Reporting on Hitler

by Wainewright, Will;

It is a quiet, careful account of the deterioration of a whole people illuminated by many small episodes which together make up the life of a nation. There is not striving after horror – though the horror naturally is there – and the story gains enormously because it makes no effort to be sensational.550

  A reviewer in the Melbourne Argus, then one of Australia’s most prominent newspapers, got closer than any other to understanding the conditions Reynolds had faced writing for the Daily Mail in Berlin:

  Now that the war they predicted has broken out, the foreign correspondents have not packed away their manuscripts or abandoned the hope of seeing their day-to-day observations preserved between stiff board covers. Fired, perhaps by Gunther’s example, they are still producing their eye-witness accounts of Europe’s progress towards war.

  To a public which is still trying to find out for certain why the war is being fought and how it is likely to end, such accounts need no apology. Sometimes, as in the case of Rothay Reynolds’s When Freedom Shrieked, they are more valuable than the same writer’s daily dispatches.

  Reynolds was Daily Mail correspondent in Berlin from 1921 to the outbreak of the war and in those eighteen years he was able to gather impressions, information and ‘inside stuff’ which could hardly have been published in peacetime, and certainly not in the Daily Mail, which for a long time regarded Hitler as the saviour of Europe.

  This record of his stewardship is a sweeping indictment of German fascism which shows step by step how freedom, democracy and human decency were trodden underfoot by the forces of reaction. Reynolds writes vividly and forcefully, making it clear that the whole German nation was being deliberately prepared for war even at a time when Whitehall persisted in regarding its intentions as peaceful.551

  The Observer described When Freedom Shrieked as ‘a heart-breaking book, but a good book, written by one who knew and loved Germany’. It ‘achieves the unusual feat of combining easy and abundant reading for relaxation (for “stiff” is the last word that could be applied to him) with an excellent and connected explanation of Germany’s evolution in the present century’.552

  The Manchester Guardian was similarly praiseful. ‘Its first-hand impressions of world-shaking events are woven into a narrative that has the liveliness of contemporary journalism and the accuracy of historical research.’ The reviewer lauded Reynolds as ‘one of the most experienced of foreign correspondents’.553 The book won praise on the right of politics, too. The Spectator’s reviewer said it should ‘bring home to the Englishman who has no experience of the kind what it means to live in a police state dominated by Himmler’, continuing:

  It has long tormented those who knew Germany well that they were unable to induce the British people to look National Socialism in the face. Now that tragic events have dissipated the lazy tolerance of England, an outburst of publications about Germany has naturally occurred. Mr Reynolds has written a simple and straightforward account of what it felt like to live in Germany between the two wars. His book is valuable in a number of ways.554

  There would be no review in the Yorkshire Post, however. The newspaper was in effect closed down in November 1939 when it was combined with the Leeds Mercury to form a single paper sold at a lower price. The editor Arthur Mann, whose crusade against appeasement had stood out like a beacon, resigned. In a letter two years later he blamed ‘wire-pulling politicians’ and a ‘very short-sighted sort of commercialism’ for the loss of editorial responsibility and integrity he judged within most parts of the British press. He thought newspapers had lost the confidence of readers by failing to question the Munich Agreement and other key government decisions.555

  His book published, Reynolds turned his attention to how he could further help the war effort. In December he took the train north to Halifax and spoke to a crowd of 2,000 about his time in Germany. ‘I enjoyed it as soon as I found my voice was carrying,’ Reynolds wrote to a relative. He began with an account of his meeting with Hitler in 1923 before describing conditions in the country after six years of Nazi rule. He said Germany had become enormously powerful and dangerous, and that the future of the British Empire and her allies was at risk.

  A leaflet promoting Reynolds’s lectures on Nazi Germany.

  He delivered one to a crowd of 2,000 in Halifax.

  Religion remained a central pillar in Reynolds’s life to the end. Faith was one of many things put at risk by the Nazis, he told the crowd.

  It is a struggle to preserve the great traditions of Christendom and of Christian civilisation. I am an ageing man, but my experience has taught me that unless we get back to the principles embodied in the Ten Commandments and the sermon on the mount, our civilisation will disappear.556

  Reynolds spent the Christmas of 1939 corresponding with relatives and mulling his options. He had been back in Britain for ten months – a relaxing yet restless period, in which he had worked hard to complete When Freedom Shrieked. At sixty-seven he had earned his retirement, but had no interest in slowing down – his work ethic seems to have been ferocious throughout his life – and with Europe at war he felt a particularly acute need to contribute. He considered his next step.

  - CHAPTER XVIII -

  A FINAL ASSIGNMENT

  Reynolds was in Cambridge at the start of 1940. He had spent many long winter nights considering what he wanted to do and early in the new year, he finally decided. He wished to go abroad once more. In some ways, his family and friends were surprised by his desire to travel again, at his age and during a war. In other ways, they were not surprised at all. They knew Reynolds was a restless spirit who enjoyed life most when away from home. He consulted his contacts, including Eustace Wareing of the Daily Telegraph, who had left Berlin in 1938. This led to an agreement with the newspaper that he would travel to Italy and work as its correspondent in Rome. Italy had maintained a neutral position in the war but the world was waiting to see whether Mussolini would join his fascist ally Hitler in arms.

  Reynolds’s appointment was quite a coup for the Telegraph. After reporting for years in Berlin and recently writing a well-received book, his stock as a journalist was high. His ability with languages, including Italian, enhanced his credentials for the role, as did his knowledge – from personal dealings – of Hitler and other Nazi leaders. His age was not seen as an impediment. Reynolds, for his part, was enthused by the prospect of living in the fourth country of his life and the spiritual home of his Catholic faith.

  He moved quickly to organise his affairs in Britain and, conscious that this trip could be his last, amended his will. While his family feared for their brother’s journey across wartime Europe, friends in the press pack were jealous. They told him they envied his opportunity to swap ice and rain in Britain for Italian sunshine. Reynolds was not so confident and started the journey wearing the thick fur coat that had served him during many harsh Berlin winters.

  He departed Britain halfway through February and was surprised by the smoothness of his journey, which ‘turned out to be as simple as in times of peace’.557 He crossed the Channel in an hour and a half before making his way to Paris, one of his favourite cities. Snow was melting when he arrived and he thought the city looked less ‘warlike’ than London. The only change he noticed was the lack of tourists. He travelled south and crossed the border from France to Italy without difficulty before taking a train to Florence, where he stayed for two weeks with a family he knew to sharpen his Italian. The skies were leaden and a cold wind was blowing on his arrival – a far cry from the warm conditions his friends at home had anticipated.

  He then continued to Venice, where he filed his first article for the Daily Telegraph on 1 March. The piece was printed the next day with the headline, ‘Italy’s Heart is Not With Those Who Force War on the World’.558 Reynolds was billed as a ‘Foreign Politics Expert’ by the newspaper in a short introduction to their new correspondent. ‘Few British journalists have a longer and wider experience of European politics,’ it said. ‘He starts with the advantage of a
formidable army of languages. Besides French and Italian he also knows Russian and German. He has also the somewhat rare accomplishment of talking Polish.’

  The piece focused on how Italians were feeling about the war and their country’s potential involvement. Interested to see how the situation would develop, Il Duce stayed his hand, maintaining an independent approach in the opening months of the Second World War. But his defensive alliance with Germany, the Pact of Steel, meant it was highly likely that full hostilities with the allies would come – it was only a matter of time. Reynolds relayed details of a number of conversations, with the overriding sentiment being that Italians, by and large, were in no mood to fight. They did not feel any special loyalty to Hitler and also feared that their country would quickly struggle to feed itself in a war. ‘This war is so terrible, and nobody knows what it is about,’ Reynolds heard from one lady on a train. He encountered no animosity on account of his own nationality, something he had been slightly worried about.

  For Reynolds, despite the anxious circumstances, it was a joy to be abroad again. Life in Britain had at first provided a respite from the stresses of life in Nazi Germany, but he had longed to travel once more. Wartime had reinforced this desire: foreign correspondents could serve a useful function and he was keen to do his bit. Rome was the ideal posting, with the world waiting for Mussolini to reveal his hand. But there was more than that. For Reynolds, a deeply religious Catholic convert, it was a pleasure to live in the capital city of his faith. His religion had only intensified in Nazi Germany; it was a useful source of comfort in dark times. He relied on it to sustain him if Italy, too, became a difficult posting.

  Reynolds had sent his first dispatch from Venice, where, after arriving during a thunderstorm, the skies soon cleared. In a positive mood he described how Venetians, untouched by war, were sitting around on sunlit piazzas drinking vermouth. He then made his way to Rome, where he made quite an impression on Bernard and Barbara Wall, British journalists based in the city, who shared his Catholic faith and made him feel welcome. Bernard wrote a glowing account of Reynolds’s refreshing attitude to journalism. ‘Amongst journalists Reynolds was considered rather a surprising figure, and it was often said of him that he seemed more or less uninterested in what was considered the day’s “scoop,” but would wander off to find some unique angle of his own.’ This angle would invariably have a religious or historical element; Reynolds was keen to maximise cultural opportunities while living in Rome. ‘When printed,’ Wall continued, the angle he had discovered ‘would bring belated telegrams from London and New York to the agencies, asking them to go into Reynolds’s story.’559

  Two weeks after his arrival, Reynolds reported on his biggest story since arriving in Italy. Hitler had travelled south to Brenner, a mountain pass in the Alps between Austria and Italy, to meet Mussolini in a hastily arranged meeting. There was international interest in what the two dictators were discussing. Some felt this meeting could precipitate Italy’s entry into the war. They spoke in a bulletproof train carriage for two and a half hours before parting. Reynolds’s report on the meeting made the front page of the Telegraph the following day. Its headline, ‘Divergent Reports on Brenner Talks’, reflected the confusion in Rome and other European capitals about what had been discussed.560 There were some hopes, desperate but real, that the talks may lead to peace. In the following days these hopes ebbed away as it became clear that there had been no break between Hitler and Mussolini. Italy’s entry into the war remained likely.

  Reynolds spent time in Rome with Douglas Woodruff, the editor of the Catholic newspaper The Tablet, who was on an assignment in the city. ‘I saw a lot of him in Rome this April, when things were becoming difficult for English correspondents, and held him in high regard,’ Woodruff wrote. He admired Reynolds’s endurance and tenacity for wanting to continue, at his age, sending dispatches from abroad. ‘Modern journalism is considered a young man’s game, but Reynolds, at a sixty-seven he did not look or feel, was up to all its exigencies,’ he wrote. ‘What he sent from Rome till Italy entered the war ranked with the best for its exposition of a quickly changing and carefully obscured situation.’561

  Things were becoming difficult because the Italian entry into the war was looking increasingly likely. Italian officials were well aware of this and treated foreign residents, especially journalists, with suspicion. But Reynolds maintained his composure and calm disposition despite the increasing nerves afflicting all foreign correspondents in the city. To remain in Italy a day too long could mean internment if the country suddenly entered the war. It was an anxious existence, but Reynolds coped well. The situation was not dissimilar to the fraught summer of 1938 in Berlin.

  Bernard Wall was impressed not just with the unflappability of his new friend, but also the ease with which he mixed with different sections of society. Reynolds was comfortable in situations ranging from ‘a Vatican concert to an eats kitchen near the Trevi fountain, a very unusual thing in a man of sixty-seven,’ Wall wrote. Reynolds spent most evenings together with the Walls from April onwards, ‘a time when we were never sure that we would not waken up the following morning in an enemy country’.562

  Mussolini had hesitated about entering the war because of worries about shortcomings in the Italian military and whether the country had the resources to survive a long war. He did not want to get drawn into a stalemate conflict. Hitler did not wait for his fascist ally and instead took the initiative in May 1940 by marching his army into the low countries of France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. By the start of June the success of the operation was seen as inevitable. Mussolini was being pushed towards action. Reynolds and other foreign correspondents in Rome, as well as the diplomatic community, knew Italy’s entry into the war was only a matter of time.

  On 10 June, with Paris vulnerable before the Nazis after the French government fled to Bordeaux, Mussolini finally acted. Italy would join the war. He thought a German victory was all but inevitable and calculated that it would be preferable to have fought on the winning side. In America, President Roosevelt accused Italy of sticking a knife into the back of France. Reynolds and other foreign correspondents had been advised to stay inside and not head to any of Rome’s main piazzas when Mussolini made his announcement. He quickly packed his bags and planned his departure.

  The only question was where to go next. Reynolds had a visa to cross France but that was no longer safe, with Nazi tanks sweeping across the country. The German army would march into Paris on 14 June, completing an embarrassing capitulation for the French. Reynolds was instructed by his office to head for any safe location, where, if possible, he could continue sending dispatches. He obtained a special visa from the Italian Foreign Office to leave the country for Yugoslavia, which had not been subjected to aggression in the war so far. Despite now being in an enemy country, Reynolds was still treated warmly by Italians as he left Rome on 11 June. Staff at his hotel seemed sheepish at Mussolini’s decision; others said Reynolds should stay because the war was unlikely to last long.

  His departure from Rome was a painful moment for Reynolds. His devout Catholicism had contributed to his decision to leave a comfortable English retirement and work in the Sacred City, but it was over all too soon. After crossing the Adriatic he continued overland to Belgrade, the Yugoslavian capital, from where he filed a dispatch that appeared on 21 June. ‘Mussolini declared war against the will of the majority of the Italian people. That is the conviction with which I left Rome on Tuesday,’ he wrote. ‘Never has a more reluctant nation been sent to war.’ He provided the views of everyday Italians on their decision to fight alongside Germany. ‘We are behaving like brigands,’ a friend had said to him. ‘If the allies are not victorious our civilisation is ended,’ another had said.563

  His next report six days later focused on Yugoslavia and its attitude to the war. The country had a neutral stance but felt threatened by Germany and Italy, a country with which it had endured volatile relations. Reynolds repor
ted on a widespread desire to remain out of the war and the strong general contempt felt towards Germany. He mentioned that the French premier Philippe Pétain’s move towards peace with the Nazis had been greeted with despair in Yugoslavia, though a speech by Churchill, the recently appointed British Prime Minister, had boosted spirits. Reynolds found space in the article to relay impressions of his new surroundings. ‘I find Belgrade assuming quite an American air. Yesterday I was shot up in a lift to the sixteenth storey of the splendid Post Office.’564

  Reynolds did not plan to stay. He was soon on the move again, and his family were shocked when they heard about where he had agreed to travel: Jerusalem. His decision to head to Palestine was greeted warmly by the Telegraph. In a world war, the fate of the ancient city of Jerusalem was a topic of hot interest. Under a British mandate, more and more Jews had set up home there, spreading discontent among an Arab population that felt the lands they had held for centuries were being taken over. Under British control because of a League of Nations mandate, it was certainly safer than many other parts of central Europe and the Middle East. But the journey would be far from straightforward.

  From Belgrade he boarded a train to the Romanian capital of Bucharest. He spent a couple of days in the country, which was concerned about Russian intentions and would eventually enter the war on Germany’s side. It had long been under the sway of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires, but now Romanian leaders felt Russia could threaten its independence. Reynolds was in Bucharest at an important moment. Russia shocked Romania by delivering an ultimatum on 26 June, pledging that unless Romania yielded some northern territories, its army would invade. Romania agreed to yield and Reynolds promptly left the country, boarding a steamer that took him across the Black Sea to Istanbul. ‘The Russian ultimatum was as great a surprise here as in Bucharest,’ he reported from Turkey in a Telegraph article on 2 July. ‘The Turks, having for long realised that Soviet policy is the same as that of the Tsarist regime, are naturally apprehensive.’565