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

by William L. Shirer

  Today the bombing is the one topic of conversation among Berliners. It’s especially amusing therefore to see that Goebbels has permitted the local newspapers to publish only a six-line communiqué about it, to the effect that enemy planes flew over the capital, dropped a few incendiary bombs on two suburbs, and damaged one wooden hut in a garden. There is not a line about the explosive bombs which we all plainly heard. Nor is there a word about the three streets in Berlin which have been roped off all day today to prevent the curious from seeing what a bomb can do to a house. It will be interesting to watch the reaction of the Berliners to the efforts of the authorities to hush up the extent of the raid. It’s the first time they’ve been able to compare what actually happened with what Dr. Goebbels reported. The British also dropped a few leaflets last night, telling the populace that “the war which Hitler started will go on, and it will last as long as Hitler does.” That’s good propaganda, but unfortunately few people were able to find the leaflets, there being only a handful dropped.

  BERLIN, August 29

  The British came over in force again last night and for the first time killed Germans in the capital of the Reich. The official account is ten persons killed and twenty-nine wounded in Berlin. At the Kottbuserstrasse out towards Tempelhof (which the British probably were aiming at) and not far from the Görlitzer railroad station (which they might have been aiming at) two hundred-pound bombs landed in the street, tore off the leg of an air-raid warden standing at the entrance to his house, and killed four men and two women, who, unwisely, were watching the fireworks from a doorway.

  I think the populace of Berlin is more affected by the fact that the British planes have been able to penetrate to the centre of Berlin without trouble than they are by the first casualties. For the first time the war has been brought home to them. If the British keep this up, it will have a tremendous effect upon the morale of the people here.

  Goebbels today suddenly changed his tactics. His orders after the first big bombing were to play the story down in the press. Today he orders the newspapers to cry out at the “brutality” of the British fliers in attacking the defenceless women and children of Berlin. One must keep in mind that the people here have not yet been told of the murderous bombings of London by the Luftwaffe. The invariable headline today about last night’s raid is: “COWARDLY BRITISH ATTACK.” And the little Doktor makes the papers drum into the people that German planes attack only military objectives in Britain, whereas the “British pirates” attack “on the personal orders of Churchill” only non-military objectives. No doubt the German people will fall for this lie too. One paper achieves a nice degree of hysteria: it says the RAF has been ordered “to massacre the population of Berlin.”

  It’s obvious from what we’ve seen here the last few nights—and Göring must have known it—that there is no defence against the night bombers. Neither on Sunday nor last night did the anti-aircraft defences of Berlin, which are probably the best in the world, even spot a single British plane in the beam of a searchlight, let alone bring one down. The official communiqué, hesitating to tell the local people that any planes were brought down last night over the city when thousands of them probably saw that none were, announced today that one bomber was shot down on its way to Berlin and another after it left Berlin.

  I had my own troubles at the radio last night. First, the censors announced that we could no longer mention a raid while it was on. (In London Ed Murrow not only mentions it, but describes it.) Secondly, I got into somewhat of a row with the German radio officials. As soon as I had finished my broadcast, they ordered me to the cellar. I tried to explain that I had come here as a war correspondent and that in ordering me to the cellar they were preventing me from exercising my profession. We exchanged some rather sharp words. Lord Haw-Haw, I notice, is the only other person around here except the very plucky girl secretaries who does not rush to the shelter after the siren sounds. I have avoided him for a year, but have been thinking lately it might be wise to get acquainted with the traitor. In the air-raids he has shown guts.

  BERLIN, August 31

  Laid up with the flu for a bit. When the maid came in last night just before the bombing started, I asked: “Will the British come over tonight?”

  “For certain,” she sighed resignedly. All her confidence, all the confidence that five million Berliners had that the capital was safe from air attack, is gone.

  “Why do they do it?” she asked.

  “Because you bomb London,” I said.

  “Yes, but we hit military objectives, while the British, they bomb our homes.” She was a good advertisement for the effectiveness of Goebbels’s propaganda.

  “Maybe you bomb their homes too,” I said.

  “Our papers say not,” she argued. She said the German people wanted peace. “Why didn’t the British accept the Führer’s offer?” she wanted to know. This woman comes from a worker’s family. Her husband is a worker, probably an ex-Communist or Socialist. And yet she has fallen a complete victim to the official propaganda.

  The British gave us a good strafing last night and even German officials admitted that the damage was greater than ever before. A German friend dropped in to tell me the great Siemens works had been hit. The Börsen Zeitung headlines tonight: “BRITISH AIR PIRATES OVER BERLIN.”

  I’ve turned down the Propaganda Ministry’s offer to take me along with other correspondents on a conducted tour each morning after a raid to see the damage. I know the German military authorities have no intention of showing us any military objectives that may be hit. To make an honest check-up would take several hours of motoring over the vast area of Berlin.

  BERLIN, September 1

  I was in my bath at midnight last night and did not hear the sirens sound the alarm. First I knew of the raid was when the guns started to thunder. I dozed off to sleep, still having the flu with me, but was awakened during the night by the thud and shock of two bomb explosions very near the hotel.

  Today the High Command announces officially that the British fliers last night were “hindered” from dropping their bombs by the splendid work of the capital’s anti-aircraft guns, and that the only bombs dropped therefore fell outside the city limits.

  This is strange because the Tiergarten was roped off today and this evening the press admits that several “bomb craters” were discovered in the park after last night’s raid. I staggered off to the Rundfunk tonight to do an anniversary broadcast. The military censor, a very decent chap, was puzzled about the conflicting German reports of the bombing.

  “My instructions are you can’t contradict the communiqués of the High Command,” he said.

  “But the German press contradicts them,” I argued. “I heard the bombs fall in the Tiergarten, and the Berlin papers admit that some did.”

  He was a good sport and let me read the contradictory reports.

  The main effect of a week of constant British night bombings has been to spread great disillusionment among the people here and sow doubt in their minds. One said to me today: “I’ll never believe another thing they say. If they’ve lied about the raids in the rest of Germany as they have about the ones on Berlin, then it must have been pretty bad there.”

  Actually, the British bombings have not been very deadly. The British are using too few planes—fifteen or twenty a night—and they have to come too far to carry really effective, heavy loads of bombs. Main effect is a moral one, and if the British are smart they’ll keep them up every night. Tonight another attack began just before I broadcast, but it was not much of a show.

  A year ago today the great “counter-attack” against Poland began. In this year German arms have achieved victories never equalled even in the brilliant military history of this aggressive, militaristic nation. And yet the war is not yet over, or won. And it was on this aspect that people’s minds were concentrated today, if I am any judge. They long for peace. And they want it before the winter comes.

  BERLIN, September 2

 
; I learned today that the Germans you see removing time bombs are for the most part prisoners from concentration camps. If they live through the experience, they are promised release. As a matter of fact it probably is an easy choice for them. Even death is a welcome release from the tortures of the Gestapo. And there’s always the chance that the bomb won’t go off Some of the bombs that fell in the Tiergarten, it’s now revealed, were time bombs.

  For some time now our censors have not allowed us to use the word “Nazi” on the air. They say it has a bad sound in America. One must say “National Socialist” or avoid the term altogether, as I do. The word “invasion” in reference to what happened in Scandinavia and the west, and what is planned for England, is also taboo.

  Studying the German figures on air losses over Britain, which are manifestly untrue, I find that nearly every day they run 4 to 1 in favour of the Luftwaffe. This ratio must have a magic attraction to someone in the Air Ministry.

  BERLIN, September 4–5 (3 a.m.)

  Hitler made a surprise speech here this afternoon, the occasion being the opening of the Winterhilfe—winter relief—campaign. Like the Volkswagen, the cheap “people’s car” on which German workers are paying millions of marks a month in instalments though the factory which is supposed to make them is actually manufacturing only arms, the Winterhilfe is one of the scandals of the Nazi regime, though not one German in a million realizes it. It is obvious that in a country without unemployment not much “winter relief” is necessary. Yet the Nazis go on wringing several hundred million marks each winter out of the people for “winter charity” and actually use most of the money for armaments or party funds.

  Hitler’s appearance today was kept a secret until the last minute, the Propaganda Ministry rushing off the correspondents from the afternoon press conference to the Sportpalast. What is Himmler afraid of, since British bombers cannot come over during daylight? Is he afraid of an “incident”?

  The session was another beautiful example of how Hitler takes advantage of the gullibility of his people. He told them, for instance, that while the German air force attacked Britain by day, the cowardly RAF comes over only at night. He did not explain why this is so—that the Germans can get over England by day because it is only twenty-five miles from German bases and they can thus protect their bombers with fighters, whereas Germany is too far from Britain to enable the British to protect their bombers with fighters.

  Hitler said with lovely hypocrisy: “I waited three months without answering the British night bombings in the hope they would stop this mischief. But Herr Churchill saw in this a sign of weakness. You will understand that we are now answering, night for night. And when the British air force drops two or three or four thousand kilograms of bombs, then we will in one night drop 150- 230- 300- or 400,000 kilograms.”

  At this point he had to stop because of the hysterical applause of the audience, which consisted mostly of German women nurses and social workers.

  “When they declare,” continued Hitler, “that they will increase their attacks on our cities, then we will raze their cities to the ground.” Here the young nurses and social workers were quite beside themselves and applauded phrenetically. When they had recovered, he said:

  “We will stop the handiwork of these air pirates, so help us God.” At this the young German women hopped to their feet and, their breasts heaving, screamed their approval.

  “The hour will come,” Hitler went on, “when one of us will break, and it will not be National Socialist Germany.” At this juncture the raving maidens kept their heads sufficiently to break their wild shouts of joy with a chorus of: “Never! Never!”

  Though grim and dripping with hate most of the evening, Hitler had his humorous, jaunty moments. His listeners found it very funny when he said: “In England they’re filled with curiosity and keep asking: ‘Why doesn’t he come?’ Be calm. Becalm. He’s coming! He’s coming!” And the man squeezed every ounce of humour and sarcasm out of his voice. The speech was not broadcast direct, but recorded and rebroadcast two hours after he had finished.

  LATER.—The British came over again tonight, arriving punctually at fifteen minutes before midnight, which is their usual time. The fact that the searchlights rarely pick up a plane has given rise to whispers among the people of Berlin that the British planes are coated with an invisible paint. Tonight the bombers cruised over the city at intervals for two hours. The flak guns thundered away like mad, but without effect. Another bomb dropped in the Tiergarten and killed a policeman.

  BERLIN, September 5

  Very annoyed still that the German radio officials refuse to let me view the nightly air-raids. They come each night when I am at the Rundfunk. Nor can we mention them if they occur during our talk. Tonight when I arrived for my broadcast I found that the RRG had installed a lip microphone for us to speak in. In order to make your voice heard you have to hold your lips to it. But the sounds of the anti-aircraft guns firing outside do not register. That is why they installed it. But they have put it in the same building, so that we no longer have to race through a hail of falling shrapnel to get to a microphone.

  The United States is to turn over fifty destroyers to the British in return for naval and air bases in British possessions off our eastern coast. The Germans say it is a breach of neutrality, as it is, but they’re not going to do anything about it, not even protest. They’re hoping that our isolationists and our Lindberghs will keep us out of the war and they intend to refrain from doing anything to jeopardize their position.

  BERLIN, September 7

  Last night we had the biggest and most effective bombing of the war. The Germans have brought in several more batteries of flak during the past few days, and last night they put up a terrific barrage, but failed to hit a single plane.

  The British were aiming better last night. When I returned from the Rundfunk shortly after three a.m., the sky over the north-central part of Berlin was lit up by two great fires. The biggest was in the freight house of the Lehrter railroad station. Another railroad station at the Schussendorfstrasse also was hit. A rubber factory, I’m told, was set afire.

  Despite this the High Command said in its communiqué today: “The enemy again attacked the German capital last night, causing some damage to persons and property as a result of his indiscriminate throwing of bombs on non-military targets in the middle of the city. The German air force, as reprisal, has therefore begun to attack London with strong forces.”

  Not a hint here—and the German people do not know it—that the Germans have been dropping bombs in the very centre of London for the last two weeks. My censors warned me today not to go into this matter. I apparently have some German listeners, who can pick up my talk from the German transmitter that shortwaves it to New York. Since it’s a German transmitter, there is no penalty.

  The statement of the High Command, obviously forced upon it by Hitler himself—he often takes a hand in writing the official army communiqués—deliberately perpetrates the lie that Germany has only decided to bomb London as a result of the British first bombing Berlin. And the German people will fall for this, as they fall for almost everything they’re told nowadays. Certainly never before in modern times—since the press, and later the radio, made it theoretically possible for the mass of mankind to learn what was going on in the world—have a great people been so misled, so unscrupulously lied to, as the Germans under this regime.

  And so tonight the High Command, which all good Germans believe tells only the gospel truth, issued a special communiqué saying that as reprisal for the British raids on Berlin, London was attacked with strong forces for the first time today. As a result of this reprisal attack, it says, “one great cloud of smoke tonight stretches from the middle of London to the mouth of the Thames.”

  To give American radio listeners an idea of the kind of propaganda (though I couldn’t label it as such) which the German people are being subjected to now, I read in my broadcast tonight the following quotation from today�
��s Berlin newspaper, the Börsen Zeitung: “While the attack of the German air force is made on purely military objectives—this fact is recognized by both the British press and radio—the RAF knows nothing better to do than continually to attack non-military objectives in Germany. A perfect example of this was the criminal attack on the middle of Berlin last night. In this attack only lodging-houses were hit; not a single military objective.”

  The German people have no inkling—because the Nazi press and radio have carefully suppressed the story—that in August alone more than one thousand English civilians were killed by the Luftwaffe’s attacks on British “military objectives.”

  Another type of lying here: The official statement of last night’s bombing of Berlin says that the first two waves of British planes were turned back by the capital’s defences, and that only a few planes of the third wave were able to slip through. Now, every Berliner knows that from the minute the alarm was sounded last night, British planes were heard overhead. There were several waves and each time you heard the hum of the motors. Yet I fear the majority will believe the official explanation.

  The Börsen Zeitung even went so far last night as to tell its innocent readers that all military objectives in Germany were so well protected by anti-aircraft guns that it was quite impossible for the British planes to bomb them. Therefore the British went after unprotected civilian houses. How many Germans will ask then, why, with an admitted concentration of guns in and around Berlin such as no other area in the world has ever seen—why has not a single plane yet been brought down?