Berlin Diary (12 page)

R
AGUSA
,
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.

L
ATER.—
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.

R
AGUSA
,
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.

B
ERLIN
,
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.

B
ERLIN
,
July
18

Trouble in Spain. A right-wing revolt. Fighting in Madrid, Barcelona, and other places.

B
ERLIN
,
July
23

The Lindberghs are here, and the Nazis, led by Göring, 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 Göring 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 manœuvres, 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.

B
ERLIN
,
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.

B
ERLIN
,
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 Göring 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 Göring, 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.

B
ERLIN
,
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 rébellion 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.