Berlin Diary Read online

  PARIS, July 14

  My sister is here, and the three of us celebrated Bastille Day a little tonight. We took her around to the cafés to watch the people dance. Later we ended up at Café Flore where I introduced her to some of the Latin Quarterites. Alex Small was in great form. When Alex started to fight the Battle of Verdun again, I dragged the family away, having heard it many times over the years.

  It now develops that Hitler’s purge was more drastic than first reported. Röhm did not kill himself, but was shot on the orders of Hitler. Other dead: Heines, notorious Nazi boss of Silesia, Dr. Erich Klausner, leader of the “Catholic Action” in Germany, Fritz von Bose and Edgar Jung, two of Papen’s secretaries (Papen himself narrowly escaped with his life), Gregor Strasser, who used to be second in importance to Hitler in the Nazi Party, and General von Schleicher and his wife, the latter two murdered in cold blood. I see von Kahr is on the list, the man who balked Hitler’s Beer House Putsch in 1923. Hitler has thus taken his personal revenge. Yesterday, on Friday the 13th, Hitler got away with his explanation in the Reichstag. When he screamed: “The supreme court of the German people during these twenty-four hours consisted of myself!” the deputies rose and cheered. One had almost forgotten how strong sadism and masochism are in the German people.

  PARIS, July 25

  Dollfuss is dead, murdered by the Nazis, who today seized control of the Chancellery and the radio station in Vienna. Apparently their coup has failed and Miklas and Dr. Schuschnigg are in control. I do not like murder, and Nazi murder least of all. But I cannot weep for Dollfuss after his cold-blooded slaughter of the Social Democrats last February. Fey seems to have played a curious role, according to the dispatches. He was in the Chancellery with Dollfuss and kept coming to the balcony to ask for Rintelen, whom the Nazis had named as their first Chancellor. Apparently he thought the Nazi coup had succeeded and was ready to join. A bad hatchet-face, this Fey.

  PARIS, August 2

  Hindenburg died this morning. Who can be president now? What will Hitler do?

  PARIS, August 3

  Hitler did what no one expected. He made himself both President and Chancellor. Any doubts about the loyalty of the army were done away with before the old field-marshal’s body was hardly cold. Hitler had the army swear an oath of unconditional obedience to him personally. The man is resourceful.

  PARIS, August 9

  Dosch-Fleurot rang me at the office this afternoon from Berlin and offered me a job with Universal Service there. I said yes at once, we agreed on a salary, and he said he would let me know after talking with New York.

  PARIS, August 11

  Larry Hills, editor and manager of the Herald, whined a bit this evening about my going, but finally overcame his ill temper and we went over to the bar of the Hotel California and had a drink. Must brush up my German.

  BERLIN, August 25

  Our introduction to Hitler’s Third Reich this evening was probably typical. Taking the day train from Paris so as to see a little of the country, we arrived at the Friedrichstrasse Bahnhof at about ten this evening. The first persons to greet us on the platform were two agents of the secret police. I had expected to meet the secret police sooner or later, but not quite so soon. Two plain-clothes men grabbed me as I stepped off the train, led me a little away, and asked me if I were Herr So-and-So—I could not for the life of me catch the name. I said no. One of them asked again and again and finally I showed him my passport. He scanned it for several minutes, finally looked at me suspiciously, and said: “So…. You are not Herr So-and-So, then. You are Herr Shirer.” “None other,” I replied, “as you can see by the passport.” He gave me one more suspicious glance, winked at his fellow dick, saluted stiffly, and made off. Tess and I walked over to the Hotel Continental and engaged an enormous room. Tomorrow begins a new chapter for me. I thought of a bad pun: “I’m going from bad to Hearst.”

  BERLIN, August 26

  Knickerbocker tells me Dorothy Thompson departed from the Friedrichstrasse station shortly before we arrived yesterday. She had been given twenty-four hours to get out—apparently the work of Putzi Hanfstängl, who could not forgive her for her book I Saw Hitler, which, at that, badly underestimated the man. Knick’s own position here is precarious apparently because of some of his past and present writings. Goebbels, who used to like him, has fallen afoul of him. He’s going down to see Hearst at Bad Nauheim about it in a day or two.

  BERLIN, September 2

  In the throes of a severe case of depression. I miss the old Berlin of the Republic, the care-free, emancipated, civilized air, the snubnosed young women with short-bobbed hair and the young men with either cropped or long hair—it made no difference—who sat up all night with you and discussed anything with intelligence and passion. The constant Heil Hitler’s, clicking of heels, and brown-shirted storm troopers or black-coated S.S. guards marching up and down the street grate me, though the old-timers say there are not nearly so many brown-shirts about since the purge. Gillie, former Morning Post correspondent here and now stationed in Paris, is, perversely, spending part of his vacation here. We’ve had some walks and twice have had to duck into stores to keep from either having to salute the standard of some passing S.A. or S.S. battalion or facing the probability of getting beaten up for not doing so. Day before yesterday Gillie took me to lunch at a pub in the lower part of the Friedrichstrasse. Coming back he pointed out a building where a year ago for days on end, he said, you could hear the yells of the Jews being tortured. I noticed a sign. It was still the headquarters of some S.A. Standarte. Tess tried to cheer me up by taking me to the Zoo yesterday. It was a lovely, hot day and after watching the monkeys and elephants we lunched on the shaded terrace of the restaurant there. Called on the Ambassador, Professor William E. Dodd. He struck me as a blunt, honest, liberal man with the kind of integrity an American ambassador needs here. He seemed a little displeased at my saying I did not mourn the death of Dollfuss and may have interpreted it as meaning I liked the Nazis, though I hope not. Also called on the counsellor of Embassy, J. C. White, who appears to be the more formal type of State Department career diplomat. He promptly sent cards, nicely creased, to the hotel, but since I do not understand the creased-card business of diplomacy I shall do nothing about it. Am going to cover the annual Nazi Party rally at Nuremberg day after tomorrow. It should provide a thorough introduction to Nazi Germany.

  NUREMBERG, September 4

  Like a Roman emperor Hitler rode into this mediaeval town at sundown today past solid phalanxes of wildly cheering Nazis who packed the narrow streets that once saw Hans Sachs and the Meistersinger. Tens of thousands of Swastika flags blot out the Gothic beauties of the place, the façades of the old houses, the gabled roofs. The streets, hardly wider than alleys, are a sea of brown and black uniforms. I got my first glimpse of Hitler as he drove by our hotel, the Württemberger Hof, to his headquarters down the street at the Deutscher Hof, a favourite old hotel of his, which has been remodelled for him. He fumbled his cap with his left hand as he stood in his car acknowledging the delirious welcome with somewhat feeble Nazi salutes from his right arm. He was clad in a rather worn gaberdine trench-coat, his face had no particular expression at all—I expected it to be stronger—and for the life of me I could not quite comprehend what hidden springs he undoubtedly unloosed in the hysterical mob which was greeting him so wildly. He does not stand before the crowd with that theatrical imperiousness which I have seen Mussolini use. I was glad to see that he did not poke out his chin and throw his head back as does the Duce nor make his eyes glassy—though there is something glassy in his eyes, the strongest thing in his face. He almost seemed to be affecting a modesty in his bearing. I doubt if it’s genuine.

  This evening at the beautiful old Rathaus Hitler formally opened this, the fourth party rally. He spoke for only three minutes, probably thinking to save his voice for the six big speeches he is scheduled to make during the next five days. Putzi Hanfstängl, an immense, high-strung, incoherent clow
n who does not often fail to remind us that he is part American and graduated from Harvard, made the main speech of the day in his capacity of foreign press chief of the party. Obviously trying to please his boss, he had the crust to ask us to “report on affairs in Germany without attempting to interpret them.” “History alone,” Putzi shouted, “can evaluate the events now taking place under Hitler.” What he meant, and what Goebbels and Rosenberg mean, is that we should jump on the band-wagon of Nazi propaganda. I fear Putzi’s words fell on deaf, if good-humoured, ears among the American and British correspondents, who rather like him despite his clownish stupidity.

  About ten o’clock tonight I got caught in a mob of ten thousand hysterics who jammed the moat in front of Hitler’s hotel, shouting: “We want our Führer.” I was a little shocked at the faces, especially those of the women, when Hitler finally appeared on the balcony for a moment. They reminded me of the crazed expressions I saw once in the back country of Louisiana on the faces of some Holy Rollers who were about to hit the trail. They looked up at him as if he were a Messiah, their faces transformed into something positively in human. If he had remained in sight for more than a few moments, I think many of the women would have swooned from excitement.

  Later I pushed my way into the lobby of the Deutscher Hof. I recognized Julius Streicher, whom they call here the Uncrowned Czar of Franconia. In Berlin he is known more as the number-one Jew-baiter and editor of the vulgar and pornographic anti-Semitic sheet the Stürmer. His head was shaved, and this seemed to augment the sadism of his face. As he walked about, he brandished a short whip.

  Knick arrived today. He will cover for INS and I for Universal.

  NUREMBERG, September 5

  I’m beginning to comprehend, I think, some of the reasons for Hitler’s astounding success. Borrowing a chapter from the Roman church, he is restoring pageantry and colour and mysticism to the drab lives of twentieth-century Germans. This morning’s opening meeting in the Luitpold Hall on the outskirts of Nuremberg was more than a gorgeous show; it also had something of the mysticism and religious fervour of an Easter or Christmas Mass in a great Gothic cathedral. The hall was a sea of brightly coloured flags. Even Hitler’s arrival was made dramatic. The band stopped playing. There was a hush over the thirty thousand people packed in the hall. Then the band struck up the Badenweiler March, a very catchy tune, and used only, I’m told, when Hitler makes his big entries. Hitler appeared in the back of the auditorium, and followed by his aides, Göring, Goebbels, Hess, Himmler, and the others, he strode slowly down the long centre aisle while thirty thousand hands were raised in salute. It is a ritual, the old-timers say, which is always followed. Then an immense symphony orchestra played Beethoven’s Egmont Overture. Great Klieg lights played on the stage, where Hitler sat surrounded by a hundred party officials and officers of the army and navy. Behind them the “blood flag,” the one carried down the streets of Munich in the ill-fated putsch. Behind this, four or five hundred S.A. standards. When the music was over, Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s closest confidant, rose and slowly read the names of the Nazi “martyrs”—brown-shirts who had been killed in the struggle for power—a roll-call of the dead, and the thirty thousand seemed very moved.

  In such an atmosphere no wonder, then, that every word dropped by Hitler seemed like an inspired Word from on high. Man’s—or at least the German’s—critical faculty is swept away at such moments, and every lie pronounced is accepted as high truth itself. It was while the crowd—all Nazi officials—were in this mood that the Führer’s proclamation was sprung on them. He did not read it himself. It was read by Gauleiter Wagner of Bavaria, who, curiously, has a voice and manner of speaking so like Hitler’s that some of the correspondents who were listening back at the hotel on the radio thought it was Hitler.

  As to the proclamation, it contained such statements as these, all wildly applauded as if they were new truths: “The German form of life is definitely determined for the next thousand years. For us, the nervous nineteenth century has finally ended. There will be no revolution in Germany for the next one thousand years!”

  Or: “Germany has done everything possible to assure world peace. If war comes to Europe it will come only because of Communist chaos.” Later before a “Kultur” meeting he added: “Only brainless dwarfs cannot realize that Germany has been the breakwater against Communist floods which would have drowned Europe and its culture.”

  Hitler also referred to the fight now going on against his attempt to Nazify the Protestant church. “I am striving to unify it. I am convinced that Luther would have done the same and would have thought of unified Germany first and last.”

  NUREMBERG, September 6

  Hitler sprang his Arbeitsdienst, his Labour Service Corps, on the public for the first time today and it turned out to be a highly trained, semi-military group of fanatical Nazi youths. Standing there in the early morning sunlight which sparkled on their shiny spades, fifty thousand of them, with the first thousand bared above the waist, suddenly made the German spectators go mad with joy when, without warning, they broke into a perfect goose-step. Now, the goose-step has always seemed to me to be an outlandish exhibition of the human being in his most undignified and stupid state, but I felt for the first time this morning what an inner chord it strikes in the strange soul of the German people. Spontaneously they jumped up and shouted their applause. There was a ritual even for the Labour Service boys. They formed an immense Sprechchor—a chanting chorus—and with one voice intoned such words as these: “We want one Leader! Nothing for us! Everything for Germany! Heil Hitler!”

  Curious that none of the relatives or friends of the S.A. leaders or, say, of General von Schleicher have tried to get Hitler or Göring or Himmler this week. Though Hitler is certainly closely guarded by the S.S., it is nonsense to hold that he cannot be killed. Yesterday we speculated on the matter, Pat Murphy of the Daily Express, a burly but very funny and amusing Irishman, Christopher Holmes of Reuter’s, who looks like a poet and perhaps is, Knick, and I. We were in Pat’s room, overlooking the moat. Hitler drove by, returning from some meeting. And we all agreed how easy it would be for someone in a room like this to toss a bomb on his car, rush down to the street, and escape in the crowd. But there has been no sign of an attempt yet, though some of the Nazis are slightly worried about Sunday, when he reviews the S.A.

  NUREMBERG, September 7

  Another great pageant tonight. Two hundred thousand party officials packed in the Zeppelin Wiese with their twenty-one thousand flags unfurled in the searchlights like a forest of weird trees. “We are strong and will get stronger,” Hitler shouted at them through the microphone, his words echoing across the hushed field from the loud-speakers. And there, in the flood-lit night, jammed together like sardines, in one mass formation, the little men of Germany who have made Nazism possible achieved the highest state of being the Germanic man knows: the shedding of their individual souls and minds—with the personal responsibilities and doubts and problems—until under the mystic lights and at the sound of the magic words of the Austrian they were merged completely in the Germanic herd. Later they recovered enough—fifteen thousand of them—to stage a torchlight parade through Nuremberg’s ancient streets, Hitler taking the salute in front of the station across from our hotel. Von Papen arrived today and stood alone in a car behind Hitler tonight, the first public appearance he has made, I think, since he narrowly escaped being murdered by Göring on June 30. He did not look happy.

  NUREMBERG, September 9

  Hitler faced his S.A. storm troopers today for the first time since the bloody purge. In a harangue to fifty thousand of them he “absolved” them from blame for the Röhm “revolt.” There was considerable tension in the stadium and I noticed that Hitler’s own S.S. bodyguard was drawn up in force in front of him, separating him from the mass of the brown-shirts. We wondered if just one of those fifty thousand brown-shirts wouldn’t pull a revolver, but not one did. Viktor Lutze, Röhm’s successor as chief of the S.A.,
also spoke. He has a shrill, unpleasant voice, and the S.A. boys received him coolly, I thought. Hitler had in a few of the foreign correspondents for breakfast this morning, but I was not invited.

  NUREMBERG, September 10

  Today the army had its day, fighting a very realistic sham battle in the Zeppelin Meadow. It is difficult to exaggerate the frenzy of the three hundred thousand German spectators when they saw their soldiers go into action, heard the thunder of the guns, and smelt the powder. I feel that all those Americans and English (among others) who thought that German militarism was merely a product of the Hohenzollerns—from Frederick the Great to Kaiser Wilhelm II—made a mistake. It is rather something deeply ingrained in all Germans. They acted today like children playing with tin soldiers. The Reichswehr “fought” today only with the “defensive” weapons allowed them by Versailles, but everybody knows they’ve got the rest—tanks, heavy artillery, and probably airplanes.

  LATER.—After seven days of almost ceaseless goose-stepping, speech-making, and pageantry, the party rally came to an end tonight. And though dead tired and rapidly developing a bad case of crowd-phobia, I’m glad I came. You have to go through one of these to understand Hitler’s hold on the people, to feel the dynamic in the movement he’s unleashed and the sheer, disciplined strength the Germans possess. And now—as Hitler told the correspondents yesterday in explaining his technique—the half-million men who’ve been here during the week will go back to their towns and villages and preach the new gospel with new fanaticism. Shall sleep late tomorrow and take the night train back to Berlin.