WLS
LLORET DE MAR, SPAIN, January 11, 1934
Our money is gone. Day after tomorrow I must go back to work. We had not thought much about it. A wire came. An offer. A bad offer from the Paris Herald. But it will keep the wolf away until I can get something better.
Thus ends the best, the happiest, the most uneventful year we have ever lived. It has been our "year off," our sabbatical year, and we have lived it in this little Spanish fishing village exactly as we dreamed and planned, beautifully independent of the rest of the world, of events, of men, bosses, publishers, editors, relatives, and friends. It couldn't have gone on for ever. We wouldn't have wanted it to, though if the thousand dollars we had saved for it had not been suddenly reduced to six hundred by the fall of the dollar, we might have stretched the year until a better job turned up. It was a good time to lay off, I think. I've regained the health I lost in India and Afghanistan in 1930-1 from malaria and dysentery. I've recovered from the shock of the skiing accident in the Alps in the spring of 1932, which for a time threatened me with a total blindness but which, happily, in the end, robbed me of the sight of only one eye.
And the year just past, 1933, may very well have been one not only of transition for us personally, but for all Europe and America. What Roosevelt is doing at home seems to smack almost of social and economic revolution. Hitler and the Nazis have lasted out a whole year in Germany and our friends in Vienna write that fascism, both of a local clerical brand and of the Berlin type, is rapidly gaining ground in Austria. Here in Spain the revolution has gone sour and the Right government of Gil Robles and Alexander Lerroux seems bent on either restoring the monarchy or setting up a fascist state on the model of Italy-perhaps both. The Paris that I came to in 1925 at the tender age of twenty-one and loved, as you love a woman, is no longer the Paris that I will find day after tomorrow-I have no illusions about that. It almost seems as though the world we are plunging back into is already a different one from that we left just a year ago when we packed our clothes and books in Vienna and set off for Spain.
We stumbled across Lloret de Mar on a hike up the coast from Barcelona. It was five miles from the railroad, set in the half-moon of a wide, sandy beach under the foot-hills of the Pyrenees. Tess liked it at once. So did I. We found a furnished house on the beach-three storeys, ten rooms, two baths, central heating. When the proprietor said the price would be fifteen dollars a month, we paid the rent for a year. Our expenses, including rent, have averaged sixty dollars a month.
What have we done these past twelve months? Not too much. No great "accomplishments." We've swum, four or five times a day, from April to Christmas. We've hiked up and around the lower reaches of the Pyrenees that slope down to the village and the sea, past a thousand olive groves, a hundred cork-oak forests, and the cool whitewashed walls of the peasants' houses, putting off until tomorrow and for ever the climb we were always going to make to the peaks that were covered with snow late in the spring and early in the fall. We've read-a few of the books for which there was never time in the days when you had a nightly cable to file and were being shunted from one capital to another-from Paris and London to Delhi. Myself: some history, some philosophy, and Spengler's Decline of the West; Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution; War and Peace; Céline's Voyage au bout de la nuit, the most original French novel since the war; and most or all of Wells, Shaw, Ellis, Beard, Hemingway, Dos Passos, and Dreiser. A few friends came and stayed: the Jay Allens, Russell and Pat Strauss, and Luis Quintanilla, one of the most promising of the younger Spanish painters and a red-hot republican. Andres Segovia lived next door and came over in the evening to talk or to play Bach or Albeniz on his guitar.
This year we had time to know each other, to loaf and play, to wine and eat, to see the bull-fights in the afternoon and Barcelona's gaudy Barrio Chino at night; time to sense the colours, the olive green of the hills, the incomparable blues of the Mediterranean in the spring, and the wondrous, bleak, grey-white skies above Madrid; time too to know the Spanish peasant and worker and fisherman, men of great dignity and guts and integrity despite their miserable, half-starved lives; and at the Prado and Toledo just a little time for Greco, whose sweeping form and colour all but smote us down and made all the Renaissance painting we had seen in Italy, even the da Vincis, Raphaels, Titians, Botticellis, seem pale and an?mic.
It has been a good year.
PARIS, February 7
A little dazed still from last night. About five p.m. yesterday I was twiddling my thumbs in the Herald office wondering whether to go down to the Chamber, where the new premier, édouard Daladier, was supposed to read his ministerial declaration, when we got a tip that there was trouble at the Place de la Concorde. I grabbed a taxi and went down to see. I found nothing untoward. A few royalist Camelots du Roi, Jeunesses Patriotes of Deputy Pierre Taittinger, and Solidarité Fran?aise thugs of Perfumer Fran?ois Coty-all right-wing youths or gangsters-had attempted to break through to the Chamber, but had been dispersed by the police. The Place was normal. I telephoned the Herald, but Eric Hawkins, managing editor, advised me to grab a bite of dinner nearby and take another look a little later. About seven p.m. I returned to the Place de la Concorde. Something obviously was up. Mounted steel-helmeted Mobile Guards were clearing the square. Over by the obelisk in the centre a bus was on fire. I worked my way over through the Mobile Guards, who were slashing away with their sabres, to the Tuileries side. Up on the terrace was a mob of several thousand and, mingling with them, I soon found they were not fascists, but Communists. When the police tried to drive them back, they unleashed a barrage of stones and bricks. Over on the bridge leading from the Place to the Chamber across the Seine, I found a solid mass of Mobile Guards nervously fingering their rifles, backed up by ordinary police and a fire-brigade. A couple of small groups attempted to advance to the bridge from the quay leading up from the Louvre, but two fire-hoses put them to flight. About eight o'clock a couple of thousand U.N.C. (Union Nationale des Combattants[1]) war veterans paraded into the Place, having marched down the Champs-élysées from the Rond-Point. They came in good order behind a mass of tricoloured flags. They were stopped at the bridge and their leaders began talking with police officials. I went over to the Crillon and up to the third-floor balcony overlooking the square. It was jammed with people. The first shots we didn't hear. The first we knew of the shooting was when a woman about twenty feet away suddenly slumped to the floor with a bullet-hole in her forehead. She was standing next to Melvin Whiteleather of the A.P. Now we could hear the shooting, coming from the bridge and the far side of the Seine. Automatic rifles they seemed to be using. The mob's reaction was to storm into the square. Soon it was dotted with fires. To the left, smoke started pouring out of the Ministry of Marine. Hoses were brought into play, but the mob got close enough to cut them. I went down to the lobby to phone the office. Several wounded were laid out and were being given first aid.
The shooting continued until about midnight, when the Mobile Guards began to get the upper hand. Several times the Place de la Concorde changed hands, but towards midnight the police were in control. Once-about ten o'clock it must have been-the mob, which by this time was incensed, but obviously lacked leadership, tried to storm the bridge, some coming up along the quais, whose trees offered them considerable protection, and others charging madly across the Place. "If they get across the bridge," I thought, "they'll kill every deputy in the Chamber." But a deadly fire-it sounded this time like machine-guns-stopped them and in a few minutes they were scattering in all directions.
Soon there was only scattered firing and about ten minutes after twelve I started sprinting up the Champs-élysées towards the office to write my story. Near the President's élysée Palace I noticed several companies of regular troops on guard, the first I had seen. It is almost a mile up hill along the Champs-élysées to the Herald office and I arrived badly out of breath, but managed to write a couple of columns before deadline. Officially: sixteen dead, several hundred wounded.
LATER.-Daladier, who posed as a strong man, has resigned. He gives out this statement: "The government, which has the responsibility for order and security, refuses to assure it by exceptional means which might bring about further bloodshed. It does not desire to employ soldiers against demonstrators. I have therefore handed to the President of the Republic the resignation of the Cabinet."
Imagine Stalin or Mussolini or Hitler hesitating to employ troops against a mob trying to overthrow their regimes! It's true perhaps that last night's rioting had as its immediate cause the Stavisky scandal. But the Stavisky swindles merely demonstrate the rottenness and the weakness of French democracy. Daladier and his Minister of the Interior, Eugène Frot, actually gave the U.N.C. permission to demonstrate. They should have refused it. They should have had enough Mobile Guards on hand early in the evening to disperse the mob before it could gather strength. But to resign now, after putting down a fascist coup-for that's what it was-is either sheer cowardice or stupidity. Important too is the way the Communists fought on the same side of the barricades last night as the fascists. I do not like that.
PARIS, February 8
Old "Papa" Doumergue is to head the government of "national union." They've dragged him from his village of Tournefeuille, where he had retired with his mistress, whom he married shortly after stepping down from the presidency. He says he will form a cabinet of former premiers and chiefs of parties, but it will be Rightish and reactionary. Still, the moderate Left-men like Chautemps, Daladier, Herriot-have shown they can't govern, or won't.
PARIS, February 12
A general strike today, but not very effective, and there's been no trouble.
LATER.-Dollfuss has struck at the Social Democrats in Austria, the only organized group (forty per cent of the population) which can save him from being swallowed up by the Nazis. Communications with Vienna were cut most of the day, but tonight the story started coming through to the office. It is civil war. The Socialists are entrenched in the great municipal houses they built after the war-models for the whole world-the Karl Marx Hof, the Goethe Hof, and so on. But Dollfuss and the Heimwehr under Prince Starhemberg, a play-boy ignoramus, and Major Fey, a hatchet-faced and brutal reactionary, have control of the rest of the city. With their tanks and artillery, they will win-unless the Socialists get help from the Czechs, from nearby Bratislava.
This, then, is what Fey meant yesterday. I was struck by a report of his speech which Havas carried last night: "During the last few days I have made certain that Chancellor Dollfuss is a man of the Heimwehr. Tomorrow we shall start to make a clean breast of things in Austria." But I put it down to his usual loud-mouthedness. And what a role for little Dollfuss! It's only a little more than a year ago that I, with John Gunther and Eric Gedye, had a long talk with him after a luncheon which the Anglo-American Press Club tendered him. I found him a timid little fellow, still a little dazed that he, the illegitimate son of a peasant, should have gone so far. But give the little men a lot of power and they can be dangerous. I weep for my Social Democrat friends, the most decent men and women I've known in Europe. How many of them are being slaughtered tonight, I wonder. And there goes democracy in Austria, one more state gone. Remained at the office until the paper was put to bed at one thirty a.m., but feel too weary and depressed by the news to sleep.
PARIS, February 15
The fighting in Vienna ended today, the dispatches say. Dollfuss finished off the last workers with artillery and then went off to pray. Well, at least the Austrian Social Democrats fought, which is more than their comrades in Germany did. Apparently Otto Bauer and Julius Deutsch got safely over the Czech frontier. A good thing, or Dollfuss would have hanged them.
February 23
My birthday. Thirty. And with the worst job I've ever had. Tess prepared a great birthday banquet and afterwards we went out to a concert. How the French slide over Beethoven! Elliot Paul used to say that if the French musicians would stop reading L'Intransigeant or Paris-Soir during a performance they would do better. Must see Shakespeare's Coriolanus at the Comédie Fran?aise, which the Left people charge has some anti-democratic lines. Heard today that Dollfuss had hanged Koloman Wallisch, the Social Democrat mayor of Bruck an der Mur. Claude Cockburn, who should know better, came out the other day in Week with an absurd account of the February 6 riots. Described them as a "working class" protest. Curiously enough, his description of that night reads suspiciously like that which Trotsky has written of the first uprising in Petrograd in 1917 in his History of the Russian Revolution. The fact is that February 6 was an attempted fascist coup which the Communists, wittingly or not, helped.
PARIS, June 30
Berlin was cut off for several hours today, but late this afternoon telephone communication was re-established. And what a story! Hitler and G?ring have purged the S.A., shooting many of its leaders. R?hm, arrested by Hitler himself, was allowed to commit suicide in a Munich jail, according to one agency report. The French are pleased. They think this is the beginning of the end for the Nazis. Wish I could get a post in Berlin. It's a story I'd like to cover.
PARIS, July 14
My sister is here, and the three of us celebrated Bastille Day a little tonight. We took her around to the cafés to watch the people dance. Later we ended up at Café Flore where I introduced her to some of the Latin Quarterites. Alex Small was in great form. When Alex started to fight the Battle of Verdun again, I dragged the family away, having heard it many times over the years.
It now develops that Hitler's purge was more drastic than first reported. R?hm did not kill himself, but was shot on the orders of Hitler. Other dead: Heines, notorious Nazi boss of Silesia, Dr. Erich Klausner, leader of the "Catholic Action" in Germany, Fritz von Bose and Edgar Jung, two of Papen's secretaries (Papen himself narrowly escaped with his life), Gregor Strasser, who used to be second in importance to Hitler in the Nazi Party, and General von Schleicher and his wife, the latter two murdered in cold blood. I see von Kahr is on the list, the man who balked Hitler's Beer House Putsch in 1923. Hitler has thus taken his personal revenge. Yesterday, on Friday the 13th, Hitler got away with his explanation in the Reichstag. When he screamed: "The supreme court of the German people during these twenty-four hours consisted of myself!" the deputies rose and cheered. One had almost forgotten how strong sadism and masochism are in the German people.
PARIS, July 25
Dollfuss is dead, murdered by the Nazis, who today seized control of the Chancellery and the radio station in Vienna. Apparently their coup has failed and Miklas and Dr. Schuschnigg are in control. I do not like murder, and Nazi murder least of all. But I cannot weep for Dollfuss after his cold-blooded slaughter of the Social Democrats last February. Fey seems to have played a curious role, according to the dispatches. He was in the Chancellery with Dollfuss and kept coming to the balcony to ask for Rintelen, whom the Nazis had named as their first Chancellor. Apparently he thought the Nazi coup had succeeded and was ready to join. A bad hatchet-face, this Fey.
PARIS, August 2
Hindenburg died this morning. Who can be president now? What will Hitler do?
PARIS, August 3
Hitler did what no one expected. He made himself both President and Chancellor. Any doubts about the loyalty of the army were done away with before the old field-marshal's body was hardly cold. Hitler had the army swear an oath of unconditional obedience to him personally. The man is resourceful.
PARIS, August 9
Dosch-Fleurot rang me at the office this afternoon from Berlin and offered me a job with Universal Service there. I said yes at once, we agreed on a salary, and he said he would let me know after talking with New York.
PARIS, August 11
Larry Hills, editor and manager of the Herald, whined a bit this evening about my going, but finally overcame his ill temper and we went over to the bar of the Hotel California and had a drink. Must brush up my German.
BERLIN, August 25
Our introduction to Hitler's Third Reich this evening was probably typical. Taking the day train from Paris so as to see a little of the country, we arrived at the Friedrichstrasse Bahnhof at about ten this evening. The first persons to greet us on the platform were two agents of the secret police. I had expected to meet the secret police sooner or later, but not quite so soon. Two plain-clothes men grabbed me as I stepped off the train, led me a little away, and asked me if I were Herr So-and-So-I could not for the life of me catch the name. I said no. One of them asked again and again and finally I showed him my passport. He scanned it for several minutes, finally looked at me suspiciously, and said: "So…. You are not Herr So-and-So, then. You are Herr Shirer." "None other," I replied, "as you can see by the passport." He gave me one more suspicious glance, winked at his fellow dick, saluted stiffly, and made off. Tess and I walked over to the Hotel Continental and engaged an enormous room. Tomorrow begins a new chapter for me. I thought of a bad pun: "I'm going from bad to Hearst."
BERLIN, August 26
Knickerbocker tells me Dorothy Thompson departed from the Friedrichstrasse station shortly before we arrived yesterday. She had been given twenty-four hours to get out-apparently the work of Putzi Hanfst?ngl, who could not forgive her for her book I Saw Hitler, which, at that, badly underestimated the man. Knick's own position here is precarious apparently because of some of his past and present writings. Goebbels, who used to like him, has fallen afoul of him. He's going down to see Hearst at Bad Nauheim about it in a day or two.
BERLIN, September 2
In the throes of a severe case of depression. I miss the old Berlin of the Republic, the care-free, emancipated, civilized air, the snubnosed young women with short-bobbed hair and the young men with either cropped or long hair-it made no difference-who sat up all night with you and discussed anything with intelligence and passion. The constant Heil Hitler's, clicking of heels, and brown-shirted storm troopers or black-coated S.S. guards marching up and down the street grate me, though the old-timers say there are not nearly so many brown-shirts about since the purge. Gillie, former Morning Post correspondent here and now stationed in Paris, is, perversely, spending part of his vacation here. We've had some walks and twice have had to duck into stores to keep from either having to salute the standard of some passing S.A. or S.S. battalion or facing the probability of getting beaten up for not doing so. Day before yesterday Gillie took me to lunch at a pub in the lower part of the Friedrichstrasse. Coming back he pointed out a building where a year ago for days on end, he said, you could hear the yells of the Jews being tortured. I noticed a sign. It was still the headquarters of some S.A. Standarte. Tess tried to cheer me up by taking me to the Zoo yesterday. It was a lovely, hot day and after watching the monkeys and elephants we lunched on the shaded terrace of the restaurant there. Called on the Ambassador, Professor William E. Dodd. He struck me as a blunt, honest, liberal man with the kind of integrity an American ambassador needs here. He seemed a little displeased at my saying I did not mourn the death of Dollfuss and may have interpreted it as meaning I liked the Nazis, though I hope not. Also called on the counsellor of Embassy, J. C. White, who appears to be the more formal type of State Department career diplomat. He promptly sent cards, nicely creased, to the hotel, but since I do not understand the creased-card business of diplomacy I shall do nothing about it. Am going to cover the annual Nazi Party rally at Nuremberg day after tomorrow. It should provide a thorough introduction to Nazi Germany.
NUREMBERG, September 4
Like a Roman emperor Hitler rode into this medi?val town at sundown today past solid phalanxes of wildly cheering Nazis who packed the narrow streets that once saw Hans Sachs and the Meistersinger. Tens of thousands of Swastika flags blot out the Gothic beauties of the place, the fa?ades of the old houses, the gabled roofs. The streets, hardly wider than alleys, are a sea of brown and black uniforms. I got my first glimpse of Hitler as he drove by our hotel, the Württemberger Hof, to his headquarters down the street at the Deutscher Hof, a favourite old hotel of his, which has been remodelled for him. He fumbled his cap with his left hand as he stood in his car acknowledging the delirious welcome with somewhat feeble Nazi salutes from his right arm. He was clad in a rather worn gaberdine trench-coat, his face had no particular expression at all-I expected it to be stronger-and for the life of me I could not quite comprehend what hidden springs he undoubtedly unloosed in the hysterical mob which was greeting him so wildly. He does not stand before the crowd with that theatrical imperiousness which I have seen Mussolini use. I was glad to see that he did not poke out his chin and throw his head back as does the Duce nor make his eyes glassy-though there is something glassy in his eyes, the strongest thing in his face. He almost seemed to be affecting a modesty in his bearing. I doubt if it's genuine.
This evening at the beautiful old Rathaus Hitler formally opened this, the fourth party rally. He spoke for only three minutes, probably thinking to save his voice for the six big speeches he is scheduled to make during the next five days. Putzi Hanfst?ngl, an immense, high-strung, incoherent clown who does not often fail to remind us that he is part American and graduated from Harvard, made the main speech of the day in his capacity of foreign press chief of the party. Obviously trying to please his boss, he had the crust to ask us to "report on affairs in Germany without attempting to interpret them." "History alone," Putzi shouted, "can evaluate the events now taking place under Hitler." What he meant, and what Goebbels and Rosenberg mean, is that we should jump on the band-wagon of Nazi propaganda. I fear Putzi's words fell on deaf, if good-humoured, ears among the American and British correspondents, who rather like him despite his clownish stupidity.
About ten o'clock tonight I got caught in a mob of ten thousand hysterics who jammed the moat in front of Hitler's hotel, shouting: "We want our Führer." I was a little shocked at the faces, especially those of the women, when Hitler finally appeared on the balcony for a moment. They reminded me of the crazed expressions I saw once in the back country of Louisiana on the faces of some Holy Rollers who were about to hit the trail. They looked up at him as if he were a Messiah, their faces transformed into something positively inhuman. If he had remained in sight for more than a few moments, I think many of the women would have swooned from excitement.
Later I pushed my way into the lobby of the Deutscher Hof. I recognized Julius Streicher, whom they call here the Uncrowned Czar of Franconia. In Berlin he is known more as the number-one Jew-baiter and editor of the vulgar and pornographic anti-Semitic sheet the Stürmer. His head was shaved, and this seemed to augment the sadism of his face. As he walked about, he brandished a short whip.
Knick arrived today. He will cover for INS and I for Universal.
NUREMBERG, September 5
I'm beginning to comprehend, I think, some of the reasons for Hitler's astounding success. Borrowing a chapter from the Roman church, he is restoring pageantry and colour and mysticism to the drab lives of twentieth-century Germans. This morning's opening meeting in the Luitpold Hall on the outskirts of Nuremberg was more than a gorgeous show; it also had something of the mysticism and religious fervour of an Easter or Christmas Mass in a great Gothic cathedral. The hall was a sea of brightly coloured flags. Even Hitler's arrival was made dramatic. The band stopped playing. There was a hush over the thirty thousand people packed in the hall. Then the band struck up the Badenweiler March, a very catchy tune, and used only, I'm told, when Hitler makes his big entries. Hitler appeared in the back of the auditorium, and followed by his aides, G?ring, Goebbels, Hess, Himmler, and the others, he strode slowly down the long centre aisle while thirty thousand hands were raised in salute. It is a ritual, the old-timers say, which is always followed. Then an immense symphony orchestra played Beethoven's Egmont Overture. Great Klieg lights played on the stage, where Hitler sat surrounded by a hundred party officials and officers of the army and navy. Behind them the "blood flag," the one carried down the streets of Munich in the ill-fated putsch. Behind this, four or five hundred S.A. standards. When the music was over, Rudolf Hess, Hitler's closest confidant, rose and slowly read the names of the Nazi "martyrs"-brown-shirts who had been killed in the struggle for power-a roll-call of the dead, and the thirty thousand seemed very moved.
In such an atmosphere no wonder, then, that every word dropped by Hitler seemed like an inspired Word from on high. Man's-or at least the German's-critical faculty is swept away at such moments, and every lie pronounced is accepted as high truth itself. It was while the crowd-all Nazi officials-was in this mood that the Führer's proclamation was sprung on them. He did not read it himself. It was read by Gauleiter Wagner of Bavaria, who, curiously, has a voice and manner of speaking so like Hitler's that some of the correspondents who were listening back at the hotel on the radio thought it was Hitler.
As to the proclamation, it contained such statements as these, all wildly applauded as if they were new truths: "The German form of life is definitely determined for the next thousand years. For us, the nervous nineteenth century has finally ended. There will be no revolution in Germany for the next one thousand years!"
Or: "Germany has done everything possible to assure world peace. If war comes to Europe it will come only because of Communist chaos." Later before a "Kultur" meeting he added: "Only brainless dwarfs cannot realize that Germany has been the breakwater against Communist floods which would have drowned Europe and its culture."
Hitler also referred to the fight now going on against his attempt to Nazify the Protestant church. "I am striving to unify it. I am convinced that Luther would have done the same and would have thought of unified Germany first and last."
NUREMBERG, September 6
Hitler sprang his Arbeitsdienst, his Labour Service Corps, on the public for the first time today and it turned out to be a highly trained, semi-military group of fanatical Nazi youths. Standing there in the early morning sunlight which sparkled on their shiny spades, fifty thousand of them, with the first thousand bared above the waist, suddenly made the German spectators go mad with joy when, without warning, they broke into a perfect goose-step. Now, the goose-step has always seemed to me to be an outlandish exhibition of the human being in his most undignified and stupid state, but I felt for the first time this morning what an inner chord it strikes in the strange soul of the German people. Spontaneously they jumped up and shouted their applause. There was a ritual even for the Labour Service boys. They formed an immense Sprechchor-a chanting chorus-and with one voice intoned such words as these: "We want one Leader! Nothing for us! Everything for Germany! Heil Hitler!"
Curious that none of the relatives or friends of the S.A. leaders or, say, of General von Schleicher have tried to get Hitler or G?ring or Himmler this week. Though Hitler is certainly closely guarded by the S.S., it is nonsense to hold that he cannot be killed. Yesterday we speculated on the matter, Pat Murphy of the Daily Express, a burly but very funny and amusing Irishman, Christopher Holmes of Reuter's, who looks like a poet and perhaps is, Knick, and I. We were in Pat's room, overlooking the moat. Hitler drove by, returning from some meeting. And we all agreed how easy it would be for someone in a room like this to toss a bomb on his car, rush down to the street, and escape in the crowd. But there has been no sign of an attempt yet, though some of the Nazis are slightly worried about Sunday, when he reviews the S.A.
NUREMBERG, September 7
Another great pageant tonight. Two hundred thousand party officials packed in the Zeppelin Wiese with their twenty-one thousand flags unfurled in the searchlights like a forest of weird trees. "We are strong and will get stronger," Hitler shouted at them through the microphone, his words echoing across the hushed field from the loud-speakers. And there, in the flood-lit night, jammed together like sardines, in one mass formation, the little men of Germany who have made Nazism possible achieved the highest state of being the Germanic man knows: the shedding of their individual souls and minds-with the personal responsibilities and doubts and problems-until under the mystic lights and at the sound of the magic words of the Austrian they were merged completely in the Germanic herd. Later they recovered enough-fifteen thousand of them-to stage a torchlight parade through Nuremberg's ancient streets, Hitler taking the salute in front of the station across from our hotel. Von Papen arrived today and stood alone in a car behind Hitler tonight, the first public appearance he has made, I think, since he narrowly escaped being murdered by G?ring on June 30. He did not look happy.
NUREMBERG, September 9
Hitler faced his S.A. storm troopers today for the first time since the bloody purge. In a harangue to fifty thousand of them he "absolved" them from blame for the R?hm "revolt." There was considerable tension in the stadium and I noticed that Hitler's own S.S. bodyguard was drawn up in force in front of him, separating him from the mass of the brown-shirts. We wondered if just one of those fifty thousand brown-shirts wouldn't pull a revolver, but not one did. Viktor Lutze, R?hm's successor as chief of the S.A., also spoke. He has a shrill, unpleasant voice, and the S.A. boys received him coolly, I thought. Hitler had in a few of the foreign correspondents for breakfast this morning, but I was not invited.
NUREMBERG, September 10
Today the army had its day, fighting a very realistic sham battle in the Zeppelin Meadow. It is difficult to exaggerate the frenzy of the three hundred thousand German spectators when they saw their soldiers go into action, heard the thunder of the guns, and smelt the powder. I feel that all those Americans and English (among others) who thought that German militarism was merely a product of the Hohenzollerns-from Frederick the Great to Kaiser Wilhelm II-made a mistake. It is rather something deeply ingrained in all Germans. They acted today like children playing with tin soldiers. The Reichswehr "fought" today only with the "defensive" weapons allowed them by Versailles, but everybody knows they've got the rest-tanks, heavy artillery, and probably airplanes.
LATER.-After seven days of almost ceaseless goose-stepping, speech-making, and pageantry, the party rally came to an end tonight. And though dead tired and rapidly developing a bad case of crowd-phobia, I'm glad I came. You have to go through one of these to understand Hitler's hold on the people, to feel the dynamic in the movement he's unleashed and the sheer, disciplined strength the Germans possess. And now-as Hitler told the correspondents yesterday in explaining his technique-the half-million men who've been here during the week will go back to their towns and villages and preach the new gospel with new fanaticism. Shall sleep late tomorrow and take the night train back to Berlin.
BERLIN, October 9
We've taken a comfortable studio flat in the Tauenzienstrasse. The owner, a Jewish sculptor, says he is getting off for England while the getting is good-probably a wise man. He left us a fine German library, which I hope I will get time to use. We get a little tired of living in flats or houses that other people have furnished, but the migrant life we lead makes it impossible to have our own things. We were lucky to get this place, which is furnished modernly and with good taste. Most of the middle-class homes we've seen in Berlin are furnished in atrocious style, littered with junk and knick-knacks.
LATER.-On my eight o'clock call to the Paris office tonight, they told me that the King of Yugoslavia had been assassinated at Marseille this afternoon and that Louis Barthou, the French Foreign Minister, had been badly wounded. Berlin will not be greatly disappointed, as King Alexander seemed disposed to work more closely with the French bloc against Germany, and Barthou had been doing some good work in strengthening French alliances in eastern Europe and in attempting to bring Russia in on an Eastern Locarno.
BERLIN, November 15
Not much news these days. Have been covering the fight in the Protestant church. A section of the Protestants seem to be showing more guts in the face of Gleichschaltung (co-ordination) than the Socialists or Communists did. But I think Hitler will get them in the end and gradually force on the country a brand of early German paganism which the "intellectuals" like Rosenberg are hatching up. Went tonight to one of Rosenberg's Bierabends which he gives for the diplomats and the foreign correspondents once a month. Rosenberg was one of Hitler's "spiritual" and "intellectual" mentors, though like most Balts I have met he strikes me as extremely incoherent and his book Mythus of the Twentieth Century, which sells second only to Mein Kampf in this country, impresses me as a hodge-podge of historical nonsense. Some of his enemies, like Hanfst?ngl, say he narrowly missed being a good Russian Bolshevist, having been in Moscow as a student during the revolution, but that he ran out on it because the Bolshies mistrusted him and wouldn't give him a big job. He speaks with a strong Baltic accent which makes his German difficult for me to understand. He had Ambassador Dodd at his table of honour tonight, and the professor looked most unhappy. Bernhard Rust, the Nazi Minister of Education, was the speaker, but my mind wandered during his speech. Rust is not without ability and is completely Nazifying the schools. This includes new Nazi textbooks falsifying history-sometimes ludicrously.
BERLIN, November 28
Much talk here that Germany is secretly arming, though it is difficult to get definite dope, and if you did get it and sent it, you'd probably be expelled. Sir Eric Phipps, the British Ambassador, whom I used to see occasionally in Vienna when he was Minister there (he looks like a Hungarian dandy, with a perfect poker face), but whom I have not seen here yet, returned from London yesterday and is reported to have asked the Wilhelmstrasse about it. Went out to a cheap store in the Tauenzienstrasse today and bought a comical-looking ready-made suit of "tails" for our foreign press ball at the Adlon Saturday night. A dinner jacket, I was told, was not enough.
BERLIN, December 2
The ball all right. Tess had a new dress and looked fine. Goebbels, Sir Eric Phipps, Fran?ois Poncet, Dodd, and General von Reichenau, the nearest thing to a Nazi general the Reichswehr has and on very good terms with most of the American correspondents, were among those present. Von Neurath was supposed to be there, but there was some talk of his being displeased with the seating arrangements-a problem with the Germans every time you give a party-and I didn't see him all evening. We danced and wined until about three, ending up with an early breakfast of bacon and eggs in the Adlon bar.
BERLIN, January 14, 1935
The good Catholics and workers of the Saar voted themselves back into the Reich yesterday. Some ninety per cent voted for reunion-more than we had expected, though no doubt many were afraid that they would be found out and punished unless they cast their ballot for Hitler. Well, at least one cause of European tension disappears. Hitler has said, and repeated in a broadcast yesterday, that the Saar was the last territorial bone of contention with France. We shall see….
BERLIN, February 25
Diplomatic circles and most of the correspondents are growing optimistic over a general settlement that will ensure peace. Sir John Simon, the British Foreign Minister, is coming to Berlin. A few days ago Laval and Flandin met the British in London. What they offer is to free Germany from the disarmament provisions of the peace treaty (though Hitler secretly is rapidly freeing himself) in return for German promises to respect the independence of Austria and all the other little countries. The French here point out, though, that Hitler has cleverly separated Paris and London by inviting the British to come here for talks, but not the French. And simple Simon has fallen for the bait.
SAARBRüCKEN, March 1
The Germans formally occupied the Saar today. There has been a pouring rain all day, but it has not dampened the enthusiasm of the local inhabitants. They do have the Nazi bug, badly. But I shall come back here in a couple of years to see how they like it then-the Catholics and the workers, who form the great majority of the population. Hitler strode in this afternoon and reviewed the S.S. and the troops. Before the parade started, I stood in the stand next to Werner von Fritsch, commander-in-chief of the Reichswehr and the brains of the growing German army. I was a little surprised at his talk. He kept up a running fire of very sarcastic remarks-about the S.S., the party, and various party leaders as they appeared. He was full of contempt for them all. When Hitler's cars arrived, he grunted and went over and took his place just behind the Führer for the review.
BERLIN, March 5
Something has gone wrong with the drive for a general settlement. Simon was supposed to arrive here day after tomorrow for his talks with the Germans, but this morning von Neurath told the British that Hitler had a cold and asked Simon to postpone his trip. A little investigation in the Wilhelmstrasse this afternoon revealed it's a "cold diplomatique." The Germans are sore at the publication in London yesterday of a Parliamentary White Paper initialled by Prime Minister MacDonald and commenting on the growing rearmament of Germany in the air. The Germans are especially peeved at this passage which they say is in the paper: "This [German air force] rearmament, if continued at the present rate, unabated and uncontrolled, will aggravate the existing anxieties of the neighbours of Germany and may consequently produce a situation where peace will be in peril. His Majesty's government have noted and welcomed the declarations of the leaders of Germany that they desire peace. They cannot, however, fail to recognize that not only the forces but the spirit in which the population, and especially the youth of the country, are being organized, lend colour to, and substantiate, the general feeling of insecurity which has already been incontestably generated."
All of which is true enough, but the Nazis are furious and Hitler refuses to see Simon.
BERLIN, March 15
Simon, it's now announced, will come here March 24. But all is not well. G?ring has told the Daily Mail, which through Lord Rothermere, its owner, and Ward Price, its roving correspondent-both pro-Nazi-has become a wonderful Nazi mouthpiece and sounding-board, that Germany is building up a military air force. This is the first time he has publicly admitted it. Today it was stated here that G?ring as Minister of Air will be under von Blomberg, Minister of Defence, thus putting the stamp of approval of the army on his job of creating a new German air force. Tonight the Wilhelmstrasse people protested against France's increasing the period of conscription for the French army.
BERLIN, March 16
At about three o'clock this afternoon the Propaganda Ministry called excitedly and asked me to come at five to a press conference at which Dr. Goebbels would make a statement of the "utmost importance." When I got there about a hundred foreign correspondents were crowded into the conference room, all a little high strung, but none knowing why we had been convoked. Finally Goebbels limped in, looking very important and grave. He began immediately to read in a loud voice the text of a new law.[2] He read too fast to take it down in long-hand but there was no need for that. Hitler had of his own accord wiped out the military sections of the Versailles Treaty, restored universal military service and proclaimed the formation of a conscript army of twelve army corps or thirty-six divisions. Louis Lochner of A.P., Ed Beattie of U.P., Pierre Huss of INS, and Gordon Young of Reuter's leaped to their feet and made for the telephones in the hall, not waiting for the rest of Dr. Goebbels's words. Finally the little Doktor finished. Two or three officials remained to answer questions, but it was plain they were afraid to say any more than was contained in the official communiqué. How many men would the new army have? Thirty-six divisions, they said. How many men in a German division? That depends, they said. And so on.
I walked up the Wilhelmstrasse with Norman Ebbutt of the London Times, by far the best-informed foreign correspondent here, and Pat Murphy of the Daily Express. Ebbutt seemed a little stunned by the news, but kept insisting that after all it was not new, that the Germans had been building up their army for more than a year. I hurried to my office in the Dorotheenstrasse, made some calls, and then sat down to write my head off. It was Saturday and at home the Sunday morning papers go to bed early.
LATER.-Finished my story about ten p.m. and waited around the office to answer queries from New York. Hitler, I learn, acted with lightning speed, apparently on the inspiration that now was the time-if ever-to act and get by with it, and it looks as though he will. The Paris office told me tonight that the French were excited and were trying to get the British to do something, but that London was holding back. Hitler returned from his mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden early last evening and immediately convoked the Cabinet and the military leaders. The decision was made then, or rather communicated by Hitler to the others. There seems, so far as I can learn, to have been no hesitation by anyone, or if so, it was not expressed. Experts went to work to draft the law, and Hitler and Goebbels began to draw up two proclamations, one from the party, the other by the Führer to the German people.
At one p.m. this afternoon Hitler again convoked the Cabinet and the military people and read to them the texts of the law and the two proclamations. According to one informant, the Cabinet members embraced one another after Hitler's magic voice had died down. Grey-haired General von Blomberg then led all present in three lusty cheers for Hitler. It must have been one of the most undignified Cabinet meetings in German history. But these Nazis don't rest on dignity-if they can get results. And the Junkers who are running the army will forget a lot-and swallow a lot-now that Hitler has given them what they want. A big crowd gathered in the Wilhelmplatz in front of the Chancellery this evening and cheered Hitler until he appeared at a window and saluted. Today's creation of a conscript army in open defiance of Versailles will greatly enhance his domestic position, for there are few Germans, regardless of how much they hate the Nazis, who will not support it wholeheartedly. The great majority will like the way he has thumbed his nose at Versailles, which they all resented, and, being militarists at heart, they welcome the rebirth of the army.
It is a terrible blow to the Allies-to France, Britain, Italy, who fought the war and wrote the peace to destroy Germany's military power and to keep it down. What will London and Paris do? They could fight a "preventive" war and that would be the end of Hitler. The Poles here say Pilsudski is willing to help. But first reactions tonight-at least according to our Paris office-are all against it. We shall see.
To bed tired, and sick at this Nazi triumph, but somehow professionally pleased at having had a big story to handle, Dosch being away, which left the job to me alone.
BERLIN, March 17
The first paragraph of my dispatch tonight sums up this extraordinary day: "This Heroes Memorial Day in memory of Germany's two million war dead was observed today amid scenes unequalled since 1914 as rebirth of Germany's military power brought forth professions of peace mixed with defiance." The Germans call the day Heldengedenktag, and it corresponds to our Decoration Day. The main ceremony was at the Staatsoper at noon and it was conducted with all the colour which the Nazis know how to utilize. The ground floor of the Opera House was a sea of military uniforms, with a surprising number of old army officers who overnight must have dusted off their fading grey uniforms and shined up their quaint pre-war spiked helmets, which were much in evidence. Strong stage lights played on a platoon of Reichswehr men standing like marble statues and holding flowing war flags. Above them on a vast curtain was hung an immense silver and black Iron Cross. The proper atmosphere was created at once when the orchestra played Beethoven's Funeral March, a moving piece, and one that seems to awaken the very soul of the German. Hitler and his henchmen were in the royal box, but he himself did not speak. General von Blomberg spoke for him, though it seemed to me that he was uttering words certainly penned by the Führer. Said Blomberg: "The world has been made to realize that Germany did not die of its defeat in the World War. Germany will again take the place she deserves among the nations. We pledge ourselves to a Germany which will never surrender and never again sign a treaty which cannot be fulfilled. We do not need revenge because we have gathered glory enough through the centuries." As Hitler looked on approvingly, the general continued: "We do not want to be dragged into another world war. Europe has become too small for another world-war battlefield. Because all nations have equal means at their disposal for war, the future war would mean only self-mutilation for all. We want peace with equal rights and security for all. We seek no more."
Clever words, and meant not only to assure the German people, who certainly don't want war, but the French and British as well. For the French, the reference to "security"-a word that haunts the Quai d'Orsay. Hitler had Field Marshal von Mackensen, the only surviving field-marshal of the old army, at his side, the old man having dressed himself up in his Death-Head Hussars uniform. Present also, I noticed, was Crown Prince Wilhelm, though Hitler was careful not to have him in his box. Dodd was the only ambassador present, the British, French, Italian, and Russian envoys being conspicuous by their absence. Not even the Jap showed up. Dodd looked rather uncomfortable.
After the opera "service" Hitler reviewed a contingent of troops. Not lacking was a battalion of air-force men in sky-blue uniforms who goose-stepped like the veterans they undoubtedly are-but are not supposed to be.
It is worth noting, I think, the two proclamations issued yesterday, which, on re-reading in the Sunday morning newspapers, impress me more than ever in showing Hitler's skill in presenting his fait accompli in the most favourable light to his own people while at the same time impressing outside world opinion not only that he is justified in doing what he has done, but that he is a man of peace. For example the pronouncement of the party: "…With the present day the honour of the German nation has been restored. We stand erect as a free people among nations. As a sovereign state we are free to negotiate, and propose to co-operate in the organization of peace."
Or Hitler's own proclamation to the German people. It begins with the story he has told many times: Wilson's Fourteen Points, the unfair peace treaty, Germany's complete disarmament in a world where all the others are fully armed, Germany's repeated attempt to reach an agreement with the others, and so on. And then: "In so doing [in proclaiming conscription] it proceeded from the same premises which Mr. Baldwin in his last speech so truthfully expressed: 'A country which is not willing to adopt the necessary preventive measures for its own defence will never enjoy any power in this world, either moral or material.'"
Then, to France: "Germany has finally given France the solemn assurance that Germany, after the adjustment of the Saar question, now no longer will make territorial demands upon France."
Finally, to Germans and the whole world: "…In this hour the German government renews before the German people and before the entire world its assurance of its determination never to proceed beyond the safeguarding of German honour and the freedom of the Reich, and especially it does not intend in rearming Germany to create any instrument for warlike attack, but, on the contrary, exclusively for defence and thereby for the maintenance of peace. In so doing, the Reich government expresses the confident hope that the German people, having again obtained their own honour, may be privileged in independent equality to make their contribution towards the pacification of the world in free and open co-operation with other nations."
Every German I've talked to today has applauded these lines. One of the Germans in my office, no Nazi, said: "Can the world expect a fairer offer of peace?" I admit it sounds good, but Ebbutt keeps warning me to be very sceptical, which I hope I am.
Talked to both our London and Paris offices tonight on the phone. They said the French and British are still trying to make up their minds. London said Garvin came out in the Observer with an editorial saying Hitler's action occasioned no surprise and calling on Simon to go ahead with his Berlin visit. Beaverbrook's Sunday Express warned against threatening Germany with force. Tomorrow, according to our office, the Times will take a conciliatory line. My guess is that Hitler has got away with it.
BERLIN, March 18 (at the office)
A squadron of G?ring's bombers just flew over our roof in formation-the first time they have appeared in public. They kept their formation well.
BERLIN, March 26
Simon and Eden have been here for the last couple of days conferring with Hitler and Neurath and this afternoon the two British envoys received us at the dilapidated old British Embassy to tell us-nothing. Simon struck me as a very vain man. Eden, who looked and acted like a schoolboy, kept pacing up and down the stage-we were in the ballroom, which has a stage-prompting his chief and occasionally whispering to him when we asked an embarrassing question. The only thing Simon said worth reporting is that he and Hitler found themselves in "disagreement on almost everything." Apparently-at least the Germans say so-Hitler put on a big song and dance against Russia and the proposed Eastern Locarno, which would bring in Russia in a defence system on Germany's eastern frontiers. The Wilhelmstrasse scarcely hides the fact that Hitler did all the talking, Simon all the listening. Eden goes on to Warsaw and Moscow; Simon home.
BERLIN, April 9
A gala reception at the Opera tonight on the occasion of G?ring's wedding. He has married a provincial actress, Emmy Sonnemann. I received an invitation, but did not go. Party people tell me Goebbels is in a rage at his arch-enemy's lavish displays, of which tonight was only one example, and that he's told the press it can comment sarcastically. Not many editors will dare to, I think.
BERLIN, April 11
Dr. S., a successful Jewish lawyer who served his country at the front in the war, suddenly appeared at our apartment today after having spent some months in the Gestapo jail, Columbia House. Tess was at home and reports he was in a bad state, a little out of his head, but apparently aware of his condition, because he was afraid to go home and face his family. Tess fortified him with some whisky, cheered him up, and sent him home. His wife has been on the verge of nervous prostration for a long time. He said no charges had been preferred against him other than that he was a Jew or a half-Jew and one of several lawyers who had offered to help defend Th?lmann. Many Jews come to us these days for advice or help in getting to England or America, but unfortunately there is little we can do for them.
BAD SAAROW, April 21 (Easter)
Taking the Easter week-end off. The hotel mainly filled with Jews and we are a little surprised to see so many of them still prospering and apparently unafraid. I think they are unduly optimistic.
BERLIN, May 1
A blizzard today pretty well spoiled the big Labour Day show at Tempelhof. Dosch insisted on going out to cover it despite his bad health. Hitler had nothing particular to say and seemed to be depressed. Thousands of workers being marched to Tempelhof for the meeting took advantage of the blizzard to slip out of ranks and make for the nearest pub. There were a surprising number of drunks on the street tonight-unusual for Berlin. The talk around town is that the British are going to negotiate a naval agreement with Hitler, thus helping him to break another shackle of Versailles.
BERLIN, May 21
Hitler made a grandiose "peace" speech in the Reichstag this evening and I fear it will impress world opinion and especially British opinion more than it should. The man is truly a superb orator and in the atmosphere of the hand-picked Reichstag, with its six hundred or so sausage-necked, shaved-headed, brown-clad yes-men, who rise and shout almost every time Hitler pauses for breath, I suppose he is convincing to Germans who listen to him. Anyway, tonight he was in great form and his program-of thirteen points-will convince a lot of people. It's rather an amazing program, at that; very astutely drawn up.
Leading up to it, Hitler screamed: "Germany needs peace…. Germany wants peace…. No one of us means to threaten anybody." As to Austria: "Germany neither intends nor wishes to interfere in the internal affairs of Austria, to annex Austria, or to conclude an Anschluss."
Then he launched into his thirteen-point program.
1. Germany cannot return to Geneva unless the Treaty and the Covenant are separated.
2. Germany will respect all other provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, including the territorial provisions.
3. Germany will scrupulously maintain every treaty voluntarily signed. In particular it will uphold and fulfil all obligations arising out of the Locarno Treaty…. In respecting the demilitarized zone, the German government considers its action as a contribution to the appeasement of Europe….
4. Germany is ready to co-operate in a collective system for safeguarding European peace….
5. Unilateral imposition of conditions cannot promote collaboration. Step-by-step negotiations are indispensable.
6. The German government is ready in principle to conclude pacts of non-aggression with its neighbours, and to supplement these pacts with all provisions that aim at isolating the war-maker and isolating the area of war.
7. The German government is ready to supplement the Locarno Treaty with an air agreement.
8. Germany is ready to limit armaments on the basis of aerial parity with the individual big powers of the West, and naval tonnage equal to thirty-five per cent of the British.
9. Germany desires the outlawing of weapons and methods of warfare contrary to the Geneva Red Cross convention. Here the German government has in mind all those arms which bring death and destruction not so much to the fighting soldiers as to non-combatant women and children. It believes it is possible to proscribe the use of certain arms as contrary to international law and to outlaw those nations still using them. For example, there might be a prohibition of the dropping of gas, incendiary, and explosive bombs outside the real battle zone. This limitation could then be extended to complete international outlawing of all bombing.
10. Germany desires the abolition of the heaviest arms, especially heavy artillery and heavy tanks.
11. Germany will accept any limitation whatsoever of the calibre of artillery, the size of warships, and the tonnage of submarines, or even the complete abolition of submarines, by agreement.
12. Something should be done to prohibit the poisoning of public opinion among the nations by irresponsible elements orally or in writing, and in the theatre or the cinema.
13. Germany is ready at any time to reach an international agreement which shall effectively prevent all attempts at outside interference in the affairs of other states.
What could be more sweet or reasonable-if he means it? Hitler spoke until nearly ten o'clock. He was in an easy, confident mood. The diplomatic box was jammed, the ambassadors of France, Britain, Italy, Japan, and Poland being in the front row. Dodd sat in the third row-a typical Nazi diplomatic slight to America, it seemed to me. Filed several thousand words, and then to bed, tired and a little puzzled by the speech, which some of the British and French correspondents at the Taverne tonight thought might really after all pave the way to several years of Peace.
BERLIN, June 3
We've moved again, this time to Tempelhof, our studio place in the Tauenzienstrasse, which was just under the roof, proving too warm. We've taken the apartment of Captain Koehl, a German flying ace in the World War, and the first man (with two friends) to fly the Atlantic from east to west. He and his wife, pretty, dark, great friends of the Knicks. He is one of the few men in Germany with enough courage not to knuckle down to G?ring and the Nazis. As a result he is completely out, having even lost his job with Lufthansa. A fervent Catholic and a man of strong character, he prefers to retire to his little farm in the south of Germany rather than curry Nazi favour. He is one of a very few. I've taken a great liking to him.
BERLIN, June 7
The ticker brings in this news: Baldwin succeeds MacDonald as British Prime Minister. There will be few tears for MacDonald, who betrayed the British labour movement and who in the last five years has become a vain and foolish man. Ribbentrop is in London negotiating a naval treaty which will give Germany thirty-five per cent of Britain's tonnage. The Nazis here say it's in the bag.
BERLIN, June 18
It's in the bag, signed today in London. The Wilhelmstrasse quite elated. Germany gets a U-boat tonnage equal to Britain's. Why the British have agreed to this is beyond me. German submarines almost beat them in the last war, and may in the next. Ended up at the Taverne, as on so many nights. The Taverne, a Ristorante Italiano, run by Willy Lehman, a big, bluff German with nothing Italian about him, and his wife, a slim, timid Belgian woman, has become an institution for the British and American correspondents here, helping us to retain some sanity and affording an opportunity to get together informally and talk shop-without which no foreign correspondent could long live. We have a Stammtisch-a table always reserved for us in the corner-and from about ten p.m. until three or four in the morning it is usually filled. Usually Norman Ebbutt presides, sucking at an old pipe the night long, talking and arguing in a weak, high-pitched voice, imparting wisdom, for he has been here a long time, has contacts throughout the government, party, churches, and army, and has a keen intelligence. Of late he has complained to me in private that the Times does not print all he sends, that it does not want to hear too much of the bad side of Nazi Germany and apparently has been captured by the pro-Nazis in London. He is discouraged and talks of quitting. Next to him sits Mrs. Holmes, a beak-nosed woman of undoubted intelligence. She swallows her words so, however, that I find difficulty in understanding what she says. Other habitués of the Stammtisch are Ed Beattie of U.P., with a moon-faced Churchillian countenance behind which is a nimble wit and a great store of funny stories and songs; Fred Oechsner of U.P. and his wife, Dorothy, he a quiet type but an able correspondent, she blonde, pretty, ebullient, with a low, hoarse voice; Pierre Huss of INS, slick, debonair, ambitious, and on better terms with Nazi officials than almost any other; Guido Enderis of the New York Times, aging in his sixties but sporting invariably a gaudy race-track suit with a loud red necktie, minding the Nazis less than most-a man who achieved the distinction once of working here as an American correspondent even after we got into the war; Al Ross, his assistant, bulky, sleepy, slow-going, and lovable; Wally Deuel of the Chicago Daily News, youthful, quiet, studious, extremely intelligent; his wife, Mary Deuel, much the same as he is, with large, pretty eyes, they both very much in love; Sigrid Schultz of the Chicago Tribune, the only woman correspondent in our ranks, buoyant, cheerful, and always well informed; and Otto Tolischus, who though not head of the bureau of the New York Times is its chief prop, complicated, profound, studious, with a fine penchant for getting at the bottom of things. Present often is Martha Dodd, daughter of the Ambassador, pretty, vivacious, a mighty arguer. Two American correspondents come rarely if at all, Louis Lochner of A.P. and John Elliott of the New York Herald Tribune, John, who is a very able and learned correspondent, being a teetotaller and non-smoker and much addicted-as we should all be-to his books.
NEW YORK, September 9
Home for a brief vacation, and New York looks awfully good though I find most of the good people much too optimistic about European affairs. Everyone here, I find, has very positive knowledge and opinions.
NEW YORK, September 16
Week-end with Nicholas Roosevelt out on Long Island. Had not seen him since he was Minister in Budapest. He was too preoccupied with Franklin Roosevelt's "dictatorship"-as he called it-to allow for much time to argue European affairs. He seemed deeply resentful that the New Deal would not allow him to grow potatoes in his garden, and went into the matter in some detail, though I'm afraid I did not follow. I kept thinking of Ethiopia and the chances of war. A very intelligent man, though. Have had a good visit-but much too short-with my family. Mother, despite her age and recent illnesses, seemed to be looking quite pert. The office insists I return at once to Berlin because of the Abyssinian situation. Dosch is to go to Rome and I am to have the Buro.
BERLIN, October 4
Mussolini has begun his conquest of Abyssinia. According to an Italian communiqué, the Duce's troops crossed the frontier yesterday "in order to repulse an imminent threat from the Ethiopians." The Wilhelmstrasse is delighted. Either Mussolini will stumble and get himself so heavily involved in Africa that he will be greatly weakened in Europe, whereupon Hitler can seize Austria, hitherto protected by the Duce; or he will win, defying France and Britain, and thereupon be ripe for a tie-up with Hitler against the Western democracies. Either way Hitler wins. The League has provided a sorry spectacle, and its failure now, after the Manchurian debacle, certainly kills it. At Geneva they talk of sanctions. It's a last hope.
BERLIN, December 30
Dodd called us in today for a talk with William Phillips, Under Secretary of State, who is visiting here. We asked him what action Washington would take if the Nazis began expelling us. He gave an honest answer. He said: None. Our point was that if the Wilhelmstrasse knew that for every American correspondent expelled, a German newspaperman at home would be kicked out, perhaps the Nazis would think twice before acting against us. But the Secretary said the State Department was without law to act in such a case-a lovely example of one of our democratic weaknesses.
BERLIN, January 4, 1936
The afternoon press, especially the B?rsen Zeitung and the Angriff, very angry at Roosevelt's denunciation of dictatorships and aggression, obviously directed mostly against Mussolini, but also meant for Berlin. Incidentally, an item I forgot to record: X of the B?rsen Zeitung is not to be executed. His death sentence has been commuted to life imprisonment. His offence: he occasionally saw that some of us received copies of Goebbels's secret daily orders to the press. They made rich reading, ordering daily suppression of this truth and the substitution of that lie. He was given away, I hear, by a Polish diplomat, a fellow I never trusted. The German people, unless they can read foreign newspapers (the London Times has an immense circulation here now), are terribly cut off from events in the outside world and of course are told nothing of what is happening behind the scenes in their own country. For a while they stormed the news-stands to buy the Baseler Nachrichten, a Swiss German-language paper, which sold more copies in Germany than it did in Switzerland. But that paper has now been banned.
BERLIN, January 23
An unpleasant day. A telephone call awakened me this morning-I work late and sleep late-and it turned out to be Wilfred Bade, a fanatical Nazi careerist at the moment in charge of the Foreign Press in the Propaganda Ministry. He began: "Have you been in Garmisch recently?" I said: "No." Then he began to shout: "I see, you haven't been there and yet you have the dishonesty to write a fake story about the Jews there…." "Wait a minute," I said, "you can't call me dishonest…" but he had hung up.
At noon Tess turned on the radio for the news just in time for us to hear a ringing personal attack on me, implying that I was a dirty Jew and was trying to torpedo the winter Olympic Games at Garmisch (which begin in a few days) with false stories about the Jews and Nazi officials there. When I got to the office after lunch, the front pages of the afternoon papers were full of typically hysterical Nazi denunciations of me. The Germans at the office expected the Gestapo to come to get me at any moment. Actually, I had written in a mail series, some time ago, that the Nazis at Garmisch had pulled down all the signs saying that Jews were unwanted (they're all over Germany) and that the Olympic visitors would thus be spared any signs of the kind of treatment meted out to Jews in this country. I had also remarked, in passing, that Nazi officials had taken all the good hotels for themselves and had put the press in inconvenient pensions, which was true.
Every time the office boy brought in a new paper during the afternoon I grew more indignant. Most of my friends called up to advise me to ignore the whole affair, saying that if I fought it I'd probably be thrown out. But the stories were so exaggerated and so libellous I could not control my temper. I called up Bade's office and demanded to see him. He was out. I kept calling. Finally a secretary said he was out and would not be coming back. About nine p.m. I could contain myself no further. I went over to the Propaganda Ministry, brushed by a guard and burst into Bade's office. As I suspected, he was there, sitting at his desk. Uninvited, I sat down opposite him and before he could recover from his surprise demanded an apology and a correction in the German press and radio. He started to roar at me. I roared back, though in moments of excitement I lose what German I speak and I probably was most incoherent. Our shouting apparently alarmed a couple of flunkeys outside, because they opened the door and looked in. Bade bade them shut the door and we went after each other again. He started to pound on the table. I pounded back. The door was hurriedly opened and one of the flunkeys came in, ostensibly to offer his chief some cigarettes. I lit one of my own. Twice again our pounding brought in the flunkey, once with more cigarettes, once with a pitcher of water. But I began to realize, what I should have known, that I was getting nowhere, that no one, and Bade least of all, had the power or the decency ever to correct a piece of Nazi propaganda once it had been launched, regardless of how big the lie. In the end, he grew quiet, even sugary. He said they had decided not to expel me as first planned. I flared up again and dared him to expel me, but he did not react and finally I stumped out. Much too wrought up, I fear.
GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, February
This has been a more pleasant interlude than I expected. Much hard work for Tess and myself from dawn to midnight, covering the Winter Olympics, too many S.S. troops and military about (not only for me but especially for Westbrook Pegler!), but the scenery of the Bavarian Alps, particularly at sunrise and sunset, superb, the mountain air exhilarating, the rosy-cheeked girls in their skiing outfits generally attractive, the games exciting, especially the bone-breaking ski-jumping, the bob-races (also bone-breaking and sometimes actually "death-defying"), the hockey matches, and Sonja Henie. And on the whole the Nazis have done a wonderful propaganda job. They've greatly impressed most of the visiting foreigners with the lavish but smooth way in which they've run the games and with their kind manners, which to us who came from Berlin of course seemed staged. I was so alarmed at this that I gave a luncheon for some of our businessmen and invited Douglas Miller, our commercial attaché in Berlin, and the best-informed man on Germany we have in our Embassy, to enlighten them a little. But they told him what things were like, and Doug scarcely got a word in. It has been fun being with Pegler, whose sharp, acid tongue has had a field day here. He and Gallico and I were continually having a run-in with the S.S. guards, who, whenever Hitler was at the stadium, surrounded it and tried to keep us from entering. Most of the correspondents a little peeved at a piece in the V?lkische Beobachter quoting Birchall of the New York Times to the effect that there has been nothing military about these games and that correspondents who so reported were inaccurate. Peg especially resented this. Tonight he seemed a little concerned that the Gestapo might pick him up for what he has written, but I don't think so. The "Olympic spirit" will prevail for a fortnight or so more, by which time he will be in Italy. Tess and I have seen a great deal of Paul Gallico. He's at an interesting cross-road. He has deliberately thrown up his job as the highest-paid sports-writer in New York, said farewell to sports, and is going to settle down in the English countryside to see if he can make his living as a free-lance writer. It's a decision that few would have the guts to make. Back to Berlin tomorrow to the grind of covering Nazi politics. Tess is going over to the Tyrol to get a rest from the Nazis and do some skiing.
BERLIN, February 25
Learn that Lord Londonderry was here around the first of the month, saw Hitler, G?ring, and most of the others. He is an all-out pro-Nazi. Fear he has not been up to any good.
BERLIN, February 28
The French Chamber has approved the Soviet pact by a big majority. Much indignation in the Wilhelmstrasse. Fred Oechsner says that when he and Roy Howard saw Hitler day before yesterday, he seemed to be very preoccupied about something.
BERLIN, March 5
Party circles say Hitler is convoking the Reichstag for March 13, the date they expect the French Senate to approve the Soviet pact. Very ugly atmosphere in the Wilhelmstrasse today, but difficult to get to the bottom of it.
BERLIN, March 6, midnight
This has been a day of the wildest rumours. Definite, however, is that Hitler has convoked the Reichstag for noon tomorrow and summoned the ambassadors of Britain, France, Italy, and Belgium for tomorrow morning. Since these are the four Locarno powers, it is obvious from that and from what little information I could pry out of party circles that Hitler intends to denounce the Locarno Treaty, which only a year ago this month he said Germany would "scrupulously respect." My guess too, based on what I've heard today, is that Hitler will also make an end of the demilitarized zone in the Rhineland, though the Wilhelmstrasse savagely denies this. Whether he will send the Reichswehr in is not sure. This seems too big a risk in view of the fact that the French army could easily drive it out. Much friction in the Cabinet reported today, with von Neurath, Schacht, and the generals supposedly advising Hitler to go slow. One informant told me tonight that Hitler would not send in troops, but merely declare the strong police force he now has in the Rhineland as part of the army, thus giving practical effect to ending its demilitarization. Hitler's lightning move, according to one man in the Wilhelmstrasse, came after he'd received reports from his Embassy in Paris that the French Senate is sure to vote the Soviet pact in a day or two. Berlin tonight full of Nazi leaders hurriedly convoked for the Reichstag meeting. Saw a lot of them at the Kaiserhof and they seemed in a very cocky mood. Was on the phone several times to Dr. Aschmann, press chief at the Foreign Office, who kept giving the most categorical denials that German troops would march into the Rhineland tomorrow. That would mean war, he said. Wrote a dispatch which may have been a little on the careful side. But we shall know by tomorrow.
BERLIN, March 7
A little on the careful side is right! Hitler on this day has torn up the Locarno Treaty and sent in the Reichswehr to occupy the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland! A few diplomats on the pessimistic side think it means war. Most think he will get by with it. The important thing is that the French army has not budged. Tonight for the first time since 1870 grey-clad German soldiers and blue-clad French troops face each other across the upper Rhine. But I talked to Karlsruhe on the phone an hour ago; there have been no shots. I've had our Paris office on the line all evening, filing my dispatch. They say the French are not mobilizing-yet, at least-though the Cabinet is in session with the General Staff. London-as a year ago-seems to be holding back. The Reichswehr generals are still nervous, but not so nervous as they were this morning.
To describe this day, if I can:
At ten o'clock this morning Neurath handed the ambassadors of France, Britain, Belgium, and Italy a long memorandum. For once we got a break on the news because Dr. Dieckhoff, the State Secretary in the Foreign Office, called in Freddy Mayer, our counsellor of Embassy, and gave him a copy of the memorandum, apparently suggesting he give it to the American correspondents, since the American Embassy rarely gives us a lift like this of its own accord. Huss, who needed an early report for the INS, hurried over to the Embassy, and I walked over to the Reichstag, which was meeting at noon in the Kroll Opera House. The memorandum, however, along with Neurath's oral remarks to the ambassadors that German troops had marched into the Rhineland at dawn this morning, told the whole story.
It argued that the Locarno pact had been rendered "extinct" by the Franco-Soviet pact, that Germany therefore no longer regarded itself as bound by it, and that the "German Government has therefore, as from today, restored the full and unrestricted sovereignty of the Reich in the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland." There followed then another beautiful attempt by Hitler-and who can say he won't succeed, after May 21 last?-to throw sand in the eyes of the "peace-loving" men of the West, men like Londonderry, the Astors, Lord Lothian, Lord Rothermere. He proposed a seven-point program of "Peace" in order, as the memo puts it, "to prevent any doubt as to its [the Reich government's] intentions, and to make clear the purely defensive character of this measure, as well as to give expression to its lasting desire for the true pacification of Europe…." The proposal is a pure fraud, and if I had any guts, or American journalism had any, I would have said so in my dispatch tonight. But I am not supposed to be "editorial."
In this latest "peace proposal" Hitler offers to sign a twenty-five-year non-aggression pact with Belgium and France, to be guaranteed by Britain and Italy; to propose to Belgium and France that both sides of their frontiers with Germany be demilitarized; to sign an air pact; to conclude non-aggression pacts with her eastern neighbours; and, finally, to return to the League of Nations. The quality of Hitler's sincerity may be measured by his proposal to demilitarize both sides of the frontiers, thus forcing France to scrap her Maginot Line, now her last protection against a German attack.
The Reichstag, more tense than I have ever felt it (apparently the hand-picked deputies on the main floor had not yet been told what had happened, though they knew something was afoot), began promptly at noon. The French, British, Belgian, and Polish ambassadors were absent, but the Italian was there and Dodd. General von Blomberg, the War Minister, sitting with the Cabinet on the left side of the stage, was as white as a sheet and fumbled the top of the bench nervously with his fingers. I have never seen him in such a state. Hitler began with a long harangue which he has often given before, but never tires of repeating, about the injustices of the Versailles Treaty and the peacefulness of Germans. Then his voice, which had been low and hoarse at the beginning, rose to a shrill, hysterical scream as he raged against Bolshevism.
"I will not have the gruesome Communist international dictatorship of hate descend upon the German people! This destructive Asiatic Weltanschauung strikes at all values! I tremble for Europe at the thought of what would happen should this destructive Asiatic conception of life, this chaos of the Bolshevist revolution, prove successful!" (Wild applause.)
Then, in a more reasoned voice, his argument that France's pact with Russia had invalidated the Locarno Treaty. A slight pause and:
"Germany no longer feels bound by the Locarno Treaty. In the interest of the primitive rights of its people to the security of their frontier and the safeguarding of their defence, the German Government has re-established, as from today, the absolute and unrestricted sovereignty of the Reich in the demilitarized zone!"
Now the six hundred deputies, personal appointees all of Hitler, little men with big bodies and bulging necks and cropped hair and pouched bellies and brown uniforms and heavy boots, little men of clay in his fine hands, leap to their feet like automatons, their right arms upstretched in the Nazi salute, and scream Heils, the first two or three wildly, the next twenty-five in unison, like a college yell. Hitler raises his hand for silence. It comes slowly. Slowly the automatons sit down. Hitler now has them in his claws. He appears to sense it. He says in a deep, resonant voice: "Men of the German Reichstag!" The silence is utter.
"In this historic hour, when in the Reich's western provinces German troops are at this minute marching into their future peace-time garrisons, we all unite in two sacred vows."
He can go no further. It is news to this hysterical "parliamentary" mob that German soldiers are already on the move into the Rhineland. All the militarism in their German blood surges to their heads. They spring, yelling and crying, to their feet. The audience in the galleries does the same, all except a few diplomats and about fifty of us correspondents. Their hands are raised in slavish salute, their faces now contorted with hysteria, their mouths wide open, shouting, shouting, their eyes, burning with fanaticism, glued on the new god, the Messiah. The Messiah plays his role superbly. His head lowered as if in all humbleness, he waits patiently for silence. Then, his voice still low, but choking with emotion, utters the two vows:
"First, we swear to yield to no force whatever in the restoration of the honour of our people, preferring to succumb with honour to the severest hardships rather than to capitulate. Secondly, we pledge that now, more than ever, we shall strive for an understanding between European peoples, especially for one with our western neighbour nations…. We have no territorial demands to make in Europe!…Germany will never break the peace."
It was a long time before the cheering stopped. Down in the lobby the deputies were still under the magic spell, gushing over one another. A few generals made their way out. Behind their smiles, however, you could not help detecting a nervousness. We waited in front of the Opera until Hitler and the other bigwigs had driven away and the S.S. guards would let us through. I walked through the Tiergarten with John Elliott to the Adlon, where we lunched. We were too taken aback to say much.
There is to be an "election" on March 29, "so the German people may pass judgment on my leadership," as Hitler puts it. The result, of course, is a foregone conclusion, but it was announced tonight that Hitler will make a dozen "campaign" speeches starting tomorrow.
He cleverly tried to reassure Poland in his speech today. His words were: "I wish the German people to understand that although it affects us painfully that an access to the sea for a nation of thirty-five million people should cut through German territory, it is unreasonable to deny such a great nation that access."
After lunch I took a stroll alone through the Tiergarten to collect my thoughts. Near the Skagerakplatz I ran into General von Blomberg walking along with two dogs on the leash. His face was still white, his cheeks twitching. "Has anything gone wrong?" I wondered. Then to the office, where I pounded my head off all afternoon, stopping to telephone to Paris my story every time I had three or four hundred words. Remembered it was Saturday when New York came through by cable hollering for early copy for the Sunday morningers. Saturday is Hitler's day all right: the blood purge, conscription, today-all Saturday affairs.
Tonight as I finished my story, I could see from my office window which looks down the Wilhelmstrasse endless columns of storm troopers parading down the street past the Chancellery in torchlight procession. Sent Hermann down to take a look. He phoned that Hitler was taking the salute from his balcony, Streicher (of all people) at his side. The DNB claims there are torchlight processions all over the Reich tonight.
Our Cologne correspondent phoned several times to give a description of the occupation. According to him, the German troops have been given delirious receptions everywhere, the women strewing their line of march with flowers. He says the air force landed bombers and fighters at the Düsseldorf airdrome and several other fields. How many troops the Germans have sent into the Rhineland today nobody knows. Fran?ois Poncet (the French Ambassador) told a friend of mine tonight that he had been lied to three times by the German Foreign Office on the subject in the course of the day. The Germans first announced 2,000 troops, then later 9,500 with "thirteen detachments of artillery." My information is that they've sent in four divisions-about 50,000 men.
And so goes the main pillar of the European peace structure, Locarno. It was freely signed by Germany, it was not a Dictat, and Hitler more than once solemnly swore to respect it. At the Taverne tonight one of the French correspondents cheered us up by stating positively that the French army would march tomorrow but after what our Paris office said tonight I doubt it. Why it doesn't march, I don't understand. Certainly it is more than a match for the Reichswehr. And if it does, that's the end of Hitler. He's staked all on the success of his move and cannot survive if the French humiliate him by occupying the west bank of the Rhine. Around the Taverne's Stammtisch most of us agreed on this. Much beer and two plates of spaghetti until three a.m., and then home. Must get up in time to attend another Heroes Memorial Day service at the Opera tomorrow. It should be even better than last year-unless the French-
BERLIN, March 8
Hitler has got away with it! France is not marching. Instead it is appealing to the League! No wonder the faces of Hitler and G?ring and Blomberg and Fritsch were all smiles this noon as they sat in the royal box at the State Opera and for the second time in two years celebrated in a most military fashion Heroes Memorial Day, which is supposed to mark the memory of the two million Germans slain in the last war.
Oh, the stupidity (or is it paralysis?) of the French! I learned today on absolute authority that the German troops which marched into the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland yesterday had strict orders to beat a hasty retreat if the French army opposed them in any way. They were not prepared or equipped to fight a regular army. That probably explains Blomberg's white face yesterday. Apparently Fritsch (commander-in-chief of the Reichswehr) and most of the generals opposed the move, but Blomberg, who has a blind faith in the Führer and his judgment, talked them into it. It may be that Fritsch, who loves neither Hitler nor the Nazi regime, consented to go along on the theory that if the coup failed, that would be the end of Hitler; if it succeeded, then one of his main military problems was solved.
Another weird story today. The French Embassy says-and I believe it-that Poncet called on Hitler a few days ago and asked him to propose his terms for a Franco-German rapprochement. The Führer asked for a few days to think it over. This seemed reasonable enough to the Ambassador, but he was puzzled at Hitler's insistence that no word leak out to the public of this visit. He is no longer puzzled. It would have spoiled Hitler's excuse that France was to blame for his tearing up the Locarno Treaty if the world had known that France, which after all had not yet ratified the Soviet pact, was willing to negotiate with him-indeed, had asked to negotiate.
The memorial services at the Opera this noon were conducted in a Wagnerian setting (Wagner's influence on Nazism, on Hitler, has never been grasped abroad), the flood-lit stage full of steel-helmeted soldiers bearing war flags against a background of evergreen and a huge silver and black Iron Cross. The lower floor and balconies dotted with the old Imperial army uniforms and spiked helmets. Hitler sitting proudly in the Imperial box surrounded by Germany's war leaders, past and present: Field-Marshal von Mackensen in his Death-Head Hussars uniform, G?ring in a resplendent scarlet and blue uniform of an air-force general, General von Seekt, creator of the Reichswehr, General von Fritsch, its present leader, Admiral von Raeder, chief of the rapidly growing navy, and General von Krausz in the uniform of the old Austro-Hungarian army, his face adorned with vast side-whiskers à la Franz Josef. Absent only was Ludendorff, who declines to make his peace with his former corporal and who has turned down an offer of a field-marshalship; and the Crown Prince.
General von Blomberg delivered the address, a curious mixture of bluff, defiance, and glorification of militarism. "We do not want an offensive war," he said, "but we do not fear a defensive war." Though everyone here-if not in Paris or London-knows that he does, and that yesterday he was terrified that it might come off. Blomberg, obviously on Hitler's orders, went out of his way in a most unsoldierly way to silence rumours that the Reichswehr generals opposed the Rhineland occupation and have little sympathy for Nazism. I could almost see Fritsch wince when his chief denounced the "whispers in the outside world about relations between the Nazi Party and the army." Said the general with some emphasis: "We in the army are National Socialists. The party and the army are now closer together." He went on to tell why. "The National Socialist revolution instead of destroying the old army, as other revolutions have always done, has re-created it. The National Socialist state places at our disposal its entire economic strength, its people, its entire male youth." And then a hint of the future: "An enormous responsibility rests upon our shoulders. It is all the more heavy because we may be placed before new tasks."
As Blomberg spoke, Goebbels had his spotlights and movie cameras grinding away, first at the stage, then at the box where the Leader sat. After the "service" the usual military parade, but I had had enough and was hungry and went off to Habel's excellent little wine shop down the Linden and had lunch washed down by some Deidesheimer.
LATER.-Dosch-Fleurot had an interesting story tonight from the Rhineland, where he's been watching the German occupation. He reports that Catholic priests met the German troops at the Rhine bridges and conferred blessings on them. In Cologne Cathedral Cardinal Schulte, he says, praised Hitler for "sending back our army." Quickly forgotten is the Nazi persecution of the church. Dosch says the Rhine wine is flowing freely down there tonight.
And the French are appealing to Geneva! I called our London office to see what the British are going to do. They laughed, and read me a few extracts from the Sunday press. Garvin's Sunday Observer and Rothermere's Sunday Dispatch are delighted at Hitler's move. The British are now busy restraining the French! The Foreign Office here, which kept open tonight to watch the reaction from Paris and London, is in high spirits. No wonder!
KARLSRUHE, March 13
Here, within artillery range of the Maginot Line, Hitler made his first "election" speech tonight. Special trains poured in all day from surrounding towns, bringing the faithful and those ordered to come. The meeting was held in a huge tent and the atmosphere was so suffocating that I left before Hitler arrived, returning to my hotel, where over a good dinner and a bottle of wine, with most of the other correspondents, I listened to the speech by radio. Nothing new in it, though he drummed away nicely about his desire for friendship with France. Certainly these Rhinelanders don't want another war with France, but this reoccupation by German troops has inculcated them with the Nazi bug. They're as hysterical as the rest of the Germans. Later went out to a Kneipe with a taxi-driver who had driven me around during the day and had a few Schnaps. He turned out to be a Communist, waxed bitter about the Nazis, and predicted their early collapse. It was a relief to find one German here against the regime. He said there are a lot of others, but I sometimes wonder.
March 29
A fine early spring day for the "election" and according to Goebbels's figures ninety-five per cent of the German people have approved the reoccupation of the Rhineland. Some of the correspondents who visited the polling-booths today reported irregularities. But there's no doubt, I think, that a substantial majority of the people applaud the Rhineland coup regardless of whether they're Nazis or not. It's also true that few dare to vote against Hitler for fear of being found out. Learned tonight that in Neuk?lln and Wedding, former Communist strongholds in Berlin, the "No" vote ran as high as twenty per cent and that the people there are going to catch it in the next few days.
The new Zeppelin-to be called the Hindenburg-soared gracefully over our office yesterday. I was down to Friedrichshafen the other day to inspect it and it's a marvel of German engineering genius. Yesterday it was doing "election" propaganda, dropping leaflets exhorting the populace to vote "Ja." Dr. Hugo Eckener, who is getting it ready for its maiden flight to Brazil, strenuously objected to putting it in the air this week-end on the ground it was not yet fully tested, but Dr. Goebbels insisted. Eckener, no friend of the regime, refused to take it up himself, though he allowed Captain Lehmann to. The Doktor is reported howling mad and determined to get Eckener.
BERLIN, April (undated)
An amusing lunch today at the Dodds'. Eckener, who is off to America soon to ask Roosevelt personally for enough helium to fill his new balloon (there seems to be some opposition to this at home), was the guest of honour. He told one joke after another on Goebbels, for whom he has nothing but contempt. Someone asked him about the balloting on the Hindenburg, which was taken while it was still aloft. "Goebbels hung up a new record," he fired back. "There were forty persons on the Hindenburg. Forty-two Ja votes were counted." Goebbels has forbidden the press to mention Eckener's name.
BERLIN, May 2
The Italians entered Addis Ababa today. The Negus has fled. Mussolini has triumphed-largely with mustard gas. That's how he's beaten the Ethiopians. He's also triumphed over the League, by bluff. That's how he kept off oil sanctions, which might have stopped him. We picked up a broadcast of him shouting from the balcony of the Palazzo Venezia in Rome. Much boloney about thirty centuries of history, Roman civilization, and triumph over barbarism. Whose barbarism?
RAGUSA, YUGOSLAVIA, June 18
Having a glorious Dalmatian holiday. This place has everything: sea, sun, mountains, flowers, good wine, good food, pleasant people. The Knickerbockers, back from Addis Ababa, vacationing with us. Agnes to have a baby in a few months. Knick full of weird tales of how the correspondents scrapped and fought each other in Addis; of how poor Bill Barbour of the Chicago Tribune died and was buried there; of the bombing of Dessye; of a nightmarish disorderly house full of lepers in Jibouti, and so on. We loaf and swim and chatter and read all day, going down to the café in the old port in the evening for drink, food, and dancing. Finished Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain, a tremendous novel; and a book of Chekov's plays, which I much liked, as I do his short stories.
RAGUSA, June 20
A bad scare today. While Knick, Agnes, and I were still eating breakfast on the terrace of the hotel, which is a half-mile or so up the coast from town, Tess went off to town to snap some photographs. A couple of army bombers suddenly appeared and started to do acrobatics over Ragusa, a curious thing because they were much too cumbersome for stunting. Then one went into a long dive right over the centre of town. Agnes looked away. It failed to come out of it entirely, or rather seemed to fall apart in the air, as it was coming out, just over the house-tops. Then there was an explosion and flames. I thought of Tess. The flames were leaping up from just next to the Cathedral. That's where she mentioned she wanted some "shots." I had on only shorts and a shirt and beach shoes. I must have got away automatically. I sprinted up the road to town. Something told me she was in it. Several houses were on fire when I got to the little square in front of the cathedral. Police were carrying away blanketed forms on stretchers. I started to look under the blankets, then held myself back. I darted in and around the jam of people in the streets. No sign of Tess. Hysterical I became. I started asking for the mayor, the governor, anyone who could tell me. In the end there was a nudge. "Get out of my way, I want to get that." Tess was squinting through her Leica. She had been a hundred yards distant, she said after she finished her photographing, when the plane crashed.
LATER.-It seems that the two pilots met a pair of dazzling girls in town last night and to further their romantic adventure told them to be on their balconies at eight this morning, promising them something "exciting." The death-roll ten, including the pilot and observer.
RAGUSA, June 22
Took a steamer to a little town fifteen miles up the coast today to see a chapel which Mestrovich designed and in which he has placed some of the most exciting sculptured works I've ever seen. It's a magnificent thing, the architecture, the reliefs, the figures, blending in a beautiful harmony. Since the day I set eyes on El Greco in the Prado in Madrid I haven't seen a work of art which has stirred me so.
BERLIN, July 15
Have started, God help me, a novel. The scene: India. I was there twice, in 1930 and 1931, during Gandhi's Civil Disobedience movement, and I cannot get India out of my system.
BERLIN, July 18
Trouble in Spain. A right-wing revolt. Fighting in Madrid, Barcelona, and other places.
BERLIN, July 23
The Lindberghs are here, and the Nazis, led by G?ring, are making a great play for them. Today at a luncheon given him by the Air Ministry he spoke out somewhat, warning that the airplane had become such a deadly instrument of destruction that unless those "who are in aviation" face their heavy responsibilities and achieve a "new security founded on intelligence," the world and especially Europe are in for irreparable damage. It was a well-timed little thrust, for G?ring is undoubtedly building up the deadliest air force in Europe. The DNB was moved to remark this afternoon that Lindbergh's remarks "created a strong impression," though I doubt it. "Annoyance" would be a more accurate word.
This afternoon the Lufthansa company invited some of us correspondents to a tea-party at Tempelhof for the Lindberghs, apparently not informing them that we would be there, for fear they would object, their phobia about the press being what it is. It was the first time I had seen him since 1927 when I covered his arrival at Le Bourget. Surprised how little he had changed, except that he seemed more self-confident. Later we went for a ride in Germany's largest land plane, the Field-Marshal von Hindenburg. Somewhere over Wannsee Lindbergh took the controls himself and treated us to some very steep banks, considering the size of the plane, and other little man?uvres, which terrified most of the passengers. The talk is that the Lindberghs have been favourably impressed by what the Nazis have shown them. He has shown no enthusiasm for meeting the foreign correspondents, who have a perverse liking for enlightening visitors on the Third Reich, as they see it, and we have not pressed for an interview.
BERLIN, July 27
The Spanish government seems to be getting the upper hand. Has quelled the revolt in Barcelona and Madrid, Spain's two most important cities. But it's a much more serious affair than it seemed a week ago. The Nazis are against the Spanish government, and party circles are beginning to talk of help for the rebels. Tragic land! And just when there seemed such hope for the Republic. But interest here is concentrated on the Olympic Games opening next week, with the Nazis outdoing themselves to create a favourable impression on foreign visitors. They've built a magnificent sport-field, with a stadium for a hundred thousand, a swimming stadium for ten thousand, and so forth. Gallico here, and a pleasant dinner with him and Eleanor Holm Jarrett, an American swimming phenomenon with a very pretty face, who, it seems, is being thrown off the team for alleged imbibing of champagne on the boat coming over.
BERLIN, August 16
The Olympic Games finally came to an end today. I got a kick out of the track and field, the swimming, the rowing, and the basket-ball, but they were a headache to us as a job. Hitler and G?ring and the others showed up this afternoon for the finale, which dragged on until after dark. Huss and I had to use our wits to smuggle in Mrs. William Randolph Hearst, a woman friend of hers, and the Adolphe Menjous, who arrived in town last night after all tickets had been sold. We lost Menjou in the scuffle, but he showed up after a few minutes. We had to pack them in our already crowded press cabin, but we finally prevailed on some S.S. guards to let them sit in the seats reserved for diplomats where they could get a good view of Hitler. Afterwards they seemed quite thrilled at the experience.
I'm afraid the Nazis have succeeded with their propaganda. First, the Nazis have run the games on a lavish scale never before experienced, and this has appealed to the athletes. Second, the Nazis have put up a very good front for the general visitors, especially the big businessmen. Ralph Barnes and I were asked in to meet some of the American ones a few years ago. They said frankly they were favourably impressed by the Nazi "set-up." They had talked with G?ring, they said, and he had told them that we American correspondents were unfair to the Nazis.
"Did he tell you about Nazi suppression, say, of the churches?" I asked.
"He did," one of the men spoke up, "and he assured us there was no truth in what you fellows write about persecution of religion here."
Whereupon, I'm afraid, Ralph and I unduly flared up. But I don't think we convinced them.
BERLIN, August 25
Press now quite open in its attacks on the Spanish government. And I learn from a dependable source that the first German airplanes have already been dispatched to the rebels. Same source says the Italians are also shooting planes. Seems to me if the French had any sense they could send in a few troops, disguised as volunteers, and some arms, and squelch the rebellion for Madrid. But Blum, though a Socialist, seems to be taking a non-intervention line out of fear of what Germany and Italy may do.
BERLIN, September 4
Got out of covering the party congress at Nuremberg beginning next week. After the Olympic crowds, don't think I could have survived it.
BERLIN, September (undated)
Lunched with Tom Wolfe. Martha Dodd suggested we meet, as I'd often expressed enthusiasm about his work. We found a quiet corner table at Habel's. An immense fellow physically, boiling with energy, he developed a Gargantuan appetite, ordering a second main dish of meat and vegetables, and more bottles of Pf?lzer wine than were good for us-or at least for me. I liked him immediately and we had much good talk-about American writing and why most American writers-Lewis and Dreiser and Anderson, for example-either stopped writing or fell off from their best work just at the prime of their lives-a time when the Europeans usually produce their greatest novels and plays. A subject I'd often pondered about and discussed once with Lewis in Vienna. Wolfe is somewhat conscious of not being politically minded at a time when most writers are and indeed, we agreed, should be. He admitted the deficiency, but said he was learning. "I'm supporting Roosevelt for re-election," he said. Curious thing: Wolfe translates excellently into German and Look Homeward, Angel has had a big success here, I believe. We parted, promising to meet in New York. A very genuine person and more promising, if he can integrate himself, than any other young novelist we have.
BERLIN, September 9
Hitler at Nuremberg announces a Four-Year Plan to make Germany self-sufficient in raw materials. G?ring to be in charge. Obviously a war plan, but of course the Germans deny it. Party rally mostly concerned this year with attacking Bolshevism and the Soviets. There is talk of a break in diplomatic relations.
LONDON, October
A pleasant week, seeing old friends, blowing myself to two new suits in Savile Row, and, best of all, five days at Salcombe in Devonshire with Squire Gallico, who has bought a place there. We had some fantastic fishing (Tess's first experience, and she outfished both Paul and me), superb walks along the wind-blown cliffs, and much good talk. Paul's gamble has been well worth while. He's written and sold three short stories and got a handsome movie royalty from one of them. Funny: he's scared stiff of his butler, who looks as though he had just stepped off the stage and completely runs the place.
Returning to Berlin tomorrow. Pleasant visits with the Newell Rogerses, the Strausses, Jennie Lee, who is very Scotch, very pretty, very witty, and really should be back in Parliament, from which she was ousted in the last elections, her husband, Aneurin Bevan, M.P. from a Wales mining district, himself a former miner, keen-minded, slightly impish, a grand guy. This afternoon we had tea with Bill Stoneman, who has just replaced John Gunther as Chicago Daily News correspondent here, and Maj Lis (his wife). Bill was terribly wrought up about something, nervous as an old hen-so much so that in a moment of exasperation I said: "Why don't you come out with it, Bill, whatever it is? Maybe you'll feel better." Whereupon he produced from his pocket a cablegram and tossed it to me. It was a ten-line dispatch to his paper this afternoon. I scanned it. It said: "Mrs. E. A. Simpson has filed suit for divorce against Mr. E. A. Simpson at the Ipswich Assizes. Case to be heard…" A detail or two about when the case would be heard. That was all.
It's a tremendous scoop and should blow the story sky-high. Obviously the King intends to marry the woman now and make her Queen.
BERLIN, November 18
The Wilhelmstrasse announced today that Germany (with Italy) has recognized Franco. General Faupel, who has done good work for Germany in South America and Spain, is to be Hitler's Ambassador to Salamanca. Apparently today's decision was timed to offset Franco's failure to take Madrid just as he seemed to have it in his grasp. At first, I'm told, recognition was to coincide with Franco's entry into Madrid, which the Germans expected ten days ago. Dodd tells me our consulate in Hamburg reported this week the departure from there of three German ships loaded with arms for Spain. In the meantime the comedy of "non-intervention" goes on in London. For two years now the policies of London and Paris have ceased making sense to me, judged by their own vital interests. They did nothing on March 16, 1935 and on March 7 this year, and they're doing nothing about Spain now. Is my judgment becoming warped after two years in this hysterical Nazi land? Is it absurd or isn't it absurd to conclude that Blum and Baldwin don't know their own interests?
BERLIN, November 25
We were summoned to the Propaganda Ministry today for an "important" announcement. Wondered what Hitler was up to, but it turned out to be merely the signing of an anti-Comintern pact between Germany and Japan. Ribbentrop, who signed for Germany, strutted in and harangued us for a quarter of an hour about the pact's meaning, if any. He said it meant, among other things, that Germany and Japan had joined together to defend "Western civilization." This was such a novel idea, for Japan at least, that at the end of his talk one of the British correspondents asked him if he had understood him correctly. Ribbentrop, who has no sense of humour, then repeated the silly statement, without batting an eye. It seems obvious that Japan and Germany have drawn up at the same time a secret military treaty calling for joint action against Russia should one of them get involved in war with the Soviets.
BERLIN, December 25
A pleasant Christmas dinner, and American at that, even to mince pie, with Ralph and Esther Barnes and their children. Ralph and I had to get up in the middle of it, though, to check on queries from New York about a sensational A.P. report that the Germans had landed a large body of troops in Morocco to help Franco. There was no one in the Wilhelmstrasse, as all officials are out of town over the holidays, so we were unable to get a confirmation or denial. Sounds like a fake, though.
BERLIN, April 8, 1937
April here and no Hitler surprise this spring yet. This may be a year of Nazi consolidation, building up the armed forces, assuring Franco victory in Spain, cementing relations with Italy (support for the Duce in Spain and the Mediterranean in return for his giving Germany a free hand in Austria and the Balkans), and giving the nerves of the German people a little rest.
BERLIN, April 14
Have bought a sailboat for four hundred marks from a broken-down boxer who needed the cash. It has a cabin with two bunks and Tess and I can week-end on it, if we ever get a week-end free. Know nothing about sailing, but with the help of some hastily scrawled diagrams on the back of an envelope telling what to do with the wind behind you or against you or from the side which one of the Germans at the office did for me, and with much luck, we managed to sail ten miles down the Wannsee to where the Barneses have taken a house for the summer. Had some difficulty in docking it there, as the wind was blowing towards shore and I didn't know what to do. The little boat-house owner raised an awful howl, claiming I'd damaged his dock, but a five-mark piece quieted him.
BERLIN, April 20
Hitler's birthday. He gets more and more like a C?sar. Today a public holiday with sickening adulation from all the party hacks, delegations from all over the Reich bearing gifts, and a great military parade. The Reichswehr revealed a little of what it has: heavy artillery, tanks, and magnificently trained men. Hitler stood on the reviewing stand in front of the Technische Hochschule, as happy as a child with tin soldiers, standing there more than two hours and saluting every tank and gun. The military attachés of France, Britain, and Russia, I hear, were impressed. So were ours.
BERLIN, May 3
Gordon Young of Reuter's and I ran into Lord Lothian about midnight in the lobby of the Adlon. He arrived here suddenly yesterday to confer with Nazi leaders. Young asked him why he had come. "Oh, G?ring asked me to," he replied. He is probably the most intelligent of the Tories taken in by Hitler, G?ring, and Ribbentrop. We wanted to ask him since when he was under orders from G?ring, but refrained.
BERLIN, May 7
Hillman awakened me with a phone call from London about four a.m. today to inform me that the Zeppelin Hindenburg had crashed at Lakehurst with the loss of several lives. I immediately phoned one of the men who designed it, at Friedrichshafen. He refused to believe my words. I telephoned London and gave them a little story for the late editions. I had hardly gone back to sleep when Claire Trask of the Columbia Broadcasting System phoned to ask me to do a broadcast on the German reaction to the disaster. I was a bit ill-tempered, I'm afraid, at being awakened so early. I told her I couldn't do it and suggested two or three other correspondents. About ten she called back again and insisted I do it. I finally agreed, though I had never broadcast in my life.
Kept thinking all morning of how first I and then Tess were invited to make this trip on the Hindenburg, and almost accepted. For some reason there were several places they could not sell, so about ten days before it was due to leave, the press agent of the Zeppelin Reederei phoned me and offered a free passage to New York. It was impossible for me, as I was holding down the office alone. The next day he called up and asked if Tess would like to go. For reasons which are a little obscure-or maybe not so obscure, though I do not think it is honest to say I had a feeling that something might happen-I did not mention the matter to Tess and politely declined on her behalf the next day.
Wrote out my broadcast this afternoon between dispatches to New York, Claire Trask taking it page by page to the Air Ministry for censorship. Was a little surprised to find that there was Nazi censorship of radio, as we have none as newspaper correspondents, but Miss Trask explained it was just for this time. I arrived at the studio a quarter of an hour before the time set to begin, as nervous as an old hen. With about five minutes to go, Miss Trask arrived with the script. The censors had cut out my references to Nazi suspicion that there had been sabotage, though I had cabled this early in the afternoon in a dispatch. So nervous when I began my broadcast that my voice skipped up and down the scale and my lips and throat grew parched, but after the first page gradually lost my fright. Fear I will never make a broadcaster, but felt relieved I did not have microphone fright, which I understand makes some people speechless before a microphone.
BERLIN, May 10
Finished the Indian novel, or at least the first draft. A great load off my mind.
BERLIN, May 30
I have rarely seen such indignation in the Wilhelmstrasse as today. Every official I saw was fuming. The Spanish republicans yesterday bombed the pocket-battleship Deutschland at Ibitza with good result, killing, according to the Germans, some twenty officers and men and wounding eighty. One informant tells me Hitler has been screaming with rage all day and wants to declare war on Spain. The army and navy are trying to restrain him.
BERLIN, May 31
I feel like screaming with rage myself. The Germans this day have done a typical thing. They have bombarded the Spanish town of Almería with their warships as reprisal for the bombing of the Deutschland. Thus Hitler has his cheap revenge and a few more Spanish women and children are dead. The Wilhelmstrasse also announced Germany's (and Italy's) withdrawal from the Spanish naval patrol and from the non-intervention talks. Dr. Aschmann called us to the Foreign Office about ten a.m. to give us the news. He was very pious about it all. I was too outraged to ask questions, but Enderis and Lochner asked a few. Perhaps today's action will end the farce of "non-intervention," a trick by which Britain and France, for some strange reason, are allowing Hitler and Mussolini to triumph in Spain.
BERLIN, June 4
Helmut Hirsch, a Jewish youth of twenty who was technically an American citizen though he had never been to America, was axed at dawn this morning. Ambassador Dodd fought for a month to save his life, but to no avail. It was a sad case, a typical tragedy of these days. He was convicted by the dreaded People's Court, a court of inquisition set up by the Nazis a couple of years ago, of planning to murder Julius Streicher, the Nuremberger Jew-baiter. What kind of trial it was-no American or outside representatives were present-can only be imagined. I've seen a few trials before this court, though most of them are in camera, and a man scarcely has a chance, four of the five judges being Nazi party boys (the fifth is a regular judge) who do what they're expected to do.
Actually, the Nazis had something on poor Hirsch. A student at Prague University, he was put up to the job either by Otto Strasser or some of Strasser's followers or supposed followers in Prague. Among Strasser's "followers" there was certainly a Gestapo agent, and Hirsch was doomed from the outset. As far as I can piece the story together, Hirsch was provided with a suitcase full of bombs and a revolver and dispatched to Germany to get someone. The Nazis claim it was Streicher. Hirsch himself never seems to have admitted who. The Gestapo agent in Prague tipped off Himmler's people here, and Hirsch, with his incriminating suitcase, was nabbed as soon as he set foot in Germany. It may well be, as Hirsch's lawyer in Prague suggests, that the young man was merely bringing the weapons to Germany for someone else, already here, to do the job, and that he may not have known, even, of the contents of his luggage. We shall never know. Perhaps he was simply framed by the Gestapo. He was arrested, tried, and, this morning, executed. I had a long talk with Dodd this morning about the case. He told me he had appealed to Hitler himself to commute the sentence and read me the text of his moving letter. The Führer's reply was a flat negative. When Dodd tried to get a personal interview with Hitler to plead the case in person, he was rebuffed.
This afternoon I received from Hirsch's lawyer in Prague a copy of the last letter the young man wrote. He wrote it in his death cell and it was addressed to his sister, for whom he obviously had a deep attachment. I have never read in all my life braver words. He had just been informed that his final appeal had been rejected and that there was no more hope. "I am to die, then," he says. "Please do not be afraid. I do not feel afraid. I feel released, after the agony of not quite knowing." He sketches his life and finds meaning in it despite all the mistakes and its brief duration-"less than twenty-one years." I confess to tears before I had finished reading. He was a braver and more decent man than his killers.
BERLIN, June 15
Five more Protestant pastors arrested yesterday, including Jacobi from the big Ged?chtniskirche. Hardly keep up with the church war any more since they arrested my informant, a young pastor; have no wish to endanger the life of another one.
BERLIN, June 21
Blum out in Paris, and that's the end of the Popular Front. Curious how a man as intelligent as Blum could have made the blunders he's made with his non-intervention policy in Spain, whose Popular Front he has also helped to ruin.
BERLIN, July 5
The Austrian Minister tells me that the new British Ambassador here, Sir Nevile Henderson, has told G?ring, with whom he is on very chummy terms, that Hitler can have his Austria so far as he, Henderson, is concerned. Henderson strikes me as being very "pro."
LONDON, July (undated)
Dinner with Knick at Simpson's, and then out to his house, where Jay Allen and Carroll Binder, foreign editor of the Chicago Daily News, joined us. We chinned until about two a.m. Jay had said that Binder was supposed to take me aside and offer me a job on the News (Colonel Knox in Berlin had asked me if I wanted one), but he did nothing of the kind. Jay also gave me a card to Ed Murrow, who, he said, was connected with CBS, but I shall not have time to see him as Knick and I leave tomorrow morning for Salcombe, where Tess and Agnes already are installed at Gallico's. From there Tess and I cross to France without returning to London.
PARIS, July (undated)
The Van Goghs at the Paris Exposition well worth the price of admission. Have had little time to see anything else. Saw Berkson, chief of Universal Service in New York. He assured me there was nothing to the rumours about Universal closing down and that-in fact for the first time in history it was actually making money. So, reassured about my job, we leave for the Riviera tomorrow for some sun and swimming, Tess to remain there until fall on account of-we are to have a baby!
BERLIN, August 14
Universal Service has folded after all. Hearst is cutting his losses. I am to remain here with INS, but as second man, which I do not like.
BERLIN, August 16
Norman Ebbutt of the London Times, by far the best correspondent here, left this evening. He was expelled, following British action in kicking out two or three Nazi correspondents in London, the Nazis seizing the opportunity to get rid of a man they've hated and feared for years because of his exhaustive knowledge of this country and of what was going on behind the scenes. The Times, which has played along with the pro-Nazi Cliveden set, never gave him much support and published only half of what he wrote, and indeed is leaving Ebbutt's assistant, Jimmy Holburn, to continue with the office here. We gave Norman a great send-off at the Charlottenburger station, about fifty of the foreign correspondents of all nations being on the platform despite a tip from Nazi circles that our presence would be considered an unfriendly act to Germany! Amusing to note the correspondents who were afraid to show up, including two well-known Americans. The platform full of Gestapo agents noting down our names and photographing us. Ebbutt terribly high-strung, but moved by our sincere, if boisterous, demonstration of farewell.
BERLIN, August (undated)
A little depressed tonight. I'm without a job. About ten o'clock this evening I ceased being employed. I was in my office writing a dispatch. The office boy came in with a cable. There was something about his face. It was a brief wire, hot off the ticker. It was from New York. It said-oh, something about INS being unable to retain all the old Universal Service correspondents and that I was getting the usual two weeks' notice.
I guess I was a little stunned. I guess it was a little sudden. Who was it the other night-one of the English correspondents-who jokingly observed that it was bad to be getting a baby in your family because it invariably coincided with your getting fired? Well, maybe we shouldn't have had a baby now. Maybe you shouldn't ever have a baby if you're in this business. Maybe the French girl in Paris many years ago was right. She said: "Put a baby into this world? Pas moi!"
I finished my dispatch (what was it about?) and went out for a breath of air, strolling along the river Spree down behind the Reichstag. It was a beautiful, warm, starlit August night, and the Spree making its soft curve just before it gets to the Reichstag, I noticed, and a launch going by, filled with noisy holiday-makers back from a Havel Rundfahrt. No ideas came to me, as expected. I went back to the office.
On the desk I noticed a wire that had come in ten minutes before the fatal one. It was from Salzburg, a baroque town of great charm where I used to go to hear some Mozart. It was signed: "Murrow, Columbia Broadcasting." I dimly remembered the name, but could not place it beyond his company. "Will you have dinner with me at the Adlon Friday night?" it said. I wired: "Delighted."
BERLIN, August 20
I have a job. I am to go to work for the Columbia Broadcasting System. That is, if…. And what an if it is! It is this way: It is crazy. I have the job if my voice is all right. That's the catch. Who ever heard of an adult with no pretentions to being a singer or any other kind of artist being dependent for a good, interesting job on his voice? And mine is terrible. I'm positive of it. But that's my situation tonight.
It has been quite an evening. I met Edward R. Murrow, European manager of CBS, in the lobby of the Adlon at seven o'clock. As I walked up to him I was a little taken aback by his handsome face. Just what you would expect from radio, I thought. He had asked me for dinner, I considered, to pump me for dope for a radio talk he must make from Berlin. We walked into the bar and there was something in his talk that began disarming me. Something in his eyes that was not Hollywood. We sat down. We ordered two Martinis. The cocktails came. I wondered why he had asked me. We had friends in common, Ferdy Kuhn, Raymond Gram Swing…. We discussed them. Apparently he was not here to do a broadcast, then.
"You must come sailing with me tomorrow or Sunday," I said.
"Swell. I'd like to."
The waiter gathered up the empty cocktail glasses and laid two menus before us.
"Just a minute before we order," Murrow broke in. "I've got something on my mind."
That's the way it was. He said he had something on his mind. He said he was looking for an experienced foreign correspondent to open a CBS office on the Continent. He could not cover all of Europe from London. I began to feel better, though I said nothing.
"Are you interested?" he asked.
"Well, yes," I said, trying to down my feelings.
"How much have you been making?"
I told him.
"Good. We'll pay you the same."
"Fine," I said.
"It's a deal," he said, and reached for the Speisekarte. We ordered dinner. We talked of America, Europe, the music at Salzburg he had just heard. We had coffee. We had brandy. It was getting late.
"Oh, there's one little thing I forgot to mention," he said. "The voice…"
"The what?"
"Your voice."
"Bad," I said, "as you can see."
"Perhaps not. But, you see, in broadcasting it's a factor. And our directors and numerous vice-presidents will want to hear your voice first. We'll arrange a broadcast. You give a talk, say, on the coming party rally. I'm sure it'll work out all right."
BERLIN, September 5
Did my trial broadcast this Sabbath day. Just before it began I was very nervous, thinking of what was at stake and that all depended upon what a silly little microphone and an amplifier and the ether between Berlin and New York did to my voice. Kept thinking also of all those CBS vice-presidents sniffing at what they heard. Everything went wrong at first. Claire Trask, fifteen minutes before the start, discovered she had left the script of her introduction at a café where we'd met. She dashed madly out of the studio, returning only a few minutes before we were to begin. At the last minute the microphone which apparently had been set for a man at least eight feet tall wouldn't come down. "It is stuck, mein Herr," said the German engineer. He advised me to point my head towards the ceiling. I tried it, but it so constricted my vocal cords that only a squeak came out when I started to talk.
"One minute to go," shouted the engineer.
"I can't go on with that mike," I protested.
I espied some packing-cases in the corner just behind the microphone. I had an idea.
"Boost me up on those, will you?"
"Wie, bitte? What you say?"
"Give me a lift." And in a second I was atop the boxes, my legs dangling nicely, my mouth just opposite the level of the microphone. We all laughed.
"Quiet," the engineer shouted, giving us the red light. I had no time to get nervous again.
And now I must wait for the verdict. In the meantime leaving for Nuremberg tonight to do the Party Congress for the U.P. Webb Miller and Fred Oechsner were rather insistent that I help them out. It's better, at that, to have some distraction in the next few days while I wait. Wrote Tess we probably won't starve.
NUREMBERG, September 11
A week now and no word from Murrow. My voice apparently was pretty lousy. Birchall of the New York Times talks of giving me a job, but won't pay much. Returning to Berlin day after tomorrow.
NUREMBERG, September 13
Murrow called and said I'm hired. Start October 1. Wired Tess. Celebrated a little tonight, I fear, on the very potent local Franconian wine. Prentiss Gilbert, our counsellor of Embassy, has been here, the first American diplomat to attend a Nazi Party Congress. Ambassador Dodd, who is in America, strongly disapproves, though Prentiss, a swell guy, says he was forced into it by Henderson, the pro-Nazi British Ambassador, and Poncet, who used to be "pro" but is probably so no longer. The congress duller this year and many are asking if Hitler is slowing up. I hope so. Constance Peckham, a nice young lady from Time magazine has been here. She thinks we "veterans" are much too blasé about this party show, which appears to have given her a tremendous kick. Much good talk and drink with her, Jimmy Holburn, and George Kidd this night. Appropriate, I suppose, that I should begin and end my newspaper sojourn in Germany at this madhouse which is the party rally. Three years. They've gone quickly. Germany has gone places. What will radio be like?
BERLIN, September 27
Tess back, feeling fine, and we're packing. We are to make our headquarters in Vienna, a neutral and central spot for me to work from. Most of our old friends have left-the Gunthers, the Whit Burnetts-but it is always that way in this game. Go to London next week, then Paris, Geneva, and Rome to meet the radio people, renew contacts with the newspaper offices, and, in Rome, to find out if the Pope is really dying, as reported. We are glad to be leaving Berlin.
To sum up these three years: Personally, they have not been unhappy ones, though the shadow of Nazi fanaticism, sadism, persecution, regimentation, terror, brutality, suppression, militarism, and preparation for war has hung over all our lives, like a dark, brooding cloud that never clears. Often we have tried to segregate ourselves from it all. We have found three refuges: Ourselves and our books; the "foreign colony," small, limited, somewhat narrow, but normal, and containing our friends-the Barneses, the Robsons, the Ebbuttses, the Dodds, the Deuels, the Oechsners, Gordon Young, Doug Miller, Sigrid Schultz, Leverich, Jake Beam, and others; thirdly, the lakes and woods around Berlin, where you could romp and play and sail and swim, forgetting so much. The theatre has remained good when it has stuck to the classics or pre-Nazi plays, and the opera and the Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, despite the purging of the Jews and the year's disciplining of Fuertw?ngler (who has now made his peace with Satan), have given us the best music we've ever heard outside of New York and Vienna. Personally too there was the excitement of working here, the "Saturday surprises," the deeper story of this great land in evil ferment.
Somehow I feel that, despite our work as reporters, there is little understanding of the Third Reich, what it is, what it is up to, where it is going, either at home or elsewhere abroad. It is a complex picture and it may be that we have given only a few strong, uncoordinated strokes of the brush, leaving the canvas as confusing and meaningless as an early Picasso. Certainly the British and the French do not understand Hitler's Germany. Perhaps, as the Nazis say, the Western democracies have become sick, decadent, and have reached that stage of decline which Spengler predicted. But Spengler included Germany in the decline of the West, and indeed the Nazi reversion to the ancient, primitive, Germanic myths is a sign of her retrogression, as is her burning of books and suppression of liberty and learning.
But Germany is stronger than her enemies realize. True, it is a poor country in raw materials and agriculture; but it is making up for this poverty in aggressiveness of spirit, ruthless state planning, concentrated direction of effort, and the building up of a mighty military machine with which it can back up its aggressive spirit. True, too, that this past winter we have seen long lines of sullen people before the food shops, that there is a shortage of meat and butter and fruit and fats, that whipped cream is verboten, that men's suits and women's dresses are increasingly being made out of wood pulp, gasoline out of coal, rubber out of coal and lime; that there is no gold coverage for the Reichsmark or for anything else, not even for vital imports. Weaknesses, most of them, certainly, and in our dispatches we have advertised them.
It has been more difficult to point out the sources of strength; to tell of the feverish efforts to make Germany self-sufficient under the Four-Year Plan, which is no joke at all, but a deadly serious war plan; to explain that the majority of Germans, despite their dislike of much in Nazism, are behind Hitler and believe in him. It is not easy to put in words the dynamics of this movement, the hidden springs that are driving the Germans on, the ruthlessness of the long-term ideas of Hitler or even the complicated and revolutionary way in which the land is being mobilized for Total War (though Ludendorff has written the primer for Total War).
Much of what is going on and will go on could be learned by the outside world from Mein Kampf, the Bible and Koran together of the Third Reich. But-amazingly-there is no decent translation of it in English or French, and Hitler will not allow one to be made, which is understandable, for it would shock many in the West. How many visiting butter-and-egg men have I told that the Nazi goal is domination! They laughed. But Hitler frankly admits it. He says in Mein Kampf: "A state which in an age of racial pollution devotes itself to cultivation of its best racial elements must some day become master of the earth…. We all sense that in a far future mankind may face problems which can be surmounted only by a supreme Master Race supported by the means and resources of the entire globe."
When the visiting firemen from London, Paris, and New York come, Hitler babbles only of peace. Wasn't he in the trenches of the last war? He knows what war is. Never will he condemn mankind to that. Peace? Read Mein Kampf, brothers. Read this: "Indeed, the pacifist-humane idea is perhaps quite good whenever the man of the highest standard has previously conquered and subjected the world to a degree that makes him the only master of the globe…. Therefore first fight and then one may see what can be done…. For oppressed countries will not be brought back into the bosom of a common Reich by means of fiery protests, but by a mighty sword…. One must be quite clear about the fact that the recovery of the lost regions will not come about through solemn appeals to the dear Lord or through pious hopes in a League of Nations, but only by FORCE OF ARMS…. We must take up an active policy and throw ourselves into a final and decisive fight with France…."
France is to be annihilated, says Hitler, and then the great drive to the eastward is to begin.
Peace, brothers? Do you know what the Deutsche Wehr, which speaks for the military in this country, remarked two years ago? "Every human and social activity is justified only if it helps prepare for war. The new human being is completely possessed by the thought of war. He must not and cannot think of anything else."
And how will it be? Again the Deutsche Wehr; "Total war means the complete and final disappearance of the vanquished from the stage of history!"
This, according to Hitler, is Germany's road. The strain on the life of the people and on the economic structure of the state already is tremendous. Both may well crack. But the youth, led by the S.S., is fanatic. So are the middle-class alte K?mpfer, the "old fighters" who brawled in the streets for Hitler in the early days and have now been awarded the good jobs, authority, power, money. The bankers and industrialists, not so enthusiastic now as when I arrived in Germany, go along. They must. It is either that or the concentration camp. The workers too. After all, six million of them have been re-employed and they too begin to see that Germany is going places, and they with it.
I leave Germany in this autumn of 1937 with the words of a Nazi marching song still dinning in my ears:
Today we own Germany,
Tomorrow the whole world.
LONDON, October 7
Murrow will be a grand guy to work with. One disappointing thing about the job, though: Murrow and I are not supposed to do any talking on the radio ourselves. New York wants us to hire newspaper correspondents for that. We just arrange broadcasts. Since I know as much about Europe as most newspaper correspondents, and a bit more than the younger ones, who lack languages and background, I don't get the point.
PARIS, October 12
Suppered with Blanche Knopf. She urged me to get along with the revision of the Indian novel.
GENEVA, October 15
The Bise blowing, and something dead and sad about this town.
ROME, October 18
Saw the Pope today and he seemed most sprightly for a man who is said to have one foot in the grave. Frank Gervasi got me into an audience at Castel Gondolfo, the summer residence. The Pope was receiving a delegation of Austrian mayors, which made it nice for me because he spoke in German and I could understand him. He fairly bubbled over with energy. Made elaborate arrangements for radio coverage in the event of the Pope's death (it will be the first time radio has ever had a chance to cover it), but did not hire Monsignor Pucci, a sly, colourful man who works for every correspondent and most of the embassies in town.
MUNICH, October (undated)
Rushed up here to get acquainted with the Duke of Windsor with instructions to stick to him, accompany him to America, and arrange for him to broadcast there. He's been touring Germany to study "labour conditions," being taken around by one of the real Nazi ruffians, Dr. Ley. Had my first view of Mrs. Simpson today and she seemed quite pretty and attractive. Randolph Churchill, who looks like his father but does not think like him-at least, not yet-has been most helpful. A curious thing for the Duke to do, to come to Germany, where the labour unions have been smashed, just before he goes to America. He has been badly advised.
BRUSSELS, November 11
Armistice Day, cold and grey and drizzly, but no greyer than the prospects of the Nine-Power Conference now in session here to try to straighten out Japan's war in China. This is my first actual broadcasting assignment and not very exciting. Have put on or am putting on Norman Davis, Wellington Koo, whom I like immensely, and other delegates. Litvinov refuses to broadcast and seems worried by news from Moscow that his private secretary has been arrested by the Ogpu; Eden declines too. Silly, this CBS policy that I must not do any reporting, only hire others to do it. Edgar Mowrer, Bob Pell, Chip Bohlan, John Elliott, Vernon Bartlett here to chatter with about the sad state of the world; and a pleasant evening with Anne and Mark Somerhausen, she as pretty and brilliant as ever, he quieter and much occupied in Parliament, where he sits as a Social Democrat deputy. The Nine-Power Conference so far an awful farce.
VIENNA, December 25
Christmased this afternoon with the Wileys; John our chargé d'affaires here now. Walter Duranty there, as always, the Fodors, etc. Chip Bohlan, on leave from the Moscow Embassy, came with me to the studio of the Austrian Broadcasting Company to help me shepherd the youngsters of the American colony through a Christmas broadcast. A childish job and one that I do not like, being too much interested in the political situation at present.
We are nicely installed in an apartment in the Ploesslgasse, next door to the Rothschild palace. The owners, being Jewish, have removed themselves to Czechoslovakia for greater safety, though Schuschnigg seems to have the situation fairly well in hand here. Vienna, though, is terribly poor and depressing compared to our last sojourn here, from 1929 to 1932. The workers are sullen, even those who have jobs, and one sees beggars on every street corner. A few people have money and splash it at the night-clubs and a few fashionable restaurants such as the Drei Husaren and Am Franziskanerplatz. The contrast is sickening and the regime is resented by the masses, who are either reverting to their old Socialist Party, which is fairly strong underground, or going over to Nazism. The great mistake of this clerical dictatorship is not to have a social program. Hitler and Mussolini have not made that mistake. Still, there is more to eat here than in Germany, and the dictatorship is much milder-the difference between Prussians and Austrians! Next to Paris I love this town, even now, more than any other in Europe, the Gemütlichkeit, charm, and intelligence of its people, the baroque of its architecture, the good taste, the love of art and life, the softness of the accent, the very mild quality of the whole atmosphere. A great deal of anti-Semitism here, which plays nicely into the hands of the Nazis, but then there always was-ever since the days of Mayor Karl Lueger, Hitler's first mentor on the subject when he was down and out in this city. Have had much good talk with Duranty, who is living here for a few months; the Fodors, she lovable as before, he a walking dictionary on central Europe and generous in telling what he knows; Emil Vadnai of the New York Times, a Hungarian of great charm, knowledge, and intelligence. Had Duranty broadcast the other day, though New York was afraid his voice was too high. Came a cable the same evening from Chicago: "…your clear, bell-like voice…" signed by Mary Garden, who ought to know.
We wait for the baby, due in seven weeks now, arguing the while over names.
VIENNA, February 5, 1938
Doings in Berlin. Today's papers say Blomberg and Fritsch, the two men who have built up the German army, are out. Hitler himself becomes a sort of "Supreme War-Lord," assuming the powers of the Minister of Defence. Two new generals appear: Wilhelm Keitel as chief of the High Command, and Walther von Brauchitsch as commander-in-chief of the army in place of Fritsch. Neurath is out as Foreign Minister, replaced by Ribbentrop. Schacht is out, replaced by Walther Funk. G?ring-strange!-is made a field-marshal. What's back of all this? The meeting of the Reichstag which had been set for January 30 and then postponed is now to be held February 20, when we shall probably know.
VIENNA, February 7
Fodor tells me a strange tale. He says Austrian police raided Nazi headquarters in the Teinfaltstrasse the other day and found a plan initialled by Rudolph Hess, Hitler's deputy, for a new Putsch. Idea was, says Fodor, to organize a riot in front of the German Embassy in the Metternichstrasse, have someone shoot Papen and the German military attaché, and thus give Hitler an excuse to march in.
VIENNA, February 13
Much tension here this Sabbath. Schuschnigg has had a secret meeting with Hitler at Berchtesgaden, but we don't know what happened.
VIENNA, February 16
A terrible thing has happened. We learned day before yesterday about Berchtesgaden. Hitler took Schuschnigg for a ride, demanded he appoint several Nazis led by Seyss-Inquart to the Cabinet, amnesty all Nazi prisoners, and restore the political rights of the Nazi Party-or invasion by the Reichswehr. President Miklas seems to have balked at this. Then yesterday Hitler dispatched an ultimatum: Either carry out the terms of the Berchtesgaden "agreement," or the Reichswehr marches. A little after midnight this morning Schuschnigg and Miklas surrendered. The new Cabinet was announced, Seyss-Inquart is in the key post of Minister of the Interior, and there is an amnesty for all Nazis. Douglas Reed when I saw him today so indignant he could hardly talk. He's given the London Times the complete story of what happened at Berchtesgaden. Perhaps it will do some good. I dropped by the Legation this evening. John Wiley was pacing the floor.
"It's the end of Austria," he said.
VIENNA, February 20
Tess, Ed Taylor, and I sat glumly around the radio on this Sunday afternoon listening to Hitler thunder before his Reichstag in Berlin. Today he came out in the open with his theory that Germany will herself protect the ten million Germans living outside the Reich's borders-meaning, though he did not say so, the seven millions in Austria and the three million Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia. He even proclaimed their right to "racial self-determination." His words: "There must be no doubt about one thing. Political separation from the Reich may not lead to deprivation of rights-that is, the general rights of self-determination. In the long run it is unbearable for a world power to know there are racial comrades at its side who are constantly being afflicted with the severest suffering for their sympathy or unity with the whole nation, its destiny, and its Weltanschauung. To the interests of the German Reich belong the protection of those German peoples who are not in a position to secure along our frontiers their political and spiritual freedom by their own efforts."
LATER.-A New York broadcast says Eden has resigned. It almost seems as though at the bidding of Hitler, who singled him out for attack in his speech this afternoon. The Ballhausplatz very worried.
VIENNA, February 22
The baby is due, but has not yet come. I must leave tonight for a broadcast in Sofia. My bad luck to miss the event, but perhaps I shall get back in time.
VIENNA, February 26
When I stepped off the train at four p.m., Ed Taylor was on the platform and I could tell by his face it had happened.
"Congratulations!" he said, but I could see he was forcing his smile.
"And Tess?"
He hesitated, swallowed. "She had a bit of a hard time, I'm afraid. Caesarean. But she's better now."
I told the taxi-driver to hurry to the hospital.
"Aren't you going to ask the sex?" Ed said.
"What is it?"
"A girl," he said.
It was a sweet girl I saw a few minutes later, not discoloured and deformed as in the books, but white-skinned and well-shaped and full of beans, but her birth had almost cost the life of her mother. In the nick of time, the operation, early this morning.
"The danger is past. Your wife will recover. And the baby is fine," the doctor said. A little resentful, he seemed, that I had taken so long in showing up.
A bit too excited tonight to sleep, I fear.
VIENNA, March 2
Tess and the baby doing well considering everything. I spending most of my time at the hospital. Tension growing here daily. Hear Schuschnigg is now negotiating with the workers, whom his colleague Dollfuss shot down so cold-bloodedly just four years ago. They are asking for little, but the negotiations with these stupid reactionaries go slowly. Still the workers prefer what they can undoubtedly get now from Schuschnigg to the Nazis. I feel a little empty, being here on the scene but doing no actual reporting. Curious radio doesn't want a first-hand report. But New York hasn't asked for anything, being chiefly concerned with an educational broadcast I must do from Ljubljana in a few days-a chorus of schoolchildren or something! G?ring made a nice gentle speech yesterday, according to the local press. He said: "We [the German air force] will be the terror of our enemies…. I want in this army iron men with a will to action…. When the Führer in his Reichstag speech said that we would no longer tolerate the suppression of ten million German comrades beyond our borders, then you know as soldiers of the air force that, if it is to be, you must back these words of the Führer to the limit. We are burning to prove our invincibility."
LJUBLJANA, YUGOSLAVIA, March 10
Here is a town to shame the whole world. It is full of statues and not one of them of a soldier. Only poets and thinkers have been so honoured. Put on a chorus of coal-miners' kids for a Columbia School of the Air program. They sang magnificently, like Welsh coal-miners. Afterwards at the station, waiting for the Vienna train, much good Slovene wine with the local priests, Slovenia being a strong Catholic province. Without news of the world for two days while here.
VIENNA, March 11-12 (4 a.m.)
The worst has happened! Schuschnigg is out. The Nazis are in. The Reichswehr is invading Austria. Hitler has broken a dozen solemn promises, pledges, treaties. And Austria is finished. Beautiful, tragic, civilized Austria! Gone. Done to death in the brief moment of an afternoon. This afternoon. Impossible to sleep, so will write. Must write something. The Nazis will not let me broadcast. Here I sit on one of the biggest stories of my life. I am the only broadcaster in town. Max Jordan of NBC, my only competitor, has not yet arrived. Yet I cannot talk. The Nazis have blocked me all night. I have argued, pleaded, fought. An hour ago they ushered me out with bayonets.
To begin at the beginning of this day of nightmare, if I can:
The sun was out and spring was in the air when my train got into the Südbahnhof at eight this morning. I felt good. Driving to Ploesslgasse I noticed the streets littered with paper. Overhead two planes were dropping leaflets.
"What is it?" I asked the taxi-driver.
"Plebiscite."
"What plebiscite?"
"The one Schuschnigg ordered." He did not trust me and would say no more.
I climbed the stairs to our apartment puzzled. I asked the maid. She handed me a stack of newspapers for the last three days. Over breakfast I caught up on the news. On Wednesday night (March 9) Schuschnigg, speaking at Innsbruck, had suddenly ordered a plebiscite. For this Sunday. The question: "Are you for an independent, social, Christian, German, united Austria? Ja oder Nein."
Breakfast over, I hurried to the hospital. Tess was not so good. Fever, and the doctor afraid of phlebitis in the left leg. A blood clot. A hell of a thing, after the other. I stayed with her for two hours until she dozed off. About eleven a.m. I took a taxi into town and went to the Schwarzenberg Café on the Schwarzenbergplatz to see what was up. Fodor and Taylor and some Austrian newspapermen were there. They were a little tense, but hopeful. The plebiscite would go off peacefully, they thought. And Schuschnigg, assured of the support of the workers, would win, hands down. That would hold Hitler for a while. I felt better. Someone turned on the radio. The announcer was reading a proclamation calling up the class of 1915 to active service. That's merely to police the election, we agreed. One of the Austrians was called to the phone. When he came back he said something about the Nazis having just smashed the windows of the Monarchist offices near the Stefansplatz. For some reason, I remember now, everyone laughed. I had in mind to phone Colonel Wolf, the Legitimist leader, with whom I've been negotiating for a broadcast by Otto von Habsburg. But I didn't.
Shortly before four p.m. I set out for the hospital to see if Tess was any better. Crossing the Karlsplatz to catch a subway train I was stopped by a crowd of about a thousand people. They were Nazis and it was a bit comical. One lone policeman was yelling and gesticulating at them. And they were giving ground! "If that's all the guts the Nazis have, Schuschnigg will win, hands down," I mused. "And he's arming the workers. That'll take care of the Nazi toughs." I hurried along to my train.
About six o'clock, returning from the hospital, I emerged from the subway to the Karlsplatz. What had happened? Something! Before I knew it I was being swept along in a shouting, hysterical Nazi mob, past the Ring, past the Opera, up the K?rntnerstrasse to the offices of the German "Tourist" Bureau, which, with its immense flower-draped portrait of Hitler, has been a Nazi shrine for months. The faces! I had seen these before at Nuremberg-the fanatical eyes, the gaping mouths, the hysteria. And now they were shouting like Holy Rollers: "Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler! Hang Schuschnigg! Hang Schuschnigg! Hang Schuschnigg! Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer!" And the police! They were looking on, grinning. What had happened? I was still in the dark. I shouted my question into the ears of three or four jammed against me. No response. Couldn't hear. Finally a middle-aged woman seemed to get me. "The plebiscite!" she yelled. "Called off!"
There was no need to learn more. That was the end of Austria. I extricated myself from the swirling dervishes and made my way down the Ring to the Hotel Bristol. Taylor was there. He introduced me to his wife, Vreni, pretty, brunette, intelligent-looking, who had just arrived. He confirmed the news. It had been announced an hour before on the radio, he said. We took a taxi to the American Legation. John Wiley was standing before his desk, clutching his invariable long cigarette-holder, a queer smile on his face-the smile of someone who has just been defeated and knows it.
"It's all over," he said quietly. There had been an ultimatum from Berlin. No plebiscite, or the German army marches. Schuschnigg had capitulated.
"You'll hear more on the radio shortly," John said. "Stick around."
I left to put in a call for Murrow, who's in Warsaw. Going out of the Legation I stumbled into Gedye, very excited. Home, I put in a call for Ed, my radio playing softly a Viennese waltz. Hateful, it sounded. It stopped abruptly. "Attention! Attention!" a voice said. "In a few minutes you will hear an important announcement." Then the ticking of a metronome, the Ravag's identification signal. Maddening, it sounded. Tick…tick…tick…tick. I turned it down. Then a voice-Schuschnigg's, I recognized-without introduction.
"This day has placed us in a tragic and decisive situation. I have to give my Austrian fellow countrymen the details of the events of today.
"The German Government today handed to President Miklas an ultimatum, with a time limit, ordering him to nominate as chancellor a person designated by the German Government and to appoint members of a cabinet on the orders of the German Government; otherwise German troops would invade Austria.
"I declare before the world that the reports launched in Germany concerning disorders by the workers, the shedding of streams of blood, and the creation of a situation beyond the control of the Austrian Government are lies from A to Z. President Miklas has asked me to tell the people of Austria that we have yielded to force since we are not prepared even in this terrible situation to shed blood. We have decided to order the troops to offer no resistance.
"So I take leave of the Austrian people with a German word of farewell uttered from the depth of my heart: God protect Austria."
Towards the end you feel his voice will break; that there will be sobbing. But he controls it to the last. There is a second silence. And then the national anthem played from an old record. It is the tune of Deutschland über Alles, only in the original and slightly different version as Haydn first composed it. That is all. That is the end.
The rest of this evening? A little later the rasping voice of Judas. Dr. Seyss-Inquart is saying something, saying he considers himself responsible for order, saying the Austrian army is not to offer resistance. This is the first we hear of the German invasion. The ultimatum, Schuschnigg says, said capitulate or invasion. Now Hitler has broken even the terms of his own ultimatum.
I cannot get Ed in Warsaw. His hotel keeps saying he's out. It is still early. I call the Austrian Broadcasting System to see about my broadcast. No answer. I start downtown. In the Karlsplatz there's a tremendous crowd. Someone is shouting a speech from the steps of the Karlskirche. "Hess and Buerckel," a storm trooper near me whispers. His uniform gave off a stench of moth balls. "Hess and Buerckel! They're here." But I could not get near enough to see.
I fought my way out of the crowd towards the K?rntnerstrasse. Crowds moving about all the way. Singing now. Singing Nazi songs. A few policemen standing around good-naturedly. What's that on their arm? A red-black-white Swastika arm-band! So they've gone over too! I worked my way up K?rntnerstrasse towards the Graben. Young toughs were heaving paving blocks into the windows of the Jewish shops. The crowd roared with delight.
Over at the Café Louvre Bob Best of U.P. is sitting at the same table he has occupied every night for the last ten years. Around him a crowd of foreign correspondents, male and female, American, English, Hungarian, Serb. All but Best in a great state of excitement, running to the phone every five minutes to get some news or give it. The most fantastic rumours. Bob reads over to me his dispatches. He is called away to the phone. He comes back. Schuschnigg has been recalled as chancellor and the Nazis are out, he says. He is optimistic; things are not over yet. A few minutes later: it's a false report. The Nazis have taken over at the Ballhausplatz. We sprint over to the Ballhausplatz, Metternich's Ballhausplatz…Congress of Vienna…. Twenty storm troopers are standing on one another before the building, forming a human pyramid. A little fellow scampers to the top of the heap, clutching a huge Swastika flag. He pulls himself up to the balcony, the same balcony where four years ago Major Fey, held prisoner by the Nazis after Dollfuss was shot, parleyed with the Schuschnigg people. He unfurls the flag from the balcony and the Platz rings with cheers.
Back to the Louvre. Martha Fodor is there, fighting to keep back the tears, every few minutes phoning the news to Fodor. Emil Maass, my former assistant, an Austro-American, who has long posed as an anti-Nazi, struts in, stops before the table. "Well, meine Damen und Herren," he smirks, "it was about time." And he turns over his coat lapel, unpins his hidden Swastika button, and repins it on the outside over the buttonhole. Two or three women shriek: "Shame!" at him. Major Goldschmidt, Legitimist, Catholic, but half Jewish, who has been sitting quietly at the table, rises. "I will go home and get my revolver," he says. Someone rushes in. Seyss-Inquart is forming a Nazi government. It is a little after eleven p.m. Time to go over to Broadcasting House. Five p.m. in New York.
In the Johannesgasse, before the Ravag building, men in field-grey uniforms stand guard with fixed bayonets. I explain who I am. After a long wait they let me in. The vestibule and corridor are full of young men in army uniforms, in S.S. and S.A. uniforms, brandishing revolvers, playing with bayonets. Two or three stop me, but taking my courage in my hand I bark at them and make my way into the main hall, around which are the studios. Czeja, the General-Direktor of Ravag, and Erich Kunsti, program director, old friends, stand in the middle of the room, surrounded by excited, chattering Nazi boys. One glance. They are prisoners. I manage to get in a word with Kunsti.
"How soon can I go on the air?" I say.
He shrugs his shoulders. "I've ceased to exist around here," he laughs. He beckons towards a scar-faced chap who seems to be the boss, for the moment anyway. I explain my wants. No impression. I do it again. He doesn't get me.
"Let me talk to your chiefs in Berlin," I say. "I know them. They'll want me to broadcast."
"Can't get through to Berlin," he says.
"But you will, some time tonight," I say.
"Well, maybe later. You can come back."
"Not a chance," Kunsti whispers. A couple of guards, fingering their revolvers, edge me out. I wait outside in the hall, barging in every so often to see if Scarface has Berlin on the phone. Around midnight a broadcast comes through from the Ballhausplatz. A new government is to be announced soon. I dash over there. Spotlights (from where?) play on the balcony. A dozen men are standing there. I make out Seyss-Inquart, Glaise-Horstenau…. Judas is reading his new Cabinet list. He himself is Chancellor.
Back to Ravag. Wait. Argument. Wait. Argument. They cannot get Berlin. There is no wire. No broadcast possible. Sorry. More arguments. Threats. In the end I'm escorted out. No argument with bayonets. Out in the Johannesgasse I look at my watch. Three a.m. I go up to the K?rntnerstrasse once more. Deserted now. Home then.
The phone rings. It is Ed in Warsaw. I tell him the news. And our bad news. Even if I remain here tomorrow and do get facilities, we'll be under strict Nazi censorship, I say.
"Fly to London, why don't you?" Ed suggests. "You can get there by tomorrow evening and give the first uncensored eyewitness account. And I'll come down to Vienna."
A phone call to the Aspern airport. All planes booked tomorrow. What time do the London and Berlin planes leave? Seven a.m.; eight a.m. Thank you. I forget I have not spoken to Fodor on this night. The Nazis don't like him. Maybe…. I phone. "I'm all right, Bill," he says. He's sobbing. A line to Tess explaining why she will not see me for a few days. Now to bed. An hour of sleep.
IN A DUTCH PLANE BETWEEN AMSTERDAM AND LONDON, March 12
Have just finished scrawling out a script. Can go on the air as soon as we get into London. Went to work on it just after we took off from Tempelhof in Berlin, Amsterdam being the next stop and so no danger of a Nazi censor. I've had luck today. I was at the Aspern airport at seven a.m. The Gestapo had taken over. At first they said no planes would be allowed to take off. Then they cleared the London plane. But I could not get on. I offered fantastic sums to several passengers for their places. Most of them were Jews and I could not blame them for turning me down. Next was the plane to Berlin. I got on that.
Vienna was scarcely recognizable this morning. Swastika flags flying from nearly every house. Where did they get them so fast? Another piece of news at Aspern from a police official I had known slightly. Schuschnigg has not fled, he insisted. Refused, though they kept an airplane waiting until midnight for him. Guts. The airfield at Aspern already crowded with German war planes when we took off. We came down at Prague and Dresden and it was noon before we arrived in Berlin. More luck. A seat on a Dutch plane straight through to London. I had an hour for lunch. I bought the morning Berlin newspapers. Amazing! Goebbels at his best, or worst! Hitler's own newspaper, the V?lkische Beobachter, on my lap here. Its screaming banner-line across page one: GERMAN-AUSTRIA SAVED FROM CHAOS. And an incredible story out of Goebbels's evil but fertile brain describing violent Red disorders in the main streets of Vienna yesterday, fighting, shooting, pillaging. It is a complete lie. But how will the German people know it's a lie? The DNB also has a story today that sounds phony. It claims Seyss-Inquart last night telegraphed to Hitler to send troops to protect Austria from armed Socialists and Communists. Since there were no "armed Socialists and Communists" in Vienna last night, this obviously is also a lie. But interesting to note Hitler's technique. The same which was used to justify the June 30 purge. Any lie will do. Croydon now just ahead of us.
LATER, London.-Broadcast at eleven thirty p.m. And now for some sleep.
LONDON, March 14
At one a.m. this morning (eight p.m. yesterday, New York time) we did our first European radio round-up. It came off like this.
About five o'clock yesterday afternoon my telephone rang. Paul W. White, Columbia's director of public affairs, was calling from New York. He said: "We want a European round-up tonight. One a.m. your time. We want you and some member of Parliament from London, Ed Murrow of course from Vienna, and American newspaper correspondents from Berlin, Paris, and Rome. A half-hour show, and I'll telephone you the exact time for each capital in about an hour. Can you and Murrow do it?"
I said yes, and we hung up. The truth is I didn't have the faintest idea how to do it-in eight hours, anyway. We had done one or two of these, but there had been months of fussing over technical arrangements before each one. I put in a long-distance call to Murrow in Vienna. And as valuable minutes ticked away I considered what to do. The more I thought about it, the simpler it became. Murrow and I have newspaper friends, American correspondents, in every capital in Europe. We also know personally the directors and chief engineers of the various European broadcasting systems whose technical facilities we must use. I called Edgar Mowrer in Paris, Frank Gervasi in Rome, Pierre Huss in Berlin, and the directors and chief engineers of PTT in Paris, EIAR in Turin, and the RRG in Berlin.
Murrow came through from Vienna; he undertook to arrange the Berlin as well as the Vienna end and gave me a badly needed technical lesson as to how the entire job could be done. For each capital we needed a powerful short-wave transmitter that would carry a voice clearly to New York. Rome had one, but its availability was doubtful. Paris had none. In that case we must order telephone lines to the nearest short-wave transmitting station. Before long my three telephones were buzzing, and in four languages: English, German, French, and Italian. The first three I know fairly well, but my Italian scarcely exists. Still, I understood enough from Turin to get the idea that no executives of the Italian Broadcasting Company could be reached at the moment. Alas, it was Sunday. I still had Rome coming in. Perhaps I could arrange matters with the branch office there. Berlin came through. The Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft would do its best. Only, they explained, the one line to Vienna was in the hands of the army and therefore doubtful.
As the evening wore on, the broadcast began to take shape. New York telephoned again with the exact times scheduled for each capital. New York's brazen serenity, its confidence that the broadcast would come off all right, encouraged me. My newspaper friends started to come through. Edgar Mowrer, Paris correspondent of the Chicago Daily News, was spending Sunday in the country. Much urging to persuade him to return to town to broadcast. But Edgar couldn't fool me. No man, I knew, felt more intensely than he what had happened in Austria. Gervasi in Rome and Huss in Berlin came through. They would broadcast if their New York office agreed. Not much time to inquire at the New York newspaper offices, especially on Sunday afternoon. Another call to Columbia in New York: Get permission for Gervasi and Huss to talk. And by the way, New York said, what transmitters and wave-lengths are Berlin and Rome using? I had forgotten about that. Another call to Berlin. The station would be DJZ, 25.2 metres, 11,870 kilocycles. An urgent cable carried the information to the CBS control room in New York.
Time was getting short. I remembered that I must also write out a talk for the London end of the show. What was Britain going to do about Hitler's invasion of Austria? I telephoned around town for material. Britain wasn't going to do anything. New York also wanted a member of Parliament, I suddenly recalled, to discuss British official reaction to the Anschluss. I called two or three M.P. friends. They were all enjoying the English week-end. I called Ellen Wilkinson, Labour M.P. So was she.
"How long will it take you to drive to the BBC?" I asked her.
"About an hour," she said.
I looked at my watch. We had a little more than two hours to go. She agreed to talk.
Gervasi's voice from Rome was on the line. "The Italians can't arrange it on such short notice," he said. "What shall I do?"
I wondered myself. "We'll take you over Geneva," I finally said. "And if that's impossible, phone me back in an hour with your story and I'll read it from here."
Sitting alone in a small studio in Broadcasting House, I had a final check-up with New York three minutes before one a.m. We went over the exact timings of each talk and checked the cues which would be the signals for the speakers in Vienna, Berlin, Paris, and London to begin and end their talks. Rome was out, I told our control room in New York, but Gervasi was on the telephone this minute, dictating his story to a stenographer. We agreed upon a second switchback to London from New York so that I could read it. One a.m. came, and through my earphones I could hear on our transatlantic "feedback" the smooth voice of Bob Trout announcing the broadcast from our New York studio. Our part went off all right, I think. Edgar and Ed were especially good. Ellen Wilkinson, flaunting her red hair, arrived in good time. New York said on the "feedback" afterwards that it was a success. They want another one tonight.
Hitler, say the dispatches, entered Vienna in triumph this afternoon. Nobody fired. Chamberlain has just spoken in the House. He is not going to do anything. "The hard fact is," he says, "that nothing could have arrested what has actually happened-unless this country and other countries had been prepared to use force." There will be no war. Britain and France have retreated one step more before the rising Nazi power.
LATER.-Albion Ross of the New York Times staff in Berlin had an interesting line in his talk on our round-up tonight. He said the Berliners had taken the Anschluss with "phlegmatic calm."
LONDON, March 15
Hitler, speaking in Vienna from the balcony of the Hofburg, palace of the once mighty Habsburgs, today proclaimed the incorporation of Austria in the German Reich. Still another promise broken. He could not even wait for the plebiscite, scheduled for April 10. Talked with Winston Churchill on the phone this morning. He will do a fifteen-minute broadcast, but wants five hundred dollars.
LONDON, March 16
Ed telephoned from Vienna. He said Major Emil Fey has committed suicide after putting bullets through his wife and nineteen-year-old son. He was a sinister man. Undoubtedly he feared the Nazis would murder him for having double-crossed them in 1934 when Dollfuss was shot. I return to Vienna day after tomorrow. The crisis is over. I think we've found something, though, for radio with these round-ups.
VIENNA, March 19
Ed met me at Aspern airport last evening. When we arrived at dusk before my house in the Ploesslgasse, S.S. guards in steel helmets and with fixed bayonets were standing before my door. A glance up the street showed they were guarding all doors, especially that of the Rothschild palace next to us. Ed and I started into our place, but the Nazi guards prodded us back.
"I live here," I said, suddenly angry.
"Makes no difference. You can't go in," one of the guards countered.
"I said I lived here!"
"Sorry. Strict orders. No one can enter or leave." He was an Austrian lad, his accent showed, and polite, and my anger subsided.
"Where can I find your commandant?" I asked.
"In the Rothschild palace."
He gave us a towering S.S. man, who escorted us into the gardener's house which adjoined our building and where Rothschild had actually resided the last year. As we entered we almost collided with some S.S. officers who were carting up silver and other loot from the basement. One had a gold-framed picture under his arm. One was the commandant. His arms were loaded with silver knives and forks, but he was not embarrassed. I explained my business and our nationality. He chuckled and told the guard to escort us to my door.
"But you'll have to stay there for a while," he laughed.
We stayed until after dinner. Then wishing to go downtown we crept down the stairs, waited until our guard had paced several steps away from the door, and sneaked out on tiptoe in the darkness. We found a quiet bar off the K?rntnerstrasse for a talk. Ed was a little nervous.
"Let's go to another place," he suggested.
"Why?"
"I was here last night about this time," he said. "A Jewish-looking fellow was standing at that bar. After a while he took an old-fashioned razor from his pocket and slashed his throat."
Tess none too well. The phlebitis still critical. And her nerves not exactly soothed by the shock of what has been happening and the noise of G?ring's bombers over the hospital all day long. Ed flies back to London in the morning.
VIENNA, March 20
Broadcast this morning. Described how Vienna has been completely Nazified in a week-a terrifying thing. One of the American radio networks had emphasized all week that its correspondent was not censored in what he said from here. But when he arrived at the studio to go on the air just after me, the Nazis demanded his script as well as mine and gave it a going-over.
VIENNA, March 22
Tess's condition still critical. And the atmosphere in the hospital has not helped. First, Tess says, there was a Jewish lady whose brother-in-law committed suicide the day Hitler entered town. She screamed all the first night. Today she left in black mourning clothes and veil, clutching her baby. There was a second Jewish lady. No one in her family was murdered, but the S.A., after taking over her husband's business, proceeded to their home and looted it. She fears her husband will be killed or arrested, and weeps all night long.
On the streets today gangs of Jews, with jeering storm troopers standing over them and taunting crowds around them, on their hands and knees scrubbing the Schuschnigg signs off the sidewalks. Many Jews killing themselves. All sorts of reports of Nazi sadism, and from the Austrians it surprises me. Jewish men and women made to clean latrines. Hundreds of them just picked at random off the streets to clean the toilets of the Nazi boys. The lucky ones get off with merely cleaning cars-the thousands of automobiles which have been stolen from the Jews and "enemies" of the regime. The wife of a diplomat, a Jewess, told me today she dared not leave her home for fear of being picked up and put to "scrubbing things."
VIENNA, March 25
Went with Gillie to see the synagogue in the Seitenst?ttengasse, which was also the headquarters of the Jewish Kultusgemeinde. We had been told that the Jews had been made to scrub out toilets with the sacred praying-bands, the Tefillin. But the S.S. guards wouldn't let us in. Inside we could see the guards lolling about smoking pipes. On our way to lunch in a little Italian restaurant back of the Cathedral, Gillie had a run-in with some storm troopers who took him for a Jew though he is the purest of Scots. Very annoying and we drowned our feelings in Chianti. Knick here, and Agnes, though Knick will depart shortly as he is barred from Germany and is not supposed to be here. Huss here trying to get the local INS correspondent, Alfred Tyrnauer, out of jail. His wife most frantic when I talked with her on the phone. The Fodors have gone to Bratislava, taken there on the initiative of John Wiley, who sent them out in a Legation car. Schuschnigg under arrest, and the story is that the Nazis torture him by keeping the radio in his room on night and day.
VIENNA, April 8
Tess and baby at last home from the hospital. I carried her upstairs from the car this morning and it will be some time before she can walk. But the worst is over.
VIENNA, April 10 (Palm Sunday)
The "plebiscite" passed off today in a weird sort of holiday atmosphere. The Austrians, according to Goebbels's count, have voted ninety-nine per cent Ja. Maybe so. It took a brave Austrian to vote No, as everyone felt the Nazis had some way of checking up on how they voted. This afternoon I visited a polling station in the Hofburg. The room, I imagine, had once been occupied by the Emperor's guard. I went inside one of the booths. Pasted on the wall in front of you was a sample ballot showing you how to mark yours with a Yes. There was also a wide slit in the corner of the booth which gave the election committee sitting a few feet away a pretty good view of how you voted! Broadcast for fifteen minutes at seven thirty p.m., and though the polls had just closed, I said the Austrians were voting ninety-nine per cent Yes. A Nazi official told me so just as I went on the air and I assumed he knew. Probably he knew yesterday. And so Austria today "votes" away its centuries-old independence and joins the Greater Reich. Finis Austria!
VIENNA, April 12
This crisis has done one thing for us. I think radio talks by Ed and me are now established. Birth of the "radio foreign correspondent," so to speak.
VIENNA, April 14
Czechoslovakia will certainly be next on Hitler's list. Militarily it is doomed now that Germany has it flanked on the south as well as the north. All our broadcasts from Prague now must go by telephone line through Germany, even if we take them via Geneva. That will be bad in case of trouble. Must ask the Czechs about their new short-wave transmitter when I go to Prague tomorrow.
PRAGUE, April 16
Put on President Bene? and Miss Alice Masaryk in a broadcast to America tonight. Yesterday I expressed the hope that Dr. Bene? would say something about the German question, though their theme tonight was ostensibly the Red Cross. Dr. Bene? obliged me beautifully, though his language was moderate and reasonable. Strange, then, that when he got to the German question he was badly faded out. Unfortunately New York booked the show via the German short-wave station at Zeesen instead of through Geneva as I had asked. I suspect the Germans faded out Bene? on purpose, though Berlin denied it when I spoke with the people there on the phone after the broadcast. They said the fault was here in Prague. The Czechs deny it. I had a long talk tonight with Svoboda, chief engineer of the Czech Broadcasting System, urging him to rush work on his new short-wave transmitter, explaining that if the Germans got tough, that would be Prague's only outlet. Promised our co-operation in making transatlantic tests. A good-natured fellow, he does not think the Germans will do anything until they've digested Austria, which he thinks will take years. But he promised to get along with the new Sender.
VIENNA, April 17 (Easter)
Got home this morning. Tess better and we presented the baby with a giant Easter egg I had bought in Prague yesterday. Much fun.
ROME, May 2
Some time during the night S.S. Black Guards at the Austro-Italian border got me out of bed in my wagons-lits compartment and seized all my money. They argued a long time among themselves about arresting me, but finally desisted. Hitler arriving this evening at sundown. I'm broadcasting from the roof of the royal stables overlooking the entrance to the Quirinale Palace and have it timed for the moment the King and the Führer are due to arrive.
LATER.-Unfortunately for me, the horses pulling Hitler's carriage galloped faster than we all anticipated. When I went on the air this evening, he had arrived, entered the palace, come out and bowed to the populace, disappeared, and as my microphone opened there was nothing left to describe. I had made notes, however, about the background of the visit and had received descriptive reports in German by radio of his dramatic ride up the Triumphal Way, past the splendid ruins of ancient Rome, past the Colosseum, from whose archways columns of red fire flamed, to the palace. But it was pitch-dark when I went on the air, and the electric light attached to the mike suddenly failed. I could not make out a word of my notes. The only thing was to speak ad lib. from memory, but after standing on the wind-swept roof for five hours I discovered that the light in my memory had gone out too. There was a row of torches burning nearby on the roof in honour of Hitler's arrival. I motioned to an Italian engineer to fetch one. It flickered badly, but gave just enough light to enable me to make out a few key points in my scribbled notes. Feel, however, that I talked badly.
ROME, May 3
A cable of congratulations from Paul White on last night's talk, which cheers me up. The town full of dicks-fifty thousand of them, they say, German and Italian, to protect the two great men. All the foreign Jews here have been jailed or banished for the duration of the visit. The Italians hardly hide their hostility to the Germans. They watch them walk by, and then spit contemptuously. The Eternal City lovely in this springtime. Wandered down to the Piazza di Spagna, full of superb flowers stacked against the stairways leading up to the baroque church. I shall spend these days wandering about.
FLORENCE, May-?
Followed Hitler up here, but did not have to broadcast. New York wanted me to look up some singing birds-of all things!-for a broadcast, but could not find them. Spent the day at the Uffizi, but somehow the Leonardos, Raphaels, Titians, even the Botticellis, pale a little after the Grecos in Spain. Walked along the Arno. Remembered the magnificent view from Fiesole, an old Etruscan town five miles up in the hills from here, but no time to revisit it. Back to Vienna tomorrow.
VIENNA, May 20
While Tess and I were dining tonight with Charles Dimont (of Reuter's) and his dark, beautiful wife in a little Hungarian restaurant near the Opera, he was called away to the phone. He came back greatly excited. London had called. German troops were reported marching on Czechoslovakia. He decided to hire a car and run up towards Bratislava and take a look. I decided to remain in town and get on the phone to Prague, Berlin, and London before jumping one way or the other.
VIENNA, May 21
Leaving tonight for Prague. The story is that Hitler has mobilized ten divisions along the Czech frontier. The Czechs have called up one class and have manned their "Maginot Line." Had hoped to remain here a few days since Tess must have another operation day after tomorrow. If there's no war in Czecho we hope to leave here definitely June 10 for our new headquarters in Geneva. Tess's Swiss visa expires then and it will be a long job to get another if we don't get away under the deadline. Have picked Geneva because it's no longer possible to do my job from here, what with the currency restrictions, the Nazi censorship and snooping, and all.
VIENNA, June 9
Leaving tomorrow. The Gestapo have been here for two days checking over my books and effects, but they were Austrian fellows and much beer and plenty of sausage made them agreeable and reasonable. Tess in no shape to travel, all bound up in bandages still, but we are going by air.
GENEVA, June 10
A day! But we're here. Three bad moments. First, when I went to collect five hundred marks owed me by the manager of one of the shipping companies. The Gestapo have been arresting people right and left for "illegal" exchange transactions. Any passing of money is suspect. When I walked into the manager's inner office, X, a Nazi spy who had long posed here as an anti-Nazi emigrant, stood there grinning at me. I thought for a second it was a trap. But the manager, an Englishman, walked down the Ring with me and gave me the money. Still, X is probably out to get me, I thought, and I was glad our plane was leaving in two hours.
At the Aspern airport they behaved very suspiciously. I explained to the Gestapo chief that Tess was too weak to stand up and I would go over the luggage with him. I had laid Tess out on a bench in the waiting-room. He demanded that she stand up and explain things during the customs examination. Otherwise we couldn't leave. I tried to hold her up. Then a police official led me away. I left the nurse to help as best she could. In a little room two police officials went through my pocket-book and my pockets. Everything was in order. They then led me into a side room. "Wait here," they said. I said I wanted to go back to help with the baggage inspection, that my wife was in a critical state; but they shut the door. I heard the lock turn. I was locked in. Five, ten, fifteen minutes. Pacing the floor. Time for the airplane to leave. Past time. Then I heard Tess shout: "Bill, they're taking me away to strip me!" I had spoken with the Gestapo chief about that, explained that she was heavily bandaged, the danger of infection…I pounded on the door. No result. Through the window I could hear and see the Swiss racing the two motors of their Douglas plane, impatient to get away. After a half-hour I was led out to a corridor connecting the waiting-room with the airfield. I tried to get into the waiting-room, but the door was locked. Finally Tess came, the nurse supporting her with one arm and holding the baby in the other.
"Hurry, there," snapped an official. "You've kept the plane waiting a half-hour." I held my tongue and grabbed Tess.
She was gritting her teeth, as angry as I've ever seen her. "They stripped me, the…" she kept saying. I thought she was going to turn and scratch at the official following us. We hurried across the runway to the plane. I wondered what could happen in the next seconds before we were in the plane and safe. Maybe X would come running out and demand my arrest. Then we were in the plane and it was racing across the field.
Flew blind in storm clouds along the Alps all the way from Vienna to Zürich, the plane pitching and tossing and most of the passengers sick and scared. Then there was Zürich down there, Switzerland, sanity, civilization again.
LAUSANNE, June (undated)
We came up the lake on a paddle-steamer, Tess and Ed Murrow and I, on this glorious June afternoon, the water blue like the Mediterranean, the shores splashing green, the Jura mountains to the left, a deep, smoky blue, the Alps to the right, pink and white under the snow and sun. It was almost overwhelming. Ed and I here for the semi-annual conference of the International Broadcasting Union. As associate instead of regular members we refrain from the scraps of the European broadcasters and merely observe, which gives us time for extra-curricular activities. The Broadcasting Union, at that, is one of the few examples of real European co-operation. Reason: if the broadcasters don't co-operate, especially in the matter of wave-lengths, there won't be any European radio. The Czechs and some of the English here much exercised about an editorial in the London Times on June 3 advising the Czechs to hold a plebiscite for the Sudeten Germans and if they want to join the Reich to let them. The Times argues that if this is done, Germany would lose any claim to interfere in the affairs of Czechoslovakia. The Old Lady simply won't learn. Ed and Dick Marriot of BBC, an intelligent and courageous young man, very pessimistic about the strength and designs of the "appeasement" crowd in London. Major Atkinson of BBC, whose English translation of Spengler's Decline of the West is even better than the original-one of the few great translations from the German, an almost untranslatable language-and who is also a terrific expert on the American Civil War, came charging up to me this evening on the terrace where we were having coffee, a bottle of red Burgundy in one hand and a large globular glass in the other, and said: "Shirer, what would have happened at Gettysburg if Lee had…" and he went into some complicated military problem. I see we shall be fighting the Civil War over here. And these English military chaps know much more about it than any American civilian.
éVIAN-LES-BAINS, July 7
Delegates from thirty-two states here, on Roosevelt's initiative, to discuss doing something about refugees from the Third Reich. Myron C. Taylor, heading the American delegation, elected permanent president of the committee today. I doubt if much will be done. The British, French, and Americans seem too anxious not to do anything to offend Hitler. It's an absurd situation. They want to appease the man who is responsible for their problem. The Nazis of course will welcome the democracies' taking the Jews off their hands at the democracies' expense. I guess I was a little hasty thinking the "radio foreign correspondent" had been born at the time of the Anschluss. I've put on Taylor for a broadcast, but have no invitation from New York to talk myself on the program of this conference. We are not really covering it at all. Stumbled into Jimmy Sheean, whom I have not seen since our Paris days ten years ago. We had a big reunion at the Casino last night, Robert Dell of the Manchester Guardian, a grand old man, joining us. Jimmy broke the bank at the baccarat table while I was winning a couple of thousand francs more laboriously at roulette, Dell, who is in his sixties, remaining in the hall to dance. Dinah Sheean joined us during the evening, she beautiful with large intelligent eyes. Renewing acquaintance with other old friends, Bob Pell of the American delegation, John Elliott, and others. Should mention John Winant, whom I met a month ago in Geneva and who has been here, a very likable person, liberal, awkward in manner, a bit Lincolnesque.
PRAGUE, August 4
Lord Runciman arrived today to gum up the works and sell the Czechs short if he can. He and his Lady and staff, with piles of baggage, proceeded to the town's swankiest hotel, the Alcron, where they have almost a whole floor. Later Runciman, a taciturn thin-lipped little man with a bald head so round it looks like a mis-shapen egg, received us-about three hundred Czech and foreign reporters-in the reception hall. I thought he went out of his way to thank the Sudeten leaders, who, along with Czech Cabinet members, turned out to meet him at the station, for their presence.
Runciman's whole mission smells. He says he has come here to mediate between the Czech government and the Sudeten party of Konrad Henlein. But Henlein is not a free agent. He cannot negotiate. He is completely under the orders of Hitler. The dispute is between Prague and Berlin. The Czechs know that Chamberlain personally wants Czechoslovakia to give in to Hitler's wishes. These wishes we know: incorporation of all Germans within the Greater Reich. Someone tonight-Walter Kerr, I think, of the Herald Tribune, produced a clipping from his paper of a dispatch written by its London correspondent, Joseph Driscoll, after he had participated in a luncheon with Chamberlain given by Lady Astor. It dates back to last May, but makes it clear that the Tory government goes so far as to favour Czecho ceding the Sudetenland outright to Germany. Before the Czechs do this, I'm convinced, they'll fight. For it would mean giving up their natural defences and their Maginot Line. It would mean their end. They're willing to give the Sudetens practical autonomy. But Henlein demands the right to set up a little Sudeten Nazi state within the state. Once he has this, of course, he will secede to Germany.
Dined tonight at the Baarandov, overlooking the lovely Moldau, with Jeff Cox of the Daily Express and Kerr. Prague, with its Gothic and baroque architecture, its winding little streets, its magnificent Charles Bridge across the Moldau, and the bluffs on one side on which perches the Hradshin castle built by the Habsburgs, has more character than almost any other city in Europe.
Testing daily with Czech radio engineers their new short-wave transmitter. Our engineers in New York, working with RCA, sending a daily report now of reception there. Sunday we will try it out for the first time with a broadcast of some Czech army man?uvres. Svoboda does not think it will carry well to New York.
PRAGUE, August 14
A few minutes before we went on the air this afternoon, while the troops on the ground and the air force in the air were rehearsing a grand show, a Skoda fighter diving from ten thousand feet failed to come fully out of its dive. It crashed in front of my microphone and skidded a couple of hundred feet past me. When it came to a stop it was a mass of twisted metal. I was talking at the time, describing the dive. Phoebe Packard of U.P., who was helping in the broadcast, says I kept on shouting into the mike when it crashed, but I do not remember. The pilot and his observer were still alive when we extricated them from the wreckage, but I fear they will not live this day out. Four or five soldiers lying in a skirmish line in front of us were badly hurt when the plane skidded over them. We were all a bit paralysed and I offered to call off the broadcast, but the commanding general said we would go on. Phoebe, large, a bit masculine, and the only woman correspondent to go through both the Ethiopian and the Spanish wars, which have hardened her to such things, remained very calm, though obviously affected.
CBS engineers afterwards said there had been a little too much gunfire for an ideal broadcast, but they were enthusiastic about the new Czech transmitter. It gives us an independent outlet now if the Germans cut the telephone lines.
PRAGUE, August 24
Runciman still fussing about, asking the Czechs to make all the concessions. He has the government busy now working out a plan of cantonal government à la Suisse. The situation being momentarily quiet, am going to Berlin tomorrow to take a look at the military parade Hitler is putting on for Horthy, Regent of Hungary.
BERLIN, August 25
The military attachés, are still a little bit pop-eyed tonight. Among other things which the Reichswehr showed Horthy (and the world) in the big military parade was an enormous field-gun, at least an eleven-inch affair, hauled in four pieces on motor trucks. There were other big guns and new big tanks and the infantry goose-stepped very well. But the big motorized Bertha was the sensation of the day. No one has ever seen a cannon that big outside of a battleship, except for the railroad guns. And how the spectators applauded it! As if it were not inanimate, a cold piece of steel. When I called at the Embassy after the parade, our military experts were busy working out sketches of the gun from memory. No photographing was allowed, except for one or two official shots which did not show much. Ralph [Barnes] as excited as a cat. Some of the American correspondents, more friendly than others to the Nazis, laughed at me at the Taverne tonight when I maintained the Czechs would fight.
GENEVA, September 9
One last fleeting visit with the family before the war clouds break. In Berlin the best opinion is that Hitler has made up his mind for war if it is necessary to get back his Sudetens. I doubt it for two reasons: first, the German army is not ready; secondly, the people are dead against war. The radio has been saying all day that Great Britain has told Germany she will fight if Czecho is invaded. Perhaps so, but you cannot forget the Times leader of three days ago inviting the Czechs to become a more "homogeneous state" by handing the Sudetens over to Hitler.
The atmosphere here in Geneva is delightfully unreal. On Monday the 102nd meeting of the League Council and the 19th meeting of the Assembly open and all the internationalists are convening here to do nothing. The Czech situation is not even on the agenda, and won't be. Who was it put it so well the other day as we were walking along Lake Geneva and the great League Secretariat building came into view? Someone. "A beautiful granite sepulchre! Let us admire its beauty against the green hills and the mountains. There, my friend, are buried the dead hopes of peace for our generation."
Tess, with baby, off to America towards the end of the month to establish residence for her citizenship. I off to Prague tomorrow by plane to cover the peace or the war. Have almost convinced CBS they should let me talk five minutes daily-revolutionary in the broadcasting business!
PRAGUE, September 10
All Europe waiting for Hitler's final word to be pronounced at the wind-up of the Nazi Party rally at Nuremberg day after tomorrow. In the meantime we had two speeches today, one by President Bene? here; the other by G?ring at Nuremberg, where all week the Nazis have been thundering threats against Czechoslovakia. Bene?, who spoke from the studio of the Czech Broadcasting System, was calm and reasonable-too much so, I thought, though he was obviously trying to please the British. He said: "I firmly believe that nothing other than moral force, goodwill, and mutual trust will be needed…. Should we, in peace, solve our nationality affairs…our country will be one of the most beautiful, best administered, worthiest, and most equitable countries in the world…. I do not speak through fear of the future. I have never been afraid in my life. I have always been an optimist, and my optimism is stronger today than at any other time…. Let us all preserve calmness…but let us be optimistic…and, above all, let us not forget that faith and goodwill move mountains…."
Dr. Bene? delivered it in both Czech and German, so that I understood it, and running into him in the hall of the Broadcasting House when he had finished, I wanted to rush up and say: "But you are dealing with gangsters, with Hitler and G?ring!" But I did not have the nerve and merely nodded good-evening and he walked on, a brave little Czech peasant's son who has made many mistakes in the last two decades, but who, when all is said and done, stands for the democratic decencies that Hitler is out to destroy. His face was grave, not nearly so optimistic as his words, and I doubt not he knows the terrible position he is in.
The other speech, G?ring's, as given out by Reuter's here: "A petty segment of Europe is harassing human beings…. This miserable pygmy race [the Czechs] without culture-no one knows where it came from-is oppressing a cultured people and behind it is Moscow and the eternal mask of the Jew devil…."
PRAGUE, September 11
All quiet here, but you can cut the tension with a knife. Reports that the Germans have massed two hundred thousand troops on the Austro-Czech border. In London continuous conferences in Downing Street. In Paris Daladier conferring with Gamelin. But all awaiting Hitler's speech tomorrow. CBS finally okays a five-minute daily report from here, but asks me to cable beforehand when I think the news does not warrant my taking the time.
PRAGUE, September 12
The Great Man has spoken. And there's no war, at least not for the moment. That is Czechoslovakia's first reaction to Hitler's speech at Nuremberg tonight. Hitler hurled insults and threats at Prague. But he did not demand that the Sudetens be handed over to him outright. He did not even demand a plebiscite. He insisted, however, on "self-determination" for the Sudetens. I listened to the broadcast of the speech in the apartment of Bill and Mary Morrell overlooking Wilson station. The smoke-filled room was full of correspondents-Kerr, Cox, Maurice Hindus, and so on. I have never heard the Adolf quite so full of hate, his audience quite so on the borders of bedlam. What poison in his voice when at the beginning of his long recital of alleged wrongs to the Sudeteners he paused: "Ich spreche von der Czechoslovakei!" His words, his tone, dripping with venom.
Everyone in Czechoslovakia seems to have listened to the speech, the streets being deserted tonight from eight to ten. An extraordinary meeting of the Inner Cabinet Council was convoked immediately afterwards, but Bene? did not attend. Morrell and I put in calls to Karlsbad and Reichenberg to see if the three and a half million Sudeteners had gone berserk after the speech. Fortunately there had been a pouring rain throughout the country. Some six thousand Henlein enthusiasts, wearing Swastika arm bands, paraded the streets of Karlsbad afterwards shouting: "Down with the Czechs and Jews! We want a plebiscite!" But there was no clash. Same story at Reichenberg.
Prague on this day when war and peace have apparently hung in the balance has been dark and dismal, with a cold, biting, soaking rain. I roamed through the old streets most of the day trying to see how a people react with war and invasion staring them in the face and when you know that in twenty-one minutes from the moment of declaration of war, if there is a declaration of war, the bombs may come raining down on you. The Czechs were going about their business as usual, not gloomy, not depressed, not frightened. Either they haven't any nerves at all, or perhaps they're the people with the iron nerves.
The Russians-perhaps aided by the Czechs-did a beautiful job of jamming Hitler's speech tonight. K?nigsberg, Breslau, Vienna-all the stations in the east-were unintelligible. We had to go way over to Cologne before we could get a decent reception.
PRAGUE, September 13-14 (3 a.m.)
War very near, and since midnight we've been waiting for the German bombers, but so far no sign. Much shooting up in the Sudetenland, at Eger, Elbogen, Falkenau, Habersbirk. A few Sudeteners and Czechs killed and the Germans have been plundering Czech and Jewish shops. So the Czechs very rightly proclaimed martial law this morning in five Sudeten districts. About seven this evening we learned that Henlein had sent a six-hour ultimatum to the government. It was delivered at six p.m., expired at midnight. It demanded: repeal of martial law, withdrawal of Czech police from the Sudetenland, "separation" of military barracks from the civilian population. Whether it is backed by Hitler we do not know, though after his Nuremberg speech there seems little doubt that it is. Anyway, the Czech government has turned it down. It could not have done otherwise. It has made its choice. It will fight. We wait now for Hitler's move.
The tension and confusion this night in the lobby of the Ambassador Hotel, where the diplomats and correspondents gather, has been indescribable. Fascinating to watch the reactions of people suddenly seized by fear. Some can't take it. They let themselves go to a point of hysteria, then in panic flee to-God knows where. Most take it, with various degrees of courage and coolness. In the lobby tonight: the newspapermen milling around trying to get telephone calls through the one lone operator. Jews excitedly trying to book on the last plane or train. The wildest rumours coming in with every new person that steps through the revolving door from outside, all of us gathering around to listen, believing or disbelieving according to our feelings. G?ring's bombers will come at midnight-unless the Czechs accept the ultimatum. They will use gas. How can a man get a gas-mask? There are none. What do you do then? Bene? will accept the ultimatum. He must! The newspapermen racing up and down, furious about the telephones, about the Germans, keeping an ear cocked for the first bomb. Packard and Beattie of U.P., Steinkopf of A.P., Red Knickerbocker of INS, Whitaker and Fodor of the Chicago Daily News, Alex Small of the Chicago Tribune, Walter Kerr of the New York Herald Tribune, Gedye and Vadnay of the New York Times, and the English correspondents.
An element of comedy helps break the tension. Alex, behind a large beer, Phoebe Packard behind another, frown at a cable Alex has just received. It is from his boss, Colonel McCormick, instructing him with military precision how to cover the war. "Wars always start at dawn. Be there at dawn," cables the colonel, Alex says.
A timid American businessman creeps up to our table, introduces himself. "I'm getting a big kick out of this evening," he says. "You newspaper people certainly lead interesting lives."
"What'll you drink, sir?" someone asks him. We go on with our talk, shout for a telephone.
Midnight nears. Deadline for the ultimatum. An official from the Foreign Office comes in, his face grave. "Abgelehnt," he says in German. "Turned down." The ultimatum is turned down. The correspondents fly again to the telephone. Several Jews scurry out. The press agent of the Sudeten party, a big jovial fellow who usually drops in at this time to give us his news, comes in as usual. He is not jovial. "Have they turned it down?" he asks. He hardly waits for the answer. Grabbing a small bag he has left in the corner, he disappears through the door.
Packard or someone finally gets through to the Sudetenland. They are fighting there with rifles, hand-grenades, machine-guns, tanks. It is war, everyone agrees. Bill Morrell comes through on the phone from Habersbirk. Will I pass his story on to the Daily Express? Yes, what is it? He is talking from the police station there, he says. In the corner of the room a few feet away, he says, under a sheet lie the bodies of four Czech gendarmes and one German. The Germans have shot dead all four gendarmes in the town, but Czech reinforcements have arrived and the government is now in control. I call up Mary, his wife, about to become a mother, and tell her Bill is all right. Time for my broadcast. I race up the street to Broadcasting House.
Out in the street, I must say, I felt just a little ashamed. The people in the street were quiet, unexcited. No troops, no police to be seen anywhere. Everybody going home to bed just as they always have. Broadcast, but we could not hear New York and I fear atmospherics. And so to bed.
PRAGUE, September 14 (morning)
A discouraging cable from Paul White. My broadcast last night failed to get through. Atmospherics or sun spots, he says. Off now for a drive through the Sudetenland to take a look at the fighting, with Hindus, Cox, Morrell.
EVENING.-Drove two hundred miles through Sudetenland. The fighting is all over. The revolt, inspired from Germany with German arms, has been put down. And the Czech police and military, acting with a restraint that is incredible, have suffered more casualties than the Sudeten Germans. Unless Hitler again interferes, the crisis has passed its peak. The Sudeteners I talked to today very puzzled. They expected the German army to march in Monday night after Hitler's speech, and when it didn't arrive, but the Czech army did, their spirits dropped. Only at Schwaderbach are the Henleinists holding out, and that's because the Czechs can't fire into the town without their bullets hitting Reich territory. Henlein announces this afternoon from Asch the dissolution of the committee which had been negotiating here with the government. Ernst Kundt, his chief delegate, a swarthy, passionate man and the most decent of the lot, tells me he's remaining in Prague "if they don't kill me."
Some time after dinner a newsboy rushed into the lobby of the Ambassador with extra editions of a German-language paper, the only one I can read since I do not know Czech. The headlines said: Chamberlain to fly to Berchtesgaden tomorrow to see Hitler! The Czechs are dumbfounded. They suspect a sell-out and I'm afraid they're right. On the way to broadcast tonight, Hindus, who was with me and understands Czech, stopped to listen to what the newsboys were shouting. They were yelling, he said: "Extra! Extra! Read all about how the mighty head of the British Empire goes begging to Hitler!" I have not heard a better comment this evening. Broadcast again, but fear we did not get through. Mighty powerful sun spots at work against us.
PRAGUE, September 15
Feel a little frustrated. New York cables again that I failed to get through. Tonight I shall cable my piece to be read. Henlein today issued a proclamation demanding outright Anschluss, after which he fled to Germany. The government has ordered his arrest as a traitor. Ed Beattie of U.P. telephoned this morning from Eger, and though he is an American to the core, Packard could not understand a word he said. Pack came running to me. "Beattie's gone nuts. Speaks in some strange language. Will you talk to him?" I got on the line. Ed explained in German he was speaking from a Czech police station, that the Czechs understood German and no English and had given him a line on condition he file his story in German so that they could check him. I took it down. Six killed there last night when Czech police stormed Henlein's headquarters in the Hotel Victoria.
Czechs, like everyone else, kept their eyes focused on Berchtesgaden today. Tonight they're asking if the peace which Mr. Chamberlain is trying to extract from Hitler does not call for them to make all the concessions. Government circles very gloomy. Murrow called from London and suggested I get off immediately to Berchtesgaden. Don't know whether I can. Czech trains have stopped running across the border and I can't find a Czech driver who will take his car across the frontier.
LATER.-Ed called to say Chamberlain was returning to London in the morning. My Berchtesgaden trip is off. Relieved. Prefer to cover this war from the Czech side.
PRAGUE, September 16
Another cable from New York. For the third successive day they could not hear me, but read my piece which arrived by cable. This is bad luck for radio. Berlin reports Hitler has demanded-and Chamberlain more or less accepted-a plebiscite for the Sudeteners. The government here says it is out of the question. But they are afraid that is what happened at Berchtesgaden. In other words that Mr. Chamberlain has sold them down the river. I say in my broadcast tonight: "Will the Czechs consent to breaking up their state and sacrificing their strategic mountain border which has protected Bohemia for a thousand years?…I get the impression they will not lie down and trust their fate even to a conference of the four big western powers…. The Czechs say: Supposing even that a plebiscite were accepted and the Sudetens turned over to Germany. As compensation Mr. Chamberlain, they think, would give them a guarantee against aggression, solemnly signed by Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy. But what, they ask, would another treaty be worth?"
LATER.-Hoorah! Heard New York perfectly on the feedback tonight and they heard me equally well. After four days of being blotted out, and these four days! Runciman has left for London, skipping out very quietly, unloved, unhonoured, unsung.
PRAGUE, September 18
The Czechs are stiffening as it becomes evident that Chamberlain is ready to support Hitler's demands for taking over Sudetenland and indeed, in effect, Czechoslovakia. Milo Hodza, the Premier, broadcast to the world today and uttered a definite no to the proposition of a plebiscite. "It is unacceptable. It will solve nothing," he said. Hodza, unlike most Slovaks, struck me as being very high-strung and nervous when I saw him at Broadcasting House after he finished talking. He showed visibly the strain of the last days. Is he talking strong, but weakening, I wonder.
LATER.-I must go to Germany. At midnight Murrow phoned from London with the news. The British and French have decided they will not fight for Czechoslovakia and are asking Prague to surrender unconditionally to Hitler and turn over Sudetenland to Germany. I protested to Ed that the Czechs wouldn't accept it, that they'd fight alone….
"Maybe so. I hope you're right. But in the meantime Mr. Chamberlain is meeting Hitler at Godesberg on Wednesday and we want you to cover that. If there's a war, then you can go back to Prague."
"All right," I said.
I don't care where I go now. I finally collected myself and went over and routed Maurice Hindus out of bed, telling him the news, which he refused to believe. We telephoned to two or three friends in the Foreign Office. By the tone of their voices they had heard the news too, though they said not. They said it was too "fantastic" to believe, which of course it is. Maurice and I took a walk. People were going home from the cafés but they did not seem unduly excited and it was obvious they had not heard the reports from London.
Maurice is to broadcast while I'm away. I take a plane to Berlin in the morning. To bed, four a.m., weary and disgusted.
BERLIN, September 19
The Nazis, and quite rightly too, are jubilant over what they consider Hitler's greatest triumph up to date. "And without bloodshed, like all the others," they kept rubbing it in to me today. As for the good people in the street, they're immensely relieved. They do not want war. The Nazi press full of hysterical headlines. All lies. Some examples: WOMEN AND CHILDREN MOWED DOWN BY CZECH ARMOURED CARS, or BLOODY REGIME-NEW CZECH MURDERS OF GERMANS. The B?rsen Zeitung takes the prize: POISON-GAS ATTACK ON AUSSIG? The Hamburger Zeitung is pretty good: EXTORTION, PLUNDERING, SHOOTING-CZECH TERROR IN SUDETEN GERMAN LAND GROWS WORSE FROM DAY TO DAY!
No word from Prague tonight as to whether the Czechs will accept Chamberlain's ultimatum. I still hope against hope they will fight. For if they do, then there's a European war and Hitler can't win it. Ended my broadcast tonight thus: "One thing is certain: Mr. Chamberlain will certainly get a warm welcome at Godesberg. In fact, I got the impression in Berlin today that Mr. Chamberlain is a pretty popular figure around here."
ON THE TRAIN, BERLIN-GODESBERG, September 20
A weird broadcast we've just done. Paul White phoned from New York at six p.m. just as I was packing my bags. I told him he'd have to cancel my regular talk at ten thirty tonight as our train for Godesberg left at ten thirty. He suggested a broadcast from the train, interviewing the correspondents on the chances for peace or war at Godesberg. A phone call to the Reichs Rundfunk. Impossible to do it from the train. How about doing it from the Friedrichstrasse station, I asked. Will do, said Dr. Harald Diettrich, youthful, enterprising acting-head of the German short-wave department. A telephone call to New York. White delighted. When I arrived at the station five minutes before ten, when the broadcast was due to begin, the microphone was there and working.
But there were no American correspondents. The platform was empty. At ten I started to chat away ad lib. The only news I had was that the Hungarians and the Poles had been down to Berchtesgaden during the day to demand, like jackals, their share of the Czech spoils. This subject exhausted, I took to reading the headlines from the evening papers. The usual lies, but if I said so, the Nazis would cut me off. Headlines like this: CZECH SOLDIERS ATTACK GERMAN EMPIRE! I looked around. Still no correspondents. I hoped they would all miss the train. I talked along about the Czech minorities, I think it was. Finally Huss showed up. I grabbed him by the coat-tails and before he knew it he was on the air. The rest of the newspapermen finally arrived, but they seemed busy sorting out their luggage. Huss began to make frantic signs. God knows how the rest of the show sounded. I put on two or three Englishmen, then Sigrid Schultz, Webb Miller, Ralph Barnes. Philippo Boiano of the Popólo d'Italia motioned he wanted to speak. I knew how secretly he hated the Nazis, but I wasn't sure of his English. It was wonderful. No stage accent could have been half so good. Jouve of Havas wanted to talk too. Before I could ask him if he spoke English he was talking-in French. I started to translate what he had said, and then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the train moving. My finishing sentence was not smooth, but I made the train. Fear the show was a flop at home, but there are more important things to think of now.
GODESBERG, September 22
The Swastika and the British Union Jack flying side by side in this lovely Rhine town-very appropriate, I find. Very appropriate, too, to hold your meeting in a Wagnerian town, for it is here, they say, that Wotan, Thor, and the other gods of the early Teutons used to frolic.
This morning I noticed something very interesting. I was having breakfast in the garden of the Dreesen Hotel, where Hitler is stopping, when the great man suddenly appeared, strode past me, and went down to the edge of the Rhine to inspect his river yacht. X, one of Germany's leading editors, who secretly despises the regime, nudged me: "Look at his walk!" On inspection it was a very curious walk indeed. In the first place, it was very ladylike. Dainty little steps. In the second place, every few steps he cocked his right shoulder nervously, his left leg snapping up as he did so. I watched him closely as he came back past us. The same nervous tic. He had ugly black patches under his eyes. I think the man is on the edge of a nervous breakdown. And now I understand the meaning of an expression the party hacks were using when we sat around drinking in the Dreesen last night. They kept talking about the "Teppichfresser," the "carpet-eater." At first I didn't get it, and then someone explained it in a whisper. They said Hitler has been having some of his nervous crises lately and that in recent days they've taken a strange form. Whenever he goes on a rampage about Bene? or the Czechs he flings himself to the floor and chews the edges of the carpet, hence the Teppichfresser. After seeing him this morning, I can believe it.
Chamberlain and Hitler had a three-hour talk this afternoon and will have another tomorrow. Just as I was broadcasting from a little studio we've fixed up in the porter's lodge of the hotel, the two men after their conference stepped out right before my window. Hitler was all graciousness indeed and Chamberlain, looking the image of an owl, was smiling and apparently highly pleased in his vain way with some manufactured applause by a company of S.S. guards before the door. Chamberlain, I hear, proposed an international commission to superintend the withdrawal of the Czechs from Sudetenland and an international guarantee for what is left of Czechoslovakia. New York cables our Friedrichstrassebahnhof show last night was a knockout. Strange. New Cabinet in Prague. New Premier: one-eyed, hard-boiled General Jan Syrovy, Inspector-General of the army. The Czechs may fight yet.
GODESBERG, September 23-4, 4 a.m.
War seems very near after this strange day. All the British and French correspondents and Birchall of the New York Times, who is an English subject, scurrying off at dawn-in about an hour now-for the French, Belgian, or Dutch frontier. It seems that Hitler has given Chamberlain the double-cross. And the old owl is hurt. All day long he sulked in his rooms at the Petershof up on the Petersberg on the other side of the Rhine, refusing to come over and talk with the dictator. At five p.m. he sent Sir Horace Wilson, his "confidential" adviser, and Sir Nevile Henderson, the British Ambassador in Berlin (both of whom, we feel, would sell out Czecho for five cents), over the river to see Ribbentrop. Result: Chamberlain and Hitler met at ten thirty p.m. This meeting, which is the last, broke up at one thirty a.m. without agreement and now it looks like war, though from my "studio" in the porter's lodge twenty-five feet away I could not discern any strain or particular displeasure in Chamberlain's birdy face as he said his farewell to Hitler, who also was smiling and gracious. Still the Germans are plunged in deep gloom tonight, as if they really are afraid of war now that it's facing them. They are gloomy and yet feverishly excited. Just as I was about to go on the air at two a.m. with the day's story and the official communiqué, Goebbels and Hadamovsky, the latter Nazi boss of German radio, came rushing in and forbade Jordan and me to say anything over the air except to read the official communiqué. Later I grabbed a bit of supper in the Dreesen lobby. Goebbels, Ribbentrop, G?ring, Keitel, and others walked in and out, all of them looking as if they had been hit over the head with a sledgehammer. This rather surprised me, since it's a war of their making. The communiqué merely says that Chamberlain has undertaken to deliver to Prague a German memorandum containing Germany's "final attitude" concerning the Sudeten question. The point is that Chamberlain came here all prepared to turn over Sudetenland to Hitler, but in a "British" way-with an international commission to supervise the business. He found Hitler's appetite had increased. Hitler wants to take over his way-that is, right away, with no nonsense of an international commission. Actually, it's not an important point for either, but they seem to have stuck to their positions.[3]
In meantime, word that the Czechs have at last ordered mobilization.
Five a.m. now. Shall lie down on a table here in the lobby, as I must be off at six for Cologne to catch the Berlin plane.
BERLIN, September 24
Today's story is in my broadcast made at midnight tonight. I said: "There was some confusion among us all at Godesberg this morning…but tonight, as seen from Berlin, the position is this: Hitler has demanded that Czechoslovakia not later than Saturday, October 1, agree to the handing over of Sudetenland to Germany. Mr. Chamberlain has agreed to convey this demand to the Czechoslovak Government. The very fact that he, with all the authority of a man who is political leader of the British Empire, has taken upon himself this task is accepted here, and I believe elsewhere, as meaning that Mr. Chamberlain backs Hitler up.
"That's why the German people I talked with in the streets of Cologne this morning, and in Berlin this evening, believe there'll be peace. As a matter of fact, what do you think the new slogan in Berlin is tonight? It's in the evening papers. It's this: 'With Hitler and Chamberlain for peace!' And the Angriff adds: 'Hitler and Chamberlain are working night and day for peace.'"
So Berlin is optimistic tonight for peace. Unable to telephone or wire Hindus in Prague tonight to give him his time schedule. All communication with Prague cut off. Thank God for that Czech transmitter.[4]
BERLIN, September 25
Hitler to make a speech tomorrow evening at the Sportpalast. Seems he is furious at the reports from Prague, Paris, and London that his Godesberg Memorandum goes beyond his original agreement with Chamberlain at Berchtesgaden. He claims not. No war fever, not even any anti-Czech feeling, discernible here on this quiet Sabbath day. In the old days on the eve of wars, I believe, crowds used to demonstrate angrily before the embassies of the enemy countries. Today I walked past the Czech Legation. Not a soul outside, not even a policeman. Warm and sunny, the last summer Sunday of the year probably, and half the population of Berlin seems to have spent it at the nearby lakes or in the woods of the Grunewald. Hard to believe there will be war.
BERLIN, September 26
Hitler has finally burned his last bridges. Shouting and shrieking in the worst state of excitement I've ever seen him in, he stated in the Sportpalast tonight that he would have his Sudetenland by October 1-next Saturday, today being Monday. If Bene? doesn't hand it over to him he will go to war, this Saturday. Curious audience, the fifteen thousand party Bonzen packed into the hall. They applauded his words with the usual enthusiasm. Yet there was no war fever. The crowd was good-natured, as if it didn't realize what his words meant. The old man full of more venom than even he has ever shown, hurling personal insults at Bene?. Twice Hitler screamed that this is absolutely his last territorial demand in Europe. Speaking of his assurances to Chamberlain, he said: "I further assured him that when the Czechs have reconciled themselves with their other minorities, the Czech state no longer interests me and that, if you please, I would give him another guarantee: We do not want any Czechs." At the end Hitler had the impudence to place responsibility for peace or war exclusively on Bene?!
I broadcast the scene from a seat in the balcony just above Hitler. He's still got that nervous tic. All during his speech he kept cocking his shoulder, and the opposite leg from the knee down would bounce up. Audience couldn't see it, but I could. As a matter of fact, for the first time in all the years I've observed him he seemed tonight to have completely lost control of himself. When he sat down after his talk, Goebbels sprang up and shouted: "One thing is sure: 1918 will never be repeated!" Hitler looked up to him, a wild, eager expression in his eyes, as if those were the words which he had been searching for all evening and hadn't quite found. He leaped to his feet and with a fanatical fire in his eyes that I shall never forget brought his right hand, after a grand sweep, pounding down on the table and yelled with all the power in his mighty lungs: "Ja!" Then he slumped into his chair exhausted.
BERLIN, September 27
A motorized division rolled through the city's streets just at dusk this evening in the direction of the Czech frontier. I went out to the corner of the Linden where the column was turning down the Wilhelmstrasse, expecting to see a tremendous demonstration. I pictured the scenes I had read of in 1914 when the cheering throngs on this same street tossed flowers at the marching soldiers, and the girls ran up and kissed them. The hour was undoubtedly chosen today to catch the hundreds of thousands of Berliners pouring out of their offices at the end of the day's work. But they ducked into the subways, refused to look on, and the handful that did stood at the curb in utter silence unable to find a word of cheer for the flower of their youth going away to the glorious war. It has been the most striking demonstration against war I've ever seen. Hitler himself reported furious. I had not been standing long at the corner when a policeman came up the Wilhelmstrasse from the direction of the Chancellery and shouted to the few of us standing at the curb that the Führer was on his balcony reviewing the troops. Few moved. I went down to have a look. Hitler stood there, and there weren't two hundred people in the street or the great square of the Wilhelmsplatz. Hitler looked grim, then angry, and soon went inside, leaving his troops to parade by unreviewed. What I've seen tonight almost rekindles a little faith in the German people. They are dead set against war.
Tess, with baby, off today from Cherbourg for America on a voyage she had booked months ago. On the phone last night from Paris she said that France was mobilizing and it was not sure the boat train would go. No word today, so suppose it did.
BERLIN, September 28
There is to be no war! Hitler has invited Mussolini, Chamberlain, and Daladier to meet him in Munich tomorrow. The latter three will rescue Hitler from his limb and he will get his Sudetenland without war, if a couple of days later than he boasted. The people in the streets greatly relieved, and if I judge correctly, the people in the Wilhelmstrasse and the Bendlerstrasse (War Department) also. Leaving right after my broadcast tonight for Munich.
MUNICH, September 30
It's all over. At twelve thirty this morning-thirty minutes after midnight-Hitler, Mussolini, Chamberlain, and Daladier signed a pact turning over Sudetenland to Germany. The German occupation begins tomorrow, Saturday, October 1, and will be completed by October 10. Thus the two "democracies" even assent to letting Hitler get by with his Sportpalast boast that he would get his Sudetenland by October 1. He gets everything he wanted, except that he has to wait a few days longer for all of it. His waiting ten short days has saved the peace of Europe-a curious commentary on this sick, decadent continent.
So far as I've been able to observe during these last, strangely unreal twenty-four hours, Daladier and Chamberlain never pressed for a single concession from Hitler. They never got together alone once and made no effort to present some kind of common "democratic" front to the two C?sars. Hitler met Mussolini early yesterday morning at Kufstein and they made their plans. Daladier and Chamberlain arrived by separate planes and didn't even deem it useful to lunch together yesterday to map out their strategy, though the two dictators did.
Czechoslovakia, which is asked to make all the sacrifices so that Europe may have peace, was not consulted here at any stage of the talks. Their two representatives, Dr. Mastny, the intelligent and honest Czech Minister in Berlin, and a Dr. Masaryk of the Prague Foreign Office, were told at one thirty a.m. that Czechoslovakia would have to accept, told not by Hitler, but by Chamberlain and Daladier! Their protests, we hear, were practically laughed off by the elder statesman. Chamberlain, looking more like some bird-like the black vultures I've seen over the Parsi dead in Bombay-looked particularly pleased with himself when he returned to the Regina Palace Hotel after the signing early this morning, though he was a bit sleepy, pleasantly sleepy.
Daladier, on the other hand, looked a completely beaten and broken man. He came over to the Regina to say good-bye to Chamberlain. A bunch of us were waiting as he came down the stairs. Someone asked, or started to ask: "Monsieur le President, are you satisfied with the agreement…?" He turned as if to say something, but he was too tired and defeated and the words did not come out and he stumbled out the door in silence. The French say he fears to return to Paris, thinks a hostile mob will get him. Can only hope they're right. For France has sacrificed her whole Continental position and lost her main prop in eastern Europe. For France this day has been disastrous.
How different Hitler at two this morning! After being blocked from the Führerhaus all evening, I finally broke in just as he was leaving. Followed by G?ring, Ribbentrop, Goebbels, Hess, and Keitel, he brushed past me like the conqueror he is this morning. I noticed his swagger. The tic was gone! As for Mussolini, he pulled out early, cocky as a rooster.
Incidentally, I've been badly scooped this night. Max Jordan of NBC got on the air a full hour ahead of me with the text of the agreement-one of the worst beatings I've ever taken. Because of his company's special position in Germany, he was allowed exclusive use of Hitler's radio studio in the Führerhaus, where the conference has been taking place. Wiegand, who also was in the house, tells me Max cornered Sir Horace Wilson of the British delegation as he stepped out of the conference room, procured an English text from him, rushed to the Führer's studio, and in a few moments was on the air. Unable to use this studio on the spot, I stayed close to the only other outlet, the studio of the Munich station, and arranged with several English and American friends to get me the document, if possible immediately after the meeting itself, if not from one of the delegations. Demaree Bess was first to arrive with a copy, but, alas, we were late. New York kindly phoned about two thirty this morning to tell me not to mind-damned decent of them. Actually at eleven thirty p.m. I had gone on the air announcing that an agreement had been reached. I gave them all the essential details of the accord, stating that the occupation would begin Saturday, that it would be completed in ten days, et cetera. But I should have greatly liked to have had the official text first. Fortunately for CBS, Ed Murrow in London was the first to flash the official news to America that the agreement had been signed thirty minutes after midnight. He picked it up from the Munich radio station in the midst of a talk.
LATER.-Chamberlain, apparently realizing his diplomatic annihilation, has pulled a very clever face-saving stunt. He saw Hitler again this morning before leaving and afterwards a joint communiqué was issued. Essential part: "We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German naval accord as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again." And a final paragraph saying they will consult about further questions which may concern the two countries and are "determined to continue our efforts to remove possible sources of difference and thus to contribute to the assurance of peace in Europe."
LATER. On Train, Munich-Berlin.-Most of the leading German editors on the train and tossing down the champagne and not trying to disguise any more their elation over Hitler's terrific victory over Britain and France. On the diner Halfeld of the Hamburger Fremdenblatt, Otto Kriegk of the Nachtausgabe, Dr. Boehmer, the foreign press chief of the Propaganda Ministry, gloating over it, buying out all the champagne in the diner, gloating, boasting, bragging…. When a German feels big he feels big. Shall have two hours in Berlin this evening to get my army passes and a bath and then off by night train to Passau to go into Sudetenland with the German army-a sad assignment for me.
[LATER.-And Chamberlain will go back to London and from the balcony of 10 Downing Street that night will boast: "My good friends, this is the second time in our history" (to the crowds shouting: "Good old Neville" and singing "For he's a jolly good fellow" remember Disraeli, the Congress of Berlin, 1878?) "that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time." Peace with honour! And Czechoslovakia? And only Duff Cooper will resign from the Cabinet, saying: "It was not for Serbia or Belgium we fought in 1914…but…in order that one great power should not be allowed, in disregard of treaty obligations and the laws of nations and against all morality, to dominate by brutal force the continent of Europe…. Throughout these days the Prime Minister has believed in addressing Herr Hitler with the language of sweet reasonableness. I have believed he was more open to the language of the mailed fist…." Only Winston Churchill, a voice in the wilderness all these years, will say, addressing the Commons: "We have sustained a total, unmitigated defeat…. Do not let us blind ourselves. We must expect that all the countries of central and eastern Europe will make the best terms they can with the triumphant Nazi power…. The road down the Danube…the road to the Black Sea and Turkey, has been broken. It seems to me that all the countries of Mittel Europa and the Danube Valley, one after the other, will be drawn into the vast system of Nazi politics, not only power military politics, but power economic politics, radiating from Berlin." Churchill-the lone, unheeded prophet in the British land.]
ON TRAIN, REGENSBURG-BERLIN, October 2
At Regensburg before dawn yesterday, then by bus to Passau on the Danube, and from there by car with a German General Staff major following the troops picnic-marching into Zone I of the Sudetenland. Back after dark last night in a pouring rain to Passau, where the military censors refused to let me broadcast; a train to Regensburg arriving there at midnight and filing my story by telephone to Press Wireless in Paris to be read in New York, since the RRG in Berlin says the military have put a Verbot on all broadcasts, including their own, of the occupation. No plane to Berlin, so this train and will broadcast from there tonight.
BERLIN. LATER.-Military had not yet lifted their Verbot, so had to read another piece I had written on train on the political significance of Hitler's great victory at Munich, quoting an editorial by Rudolf Kircher, the only intelligent and courageous editor left in Nazi Germany, in this morning's Frankfurter Zeitung wherein he frankly states the advantages of threatening force and war and how Hitler knew all the time that the democracies were afraid of war. When I returned to the hotel, some general in charge of the military censorship at the German radio was on the phone saying he had just read my piece on the occupation, that he liked it, that he had had to suppress all the accounts of the German radio reporters so far, but that I could now broadcast mine. Called Paul White in New York, but he said the crisis was over and that people at home wanted to forget it and to take a rest. Which is all right with me. Can stand some sleep and a change from these Germans, so truculent and impossible now.
BERLIN, October 3
Phoned Ed Murrow in London. He as depressed as am I. We shall drown our sorrows in Paris day after tomorrow. From my window in the Adlon I see them dismantling the anti-aircraft gun on the roof of the I. G. Farben company across the Linden. Thus ends the crisis. Little things to remember: the characters in the drama: the dignity of Bene? throughout; Hitler the five times I saw him; the bird, Chamberlain; the broken little man, Daladier, who seems destined to fall down (as on February 6, 1934) each time he is in a hole. To remember too: the mine at a bridge over a little creek near Krumau which might have blown us to bits had our German army car gone two feet farther; the bravery of the Czechs in Prague the night war and bombs at dawn seemed certain; the look of fear in the faces of the German burghers in the Wilhelmstrasse the night the motorized division swept by and war seemed certain to them, and then the delirious joy of the citizens in Munich-and Berlin-when they learned on Friday that it was not only peace but victory; the beaten look of the Sudeten Germans after the Czechs put down their uprising, and the change in their faces a fortnight later when the Reichswehr marched in; and the burgomaster of the Sudeten town of Unterwaldau, Herr Schwarzbauer (Mr. Black Peasant), taking me aside from the German officers and my saying: "What is the worst thing the Czechs did to you, Herr Burgomaster?" and his saying it was frightful, unbelievable, that the Czechs had taken away his radio so he couldn't hear the Führer's words and could any crime be more terrible!
PARIS, October 8
Paris a frightful place, completely surrendered to defeatism with no inkling of what has happened to France. At Fouquet's, at Maxim's, fat bankers and businessmen toasting Peace with rivers of champagne. But even the waiters, taxi-drivers, who used to be sound, gushing about how wonderful it is that war has been avoided, that it would have been a crime, that they fought in one war and that was enough. That would be okay if the Germans, who also fought in one war, felt the same way, but they don't. The guts of France-France of the Marne and Verdun-where are they? Outside of Pierre Comer, no one at the Quai d'Orsay with any idea at all of the real Germany. The French Socialists, shot through with pacifism; the French Right, with the exception of a few like Henri de Kerillis, either fascists or defeatists. France makes no sense to me any more.
Ed Murrow as gloomy as I am. We try to get it out of our systems by talking all night and popping champagne bottles and tramping the streets, but it will take more time, I guess. We agree on these things: that war is now more probable than ever, that it is likely to come after the next harvest, that Poland is obviously next on Hitler's list (the blind stupidity of the Poles in this crisis, helping to carve up Czechoslovakia!), that we must get Warsaw to rig up a more powerful short-wave transmitter if they want the world to hear their side, and that we ought to build up a staff of American radio reporters. But honestly we have little head for business. Ed says American radio has done a superb job in reporting this crisis, but we don't much care-about anything-and soon even the champagne becomes sickening. We depart.
Run into Gallico. He is off on a tour of the capitals for material for his stories. I give him letters to the correspondents in each place, we dine at Maxim's, but I cannot stand it any longer. Off in the morning for Geneva. Almost the first chance in a year to get reacquainted with Tess and Eileen. But they are off in America.
GENEVA, November 6
Lovely Indian summer here for a month, but, now the snow is creeping down on the Alps and this morning the Juras across the lake were also coated white. Soon we can ski. A month of the worst mental and spiritual depression of my life. I'm still in such a state that I've done two crazy things: started a play; and taken up-at my age, thirty-four!-golf. Perhaps they'll restore sanity. There is a beautiful course at Divonne in the foot-hills of the Juras from which you can look over the lake and see Mont Blanc in all its snowy pink splendour about the time the sun is setting. Arthur Burrows, English, fifty-two, secretary of the International Broadcasting Union, and I fool around over the links, tearing up the turf, soon losing count of the scores, if any, knocking off after the first nine holes to go down to Divonne village, which is on the French side of the frontier, for a magnificent nine-course lunch washed down by two bottles of Burgundy, and return, feeling mellow and good, for the last nine holes. The play is called: "Foreign Correspondent." It is affording me much relief.
WARSAW, November 11
Broadcast a half-hour program for the twentieth anniversary of the Polish Republic. The show got hopelessly tangled up for some reason. Sitting in the Palace I began by saying: "Ladies and gentlemen, the Polish anthem…" which was to be played by a band in a studio in the other part of town. Instead of the band, President Mosieski started to speak. He had promised to speak in English, but through the earphones I could make out only Polish. I dashed down the Palace corridors to his room to inquire. A tall adjutant stopped me at the door. "The President promised to speak English," I said. He looked at me curiously, opening the door slightly. "He is speaking English, sir," he protested. Dashed back to my room to introduce Ambassador Tony Biddle, who was to say a few well-chosen words. He started blabbing and, thinking he had suddenly become a victim of "mike fright," I moved to cut him off. Then he motioned to his script. It was a mass of hieroglyphics. "Polish!" he whispered. "Phonetic…." He was giving a little message in Polish. When he had finished we laughed so hard the Poles in the Palace became a little uneasy.
Afterwards met Duranty, and it was one of his "Russian nights," he insisting on talking Russian to the droshky-driver and insisting we be taken to a Russian café. The wind from Duranty's Russian steppes was whipping the snow in our faces, and after what seemed an age the driver finally pulled his dying nag up before a decrepit old building.
"Café Rusky?" Walter shouted. We could not see the driver through the curtain of snow. No, it was not a Russian café. It was a Polish institution, a disorderly house. Then in the blizzard a long argument in Russian between the Moscow correspondent of the New York Times and the Polish driver of a dilapidated horse and buggy. The snow piled up on us. Long after midnight we found a Russian café. It was full of rather plump girls who spoke Russian and who Walter said were echt Russisch and there was much vodka and balalaika-playing and singing and the girls would warm their backs against a great porcelain stove, getting a little more tired and sleepy each time, a little sadder, I thought.
The Poles a delightful, utterly romantic people, and I have had much good food and drink and music with them. But they are horribly unrealistic. In their trust of Hitler, for instance. Polskie Radio promises to get along with their new short-wave transmitter. I explained to them our experience with the Czechs.
BRUSSELS, November 20
Here as observer for an international radio conference to draw up new wave-lengths. As there is nothing for me to do, have shut myself in my room for a week and finished the play.
BELGRADE, November 26
Here for another "anniversary" broadcast like the one at Warsaw.
LATER. On train to Rome.-Miss Campbell from our London office phoned at six p.m. to tell me the Pope was dying. I caught young Sulzberger of the New York Times at a cocktail party, induced him to do my broadcast Sunday, explained how, and caught this train at nine p.m. for Rome.
ROME, November 29
The Pope has once again fought off death after a severe heart attack on Tuesday. Arranged with Father Delaney, a brilliant and extremely pleasant young Jesuit from New York attached to Vatican Radio, to help us in the elaborate coverage I've arranged for the Pope's death. Conferences yesterday and today with the Vatican authorities on the matter, which of course is extremely delicate since he is still alive. But we all agreed we must make our preparations. The Italians are putting in extra lines for us from St. Peter's to their studios. Much good talk and spaghetti and Chianti and to Paris by plane tomorrow though an Italian friend of mine who is also a close friend of Ciano's tipped me off I ought to stay for tomorrow's meeting of the Fascist Chamber. But an urgent matter of ours with the French government needs straightening out.
PARIS, December 1
My friend was trying to do me a favour. The Fascists in the Chamber yesterday staged a big demonstration against France yelling: "Tunis! Savoy! Nice! Jibouti!" But the Quai d'Orsay here claims Daladier will say no. Munich was enough for the moment. A German refugee and his wife, he a former trades-union official, she a novelist of sorts, came to my hotel an hour after I arrived last evening (my Italian plane had a narrow escape when a strut broke between Rome and Genoa, and I was still a little nervous) and told me they were going to jump off a bridge over the Seine and end their lives. I took them around the corner for a good meal at Le Petit Riche and they calmed down. I hope I've persuaded them not to jump into the Seine. They had received an order of expulsion from France effective next week, though he has been doing some work for the French government. Shall try to intervene at the Quai d'Orsay for them.
PARIS, December 6
Bonnet, one of the chief architects of Munich and a sinister figure in French politics, today signed a "good neighbour" declaration with Ribbentrop, another sinister one, at the Quai d'Orsay. Paris, I find, has somewhat recovered from its defeatist panic of the Munich days. When Ribbentrop drove through the streets from the Gare d'Orsay, they were completely deserted. Several Cabinet members and many leading figures here have refused to attend the social functions being accorded him. On the other hand Ribbentrop's French admirers run high up in political, business, and social circles. Today's agreement states that the two countries solemnly declare that no territorial or border question now exists and that they will consult in case of future disagreement. What a farce!
PARIS, December 15
Tess and baby back today on the Queen Mary. Off to Geneva for the Christmas holidays.
GSTAAD, SWITZERLAND, December 26
One of the most beautiful mountain spots I've ever seen and the snow so grand I've taken up skiing again for the first time since my accident six years ago. The wealthy English and French here in force and inanely oblivious of Europe's state. Last night at the big Christmas ball I found the merry-makers so nauseating that we left early. This has been a year-the baby, the Anschluss, the Czech crisis, and Munich. As usual Tess and I wonder where we'll be a year from now, and what the year will bring.
ROME, January 11, 1939
Chamberlain and Halifax arrived today to appease the Duce. At the station Chamberlain, looking more birdlike and vain than when I last saw him at Munich, walked, umbrella in hand, up and down the platform nodding to a motley crowd of British local residents whom Mussolini had slyly invited to greet him. Mussolini and Ciano, in black Fascist uniforms, sauntered along behind the two ridiculous-looking Englishmen, Musso displaying a fine smirk on his face the whole time. When he passed me he was joking under his breath with his son-in-law, passing wise-cracks. He looks much older, much more vulgar than he used to, his face having grown fat. My local spies tell me he is much taken with a blonde young lady of nineteen whom he's installed in a villa across from his residence and that the old vigour and concentration on business is beginning to weaken. Chamberlain, we're told, much affected by the warmth of the greeting he got at the stations along the way to Rome. Can it be he doesn't know how they're arranged?
GENEVA, January 19
The League in its last death-throes has been a sorry sight the last four days. Bonnet and Halifax here to see that there is no nonsense to delay Franco's victory. Del Vayo yesterday made a dignified speech before the Council. Halifax, to show his colours, got up in the middle of it and ostentatiously strode out. Had a long talk with Del Vayo tonight. He was depressed, discouraged, and though he did not say so, I gathered it is all up with the Republic. Franco, with his Germans and Italians, is at the gates of Barcelona. Lunch with Edgar [Mowrer], Knick, Harry Masdyck, and Mme. Tabouis. Much talk, but our side has lost.
ROME, February 12
Friday morning about six fifteen Cortesi phoned me at Geneva from Rome to say the Pope had died. There was a train for Milan at seven two a.m. I aroused Tess and she helped me catch it. Today, Sunday, broadcast from the piazza in front of St. Peter's, stopping people who were filing out of the church after viewing Pius XI's remains as they lay in state, and interviewing them. As I am not a Catholic and there is much about the church and the Vatican that I do not know-though I've been studying countless books for a year-I am getting churchmen to do most of the broadcasts.
ROME, February (undated)
Pius XI was buried today, the service beautiful, but St. Peter's very cold, and there was a long hitch, due, it seems, to the fact that the mechanics who were to seal the casket before it was lowered to the vault below ran out of solder. An SOS call was sent out for some, but as most of the workshops in Rome had closed for the day, it was some time before a sufficient quantity could be found. Father Delaney, broadcasting the service for us from atop one of the pillars, did a magnificent job, filling in beautifully the hour or so that elapsed while they were hunting the solder.
ROME, March 3
Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli is the new Pope, elected yesterday, and a very popular choice all around except perhaps in Germany. We had great luck with broadcasting the news a few moments after the election, though earlier in the day it looked disastrous for us. Suffering from the flu when I left Lausanne the day before, I had such a violent attack of it by the time I reached Milan that I had to go to a hotel there and take to bed. I managed to get to the train somehow, but was completely out when I arrived in Rome yesterday morning. Tom Grandin, our Paris correspondent, intelligent, but green at radio, having just been hired, arrived from Paris about noon, but he tells me I was completely out of my head and that in my delirium my instructions on what to do made no sense. He did gather that I had arranged a broadcast from the balustrade around St. Peter's during the afternoon. He got there, found Father Delaney, who was talking for us, and just as they were signing off, they got a message through their earphones from inside the Vatican to stand by, passed it on to New York, who understood. In a moment they were announcing the name of the new pontiff.
ROME, March 9
A storm brewing in what is left of poor Czechoslovakia. Dr. Hacha, the weak little President-successor to the great Masaryk and the able Bene?-has proclaimed martial law in Slovakia and dismissed Father Tiso and the Slovak Cabinet. But Tiso, I know, is Berlin's man. Strange-maybe not?-that Germany and Italy have never given rump Czecho the guarantee they promised at Munich. The Italian Foreign Office people admit London and Paris have been pressing Hitler for the guarantee, but they say Hitler considers Prague still too "Jewish and Bolshevik and democratic." I don't recall any reservations about that at Munich.
Still in bed with flu and must wait here for the Pope's coronation Sunday.
GENEVA, March 14
The radio reports Slovakia has declared its "independence." There goes the remains of Czechoslovakia. Should go to Prague, but I haven't the heart. Am I growing too soft-hearted, too sentimental to be a good reporter? I don't mind so much the killings, bloodshed-I've seen and got over quite a little of that in the last fourteen years-but Prague now-I can't face it. The radio says [Czech President] Hacha and [Foreign Minister] Chvalkovsky arrived in Berlin tonight. To save the pieces?
PARIS, March 15
The German army has occupied Bohemia and Moravia on this blizzardy day of spring, and Hitler in a cheap theatrical gesture from the Hradshin castle above the Moldau in Prague has proclaimed their annexation to the Third Reich. It is almost banal to record his breaking another solemn treaty. But since I was personally present at Munich, I cannot help recalling how Chamberlain said it not only had saved the peace but had really saved Czechoslovakia.
Complete apathy in Paris tonight about Hitler's latest coup. France will not move a finger. Indeed, Bonnet told the Chamber's Foreign Affairs Committee today that the Munich guarantee had "not yet become effective" and therefore France had no obligation to do anything. Ed Murrow telephones that the reaction in London is the same-that Chamberlain in Commons this afternoon even went so far as to say that he refused to associate himself with any charges of a breach of faith by Hitler. Good God!
Should have gone to Prague or Berlin today, I suppose, but talked it over with Murrow from Geneva early this morning and we decided the Nazi censorship in both places would be complete and that, with what inside stuff I could pick up here and knowing the background, I could tell a better story from Paris. I was relieved. My Paris plane, after getting iced up and lost in a snowstorm near the Bellegarde Pass shortly after we left Geneva, turned round and finally got us back to the airport. I took the noon train. Bonnet has laid down a radio censorship and I fought with his hirelings until long after midnight tonight over my script.
PARIS, March 22
Someone-I think it was Pertinax, who is just back from London-told me yesterday a weird tale of how Chamberlain suddenly reversed his whole position last Friday in his Birmingham speech. Two days before, he had told Commons that he would not charge Hitler with bad faith. In Birmingham he severely denounced Hitler for "treaty-breaking." Pertinax says that Sir Horace Wilson, the dark little man behind the scenes at Godesberg and Munich had actually drafted the Birmingham speech for the Prime Minister along the appeasement lines of his remarks in the House, but that half the Cabinet and most of the leading London newspaper editors were so up in arms when they heard of it that Chamberlain suddenly felt forced to reverse his whole policy and actually wrote most of his new speech on the train en route to Birmingham.
How shoddy Paris has become in the last ten years! Some Frenchmen point to the neon signs, the gaudy movie palaces, the automobile sales windows, the cheap bars which now dominate the once beautiful Champs-élysées, and say: "That is what America has done to us." Perhaps so, but I think it is what France has done to herself. France has lost something she had when I arrived here fourteen years ago: her taste, part of her soul, the sense of her historical mission. Corruption everywhere, class selfishness partout and political confusion complete. My decent friends have about given up. They say: "Je m'en fous (To hell with it)." This leads to the sort of defeatist, anarchistic je m'en fousism which a writer like Céline is spreading.
GENEVA, March 29
Madrid surrendered yesterday, the rest of republican Spain today. There are no words to express what I feel tonight. Franco's butchery will be terrible.
BERLIN, April 1
Just as Hitler began his broadcast at Wilhelmshaven this afternoon, an order came through to the RRG control room where I was standing by, to stop the broadcast from getting abroad. For a moment there was great confusion in the control room. I protested vehemently to the Germans about cutting us off, once Hitler had started to speak. But orders from Wilhelmshaven were explicit. They came from Hitler himself, just before he started speaking. The speech was also not being broadcast directly in Germany, but only from recordings later. This and our being cut off meant Hitler wanted to reflect on what he said in the heat of the moment before giving his words wider circulation. You can always edit recordings. I suggested to Dr. Ratke, head of the short-wave department, he should announce to our network in America that the speech of Hitler had been shut off owing to a misunderstanding and that the Führer was actually talking at this moment. A very excitable man, he refused. Instead he ordered some silly music records played. Just what I expected happened. Within fifteen minutes, Paul White was urgently on the line from New York. Why was Hitler cut off? Reports in New York he has been assassinated. He hasn't been killed? How do you know? Because I can hear him this moment on the telephone circuit to Wilhelmshaven. The Germans are recording the speech.
I could not go on the air afterwards until the Germans had received the approved version of Hitler's speech, which, as a matter of fact, differed not at all from the original. Hitler very bellicose today, obviously in a rage against Chamberlain, who in the House yesterday enunciated at last a complete change in British foreign policy and announced that Britain would go to the aid of Poland if Polish independence were threatened. Off to Warsaw tomorrow to see when the German attack is expected.
WARSAW, April 2
Attended a pitiful air-show this Sunday afternoon, my Polish friends apologizing for the cumbersome slow bombers and the double-decker fighters-all obsolete. They showed a half-dozen modern fighters that looked fast enough, but that was all. How can Poland fight Germany with such an air force?
WARSAW, April 6
Beck [the Polish Foreign Minister], who committed this country to a pro-Nazi, anti-French policy for so many years, has been in London and tonight we have an Anglo-Polish communiqué announcing that the two countries will sign a permanent agreement providing for mutual assistance in case of an attack on either of them by a third power. I think this will halt Hitler for the time being, since force is something he understands and respects and there is no doubt in my mind after a week here that the Poles will fight and that if Britain and France fight too, he is in a hole. I feel uneasy about three things only: Poland's terrible strategic position since Germany (with Poland's help and encouragement!) moved her army into the Protectorate and Slovakia, thus flanking this country on the south (it is already flanked on the north by East Prussia); the West Wall, which, when completed next winter, will discourage France and Britain from attacking Germany in the west and thereby aiding Poland; and, finally, Russia. I have dined and drunk with a dozen Poles this week-from the Foreign Office, the army, and the old Pilsudski legionnaires who run Polskie Radio-and they will not bring themselves to realize that they cannot afford the luxury of being enemies of both Russia and Germany and that they must choose and that if they bring in Russia along with France and Britain they are saved. They reach for another piece of this wonderful smoked Vistula salmon they have here and wash it down with one of the fifty-seven varieties of vodka and point out the dangers of Russian help. To be sure, there is danger. There is the danger that the Red army, once on Polish soil, will not leave, that it will Bolshevize the country with its propaganda (this country has been so misruled by the colonels that no doubt it does offer fertile ground for the Bolsheviks), and so on. True. Then make your peace with the Nazis. Give them Danzig and the Corridor. Never! they say.
Still, on this spring day after the British guarantee we all feel better. Fodor, who leaves by boat tonight for Easter holidays in England (he's barred from crossing Germany), optimistic. The Embassy people, Biddle and the military, happy. Only Second Secretary Landreth Harrison is sceptical. He keeps pointing out the weaknesses of the Poles to the point of exasperation. He is a man of prejudices, though intelligent.
Rumours today of German troop movements, but the Poles discount them. Polskie Radio still stalling on their new short-wave transmitter. Bad. Off to Paris tomorrow morning for an Easter broadcast, then to Geneva for Easter Monday.
BERLIN, April 7
When the Orient Express pulled into the Schlesischer Bahnhof here this evening, the first thing I saw was Huss's face on the platform and I knew there was bad news. He said London had phoned to get me off the train as the British had reports of German troop movements on the Polish frontier. I had watched for these as we came across the border, but saw nothing. London was nervous about Albania, he said. "What's happened there?" I asked. The Italians went in there this morning, he said. Today. Good Friday. Have satisfied myself the Germans are not contemplating anything against Poland this Easter, so will take the plane to Paris tomorrow morning.
LONDON, April 23
Broadcast with Lord Strabolgi, my main point being that the whole life of Germany was now geared to war, but that there were signs of economic cracking. Iron was so short they were tearing down the iron fences of the Reich. And the nerves of the German people were becoming frayed and they were against going to war. Strabolgi so cheered by my news he asked me to come down and address a committee meeting at the House of Lords, but I declined. Flying back to Berlin for the Reichstag, April 28.
BERLIN, April 28
Hitler in the Reichstag today denounced a couple more treaties (I could hardly repress a chuckle at this part of his speech) and answered Roosevelt's plea that he give assurance that he will not attack the rest of the independent nations of Europe. His answer to the President rather shrewd, I think, in that it was designed to play on the sympathies of the appeasers and anti-New-Dealers at home and the former in Britain and France. He claimed he had asked the nations which Roosevelt thought threatened whether they so considered themselves and "in all cases the reply was negative." States like Syria, he said, he could not ask because "they are at present not in possession of their freedom, but are occupied and consequently deprived of their rights by the military agents of democratic countries." And "the fact has obviously escaped Mr. Roosevelt's notice that Palestine is at present occupied not by German troops but by the English." And so on in this sarcastic manner, from which, with a masterly touch-Hitler was a superb actor today-he drew every last drop of irony. America champions the conference method of settling disputes? he asked. But was it not the first nation to shrink from participation in the League? "It was not until many years later that I resolved to follow the example of America and likewise leave the largest conference in the world."
In the end, however, Hitler agreed to give each of the states listed by the President "an assurance of the kind desired by Mr. Roosevelt." But of course this was just a little Nazi hokum. The sausage-necked deputies below us rocked with raucous laughter throughout the session, which was just what Hitler desired. It was a superb example of his technique of laughing off embarrassing questions, for Roosevelt's proposal was a reasonable one after all.
The breaking of two more treaties was loudly applauded by the rubber-stamp "parliamentarians." Hitler denounces the naval accord with Britain on the grounds that London's "encirclement policy" has put it out of force-a flimsy excuse; of course no excuse at all. The second treaty denounced, the 1934 pact with Poland, is more serious, the excuse, incidentally, being the same. Hitler in his speech reveals the content of his "offer" to Poland: Danzig to be returned to Germany, and the Reich given an extra-territorial road through the corridor to East Prussia. To scare the Poles he says the offer was made "only once." That is, his terms are higher today. Still much doubt here among the informed whether Hitler has made up his mind to begin a world war for the sake of Danzig. My guess is he hopes to get it by the Munich method.
LONDON, June (undated)
Leaving tomorrow on the maiden voyage of the new Mauretania for home. Tess cables she has just been granted her citizenship by a Virginia court.
ABOARD Mauretania (undated)
A dull voyage. Sir Percy Bate, chairman of Cunard, assures me there will be no war.
WASHINGTON, July 3
Hope I can stay a little while in my native land. It takes some getting used to again after being almost continuously away since the age of twenty-one. Little awareness here or in New York of the European crisis, and Tess says I'm making myself most unpopular by taking such a pessimistic view. The trouble is everyone here knows all the answers. They know there will be no war. I wish I knew it. But I think there will be war unless Germany backs down, and I'm not certain at all she will, though of course it's a possibility. Congress here in a hopeless muddle. Dominated by the Ham Fishes, Borahs, Hiram Johnsons, who stand for no foreign policy at all, it insists on maintaining the embargo on arms as if it were immaterial to this Republic who wins a war between the western democracies and the Axis. Roosevelt's hands absolutely tied by Congress-a situation like that which confronted Lincoln at the beginning of his first term, except that he did something about it, and Roosevelt, they say here, is discouraged and won't. He sees the European situation correctly, but because he does, because he sees the danger, the Borahs and Fishes call him a war-monger.
Oh well, it's pleasant to be here with the family and loaf and relax for a few fleeting days.
NEW YORK, July 4
A pleasant afternoon at the Fair with the Bill Lewises. We must start back to Europe tomorrow. Alarming news from Danzig, and the office worried I won't get back in time. Hans Kaltenborn so sure there will be no war, he is sending his son off on his honeymoon to the Mediterranean, he tells me tonight.
ABOARD Queen Mary, July 9
Much good company aboard. Paul Robeson, whom I have not seen since he stormed London in Show Boat ten years or so ago. In the evening we sit and argue, Robeson, Constantine Oumansky, Soviet Ambassador in Washington, Tess, and I. Oumansky tells me he has been down to third class to lecture to some American students on "Soviet Democracy." But he takes my kidding good-naturedly. Soviet democracy! I do not envy him his job. His predecessor in Washington is now in the dog-house. I have known many Soviet diplomats, but they have all been liquidated sooner or later. Oumansky thinks the Soviets will line up with Britain and France in a democratic front against fascist aggression if Paris and London show they mean business and are not merely trying to man?uvre Russia into a war alone (or alone with Poland) against Germany. So far, he says, the British and French have done nothing but stall in their negotiations with the Kremlin.
Much wild ping-pong with Tess on this voyage.
LONDON, July 14
Paul White from New York and our "European staff," consisting of Murrow, Tom Grandin from Paris, and myself here conferring on war coverage. We worked out technical matters such as transmission lines and short-wave transmitters and arranged to build up a staff of Americans (the New York Times, for example, has several Englishmen on its foreign staff) as regular staff correspondents, figuring that the American press associations and newspapers will not allow their men to broadcast, once the war starts. We hear our rival network plans to engage a number of big-name foreigners such as Churchill here, Flandin in France, Gayda in Italy, et cetera, but we think our plan is better. American listeners will want news, not foreign propaganda, if war comes. We distressed at the failure of the Poles to rush their new short-wave transmitter to completion, as this may leave us in a hole. A wild game of golf with Ed and it was good-after listening to my Labour friends in Parliament curse conscription and the Conservatives express hopes for further appeasement-to hear my caddy say in a thick cockney: "Seems as 'ow we'll have to give that bloke Hitler a damned good beatin' one o' these days…."
PARIS (undated)
John Elliott, formerly Berlin, now Paris correspondent of the Herald Tribune, tells me that in all the years he has been writing the day-to-day history of Europe for his paper he has received but a dozen or so letters from readers who were interested enough in what he had written to write him. But after two or three broadcasts from Paris during the March 15 Prague occupation he received scores of letters, praising, protesting, inquiring.
GENEVA, July 28
Fodor and Gunther dropped in tonight and we argued and talked most of the night through. John fairly optimistic about peace. Fodor, a trained engineer himself, had a lot of material about Germany's lack of iron. You can't store much iron ore, Fodor says. John's latest, Inside Asia, going blazes. We argued a little about India, on which subject, I fear, I'm a crank. John not so impressed by Gandhi as I was.
GENEVA, August 3
Much golf, including a comical game with Joe Phillips, and tramps in the nearby mountains, and swims in the lake with my family, with whom I'm beginning to get acquainted again. From a personal viewpoint it will be nice if there's no war. But must get off to Danzig next week to see.
BERLIN, August 9
The people in the train coming up from Basel last night looked clean and decent, the kind that made us like the Germans, as people, before the Nazis. For breakfast in the Adlon this morning I asked for a glass of orange juice, if they had any.
"Certainly we have oranges," the waiter said, haughtily. But when he brought the breakfast there was no orange juice. "Not a one in the hotel," he admitted sheepishly.
A discussion this day with Captain D. A World War officer of proved patriotism, he was against war during the Munich crisis, but changed, I noticed, after April 28, when Hitler denounced the Polish and British treaties. He became violent today at the very mention of the Poles and British. He thundered: "Why do the English butt in on Danzig and threaten war over the return of a German city? Why do the Poles [sic] provoke us? Haven't we the right to a German city like Danzig?"
"Have you a right to a Czech city like Prague?" I asked. Silence. No answer. That vacant stare you get on Germans.
"Why didn't the Poles accept the generous offer of the Führer?" he began again.
"Because they feared another Sudetenland, Captain."
"You mean they don't trust the Führer?"
"Not much since March 15," I said, looking carefully around before I spoke such blasphemy to see I was not being overheard. Again the vacant German stare.
Lunch with Major Eliot and his wife. He has just come from London and Paris and thinks highly of the French army and the British air-force, which was good news to me. Met Joe Barnes (Herald Tribune) at the Taverne at midnight. He just back from Danzig and Poland. His theory is that if Hitler waits nine months he'll have Danzig and perhaps more without much trouble and certainly without war. He thinks Polish resistance to Hitler's demands would collapse, that Poland simply couldn't afford to stay mobilized any longer than that. I argued that Britain and France could afford to foot the bill for the Poles. Joe didn't think they would. I won't say he's dead wrong, but think he underestimates the change in France and Britain. Joe's description of the backwardness of the Poles very impressive. He and Maurice Hindus visited the villages. Only two million people in Poland read any kind of newspaper, he reports, and many villages are without a single radio.
BERLIN, August 10
How completely isolated a world the German people live in. A glance at the newspapers yesterday and today reminds you of it. Whereas all the rest of the world considers that the peace is about to be broken by Germany, that it is Germany that is threatening to attack Poland over Danzig, here in Germany, in the world the local newspapers create, the very reverse is being maintained. (Not that it surprises me, but when you are away for a while, you forget.) What the Nazi papers are proclaiming is this: that it is Poland which is disturbing the peace of Europe; Poland which is threatening Germany with armed invasion, and so forth. This is the Germany of last September when the steam was turned on Czechoslovakia.
"POLAND? LOOK OUT!" warns the B.Z. headline, adding: "ANSWER TO POLAND, THE RUNNER-AMOK (AMOKL?UFER) AGAINST PEACE AND RIGHT IN EUROPE!"
Or the headline in Der Führer, daily paper of Karlsruhe, which I bought on the train: "WARSAW THREATENS BOMBARDMENT OF DANZIG-UNBELIEVABLE AGITATION OF THE POLISH ARCH-MADNESS (POLNISCHEN GR?SSENWAHNS)!"
For perverse perversion of the truth, this is good. You ask: But the German people can't possibly believe these lies? Then you talk to them. So many do.
But so far the press limits itself to Danzig. Will the Germans keep their real designs under cover until later? Any fool knows they don't give a damn about Danzig. It's just a pretext. The Nazi position, freely admitted in party circles, is that Germany cannot afford to have a strong military power on her eastern frontier, that therefore Poland as it is today must be liquidated, not only Danzig, which is Poland's life-line, taken, but also the Corridor, Posen, and Upper Silesia. And Poland left a rump state, a vassal of Germany. Then when Hungary and Rumania and Yugoslavia have been similarly reduced (Hungary practically is already), Germany will be economically and agriculturally independent, and the great fear of Anglo-French blockade, which won the last war and at the moment probably could win the next, will be done away with. Germany can then turn on the West and probably beat her.
Struck by the ugliness of the German women on the streets and in restaurants and cafés. As a race they are certainly the least attractive in Europe. They have no ankles. They walk badly. They dress worse than English women used to. Off to Danzig tonight.
DANZING, August 11
For a place where the war is supposed to be about to break out, Danzig does not quite live up to its part. Like the people in Berlin, the local inhabitants don't think it will come to war. They have a blind faith in Hitler that he will effect their return to the Reich without war. The Free City is being rapidly militarized, German military cars and trucks-with Danzig licence plates!-dash through the streets. My hotel, the Danzigerhof, full of German army officers. The roads leading in from Poland are blocked with tanktraps and log-barriers. They remind me of Sudetenland just a year ago. The two strategic hills of Bischofsberg and Hagelberg have been fortified. And a lot of arms are being run under cover of night across the Nogat River from East Prussia. They are mostly machine-guns, anti-tank and air-guns and light artillery. Apparently they have not been able to bring in any heavy artillery. Most of the arms are of Czech manufacture.
The town completely Nazified. Supreme boss is Albert Forster, the Nazi Gauleiter, who is not even a Danziger, but a Bavarian. Herr Greiser, the President of the Senate, is a more moderate man, but takes his orders from Forster. Among the population, much less tension than I'd expected. The people want to be joined to Germany. But not at the cost of war or the loss of their position as an outlet for Polish trade. Without the latter, reduced though it is since the building of the purely Polish port of Gdynia, twelve miles west of here, they starve, unless Germany conquers Poland. Like all Germans they want it both ways.
Danzig is a pleasing town to look at. I like the heavy Baltic-German towers, the Gothic Hanseatic steep-gabled houses with the heavily ornamented fa?ades. Reminds me of the other Hanseatic towns-Bremen, Lübeck, Bruges. Walked around the port. Very dead-looking. Few ships. More drunkenness here in Danzig than I've seen outside of America. The Schnapps-they call it "Danzig goldwater" because of the little golden particles floating in it-is right good and strong.
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! That 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 bombshell 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 V?lkische 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 V?lkische 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."
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. G?ring 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 with 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!