Berlin Diary

by William L. Shirer

  BERLIN, September 28

  At midnight tonight I did a microphone interview with Germany’s ace submarine skipper, Captain Herbert Schultze. It turned out much better than I expected. During the afternoon and evening I had had many doubts and a big headache. With the help of some naval officer friends, I cornered Schultze in the Admiralty this afternoon. He was just back from his first “killing.” He turned out to be a clean-cut fellow of thirty, hard as nails and full of that bluff self-confidence which you get, I suppose, when you gamble daily with your own life and the lives of others.

  He was a little afraid of his English, he said, and after listening to a specimen, I was too. In fact, I couldn’t understand a word he said and we had to converse in German. Someone suggested that his English would improve during the afternoon, that he was merely a little rusty. This offered hope, and I cabled New York that the interview was on for tonight. I put my questions to him and the captain sat down to write out answers in German. When he had finished a page, I dictated an English translation to an Admiralty secretary who for some reason wrote English faultlessly but had great difficulty in understanding it when spoken.

  We sweated away all afternoon—four hours—and finally achieved a fifteen-minute script.

  There were two points in the script, the very ones which made it most interesting, which added to my own perspiration. The captain told a story of how he had torpedoed the British ship Royal Sceptre, but, at the risk of his own skin, had arranged rescue of those aboard by another British vessel, the Browning. Now, a few days before, I remembered, London had reported that the Royal Sceptre had been torpedoed without warning and that the crew and passengers, numbering sixty, had presumably perished. I wondered who was right.

  Captain Schultze, as we worked out our interview, also mentioned that he was the U-boat commander who had sent a saucy radio message to Mr. Winston Churchill advising him of the location of a British ship which he had just sunk so that the First Lord might save the crew. But only a day or two before, Mr. Churchill had told the House of Commons that the German submarine commander who had sent him that message had been captured and was now a prisoner of His Majesty’s government.

  I reminded the captain of that, and asked him if he could give me the text of his message. His logbook was at Kiel, but we telephoned there and had the message read back to us. That made me feel a little better. Shortly before the broadcast this evening something else happened which made me feel better still. As we were leaving the Admiralty, an officer brought us a Reuter dispatch saying that the Browning had just landed at Bahia, Brazil, with the crew and passengers of the Royal Sceptre all safe.

  One good break followed another. To my surprise, as our broadcast got under way, the captain’s English did indeed improve, just as predicted. His accent was terrific, but in some way his words poured out very distinctly. You could understand every syllable. Most men of his type, I’ve found, when put before a microphone, read their lines mechanically. But to my delight he proved to be a natural speaker, talking as though we had never written a line.12

  BERLIN, September 29

  Germany’s peace offensive is now to be backed by Russia.

  In Moscow last night Ribbentrop and Molotov signed a treaty and a declaration of purpose. The text of the latter tells the whole story:

  “After the German government and the government of the U.S.S.R., through a treaty signed today, definitely solved questions resulting from the disintegration of the Polish state and thereby established a secure foundation for permanent peace in eastern Europe, they jointly voice their opinion that it would be in the interest of all nations to bring to an end the state of war presently existing between Germany and Britain and France. Both governments therefore will concentrate their efforts, if necessary, in co-operation with other friendly powers, towards reaching this goal.

  “Should, however, the effort of both governments remain unsuccessful, the fact would thereby be established that Britain and France are responsible for a continuation of the war, in which case the governments of Germany and Russia will consult each other as to necessary measures.”

  This is ludicrous, but may mean that Russia comes into the war on the side of Germany. The same Nazi circles which last August said that Britain and France wouldn’t fight after the first Nazi-Soviet accord, tonight were sure that the two democracies would agree to stop the war now. They may be wrong again, though I’m not quite sure.

  BERLIN, September 30

  The talk of peace dominates all else here today. The Germans are sure of it, and one of the secretaries of the Soviet Embassy told me today Moscow was too. He said London and Paris would jump at the chance for peace now. The Völkische Beobachter observes today: “All Europe awaits the word of peace from London. Woe to them who refuse it. They will some day be stoned by their own people.”

  Did a four-way broadcast with London, Paris, and New York tonight, but seeing the show was running late, I slashed my part so much it didn’t make much sense.

  Ciano to see Hitler here tomorrow. Talk of the Germans using him to pressure London and Paris to make peace.

  BERLIN, October 2

  Just heard the BBC announce that English planes had flown over Berlin last night. A surprise to us here. No air-raid alarm. No sound of planes. But they’re all lying these days. The Germans say they’ve sunk the Ark Royal, for instance.

  The family of Eleanor K., a naturalized American girl of German parentage who has been very helpful to me here for years, has been after me since yesterday to do something about locating her. She left Amsterdam for Berlin a few days ago, but failed to arrive. I went over to the consulate today and got G. to put through a blitz call to the German secret police at the Dutch border. Answer: Eleanor is under arrest there. How shall I explain that to her family?

  The local enthusiasm for peace a little dampened today by Churchill’s broadcast last night. I have been wondering about that one tube of shaving cream my ration gives me for the next four months. My beard will be pink.

  A. blew in Saturday (September 30) accompanied by an American girl he had met in Warsaw. They had been wandering in the wilds of eastern Poland for three weeks—between the German and Russian armies. He said they had lived for days on stale bread, wandering from village to village. Stale bread was all the peasants would sell them, though they had butter and eggs and meat. Most villages had already set up local soviets. A., who never loved the Poles and rather liked the Nazis, says whole villages in eastern Poland far off the beaten track, off the railroads and main roads, villages with no military importance whatsoever, have been destroyed by the German Luftwaffe for no reason he could think of. He says the German planes would often dive on lone peasant women in lonely fields and toss a bomb on them or machine-gun them. He saw the bodies. A. and his lady friend finally made their way to the German lines, rode for several days in open box-cars with German refugees, and eventually got to Germany.

  Whitey, back from Poland, says he flew over Warsaw Saturday (September 30) and it was in flames. What few buildings he could see in the heart of town that weren’t burning were in ruins. He thinks tens of thousands of civilians in the city have perished. He spent three days with the Soviet army, but was not greatly impressed. He was struck by the number of women in the Red army. Whitey took part in a peculiar mission. Göring had a report that several German airmen captured by the Poles had been murdered in a concentration camp near the Russian border. Four German planes, one with Whitey and some German officers, the other three loaded with coffins, set off to find the bodies. They dug up graves all over eastern Poland, but never the right ones. Finally in a field they thought they had at last discovered what they were after. There was a big mound, freshly covered over. They dug furiously. They found—fifty dead horses.

  BERLIN, October 4

  Two choice press bits today: The 12-Uhr Blatt headline in red ink all over page 1: “ENGLAND’S RESPONSIBILITY—FOR THE OUTRAGEOUS PROVOKING OF WARSAW TO DEFEND ITSELF.” The Nachtausgab
e’s editorial, arguing that America is not nearly so anxious to join the war “as are Herr Roosevelt and his Jewish camarilla.”

  BERLIN, October 5

  Reichstag tomorrow. Hitler is expected to offer peace terms. No one expects them to be very generous. He himself flew to Warsaw today to hold a triumphant review of his troops. He made a speech to his soldiers, the speech of a conquering Caesar.

  The people here certainly want peace. The government may want it for the moment. Will Britain and France make it now, and then maybe next year have to mobilize again? Hitler has won the war in Poland and lost the peace there—to Russia. The Soviets, without a fight, get nearly half of Poland and a stranglehold on the Baltic states and now block Germany from its two main goals in the east, Ukrainian wheat and Rumanian oil. Hitler is hastily withdrawing all Germans from the Baltic states, where most of them have been settled for centuries. Estonia has capitulated to Moscow and agreed to the Soviets’ building an air and naval base on its soil. The foreign ministers of Latvia and Lithuania are shuttling back and forth between their capitals and Moscow trying to save the pieces. And once the Soviets get a wedge in these Baltic states, how soon will they go Bolshevik? Soon. Soon.

  BERLIN, October 6

  Hitler delivered his much advertised “peace proposals” in the Reichstag at noon today. I went over and watched the show, my nth. He delivered his “peace proposals,” and they were almost identical with those I’ve heard him offer from the same rostrum after every conquest he has made since the march into the Rhineland in 1936. These must have been about the fifth. And though they were the fifth at least, and just like the others, and just as sincerely spoken, most Germans I’ve talked to since seem aghast if you suggest that perhaps the outside world will put no more trust in them than they have learned by bitter experience to put in the others.

  Hitler offered peace in the west if Britain and France stay out of Germany’s Lebensraum in eastern Europe. The future of Poland he left in doubt, though he said Poland would never again endanger (!) German interests. In other words, a slave Poland, similar to the present slave Bohemia.

  I doubt very much if England and France will listen to these “proposals” for five minutes, though some of my colleagues think so on the ground that, now that Russia has come up against Germany on a long front and this past week has been busy establishing herself in the Baltic states, it would be smart of London and Paris to conclude peace and sit back until Germany and Russia clash in eastern Europe. Pertinax wrote a few months ago that the German problem would never be settled until Germany had a barrier on the East that it knew it could not break. Then it would stop being expansive, stop disturbing the rest of Europe, and turn its undoubted talents and energy to more peaceful pursuits. Russia might provide that barrier. At any rate Russia is the winner in this war so far and Hitler is entirely dependent upon the good graces of Stalin, who undoubtedly has no good graces for anyone but himself and Russia.

  Hitler was calmer today than usual. There was much joviality but little enthusiasm among the rubber-stamp Reichstag deputies except when he boasted of German strength. Such a boast sets any German on fire. The members of the Cabinet—up on the stage where the opera singers used to perform—stood about before the session chatting easily, Ribbentrop with Admiral Raeder, Dr. Goebbels with von Neurath, etc. Most of the deputies I talked to afterwards took for granted that peace was assured. It was a lovely fall day, cold and sunny, which seemed to contribute to everybody’s good feelings. As I walked over to the Reichstag (held as usual in the Kroll Opera) through the Tiergarten I noticed batteries of anti-aircraft everywhere.

  The early edition of tomorrow morning’s Völkische Beobachter, Hitler’s own sabre-rattler among the journals, seems transformed into a dove of peace. Its flaming headlines: “GERMANY’S WILL FOR PEACE—NO WAR AIMS AGAINST FRANCE AND ENGLAND—NO MORE REVISION CLAIMS EXCEPT COLONIES—REDUCTION OF ARMAMENTS—CO-OPERATION WITH ALL NATIONS OF EUROPE—PROPOSAL FOR A CONFERENCE.”

  If the Nazis were sincere they might have spoken this sweet language before the “counter-attack” was launched.

  BERLIN, October 8

  A whole page of paid death notices in the Völkische Beobachter today. How many only sons lost! Two typical notices: “In a hero’s death for Führer, Volk and Vaterland, there died on September 18, in the fighting in Poland, my beloved only son, aged 22.” And “For his beloved Fatherland, there fell on September 20 in the battle around Kutno my only son, aged 25.” Both notices signed by the mother.

  I leave tomorrow for Geneva to recover my senses and fetch some winter clothing, as the weather has turned cold. I did not bring any winter things when I left Geneva exactly two months ago. I did not know. Two months! What an age it seems. How dim in memory the time when there was peace. That world ended, and for me, on the whole, despite its faults, its injustices, its inequalities, it was a good one. I came of age in that one, and the life it gave was free, civilized, deepening, full of minor tragedy and joy and work and leisure, new lands, new faces—and rarely commonplace and never without hope.

  And now darkness. A new world. Black-out, bombs, slaughter, Nazism. Now the night and the shrieks and barbarism.

  GENEVA, October 10

  Home at last for two or three days. The sensation indescribable. The baby asleep when I arrived tonight; her face on the pillow, sleeping. Tess at the station, pretty and… She drove us home—Demaree Bess, who had come down from Berlin with me, and Dorothy. It was strange driving through Geneva town to see the blinding street-lights, the blazing storewindows, the full headlights on the cars—after six weeks in blacked-out Berlin. Strange and beautiful.

  In Basel this noon Demaree and I stuffed ourselves shamefully with food. We ordered a huge dish of butter just to look at it, and Russian eggs and an enormous steak and cheese and dessert and several litres of wine and then cognac and coffee—a feast! And no food cards to give in. All the way down in the train from Basel we felt good. The mountains, the chalets on the hillsides, even the sturdy Swiss looked like something out of paradise.

  Coming up the Rhine from Karlsruhe to Basel this morning, we skirted the French frontier for a hundred miles. No sign of war and the train crew told me not a shot had been fired on this front since the war began. Where the train ran along the Rhine, we could see the French bunkers and at many places great mats behind which the French were building fortifications. Identical picture on the German side. The troops seemed to be observing an armistice. They went about their business in full sight and range of each other. For that matter, one blast from a French “75” could have liquidated our train. The Germans were hauling up guns and supplies on the railroad line, but the French did not disturb them.

  Queer kind of war.

  GENEVA, October 11

  A curious sensation to see the Swiss papers reporting both sides of the war. If you had that in the dictatorships, maybe the Caesars couldn’t go to war so easily. Much fun romping around with Eileen and Tess. Coming down with a cold. No heat in the houses here yet.

  BERLIN, October 15

  Back again, depressed, the week in Switzerland over in no time. Of my three and a half days in Geneva, two spent down with a cold and fever and one preparing a broadcast which never got through because of atmospherics. But it was grand just the same. Tess came along as far as Neuchâtel in the train and it was sad parting in the little station above the lake there. Swiss train full of soldiers. The country has one tenth of its population under arms; more than any other country in the world. It’s not their war. But they’re ready to fight to defend their way of life. I asked a fat businessman in my compartment whether he wouldn’t prefer peace at any price (business is ruined in a Switzerland completely surrounded by belligerents and with every able-bodied man in the army) so that he could make money again.

  “Not the kind of peace that Hitler offers,” he said. “Or the kind of peace we’ve been having the last five years.”

  In the early evening, coming down the Rhine, the sa
me unreal front. Soldiers on both sides looking but not shooting. Frankfurt station in the black-out was a bit of a nightmare. Hundreds of people, many of them soldiers, milling around on the almost pitch-dark platform trying to get on the train, stumbling over baggage and into one another. I had a sleeping-car reservation but could not find the car in the darkness and went back to my coach, sitting through the night until Berlin. The corridor of the blacked-out train packed with people who stood up all night in the darkness.

  At Anhalter station I bought the morning papers. Big news. “GERMAN SUB SINKS BRITISH BATTLESHIP ‘ROYAL OAK’!” British Admiralty admits it. That’s a blow. Wonder how it was done. And where?

  LATER.—Russell Hill, a very intelligent youth of twenty-one who divides his time between broadcasting for us and being assistant correspondent of the Herald Tribune, tells me that Wednesday (October 11) a false report of an armistice caused scenes of great rejoicing all over Berlin. Early in the morning, he says, a broadcast on the Berlin wave-length announced that the British government had fallen and that there would be an immediate armistice. The fat old women in the vegetable markets, Russell reports, tossed their cabbages into the air, wrecked their own stands in sheer joy, and made for the nearest pub to toast the peace with Schnaps. The awakening that afternoon when the Berlin radio denied the report was something terrific, it seems.

  My room waiter tells me there was much loud anti-aircraft fire heard in Berlin last night, the first since the war began. Propaganda Ministry explains tonight a German plane got lost over the city and was shot down.

  BERLIN, October 18

  The place where the German U-boat sank the British battleship Royal Oak was none other than the middle of Scapa Flow, Britain’s greatest naval base! It sounds incredible. A World War submarine commander told me tonight that the Germans tried twice to get a U-boat into Scapa Flow during the last war, but both attempts failed and the submarines were lost.