Berlin Diary (38 page)

Göring broadcast today—from a local munitions factory. He warned the people it might be a long war.
He threatened terrible revenge if the British and French bombed Germany. He said seventy German divisions now in Poland would be released within a week for service “elsewhere.” Apparently the war in Poland is all but over. Most of the correspondents a bit depressed. Britain and France have done nothing on the western front to relieve the tremendous pressure on Poland, it begins to look as though in Hitler we have a new Napoleon who may sweep Europe and conquer it.

B
ERLIN
,
September
10

One week after the Anglo-French declaration of a state of war the average German is beginning to wonder if it’s a world war after all. He sees it this way. England and France, it is true, are formally fulfilling their obligations to Poland. For a week they have been formally at war with Germany. But has it been war? they ask. The British, it is true, sent over twenty-five planes to bomb Wilhelmshaven. But if it is war, why only twenty-five? And if it is war, why only a few leaflets over the Rhineland? The industrial heart of Germany lies along the Rhine close to France. From there come most of the munitions that are blowing up Poland with such deadly effect. Yet not a bomb has fallen on a Rhineland factory. Is that war? they ask. The long faces I saw a week ago today are not so long this Sunday.

Life here is still quite normal. The operas, the theatres, the movies, all open and jammed.
Tannhäuser
and
Madame Butterfly
playing at the Opera. Goethe’s
Iphigenie
at the State Theatre. The Metropol, Hitler’s favourite show-house, announces a new revue Wednesday. The papers tonight say two hundred football matches were played in Germany today.

Berlin,
September
11

The High Command says a gigantic battle in Poland
, with the prospect of the annihilation of the Polish army, is nearing its end. They are fighting now along the San River, south-east of Warsaw. For the first time today the war communiqué mentions French artillery-fire on the western front. The Protectorate government in Prague announced today that any Czechs captured fighting with the enemy would be shot as traitors.

L
ATER
(
midnight
).—In the subway, going out to broadcast tonight, I heard considerable grumbling about the war. The women, especially, seemed depressed. And yet when I came back after the broadcast, a big crowd, mostly women, got on at the station under the Deutsches Opernhaus. They had been to the Opera and seemed oblivious of the fact that a war was on, that German bombs and shells were falling on the women and children in Warsaw. I doubt if anything short of an awful bombing or years of semi-starvation will bring home the war to the people here.

Classic headline in the
D.A.Z
. tonight:
“POLES BOMBARD WARSAW!”
The press full of the most fantastic lies. Latest is that two British secret-service agents organized the slaying of Germans at Bromberg. When I kidded my military censor, a decent fellow, about it, he blushed.

But one thing—is it possible that if the British and French decide upon a long war of attrition, the mass of the German people will forget their feelings towards the regime and regard it as their duty to defend the Fatherland? Some things I’ve heard today from Germans make me think so.

B
ERLIN
,
September
14

Yesterday from Führer Headquarters came an official announcement signed by the
Oberkommando
(but obviously dictated by Hitler) saying that as long as Polish civilians insisted on resisting the German army in the towns, Germany would use every means at its disposal, especially air bombing and heavy artillery, to show the civilians the “pointlessness of their resistance.” D. and H. and W., who were at the front for three days this week, say that almost every other town and village in Poland
they saw was either half or totally destroyed by bombs or artillery.

All of us here still baffled by the inaction of Britain and France. It is obvious from the broadcasts of Ed and Tom from London and Paris that the Allies are exaggerating their action on the western front. The Germans maintain that there have been only skirmishes there so far and point out that the French are not even using airplanes in their “attacks.” Y. of our Embassy took issue today with Ambassador Biddle’s telegrams from Poland telling of the terrible bombings of the Polish towns. Y. holds Hitler is justified in bombing and bombarding towns where the civilian population offers resistance. Guess I’m losing my balance, but I disagree.

The maid came in tonight to say how terrible war was.

“Why do the French make war on us?” she asked.

“Why do you make war on the Poles?” I said.

“Hum,” she said, a blank over her face. “But the French, they’re human beings,” she said finally.

“But the Poles, maybe they’re human beings,” I said.

“Hum,” she said, blank again.

B
ERLIN
,
September
15

I heard today on very good authority that Russia
may attack Poland
.

A few words on a dry subject. How does the Allied blockade affect Germany
? It cuts her off from about 50 per cent of her normal imports. Chief products of which Germany is deprived are: cotton, tin, nickel, oil, and rubber. Russia might supply some cotton, but her total exports last year were only 2.5 per cent of Germany’s annual needs. On the other hand Russia could probably supply Germany all the manganese and timber she needs, and—with Rumania—enough oil for military purposes at least. Iron? Last year Germany got about 45 per cent of her iron ore from France, Morocco, or other places from which she is now cut off. But Sweden, Norway, and Luxemburg provided her with eleven million tons. These supplies are still open. All in all, Germany is certainly hard hit by losing the sources of 50 per cent of her imports. But with the possibilities open to her in Scandinavia, the Balkans, and Russia she is not hit nearly so badly as she was in 1914.

Just two weeks ago today the great “counter-attack” against Poland began. In fourteen days the mechanized German military machine has rolled back the Polish army more than two hundred miles, captured a hundred thousand prisoners, and practically liquidated Poland. Today one German army stands before the citadel in Brest-Litovsk, where Germany dictated a harsh treaty to Bolshevik Russia in 1918. Another German army is nearing the Rumanian border, thus bringing Germany to the front door of vast oil sources and stocks of wheat. To be sure, a gallant Polish army, completely surrounded at Kutno, seventy-five miles west of Warsaw, holds out. But for how long? Warsaw too holds out.
But for how long? The war in Poland is over. German divisions are already being rushed to the west. My censor did not object when I suggested tonight that Russia will now step in and occupy the parts of Poland inhabited by Russians. More talk about peace today.

Example of how our isolationists are appreciated in Naziland: Headline in the
Börsen Zeitung
:
“SENATOR BORAH WARNS AGAINST THE WAR AGITATORS IN U.S.A.”

B
ERLIN
,
September
16

Every German I’ve met today liked Colonel Lindbergh’s broadcast. The story gets a good play in the Berlin newspapers, which is more than Roosevelt’s speeches get. The headlines are friendly. The
Börsen Zeitung
:
“COLONEL LINDBERGH WARNS AGAINST THE AGITATION OF THE WESTERN POWERS.”

An American woman I know bought a tin of sardines today. The grocer insisted on opening the can in the shop. Reason: you can’t hoard tinned food if your grocer opens it first.

L
ATER
(
midnight
).—The Germans have just announced that if Warsaw does not surrender within twelve hours, the German army will use all military methods to subdue it. That means bomb it and bombard it. There are more than half a million civilians in the city, the majority women and children.

B
ERLIN
,
September
17

At six o’clock this morning, Moscow time, the Red army began an invasion of Poland. Russia of course had a non-aggression pact with Poland. What
ages ago it seems now—though it really wasn’t ages ago—that I sat in Geneva and other capitals and heard the Soviet statesmen talk about common fronts against the aggressor. Now Soviet Russia stabs Poland in the back, and the Red army joins the Nazi army in overrunning Poland. All this of course is heartily welcomed in Berlin this morning.