Berlin Diary (24 page)

G
ENEVA
,
September
9

One last fleeting visit with the family before the war clouds break. In Berlin the best opinion is that Hitler has made up his mind for war if it is necessary to get back his Sudetens. I doubt it for two reasons: first, the German army is not ready; secondly, the people are dead against war. The radio has been saying all day that Great Britain has told Germany she will fight if Czecho is invaded. Perhaps so, but you cannot forget the
Times
leader of three days ago inviting the Czechs to become a more “homogeneous state” by handing the Sudetens over to Hitler.

The atmosphere here in Geneva is delightfully unreal. On Monday the 102nd meeting of the League Council and the 19th meeting of the Assembly open and all the internationalists are convening here to do nothing. The Czech situation is not even on the agenda, and won’t be. Who was it put it so well the other day as we were walking along Lake Geneva and the great League Secretariat building came into view? Someone. “A beautiful granite sepulchre! Let us admire its beauty against the green hills and the mountains. There, my friend, are buried the dead hopes of peace for our generation.”

Tess, with baby, off to America towards the end of the month to establish residence for her citizenship. I off to Prague tomorrow by plane to cover the peace or the war. Have almost convinced CBS they should let me talk five minutes daily—revolutionary in the broadcasting business!

P
RAGUE
,
September
10

All Europe waiting for Hitler’s final word to be pronounced at the wind-up of the Nazi Party rally at Nuremberg day after tomorrow. In the meantime we had two speeches today, one by President Beneš here; the other by Göring at Nuremberg, where all week the Nazis have been thundering threats against Czechoslovakia. Beneš, who spoke from the studio of the Czech Broadcasting System, was calm and reasonable—too much so, I thought, though he was obviously trying to please the British. He said: “I firmly believe that nothing other than moral force, goodwill, and mutual trust will be needed…. Should we, in peace, solve our nationality affairs… our country will be one of the most beautiful, best administered, worthiest, and most equitable countries in the world…. I do not speak through fear of the future. I have never been afraid in my life. I have always been an optimist, and my optimism is stronger today than at any other time…. Let us all preserve calmness… but let us be optimistic… and, above all, let us not forget that faith and goodwill move mountains….”

Dr. Beneš delivered it in both Czech and German, so that I understood it, and running into him in the hall of the Broadcasting House when he had finished, I wanted to rush up and say: “But you are dealing with gangsters, with Hitler and Göring!” But I did not have the nerve and merely nodded good-evening and he walked on, a brave little Czech peasant’s son who has made many mistakes in the last two decades, but who, when all is said and done, stands for the democratic decencies that Hitler is out to destroy. His face was grave, not nearly so optimistic as his words, and I doubt not he knows the terrible position he is in.

The other speech, Göring’s, as given out by Reuter’s here: “A petty segment of Europe is harassing human beings…. This miserable pygmy race [the Czechs] without culture—no one knows where it came from—is oppressing a cultured people and behind it is Moscow and the eternal mask of the Jew devil….”

P
RAGUE
,
September
11

All quiet here, but you can cut the tension with a knife. Reports that the Germans have massed two hundred thousand troops on the Austro-Czech border. In London continuous conferences in Downing Street. In Paris Daladier conferring with Gamelin. But all awaiting Hitler’s speech tomorrow. CBS finally okays a five-minute daily report from here, but asks me to cable beforehand when I think the news does not warrant my taking the time.

P
RAGUE
,
September
12

The Great Man has spoken. And there’s no war, at least not for the moment. That is Czechoslovakia’s first reaction to Hitler’s speech at Nuremberg tonight. Hitler hurled insults and threats at Prague. But he did not demand that the Sudetens be handed over to him outright. He did not even demand a plebiscite. He insisted, however, on “self-determination” for the Sudetens. I listened to the broadcast of the speech in the apartment of Bill and Mary Morrell overlooking Wilson station. The smoke-filled room was full of correspondents—Kerr, Cox, Maurice Hindus, and so on. I have never heard the Adolf quite so full of hate, his audience quite so on the borders of bedlam. What poison in his voice when at the beginning of his long recital
of alleged wrongs to the Sudeteners he paused: “
Ich spreche von der Czechoslovakei!
” His words, his tone, dripping with venom.

Everyone in Czechoslovakia
seems to have listened to the speech, the streets being deserted tonight from eight to ten. An extraordinary meeting of the Inner Cabinet Council was convoked immediately afterwards, but Beneš did not attend. Morrell and I put in calls to Karlsbad and Reichenberg to see if the three and a half million Sudeteners had gone berserk after the speech. Fortunately there had been a pouring rain throughout the country. Some six thousand Henlein enthusiasts, wearing Swastika arm bands, paraded the streets of Karlsbad afterwards shouting: “Down with the Czechs and Jews! We want a plebiscite!” But there was no clash. Same story at Reichenberg.

Prague on this day when war and peace have apparently hung in the balance has been dark and dismal, with a cold, biting, soaking rain. I roamed through the old streets most of the day trying to see how a people react with war and invasion staring them in the face and when you know that in twenty-one minutes from the moment of declaration of war, if there is a declaration of war, the bombs may come raining down on you. The Czechs were going about their business as usual, not gloomy, not depressed, not frightened. Either they haven’t any nerves at all, or perhaps they’re the people with the iron nerves.

The Russians—perhaps aided by the Czechs—did a beautiful job of jamming Hitler’s speech tonight. Königsberg, Breslau, Vienna—all the stations in the east—were unintelligible. We had to go way over to Cologne before we could get a decent reception.

P
RAGUE
,
September
13–14 (3
a.m
.)

War very near, and since midnight we’ve been waiting for the German bombers, but so far no sign. Much shooting up in the Sudetenland, at Eger, Elbogen, Falkenau, Habersbirk. A few Sudeteners and Czechs killed and the Germans have been plundering Czech and Jewish shops. So the Czechs very rightly proclaimed martial law this morning in five Sudeten districts. About seven this evening we learned that Henlein had sent a six-hour ultimatum to the government. It was delivered at six p.m., expired at midnight. It demanded: repeal of martial law, withdrawal of Czech police from the Sudetenland, “separation” of military barracks from the civilian population. Whether it is backed by Hitler we do not know, though after his Nuremberg speech there seems little doubt that it is. Anyway, the Czech government has turned it down. It could not have done otherwise. It has made its choice. It will fight. We wait now for Hitler’s move.

The tension and confusion this night in the lobby of the Ambassador Hotel, where the diplomats and correspondents gather, has been indescribable. Fascinating to watch the reactions of people suddenly seized by fear. Some can’t take it. They let themselves go to a point of hysteria, then in panic flee to—God knows where. Most take it, with various degrees of courage and coolness. In the lobby tonight: the newspapermen milling around trying to get telephone calls through the one lone operator. Jews excitedly trying to book on the last plane or train. The wildest rumours coming in with every new person that steps through the revolving door from outside, all of us gathering around to listen, believing or disbelieving according to our feelings. Göring’s bombers will come at midnight—unless the
Czechs accept the ultimatum. They will use gas. How can a man get a gas-mask? There are none. What do you do then? Beneš will accept the ultimatum. He must! The newspapermen racing up and down, furious about the telephones, about the Germans, keeping an ear cocked for the first bomb. Packard and Beattie of U.P., Steinkopf of A.P., Red Knickerbocker of INS, Whitaker and Fodor of the Chicago
Daily News
, Alex Small of the Chicago
Tribune
, Walter Kerr of the New York
Herald Tribune
, Gedye and Vadnay of the New York
Times
, and the English correspondents.

An element of comedy helps break the tension. Alex, behind a large beer, Phoebe Packard behind another, frown at a cable Alex has just received. It is from his boss, Colonel McCormick, instructing him with military precision how to cover the war. “Wars always start at dawn. Be there at dawn,” cables the colonel, Alex says.

A timid American businessman creeps up to our table, introduces himself. “I’m getting a big kick out of this evening,” he says. “You newspaper people certainly lead interesting lives.”

“What’ll you drink, sir?” someone asks him. We go on with our talk, shout for a telephone.

Midnight nears. Deadline for the ultimatum. An official from the Foreign Office comes in, his face grave. “
Abgelehnt
,” he says in German. “Turned down.” The ultimatum is turned down. The correspondents fly again to the telephone. Several Jews scurry out. The press agent of the Sudeten party, a big jovial fellow who usually drops in at this time to give us his news, comes in as usual. He is not jovial. “Have they turned it down?” he asks. He hardly waits for the answer. Grabbing a small bag he has left in the corner, he disappears through the door.

Packard or someone finally gets through to the
Sudetenland. They are fighting there with rifles, hand-grenades, machine-guns, tanks. It is war, everyone agrees. Bill Morrell comes through on the phone from Habersbirk. Will I pass his story on to the
Daily Express
? Yes, what is it? He is talking from the police station there, he says. In the corner of the room a few feet away, he says, under a sheet lie the bodies of four Czech gendarmes and one German. The Germans have shot dead all four gendarmes in the town, but Czech reinforcements have arrived and the government is now in control. I call up Mary, his wife, about to become a mother, and tell her Bill is all right. Time for my broadcast. I race up the street to Broadcasting House.