Berlin Diary (8 page)

12. Something should be done to prohibit the poisoning of public opinion among the nations by irresponsible elements orally or in writing, and in the theatre or the cinema.

13. Germany is ready at any time to reach an international agreement which shall effectively prevent all attempts at outside interference in the affairs of other states.

What could be more sweet or reasonable—if he means it? Hitler spoke until nearly ten o’clock. He was in an easy, confident mood. The diplomatic box was jammed, the ambassadors of France, Britain, Italy, Japan, and Poland being in the front row. Dodd sat in the third row—a typical Nazi diplomatic slight to America, it seemed to me. Filed several thousand words, and then to bed, tired and a little puzzled by the speech, which some of the British and French correspondents at the Taverne tonight thought might really after all pave the way to several years of Peace.

B
ERLIN
,
June
3

We’ve moved again, this time to Tempelhof, our studio place in the Tauenzienstrasse, which was just under the roof, proving too warm. We’ve taken the apartment of Captain Koehl, a German flying ace in the World War, and the first man (with two friends) to
fly the Atlantic from east to west. He and his wife, pretty, dark, great friends of the Knicks. He is one of the few men in Germany with enough courage not to knuckle down to Göring and the Nazis. As a result he is completely out, having even lost his job with Lufthansa. A fervent Catholic and a man of strong character, he prefers to retire to his little farm in the south of Germany rather than curry Nazi favour. He is one of a very few. I’ve taken a great liking to him.

B
ERLIN
,
June
7

The ticker brings in this news: Baldwin succeeds MacDonald as British Prime Minister. There will be few tears for MacDonald, who betrayed the British labour movement and who in the last five years has become a vain and foolish man. Ribbentrop is in London negotiating a naval
treaty which will give Germany thirty-five per cent of Britain’s tonnage. The Nazis here say it’s in the bag.

B
ERLIN
,
June
18

It’s in the bag, signed today in London. The Wilhelmstrasse quite elated. Germany gets a U-boat tonnage equal to Britain’s. Why the British have agreed to this is beyond me. German submarines almost beat them in the last war, and may in the next. Ended up at the Taverne, as on so many nights. The Taverne, a
Ristorante Italiano
, run by Willy Lehman, a big, bluff German with nothing Italian about him, and his wife, a slim, timid Belgian woman, has become an institution for the British and American correspondents here, helping us to retain some sanity and affording an opportunity to get together informally and talk
shop—without which no foreign correspondent could long live. We have a
Stammtisch
—a table always reserved for us in the corner—and from about ten p.m. until three or four in the morning it is usually filled. Usually Norman Ebbutt presides, sucking at an old pipe the night long, talking and arguing in a weak, high-pitched voice, imparting wisdom, for he has been here a long time, has contacts throughout the government, party, churches, and army, and has a keen intelligence. Of late he has complained to me in private that the
Times
does not print all he sends, that it does not want to hear too much of the bad side of Nazi Germany and apparently has been captured by the pro-Nazis in London. He is discouraged and talks of quitting. Next to him sits Mrs. Holmes, a beak-nosed woman of undoubted intelligence. She swallows her words so, however, that I find difficulty in understanding what she says. Other habitués of the
Stammtisch
are Ed Beattie of U.P., with a moon-faced Churchillian countenance behind which is a nimble wit and a great store of funny stories and songs; Fred Oechsner
of U.P. and his wife, Dorothy, he a quiet type but an able correspondent, she blonde, pretty, ebullient, with a low, hoarse voice; Pierre Huss of INS, slick, debonair, ambitious, and on better terms with Nazi officials than almost any other; Guido Enderis of the New York
Times
, aging in his sixties but sporting invariably a gaudy race-track suit with a loud red necktie, minding the Nazis less than most—a man who achieved the distinction once of working here as an American correspondent even after we got into the war; Al Ross, his assistant, bulky, sleepy, slow-going, and lovable; Wally Deuel of the Chicago
Daily News
, youthful, quiet, studious, extremely intelligent; his wife, Mary Deuel, much the same as he is, with large, pretty eyes, they both very much in love; Sigrid Schultz of the
Chicago
Tribune
, the only woman correspondent in our ranks, buoyant, cheerful, and always well informed; and Otto Tolischus, who though not head of the bureau of the New York
Times
is its chief prop, complicated, profound, studious, with a fine penchant for getting at the bottom of things. Present often is Martha Dodd, daughter of the Ambassador, pretty, vivacious, a mighty arguer. Two American correspondents come rarely if at all, Louis Lochner of A.P. and John Elliott of the New York
Herald Tribune
, John, who is a very able and learned correspondent, being a teetotaller and non-smoker and much addicted—as we should all be—to his books.

N
EW
Y
ORK
,
September
9

Home for a brief vacation, and New York looks awfully good though I find most of the good people much too optimistic about European affairs. Everyone here, I find, has very positive knowledge and opinions.

N
EW
Y
ORK
,
September
16

Week-end with Nicholas Roosevelt
out on Long Island. Had not seen him since he was Minister in Budapest. He was too preoccupied with Franklin Roosevelt’s “dictatorship”—as he called it—to allow for much time to argue European affairs. He seemed deeply resentful that the New Deal would not allow him to grow potatoes in his garden, and went into the matter in some detail, though I’m afraid I did not follow. I kept thinking of Ethiopia and the chances of war. A very intelligent man, though. Have had a good visit—but much too short—with my family.
Mother, despite her age and recent illnesses, seemed to be looking quite pert. The office insists I return at once to Berlin because of the Abyssinian situation. Dosch is to go to Rome and I am to have the
Buro
.

B
ERLIN
,
October
4

Mussolini has begun his conquest of Abyssinia. According to an Italian communiqué, the Duce’s troops crossed the frontier yesterday “in order to repulse an imminent threat from the Ethiopians.” The Wilhelmstrasse is delighted. Either Mussolini will stumble and get himself so heavily involved in Africa that he will be greatly weakened in Europe, whereupon Hitler can seize Austria, hitherto protected by the Duce; or he will win, defying France and Britain, and thereupon be ripe for a tie-up with Hitler against the Western democracies. Either way Hitler wins. The League has provided a sorry spectacle, and its failure now, after the Manchurian debacle, certainly kills it. At Geneva they talk of sanctions. It’s a last hope.

B
ERLIN
,
December
30