages ago it seems now—though it really wasn’t ages ago—that I sat in Geneva and other capitals and heard the Soviet statesmen talk about common fronts against the aggressor. Now Soviet Russia stabs Poland in the back, and the Red army joins the Nazi army in overrunning Poland. All this of course is heartily welcomed in Berlin this morning.

  My military censor was really quite decent today. He let me broadcast this: “If Warsaw does not surrender, it means that one of Europe’s largest cities will be blown up by the German army and a good share of the human beings living there with it. Certainly history knows no parallel…. The Germans say it is the Poles in Warsaw who are violating international law by making their civilians help defend the capital. But, as I say, I just can’t follow the things that are happening in this war.”

  Off to the “front” tomorrow, if we can find one.

  ZOPPOT, NEAR DANZIG, September 18

  Drove all day long from Berlin through Pomerania and the Corridor to here. The roads full of motorized columns of German troops returning from Poland. In
the woods in the Corridor the sickening sweet smell of dead horses and the sweeter smell of dead men. Here, the Germans say, a whole division of Polish cavalry charged against hundreds of German tanks and was annihilated. On the pier of this summer resort where just five weeks ago John [Gunther] and I sat far into the peaceful night arguing whether the guns would go off or not in Europe, we watched tonight the battle raging around Gdynia. Far off across the sea you could see the sky light up when the big guns went off.

  Dr. Boehmer, press chief of the Propaganda Ministry in charge of this trip, insisted that I share a double room in the hotel here with Phillip Johnson, an American fascist who says he represents Father Coughlin’s Social Justice. None of us can stand the fellow and suspect he is spying on us for the Nazis. For the last hour in our room here he has been posing as anti-Nazi and trying to pump me for my attitude. I have given him no more than a few bored grunts.

  DANZIG, September 19–20, two thirty a.m.

  Sit here in the local radio station shivering and waiting to broadcast at four a.m. I talked at midnight, but Berlin on the phone said they did not think CBS picked me up. We shall try once again at four.

  Today I have had a glimpse of an actual battle, one of the last of the Polish war, which is as good as over. It was going on two miles north of Gdynia on a ridge that stretched for seven miles inland from the sea. There was something about it that was very tragic and at the same time grotesque.

  We stood on a hill called the Sternberg in the midst of the city of Gdynia under a huge—irony!—cross. It was a German observation post. Officers stood about, peering through field-glasses. Across the city over the roofs of the modern buildings of this model new town that was the hope of Poland we watched the battle going on two miles to the north. We had been awakened this morning in our beds in a hotel at Zoppot by it. At six a.m. the windows in my room shook. The German battleship Schleswig-Holstein, anchored in Danzig, was firing shells from its eleven-inch guns over our heads. And now, we could see, the Germans had the Poles surrounded on three sides, and the sea, from which German destroyers were peppering them, cut them off on the fourth. The Germans were using everything in the way of weapons, big guns, small guns, tanks, and airplanes. The Poles had nothing but machine-guns, rifles, and two anti-aircraft pieces which they were trying desperately to use as artillery against German machine-gun posts and German tanks. You could hear the deep roar of the German artillery and the rat-tat-tat of the machine-guns on both sides. The Poles—we gathered from the sound of their fire, because you could see very little, even through glasses—not only were defending themselves from trenches and behind clumps of bushes but were using every building they held as machine-gun nests. They had turned two large buildings, one an officers’ school, the other the Gdynia radio station, into fortresses and were firing machine-guns from several of the windows. After a half-hour a German shell struck the roof of the school and set it on fire. Then German infantry, supported—or through the glasses it looked as though they were led—by tanks, charged up the hill and surrounded the building. But they did not take it. The Poles kept machine-gunning them from the basement windows of the burning building. Desperate and brave the Poles were. A German seaplane hovered over the ridge, spotting for the artillery. Later a bombing plane joined it and they dived low, machine-gunning the Polish lines. Finally a squadron of Nazi bombers appeared.