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

by William L. Shirer

  “But you attacked Poland, and some people feel that started the war,” I put in. He drew himself up in astonishment.

  “I beg your pardon,” he gasped, and then proceeded for ten minutes to repeat every lie about the origins of the war that Hitler has told. (The German people do believe Hitler then, I mused.) “The documents issued by our Foreign Office have proved beyond the shadow of doubt,” he went on, “that Britain and France started the war and indeed planned it for more than a year.”

  “They don’t prove it to me,” I said.

  This caused him to lose his breath. When he had recovered he said: “As I was saying, the documents prove it….”

  I noticed my sour remarks were attracting the attention of the rest of the room and that two hatchet-faced men with party buttons at the next table seemed to be on the point of intervening with some heroics of their own. I upped and left, bidding the old gentleman good-night.

  At six p.m. Fräulein X called for some provisions I had brought her from relatives abroad. She turned out to be the most intelligent German female I have met in ages. We talked about the German theatre and films, about which she knew a great deal. She had some interesting ideas about German character, history, direction. The trouble with the Germans, she said, was that they were “geborene Untertanen”—born subjects, though “Untertan” conveys also a connotation of submissive subjects. Authority and direction from a master above was about all a German wanted in life.

  “A German,” she said, “will think he has died a good German if he waits at a curb at a red light, and then crosses on a green one though he knows perfectly well that a truck, against the law though it may be, is bearing down upon him to crush him to death.”

  What embittered her—and she was brilliantly bitter—was that this Germany was staking all in a war which might end the very Western civilization which certain elements in Germany had not only contributed to but had tried to make one with Germany’s culture. She thought the present regime cared not a whit about Western civilization and represented the barbarian element which had always lurked below the surface in German history and for whom life only had meaning when it meant glorified war, force, conquest, brutality, and grinding down a weaker foe, especially if he were a Slav. She blasted away about the German’s utter lack of political sense, his slavishness towards authority, his cowardly refusal to think or act for himself.

  The non-European, anti-Western civilization element, as she put it, now has the upper hand in Germany and she thought the only way the west-European nature of the German could be saved would be by another defeat, even another Peace of Westphalia (which split up Germany in 1648 into three hundred separate states). I’m rather inclined to agree.

  BERLIN, January 27

  Some miscellany. With the publication of a pocket-sized edition of Mein Kampf for the troops at the front, total sales of Hitler’s Bible, I learn today, have now reached the fantastic total of 5,950,000 copies…. The greatest organized mass migration since the exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey after the last war is now coming to an end in Poland. Some 135,000 Germans from Russian-occupied eastern Poland and 100,000 Germans from the Baltic states are now being settled in the part of Poland which Germany has annexed outright. To make room for them an equal number of Poles are being turned out of house, home, and farm and sent to occupied Poland…. Dr. Frank, German Governor-General of Poland, has decreed the death sentence for Poles who hold back goods from sale or refuse to sell their wares when offered a “decent” price. This will enable the Germans to complete their pillage of Poland. If a Pole objects, off with his head…. A German court in Posen has sentenced eight Poles, including three women, to death for allegedly mistreating German flyers—probably parachutists. Even the Germans admit that not one of the flyers was killed.

  A phony war. Today’s dispatches from the front deal exclusively with an account of how German machineguns fought French loud-speakers! It seems that along the Rhine front the French broadcast some recordings which the Germans say constituted a personal insult to the Führer.

  “The French did not realize,” says the DNB with that complete lack of humour which makes the Germans so funny, “that an attack on the Führer would be immediately rejected by the German troops.” So the Germans opened fire on the French loud-speakers at Altenheim and Breisach. Actually the army people tell me that the French broadcast recordings of Hitler’s former speeches denouncing Bolshevism and the Soviets.

  BERLIN, January 28

  It was difficult to believe in Berlin on this Sabbath day that a great war was on. The streets and parks are covered deep with snow and in the Tiergarten this afternoon thousands were skating on the ponds and lagoons. Hundreds of children were tobogganing. Do children think about war? I don’t know. This afternoon in the Tiergarten they seemed to be thinking only of their sleds and skates and the snow and ice.

  BERLIN, January 30

  Marvin Breckinridge here and tomorrow I shall get off on a jaunt which Hitler’s press chief and confidant, Dr. Diettrich, is organizing (to keep us in a friendly temper) to Garmisch. From there I hope to steal away to the Swiss mountains for a fortnight with Tess and Eileen. Hitler made an unexpected speech at the Sportpalast tonight on the occasion of the seventh anniversary of the Nazis taking over power. I had no burning desire to attend, so Marvin went off to cover it. She got a great kick out of watching the man.

  GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, February 3

  A little ludicrous, broadcasting from here. Winter sport competitions are on, with all the German satellite nations participating, but they have no interest for us and I’m supposed to confine my daily broadcasts to the more serious subject of the terrible war. The trouble with that is that the only microphone in town is in the ice stadium. Yesterday on my two ten p.m. broadcast I had just launched into a deep discussion of the possibilities that lie before these unhappy people at war when someone scored a goal on the rink just below me, bedlam broke loose in the stadium, and it proved difficult to keep my mind on Hitler’s next move. Tonight broadcasting at fifty minutes past midnight, the hockey games were over and in fact the stadium was so deserted that I had to wait a long time in the snow before I could arouse the night watchman to let me in. In the little studio atop the stadium it was so cold my teeth chattered with loud clicks and I had to blow on my fingers to keep them nimble enough to turn the pages of my script. I fear CBS listeners may not have appreciated the strange noises.

  I feel sorry for Bob X, a young American correspondent who came down with us. He just couldn’t take the strain of association with the Nazis since the war began, which is understandable. Arriving here, he let himself go—a plain case of nerves—drank more than he should have, expressed his honest thoughts, which alcohol sometimes releases, but unfortunately also made a general nuisance of himself. I gather the Nazis, on his return to Berlin, will ask him to leave. Two of our leading American correspondents today refused to sit at the same table in the dining-room with him, which I thought was a little uncalled for. They are the two who court the Nazis the most.

  Hitler decreed today that henceforth babies must have ration cards for clothing. A country is hard up when it has to save on diapers.

  ON THE TRAIN MUNICH—LAUSANNE, February 4

  Three stories I must put down:

  1. In Germany it is a serious penal offence to listen to a foreign radio station. The other day the mother of a German airman received word from the Luftwaffe that her son was missing and must be presumed dead. A couple of days later the BBC in London, which broadcasts weekly a list of German prisoners, announced that her son had been captured. Next day she received eight letters from friends and acquaintances telling her they had heard her son was safe as a prisoner in England. Then the story takes a nasty turn. The mother denounced all eight to the police for listening to an English broadcast, and they were arrested.

  (When I tried to recount this story on the radio, the Nazi censor cut it out on the ground that American listeners wo
uld not understand the heroism of the woman in denouncing her eight friends!)

  2. The parents of a U-boat officer were officially informed of their son’s death. The boat was overdue and had been given up by the German Admiralty as lost. The parents arranged a church funeral. On the morning of the service the butcher called and wanted a few words with the head of the house in private. Next came the grocer. Finally friends started swarming in. They had all heard the BBC announce that the son was among those taken prisoner from a U-boat. But how to call off the funeral without letting the authorities know that someone in the confidence of the family had listened to a foreign station? If the parents wouldn’t tell, perhaps they themselves would be arrested. A family council was held. It was decided to go through with the funeral. After it was over, the mourners gathered in the parents’ home, were told the truth if they already didn’t know it, and everyone celebrated with champagne.

  3. A big German film company completed last summer at the cost of several million marks a movie based on the exploits of the German Condor Legion in Spain. It was a super-film showing how German blood had been shed in the holy war in Spain against Bolshevism. Hitler, Göring, Goebbels, Himmler, saw it, praised it. Then came the Nazi-Soviet pact last August. The film is now in storage. It was never shown to the public.

  VILLARS-SUR-OLLON, SWITZERLAND, February 20

  Across the valley from the window, the great sweep of the Dents du Midi Alpine peaks. Towards evening in the setting sun these snowy mountain-sides take on a magnificent pink. Down in bed with my annual flu for ten days. Must start back to Berlin tomorrow. Spring will soon be here. Action. The offensive. The war. Far away it has seemed here. Tess coming in at dusk with flushed cheeks after a four-mile ski run down the mountain behind the hotel, Eileen coming in with redder cheeks after playing around all day in the snow. In the evening—before I got sick—an excellent, unrationed dinner and then talk and dancing in the bar with people who still retain their senses. At first, and the last three days after I got out of bed, skating on the rink below with Wellington Koo, Chinese Ambassador in Paris, himself recovering from the grippe and just learning to skate. Koo, who looks thirty and is probably over fifty, trying to impart to me the long view which the Chinese have learned to take, and I never patient nor wise enough to take. He sees the China war and this war as just chapters in a long story, places where men stop and pause on a long hard road, and he speaks softly and trudges along on his faltering skates.

  BERLIN, February 23

  My birthday. Thought of being thirty-six now, and nothing accomplished, and how fast the middle years fleet by.

  Disagreeable experience at the Swiss border yesterday: the Swiss relieved me of all my provisions—chocolate, soap, canned food, coffee, and a bottle of whisky which Winant had given me. I see their point. They are cut off from the outside world and want to keep what they have and not let it get into the hands of the Germans. But I was sore. On the German side the Gestapo stripped two thirds of the passengers, including all the women. For some reason, possibly because I was the last to get my passport okayed and the train was late, they let me off.

  Arrived here this morning (Friday) to find it a meatless day. The food is abominable. Because of the cold spell, no fish. Even at the Adlon I could get only potatoes and some canned vegetables, and my friends said I was lucky because for several days there had not been even potatoes, the city’s supply having been spoiled by freezing. The newspapers seem inane after the Swiss. But the Germans swallow the fare, the lies. After this terrible winter their morale is lower, but they seem to be in the same cow-like mood. It’s hard to see the limit of what they will take.

  Much talk here of the spring offensive. But where?

  BERLIN, February 25

  X told me a fantastic story today. He claims a plan is afoot to hide S.S. shock troops in the bottom of a lot of freighters, have them put in at ports in Scandinavia, Belgium, and Africa, and seize the places. I don’t get the point. Even if they got into the ports, which is doubtful, how could they hold them? I suspect this story is a plant and that the Nazis would like us to put it out as part of their nerve war. I shan’t.

  BERLIN, February 27

  Marvin has been digging out some interesting side-lights on life in war-time Germany. She visited one of the nine Nazi Brides’ Schools where the wives or prospective wives of S.S. men are taught to be good Hausfrauen and fruitful producers of cannon-fodder for the next war.18 They are also taught how to read Nazi newspapers and listen to the radio. Marvin noticed only two books in the girls’ dormitories, The Belief in the Nordic State and Men…. Because of the shortage of soap, which curtails laundering, Marvin found that German clergymen had taken to wearing clerical collars made of paper. They cost eight cents, can be worn inside out the second day, and are then thrown away…. Marvin says many public buildings have been quietly closed for lack of coal, including the Engineering College of the University, the State Library, and most of the schools. Churches are not allowed to burn coal until further notice. She relates that when she called on an elderly German woman the other day, the old lady met her wearing two sweaters, a fur coat, and overshoes. The temperature in her drawing-room was 46 degrees Fahrenheit…. Though the quota of Germans allowed entrance into America annually is 27,000, Marvin found a waiting-list of 248,000 names at the American consulate. Ninety-eight per cent were Jews—or about half the Jewish population left in Germany.

  BERLIN, March 1

  Sumner Welles arrived this morning. He’s supposedly over here on a special mission from the President to sound out the European leaders on their respective standpoints. He saw Ribbentrop and State Secretary Weizäcker today and will see Hitler tomorrow. Much talk around town that the Nazis will pull a fast one on him and suggest a peace that sounds good. Possible; not probable.

  Because the offensive seems imminent. Troop trains pouring through Berlin every day west-bound. Many men called up for active service in the last few days. All air-wardens have been warned to be ready for duty after March 15. One hears—you never know here—of big troop concentrations against Holland.

  From what I saw in the Netherlands, the Dutch will be easy pickings for the Germans. Their army is miserable. Their famous defensive water-line is of doubtful worth. Switzerland will be tougher to crack, and I doubt if the Germans will try.

  Welles received us in the Embassy after lunch. A taciturn fellow, he said he could say nothing. I gathered from what little he did say that he was interested in seeing Göring. Is it because in the end he thinks Göring may lead a conservative government?

  BERLIN, March 3

  Welles left tonight, his lips sealed to the last. Those of the Wilhelmstrasse were not, however. They gave the American correspondents front-page copy. They told us Hitler had made it plain to Welles:

  1. That there is no chance for an immediate, negotiated peace. The war must be fought out to the bitter end. Germany is confident of winning it.

  2. That Germany must be given a free hand in what she considers her Lebensraum in eastern Europe. She will never consent to restore Czechoslovakia, Poland, or Austria.

  3. A condition of any peace must be the breaking of Britain’s control of the seas, including not only her naval disarmament but the abandonment of her great naval bases at Gibraltar, Malta, and Singapore.

  I doubt if this tall talk impressed Welles, who struck me as sufficiently cynical. At any rate, the Germans did not, as some expected, offer a nice-sounding but meaningless peace proposal. My spies report Hitler is in a confident mood these days and thinks he can win the war outright and quickly.

  Touching how the German people have had a naïve hope that Welles’s visit might pave the way to peace. Several Germans dropped in today to inquire whether “Welles had any luck.”

  BERLIN, March 4

  Last night, by request, I broadcast a piece about the actual routine of broadcasting from here in war-time. Had never stopped to think of it before. Some extracts, for the record: The daily bro
adcast at six forty-five p.m., New York time, means our talking from here at a quarter to one on the following morning. If I could get gasoline for my car I could drive to the studio in twelve minutes. As it is, I have a ten-minute walk down the completely blacked-out Wilhelmstrasse to the subway. It is a rare night that I do not collide with a lamp-post, a fire-hydrant, or a projecting stairway, or flop headlong into a pile of snow. Safely in the subway, I have a half-hour’s ride to the Rundfunk House. As half of the route is above ground, the train is plunged in darkness for fifteen minutes. My pockets are stuffed full of passes. If I cannot find the right one I must wait in the vestibule on arriving at the station and fill out a paper permitting me to enter. Finally arrived, I go to an office and write my script. Two offices down I can hear Lord Haw-Haw attacking his typewriter with gusto or shouting in his nasal voice against “that plutocrat Chamberlain.” A half-hour before my broadcast I must have my script in the hands of the censors. Follows a half-hour battle with them. If they leave enough to make it worth while to do the broadcast, as they usually do, I must then, in order to reach the studio and microphone, dash through winding corridors in the Broadcasting House, down many stairs, and out into a pitch-dark vacant lot in the middle of which are hidden steps—the lot being terraced—being careful not to bump into several sheds lurking in the way or to fall into a snow-drift. In the course of this journey through the lot, I must get past at least three steel-helmeted S.S. guards whom I cannot see in the darkness, but who I know are armed with sawed-off automatic rifles and have orders to shoot anyone not halting at their challenge. They must see my pass. I search for it with my frozen fingers, and if I’m lucky and find it, I arrive at the studio in time and not too much out of breath, though not always in the sweetest of tempers. If the censors keep me, or the guards keep me, I arrive late, out of breath, sore and sour. I suppose listeners wonder why we pant so often through our talks.