Berlin Diary (25 page)

Out in the street, I must say, I felt just a little ashamed. The people in the street were quiet, unexcited. No troops, no police to be seen anywhere. Everybody going home to bed just as they always have. Broadcast, but we could not hear New York and I fear atmospherics. And so to bed.

P
RAGUE
,
September
14 (
morning
)

A discouraging cable from Paul White. My broadcast last night failed to get through. Atmospherics or sun spots, he says. Off now for a drive through the Sudetenland to take a look at the fighting, with Hindus, Cox, Morrell.

E
VENING
.—Drove two hundred miles through Sudetenland. The fighting is all over. The revolt, inspired from Germany with German arms, has been put down. And the Czech police and military, acting with a restraint that is incredible, have suffered more casualties than the Sudeten Germans. Unless Hitler again interferes, the crisis has passed its peak. The
Sudeteners I talked to today very puzzled. They expected the German army to march in Monday night after Hitler
’s speech, and when it didn’t arrive, but the Czech army did, their spirits dropped. Only at Schwaderbach are the Henleinists holding out, and that’s because the Czechs can’t fire into the town without their bullets hitting Reich territory. Henlein announces this afternoon from Asch the dissolution of the committee which had been negotiating here with the government. Ernst Kundt, his chief delegate, a swarthy, passionate man and the most decent of the lot, tells me he’s remaining in Prague “if they don’t kill me.”

Some time after dinner a newsboy rushed into the lobby of the Ambassador with extra editions of a German-language paper, the only one I can read since I do not know Czech. The headlines said: Chamberlain to fly to Berchtesgaden tomorrow to see Hitler! The Czechs are dumbfounded. They suspect a sell-out and I’m afraid they’re right. On the way to broadcast tonight, Hindus, who was with me and understands Czech, stopped to listen to what the newsboys were shouting. They were yelling, he said: “Extra! Extra! Read all about how the mighty head of the British Empire goes begging to Hitler!” I have not heard a better comment this evening. Broadcast again, but fear we did not get through. Mighty powerful sun spots at work against us.

P
RAGUE
,
September
15

Feel a little frustrated. New York cables again that I failed to get through. Tonight I shall cable my piece to be read. Henlein today issued a proclamation demanding outright
Anschluss
, after
which he fled to Germany. The government has ordered his arrest as a traitor. Ed Beattie of U.P. telephoned this morning from Eger, and though he is an American to the core, Packard could not understand a word he said. Pack came running to me. “Beattie’s gone nuts. Speaks in some strange language. Will you talk to him?” I got on the line. Ed explained in German he was speaking from a Czech police station, that the Czechs understood German and no English and had given him a line on condition he file his story in German so that they could check him. I took it down. Six killed there last night when Czech police stormed Henlein’s headquarters in the Hotel Victoria.

Czechs, like everyone else, kept their eyes focused on Berchtesgaden today. Tonight they’re asking if the peace which Mr. Chamberlain is trying to extract from Hitler does not call for them to make all the concessions. Government circles very gloomy. Murrow called from London and suggested I get off immediately to Berchtesgaden. Don’t know whether I can. Czech trains have stopped running across the border and I can’t find a Czech driver who will take his car across the frontier.

L
ATER.—
Ed called to say Chamberlain was returning to London in the morning. My Berchtesgaden trip is off. Relieved. Prefer to cover this war from the Czech side.

P
RAGUE
,
September
16

Another cable from New York. For the third successive day they could not hear me, but read my piece which arrived by cable. This
is
bad luck for radio. Berlin reports Hitler has demanded—and Chamberlain more or less accepted—a plebiscite for the Sudeteners.
The government here says it is out of the question. But they are afraid
that
is what happened at Berchtesgaden. In other words that Mr. Chamberlain has sold them down the river. I say in my broadcast tonight: “Will the Czechs consent to breaking up their state and sacrificing their strategic mountain border which has protected Bohemia for a thousand years? …I get the impression they will not lie down and trust their fate even to a conference of the four big western powers…. The Czechs say: Supposing even that a plebiscite were accepted and the Sudetens turned over to Germany. As compensation Mr. Chamberlain, they think, would give them a guarantee against aggression, solemnly signed by Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy. But what, they ask, would another treaty be worth?”

L
ATER.—
Hoorah! Heard New York perfectly on the feedback tonight and they heard me equally well. After four days of being blotted out, and
these
four days! Runciman has left for London, skipping out very quietly, unloved, unhonoured, unsung.

P
RAGUE
,
September
18

The Czechs are stiffening as it becomes evident that Chamberlain is ready to support Hitler’s demands for taking over Sudetenland and indeed, in effect, Czechoslovakia
. Milo Hodza, the Premier, broadcast to the world today and uttered a definite no to the proposition of a plebiscite. “It is unacceptable. It will solve nothing,” he said. Hodza, unlike most Slovaks, struck me as being very high-strung and nervous when I saw him at Broadcasting House after he finished talking. He showed visibly the strain of the last days. Is he talking strong, but weakening, I wonder.

L
ATER.—
I must go to Germany. At midnight Murrow phoned from London with the news. The British and French have decided they will not fight for Czechoslovakia
and are asking Prague to surrender unconditionally to Hitler and turn over Sudetenland to Germany. I protested to Ed that the Czechs wouldn’t accept it, that they’d fight alone….

“Maybe so. I hope you’re right. But in the meantime Mr. Chamberlain is meeting Hitler at Godesberg
on Wednesday and we want you to cover that. If there’s a war, then you can go back to Prague.”

“All right,” I said.

I don’t care where I go now. I finally collected myself and went over and routed Maurice Hindus out of bed, telling him the news, which he refused to believe. We telephoned to two or three friends in the Foreign Office. By the tone of their voices they had heard the news too, though they said not. They said it was too “fantastic” to believe, which of course it is. Maurice and I took a walk. People were going home from the cafés but they did not seem unduly excited and it was obvious they had not heard the reports from London.

Maurice is to broadcast while I’m away. I take a plane to Berlin in the morning. To bed, four a.m., weary and disgusted.

B
ERLIN
,
September
19

The Nazis, and quite rightly too, are jubilant over what they consider Hitler’s greatest triumph up to date. “And without bloodshed, like all the others,” they kept rubbing it in to me today. As for the good people in the street, they’re immensely relieved. They do not want war. The Nazi press full of hysterical headlines. All lies. Some examples:
WOMEN AND CHILDREN
MOWED DOWN BY CZECH ARMOURED CARS,
or
BLOODY REGIME—NEW CZECH MURDERS OF GERMANS.
The
Börsen Zeitung takes the prize
:
POISON-GAS ATTACK ON AUSSIG?
The
Hamburger Zeitung
is pretty good:
EXTORTION, PLUNDERING, SHOOTING—CZECH TERROR IN SUDETEN GERMAN LAND GROWS WORSE FROM DAY TO DAY!

No word from Prague tonight as to whether the Czechs will accept Chamberlain
’s ultimatum. I still hope against hope they will fight. For if they do, then there’s a European war and Hitler can’t win it. Ended my broadcast tonight thus: “One thing is certain: Mr. Chamberlain will certainly get a warm welcome at Godesberg. In fact, I got the impression in Berlin today that Mr. Chamberlain is a pretty popular figure around here.”