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

by William L. Shirer

  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. Göring’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? Beneš 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 Börsen 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 Beneš 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 disc
ern 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, Göring, 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.