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

by William L. Shirer

  I hear from party circles that Julius Streicher, the sadistic, Jew-baiting czar of Franconia and notorious editor of the anti-Semitic weekly Stürmer, has been arrested on orders of Hitler. No tears will be shed within or without the party, for he was loathed by nearly all. I shall always remember him swaggering through the streets of Nuremberg, where he was absolute boss, brandishing the riding whip which he always carried. He has been arrested, say party people, pending investigation of certain financial matters. If Hitler cared much, he could make some additional investigations. He could look into the little matter of how it came about that so many party leaders acquired great country estates and castles.

  BERLIN, November 25

  I have at last got to the bottom of these “mercy killings.”28 It’s an evil tale.

  The Gestapo, with the knowledge and approval of the German government, is systematically putting to death the mentally deficient population of the Reich. How many have been executed probably only Himmler and a handful of Nazi chieftains know. A conservative and trustworthy German tells me he estimates the number at a hundred thousand. I think that figure is too high. But certain it is that the figure runs into the thousands and is going up every day.

  The origin of this peculiar Nazi practice goes back to last summer after the fall of France, when certain radical Nazis put the idea up to Hitler. At first it was planned to have the Führer issue a decree of law authorizing the putting to death of certain persons found mentally deficient. But it was decided that this might be misunderstood if it leaked out and be personally embarrassing to Hitler. In the end Hitler simply wrote a letter to the secret-police administration and the health authorities authorizing the Gnadenstoss (coup de grâce) in certain instances where persons were proved to be suffering from incurable mental or nervous diseases. Philipp Bouhler, state secretary in the Chancellery, is said to have acted as intermediary between Hitler and the Nazi extremists in working out this solution.

  At this point Bethel, already mentioned in these notes, creeps into the story. Dr. Friedrich von Bodelschwingh is a Protestant pastor, beloved by Catholics and Protestants alike in western Germany. At Bethel, as I have noted down previously, is his asylum for mentally deficient children. Germans tell me it is a model institution of its kind, known all over the civilized world. Late last summer, it seems, Pastor von Bodelschwingh was asked to deliver up certain of his worst cases to the authorities. Apparently he got wind of what was in store for them. He refused. The authorities insisted. Pastor von Bodelschwingh hurried to Berlin to protest. He got in touch with a famous Berlin surgeon, a personal friend of Hitler’s. The surgeon, refusing to believe the story, rushed to the Chancellery. The Führer said nothing could be done. The two men then went to Franz Gürtner, Minister of Justice. Gürtner seemed more troubled at the fact that the killings were being carried out without benefit of a written law than that they were being carried out. However, he did agree to complain to Hitler about the matter.

  Pastor von Bodelschwingh returned to Bethel. The local Gauleiter ordered him to turn over some of his inmates. Again he refused. Berlin then ordered his arrest. This time the Gauleiter protested. The pastor was the most popular man in his province. To arrest him in the middle of war would stir up a whole world of unnecessary trouble. He himself declined to arrest the man. Let the Gestapo take the responsibility; he wouldn’t. This was just before the night of September 18. The bombing of the Bethel asylum followed. Now I understand why a few people wondered as to who dropped the bombs.

  Of late some of my spies in the provinces have called my attention to some rather peculiar death notices in the provincial newspapers. (In Germany the custom among all classes is to insert a small paid advertisement in the newspapers when a death occurs, giving the date and cause of death, age of the deceased, and time and place of burial.) But these notices have a strange ring to them, and the place of death is always given as one of three spots: (1) Grafeneck, a lonely castle situated near Münzingen, sixty miles southeast of Stuttgart; (2) Hartheim, near Linz on the Danube; (3) the Sonnenstein Public Medical and Nursing Institute at Pirna, near Dresden.

  Now, these are the very three places named to me by Germans as the chief headquarters for the “mercy killings.”

  I am also informed that the relatives of the unfortunate victims, when they get the ashes back—they are never given the bodies—receive a stern warning from the secret police not to demand explanations and not to “spread false rumours.” These provincial death notices therefore take on more meaning than they might otherwise. I will note down here some typical ones, changing the names, dates, and places, for obvious reasons.

  Leipziger Neueste Nachrichten, October 26: “JOHANN DIETTRICH, FRONT SOLDIER 1914–1918, HOLDER OF SEVERAL WAR DECORATIONS, BORN JUNE 1, 1881, DECEASED SEPTEMBER 23, 1940. AFTER WEEKS OF UNCERTAINTY, I RECEIVED THE UNBELIEVABLE NEWS OF HIS SUDDEN DEATH AND CREMATION AT GRAFENECK IN WÜRTTEMBERG.”

  From the same paper in October: “AFTER WEEKS OF UNCERTAINTY, THE INTERMENT OF MY BELOVED SON, HANS, WHO DIED SUDDENLY ON SEPTEMBER 17 AT PIRNA, WILL TAKE PLACE ON OCTOBER 10.”

  Again: “WE HAVE RECEIVED THE UNBELIEVABLE NEWS THAT MY MOST BELOVED SON, THE ENGINEER RUDOLF MÜLLER, DIED SUDDENLY AND UNEXPECTEDLY NEAR LINZ-ON-THE-DANUBE. THE CREMATION TOOK PLACE THERE.”

  Another: “AFTER THE CREMATION HAD TAKEN PLACE WE RECEIVED FROM GRAFENECK THE SAD NEWS OF THE SUDDEN DEATH OF OUR BELOVED SON AND BROTHER, OSKAR RIED. INTERMENT OF THE URN WILL TAKE PLACE PRIVATELY AT X CEMETERY UPON ITS RECEIPT.”

  And: “AFTER WEEKS OF ANXIOUS UNCERTAINTY WE RECEIVED THE SHOCKING NEWS ON SEPTEMBER 18 THAT OUR BELOVED MARIANNE DIED OF GRIPPE ON SEPTEMBER 15 AT PIRNA. THE CREMATION TOOK PLACE THERE. NOW THAT THE URN HAS BEEN RECEIVED, THE BURIAL WILL TAKE PLACE PRIVATELY ON HOME SOIL.”

  This last notice is signed October 5, indicating that the authorities delayed three weeks in delivering the ashes. Twenty-four such advertisements, I’m informed, appeared in the Leipzig papers the first fortnight of last month.

  I am struck in the second from the last of these notices by the expression: “After the cremation had taken place, we received the sad news of the sudden death….” Struck too by the expression used in the first two: “after weeks of uncertainty” came “sudden death”; and by the use of the words: “unbelievable news.”

  No wonder that to Germans used to reading between the lines of their heavily censored newspapers, these notices have sounded highly suspicious. Does sudden death come naturally after “weeks of uncertainty”? And why are the bodies cremated first and the relatives told of the deaths later? Why are they cremated at all? Why aren’t the bodies shipped home, as is usually done?

  A few days ago I saw the form letter which the families of the victims receive. It reads:

  “We regret to inform you that your——, who was recently transferred to our institution by ministerial order, unexpectedly died on——of——. All our medical efforts were unfortunately without avail.

  “In view of the nature of his serious, incurable ailment, his death, which saved him from a lifelong institutional sojourn, is to be regarded merely as a release.

  “Because of the danger of contagion existing here, we were forced by order of the police to have the deceased cremated at once.”

  This is hardly a reassuring letter, even for the most gullible of Germans, and some of them, upon its receipt, have journeyed down to the lonely castle at Grafeneck, it seems, to make a few inquiries. They have found the castle guarded by black-coated S.S. men who denied them entrance. Newly painted signs on all roads and paths leading into the desolate grounds warned: “Seuchengefahr!” (“Keep away! Danger of Pestilence!”) Frightened peasants near by have told them how the S.S. suddenly took over and threw a cordon around the estate. They told of seeing trucks thundering into the castle grounds—but only at night. Grafeneck, they said, had never been used as a hospital before.

  Other relatives, I’m told, have demanded details from the establishment at Hartheim, near Linz
. They have been told to desist, and that if they talk, severe punishment will be meted out. Some of them obviously have taken their courage in their hands to publish these death notices, no doubt hoping to attract public attention to the murderous business. The Gestapo, I hear, has now forbidden publication of such notices, just as Hitler, after the heavy naval losses in Norway, forbade the relatives of drowned sailors to publish notices.

  X, a German, told me yesterday that relatives are rushing to get their kin out of private asylums and out of the clutches of the authorities. He says the Gestapo is doing to death persons who are merely suffering temporary derangement or just plain nervous breakdown.

  What is still unclear to me is the motive for these murders. Germans themselves advance three:

  1. That they are being carried out to save food.

  2. That they are done for the purpose of experimenting with new poison gases and death rays.

  3. That they are simply the result of the extreme Nazis deciding to carry out their eugenic and sociological ideas.

  The first motive is obviously absurd, since the death of 100,000 persons will not save much food for a nation of 80,000,000. Besides, there is no acute food shortage in Germany. The second motive is possible, though I doubt it. Poison gases may have been used in putting these unfortunates out of the way, but if so, the experimentation was only incidental. Many Germans I have talked to think that some new gas which disfigures the body has been used, and that this is the reason why the remains of the victims have been cremated. But I can get no real evidence of this.

  The third motive seems most likely to me. For years a group of radical Nazi sociologists who were instrumental in putting through the Reich’s sterilization laws have pressed for a national policy of eliminating the mentally unfit. They say they have disciples among many sociologists in other lands, and perhaps they have. Paragraph two of the form letter sent the relatives plainly bears the stamp of this sociological thinking: “In view of the nature of his serious, incurable ailment, his death, which saved him from a lifelong institutional sojourn, is to be regarded merely as a release.”

  Some suggest a fourth motive. They say the Nazis calculate that for every three or four institutional cases, there must be one healthy German to look after them. This takes several thousand good Germans away from more profitable employment. If the insane are killed off, it is further argued by the Nazis, there will be plenty of hospital space for the war wounded should the war be prolonged and large casualties occur.

  It’s a Nazi, messy business.29

  BERLIN, November 27

  Flannery, though he has just arrived, must leave for Paris. The Nazis pledge us to secrecy about a big story they claim will break there next week. In radio, we must be there beforehand, if possible, to make our technical arrangements. But I shall depart from this city on December 5, anyway. Many stories about increasing sabotage in Holland. The Germans are furious at the number of their men, in both the army and police, who are being shoved into the numerous Dutch canals on these dark nights and drowned. X tells me a funny one. He says the British intelligence in Holland is working fine. Both sides in this war have built a number of dummy airdromes and strewn them with wooden planes. X says the Germans recently completed a very large one near Amsterdam. They lined up more than a hundred dummy planes made of wood on the field and waited for the British to come over and bomb them. Next morning the British did come. They let loose with a lot of bombs. The bombs were made of wood.

  BERLIN, December 1

  This being Sunday, with no noon broadcast, a word or two summing up some things before I leave.

  A year and a half of the blockade has pinched Germany, but it has neither brought the German people to the verge of starvation nor seriously hampered the Nazi war machine. The people in this country still eat fairly well. The diet is not fancy and Americans could hardly subsist on it, but Germans, whose bodies in the last century became accustomed to large amounts of potatoes, cabbage, and bread, are still doing pretty well—on potatoes, cabbage, and bread. What they lack are enough meats, fats, butter, and fruit. The present ration of a pound of meat and a quarter of a pound of butter or margarine a week is not so much as they were used to in peace-time, but it will probably keep them fairly fit for some time to come. The shortage of fruit, rich in vitamins, is acute. Last winter’s severe cold ruined the German fruit crop. At the moment apples are the only fruit on the market and they are being reserved for the young, the sick, and pregnant women. Last winter we never saw an orange or banana, nor have any appeared this winter. In the meantime vitamin pills of poor quality are being rationed to troops and children. It is true the German people have no coffee, tea, chocolate, fruit. They get one egg a week and too little meat and fat. But they have almost everything else and they are not going to starve in any measurable future.

  If it is to be a long war, the clothing problem will become serious. Germany must import all of its cotton and almost all of its wool, and the present system of clothing rations is based on the theory that on the whole the German people must get along with what they now possess on their backs and in their closets until the war is over and the blockade lifted. The shortage of textiles is felt not only by civilians but also in the army, which is hard put to it to find enough overcoats for all its troops this winter. Hitler has already had to put his Labour Service men into stolen Czech uniforms. The so-called Organisation Todt, comprising several hundred thousand men who perform the jobs usually done by our army labour battalions, has no uniforms at all for its men. When I saw them at the front last summer, they were wearing tattered civilian clothes. The Germans are striving desperately to make up for their shortage of raw materials by developing ersatz textiles, especially those made of cellulose. But I don’t think you can clothe eighty million people with wood products yet.

  As to the raw materials necessary for the prosecution of the war, the situation is this: Germany has plenty of iron. And from Yugoslavia and France she gets enough bauxite to provide her with all the aluminum she needs for her vast aircraft production. There is a serious shortage of copper and tin, but she is probably getting enough from the Balkans and Russia to keep her out of desperate straits.

  As to oil, General Schell, the czar of the oil business, says he is not worried. If he were, of course, he wouldn’t admit it. But certain facts must be kept in mind:

  1. The German air force is absolutely independent of imported stocks of oil. All German airplane engines are designed and manufactured to operate on synthetic gasoline which Germany manufactures herself from her own coal. Her present supply of this—some four million tons a year—is more than adequate for the needs of the Luftwaffe. The British could endanger this supply by bombing the oil refineries where coal is made into gasoline. This they are trying to do. They’ve hit the great Leuna works near Leipzig and another refinery at Stettin. But their attacks have been too weak to put the refineries out of action or even seriously affect their output.

  2. Germany is now obtaining practically the complete output of the Rumanian oil fields and, on paper at least, is getting one million tons a year from Russia, though I doubt if the Soviets have actually delivered that much since the war began.

  3. When the war started, Germany had large stocks of oil on hand, and she obtained quite a windfall in Norway, Holland, and Belgium.

  4. Civilian consumption of oil has been reduced to almost nothing. No private cars and practically no delivery trucks are allowed to operate. And oil is prohibited for heating purposes.

  My guess is that Germany has enough oil or will get enough to satisfy her military requirements for at least two more years.

  As to British air attacks on Germany, their value so far has been principally psychological, bringing the war home to the weary civilian population, wearing their already frayed nerves still thinner and robbing them of sleep. The actual physical damage wrought by bombs after six months of night attacks has on the whole not been very great. Its exact extent, of course, we do n
ot know. Probably only Hitler, Göring, and the High Command know, and they do not tell. But I think we have a fair idea. In general, the damage has been greatest in the Ruhr, where German heavy industry is concentrated. Were this region to be really devastated by air attacks, Germany could not continue the war. But so far it has received only pin-pricks. I’m afraid the truth is that Germany’s actual war production has not yet been seriously curtailed by the RAF attacks. Probably the most serious result in the Ruhr has not been the actual physical damage to plant or transportation, but something else. Two things: First, millions of working hours have been lost by the workers’ being forced to spend part of their evenings in shelters. Second, the efficiency of the workers has been reduced by loss of sleep.

  Next to the Ruhr, the German ports of Hamburg and Bremen and the naval bases at Wilhelmshaven and Kiel have received the severest bombing. But they have not yet been put out of business. Undoubtedly the most savage British bombing has been reserved for the German-occupied Channel ports. There the RAF has a short haul and can carry bigger bombs and more of them. There is little left of the docks at Ostend, Dunkirk, Calais, and Boulogne.

  Berlin itself has suffered comparatively little damage from the night raids. I suppose a stranger arriving here for the first time could walk for hours through the business and residential sections without seeing a damaged building. Probably not more than five hundred dwellings have been hit and, since the British use small bombs, most of them have been repaired and reoccupied within a month. Most of the British attacks have been on the factories which skirt the city. Some of them of course have been hit, but, with the exception of two or three small plants, none of them have been seriously crippled, so far as we know. The great Siemens electrical works on the northwestern fringe of Berlin has been hit, a machine shop here, a storage room there, damaged. But it is extremely doubtful if its armament production has been lowered by more than five per cent on any one day. When I drove around it recently, its great machines were humming and no damage at all was visible from the outside.