Berlin Diary (94 page)

B
ERLIN
,
November
5

If all goes well, I shall leave here a month from today, flying all the way to New York—by Lufthansa plane from here to Lisbon, by Clipper from there to New York. The very prospect of leaving here takes a terrible load off your heart and mind. I feel swell. It will be my first Christmas at home in sixteen years, my other brief visits having all been during the summer or fall. Went to a Philharmonic concert this evening. A Bach concerto for three pianos and orchestra, with the conductor, Furtwängler, and Wilhelm Kemp and some other noted pianist at the pianos, was very good indeed. Afterwards played my accordion—sacrilege after the Philharmonic and Bach!—but a gruff-voiced man occupying the next room did not appreciate my efforts and knocked on the wall until I betook myself, with accordion, to the bathroom. He is probably one of those Rhineland industrialists who come up here to get some sleep, since in western Germany they are visited by the RAF nearly every night. The hotel is full of them and they are very cranky.

B
ERLIN
,
November
6

Roosevelt has been re-elected for a third term! It is a resounding slap for Hitler and Ribbentrop and the whole Nazi regime. For despite Willkie’s almost outdoing the President in his promises to work for Britain’s victory, the Nazis ardently wished the Republican candidate to win. Nazi bigwigs made no secret of this in private, though Goebbels made the press ignore the election so as not to give the Democrats the advantage of saying that the Nazis were for Willkie.

Last week at least three officials in the Wilhelmstrasse phoned me excitedly to ask if the Gallup Poll could be trusted. They had just had a cable from Washington, they said, that the poll showed Willkie having a fifty-fifty chance. The news made them exceedingly happy.

Because Roosevelt is one of the few real leaders produced by the democracies since the war (look at France; look at Britain until Churchill took over!) and because he can be tough, Hitler has always had a healthy respect for him and even a certain fear. (He admires Stalin for his toughness.) Part of Hitler’s success has been due to the luck of having mediocre men like Daladier and Chamberlain in charge of the destinies of the democracies. I’m told that since the abandonment for this fall of the invasion of Britain Hitler has more and more envisaged Roosevelt as the strongest enemy in his path to world power, or even to victory in Europe. And there is no doubt that he and his henchmen put great hope in the defeat of the President. Even if Willkie turned out to be a bitter enemy of Berlin, the Nazis figured that, were he elected, there would be a two months’ interim at Washington during which nothing would be done to help the Allies. There would be more months of indecision, they calculated, before Willkie,
inexperienced in politics and world affairs, could hit his stride. This could only profit Nazi Germany.

But now the Nazis face Roosevelt for another four years—face the man whom Hitler has told a number of people is more responsible for keeping up Britain’s resistance to him than any other factor in the war except Winston Churchill
. No wonder there were long faces in the Wilhelmstrasse tonight when it became certain that Roosevelt had won.

B
ERLIN
,
November
8

The British tonight, we hear, are giving Munich
a bad pounding. It is the anniversary of the beer-house
Putsch
and therefore a timely evening to bomb. That
Putsch
was hatched on the evening of November 8, 1923 at the Bürgerbräukeller in Munich, and all the anniversary celebrations have always been held there. A year ago tonight a bomb went off in the place a few minutes after Hitler and
all
the Nazi leaders had left, but it killed several lesser fry. Tonight Hitler took no chance on Himmler’s planting another bomb on him. He held his speech in another beer cellar, the Löwenbräu. As with all his speeches since the British began to come over, he began it before dark so that the meeting was over before the RAF bombers arrived. His address today raised a problem for American broadcasters. Neither CBS nor NBC permit recordings to be broadcast on their networks. When the German Broadcasting Company called me up this afternoon to offer Hitler’s speech to CBS, I was a little suspicious at the time given for the broadcast—eight p.m. I didn’t think the Führer would dare speak so late—since theoretically, now that the long nights are upon us, the British could be in Munich by nine p.m. or so. So I asked whether it
was a recording they were offering us. A high official of the RRG would not say. He said it was a military secret.

“Nor,” he added, “may you cable your New York office whether you suspect it is a recording or not. If you cable, you must merely say that we offer a Hitler broadcast to America.”

I have means of contacting Paul White in New York very quickly without using the German commercial radio service, which first submits my messages to the censor. As a matter of fact, it was not necessary this evening. Before I could get in touch with New York, word came that there would be no broadcast of Hitler at all this evening. His speech would be broadcast only tomorrow. The British bombing has stopped the broadcast. Later in the evening I learned that the Germans knew all the time they were offering me a recorded broadcast of the speech at eight p.m., since the original talk had been made at five p.m. Must take this up with New York.

Amusing to note of late, on the desks of the German officials I have business with, copies of cables which I have received from, or sent to, my New York office. I of course have known for some time that they saw all my outgoing and incoming messages and have had no end of fun sending absurd messages to New York criticizing these officials by name or concocting something that would keep them guessing. Fortunately Paul White has a sense of humour and has sent appropriate answers.

B
ERLIN
,
November
9

To record a few of the jokes which the Germans are telling these days:

The chief of the Air-Raid Protection in Berlin recently
advised the people to go to bed early and try to snatch two or three hours of sleep before the bombings start. Some take the advice, most do not. The Berliners say that those who take the advice arrive in the cellar after an alarm and greet their neighbours with a “Good morning.” This means they have been to sleep. Others arrive and say: “Good evening!” This means they haven’t yet been to sleep. A few arrive and say: “
Heil Hitler!
” This means they have always been asleep.

Another: An airplane carrying Hitler, Göring, and Goebbels crashes. All three are killed. Who is saved?

Answer: The German people.

A man from Cologne tells me what he claims is a true story. He says there are so many different uniforms to be seen in the streets there now that one can’t keep track of them. Thus it was that a British flying-officer who had to bail out near Cologne walked into the city on a Sunday afternoon to give himself up. He expected that the police or some of the soldiers on the street would arrest him immediately. Instead they clicked their heels and saluted him. He had a ten-mark note with him, as, my friends say, all British pilots flying over Germany do, and decided to try his luck at a movie. He asked for a two-mark seat. The cashier gave him back nine marks in change, explaining politely that men in uniform got in for half-price. Finally, the movie over, he walked the streets of Cologne until midnight before he could find a police station and give himself up. He told the police how difficult it was for a British flyer in full uniform to get himself arrested in the heart of a German city. The police would not believe him. But they summoned the cashier of the movie house just to see.

“Did you sell this man a ticket to a performance this evening?” they asked her.

“Certainly,” she piped back; “for half-price, like
all men in uniform.” Then proudly, espying the initials RAF on his uniform: “It isn’t every day I can welcome a
Reichs Arbeits Führer
. Me, I know what RAF stands for.”

Molotov is coming to Berlin. For more than a year—ever since Ribbentrop flew to Moscow in August 1939 and signed the pact which brought the two arch-enemies of this earth together—we’ve had rumours that the number-two Bolshevik would repay the visit. Once during the summer I know for a fact that a lot of old Soviet red flags were dusted off and assembled in the Chancellery for a Molotov visit that failed to come off because, for one thing, Moscow insisted on sending a regiment of GPU plain-clothes men, and Himmler would agree to only a company of them. Then Hitler and Ribbentrop exerted all the pressure they could to force Stalin to send Molotov here just before the American elections. For some reason they thought that if ballyhooed properly, it would scare the American people and result in the defeat of Roosevelt. Stalin apparently understood the reason and declined. But tonight it’s official. Molotov is coming next week. The timing of the visit is still good. It will help make up for the slap of Roosevelt’s election, which the German people faintly realize was not good news for Hitler, and also for the waning prestige of the Axis caused by the failure of the Italians to make any progress in Greece.

B
ERLIN
,
November
11

Armistice Day, which in a way now seems like a great irony. There was no mention of it in the German press: In Belgium and France the German military authorities forebade its celebration. Roosevelt’s
Armistice Day speech was completely suppressed here. We broadcast from coast to coast every utterance of Hitler, but the German people are not permitted to know a word of what Roosevelt speaks. This is one of the weaknesses of democracy, I think, though some people think it is one of its strengths.

This evening I went to see Harald Kreuzberg dance. He’s getting a little old now and is not quite so nimble or graceful, though still very good. The hall was packed.