Berlin Diary (15 page)

This afternoon I received from Hirsch’s lawyer in Prague a copy of the last letter the young man wrote. He wrote it in his death cell and it was addressed to his sister, for whom he obviously had a deep attachment. I have never read in all my life braver words. He had just been informed that his final appeal had been rejected
and that there was no more hope. “I am to die, then,” he says. “Please do not be afraid. I do not feel afraid. I feel released, after the agony of not quite knowing.” He sketches his life and finds meaning in it despite all the mistakes and its brief duration—“less than twenty-one years.” I confess to tears before I had finished reading. He was a braver and more decent man than his killers.

B
ERLIN
,
June
15

Five more Protestant pastors arrested yesterday, including Jacobi from the big Gedächtniskirche. Hardly keep up with the church war any more since they arrested my informant, a young pastor; have no wish to endanger the life of another one.

B
ERLIN
,
June
21

Blum out in Paris, and that’s the end of the Popular Front. Curious how a man as intelligent as Blum could have made the blunders he’s made with his non-intervention policy in Spain, whose Popular Front he has also helped to ruin.

B
ERLIN
,
July
5

The Austrian Minister tells me that the new British Ambassador here, Sir Nevile Henderson, has told Göring, with whom he is on very chummy terms, that Hitler can have his Austria so far as he, Henderson, is concerned. Henderson strikes me as being very “pro.”

L
ONDON
,
July
(
undated
)

Dinner with Knick at Simpson’s, and then out to his house, where Jay Allen and Carroll Binder, foreign editor of the Chicago
Daily News
, joined us. We chinned until about two a.m. Jay had said that Binder was supposed to take me aside and offer me a job on the
News
(Colonel Knox in Berlin had asked me if I wanted one), but he did nothing of the kind. Jay also gave me a card to Ed Murrow, who, he said, was connected with CBS, but I shall not have time to see him as Knick and I leave tomorrow morning for Salcombe, where Tess and Agnes already are installed at Gallico’s. From there Tess and I cross to France without returning to London.

P
ARIS
,
July
(
undated
)

The Van Goghs at the Paris Exposition well worth the price of admission. Have had little time to see anything else. Saw Berkson, chief of Universal Service in New York. He assured me there was nothing to the rumours about Universal closing down and that-in fact for the first time in history it was actually making money. So, reassured about my job, we leave for the Riviera tomorrow for some sun and swimming, Tess to remain there until fall on account of—we are to have a baby!

B
ERLIN
,
August
14

Universal Service has folded after all. Hearst is cutting his losses. I am to remain here with INS, but as second man, which I do not like.

B
ERLIN
,
August
16

Norman Ebbutt of the London
Times
, by far the best correspondent here, left this evening. He was expelled, following British action in kicking out two or three Nazi correspondents in London, the Nazis seizing the opportunity to get rid of a man they’ve hated and feared for years because of his exhaustive knowledge of this country and of what was going on behind the scenes. The
Times
, which has played along with the pro-Nazi Cliveden set, never gave him much support and published only half of what he wrote, and indeed is leaving Ebbutt’s assistant, Jimmy Holburn, to continue with the office here. We gave Norman a great send-off at the Charlottenburger station, about fifty of the foreign correspondents of all nations being on the platform despite a tip from Nazi circles that our presence would be considered an unfriendly act to Germany! Amusing to note the correspondents who were afraid to show up, including two well-known Americans. The platform full of Gestapo agents noting down our names and photographing us. Ebbutt terribly high-strung, but moved by our sincere, if boisterous, demonstration of farewell.

B
ERLIN
,
August
(
undated
)

A little depressed tonight. I’m without a job. About ten o’clock this evening I ceased being employed. I was in my office writing a dispatch. The office boy came in with a cable. There was something about his face. It was a brief wire, hot off the ticker. It was from New York. It said—oh, something about INS being unable to retain all the old Universal Service correspondents
and that I was getting the usual two weeks’ notice.

I guess I was a little stunned. I guess it was a little sudden. Who was it the other night—one of the English correspondents—who jokingly observed that it was bad to be getting a baby in your family because it invariably coincided with your getting fired? Well, maybe we shouldn’t have had a baby now. Maybe you shouldn’t ever have a baby if you’re in this business. Maybe the French girl in Paris many years ago was right. She said: “Put a baby into this world?
Pas moi!
”

I finished my dispatch (what was it about?) and went out for a breath of air, strolling along the river Spree down behind the Reichstag. It was a beautiful, warm, starlit August night, and the Spree making its soft curve just before it gets to the Reichstag, I noticed, and a launch going by, filled with noisy holiday-makers back from a Havel
Rundfahrt
. No ideas came to me, as expected. I went back to the office.

On the desk I noticed a wire that had come in ten minutes before the fatal one. It was from Salzburg, a baroque town of great charm where I used to go to hear some Mozart. It was signed: “Murrow, Columbia Broadcasting.” I dimly remembered the name, but could not place it beyond his company. “Will you have dinner with me at the Adlon Friday night?” it said. I wired: “Delighted.”