Berlin Diary (41 page)

In the first battle between a naval fleet and airplanes (for years the admirals and air commanders have fought out on paper the question whether a fleet is vulnerable to air attack) the Germans today claim to have destroyed a British aircraft-carrier and damaged a battleship without losing a single plane.

I went to the State Opera tonight before my broadcast, George Kidd of U.P. suggesting it would be good for our nerves. It was the opening night of the season and the piece an old favourite, Weber’s
Freischütz
. I was a little surprised at the state of my nerves. I could not sit through it. I could not stand the sight of all the satisfied burghers, men and women, many of them in evening dress, and even the music didn’t sound right. Amusing only was a special sheet of paper in the program instructing what to do in case of an air-raid alarm. Since there is no cellar in the Opera, a map
showed me how to get to
my
cellar, which was Number One
Keller
. The alarm, the instructions said, would be announced from the stage. I was then to keep calm, call for my hat and coat at the
Garderobe
, and proceed to the cellar. At the all-clear I was to return to the Opera, check my hat and coat, and the opera would go on from where it left off. There was no alarm.

Ribbentrop is in Moscow and we wonder what he’s up to.

B
ERLIN
,
September
28

At midnight tonight I did a microphone interview with Germany’s ace submarine skipper, Captain Herbert Schultze. It turned out much better than I expected. During the afternoon and evening I had had many doubts and a big headache. With the help of some naval officer friends, I cornered Schultze in the Admiralty this afternoon. He was just back from his first “killing.” He turned out to be a clean-cut fellow of thirty, hard as nails and full of that bluff self-confidence which you get, I suppose, when you gamble daily with your own life and the lives of others.

He was a little afraid of his English, he said, and after listening to a specimen, I was too. In fact, I couldn’t understand a word he said and we had to converse in German. Someone suggested that his English would improve during the afternoon, that he was merely a little rusty. This offered hope, and I cabled New York that the interview was on for tonight. I put my questions to him and the captain sat down to write out answers in German. When he had finished a page, I dictated an English translation to an Admiralty secretary who for some reason wrote English faultlessly but had great difficulty in understanding it when spoken.

We sweated away all afternoon—four hours—and finally achieved a fifteen-minute script.

There were two points in the script, the very ones which made it most interesting, which added to my own perspiration. The captain told a story of how he had torpedoed the British ship
Royal Sceptre
, but, at the risk of his own skin, had arranged rescue of those aboard by another British vessel, the
Browning
. Now, a few days before, I remembered, London had reported that the
Royal Sceptre
had been torpedoed without warning and that the crew and passengers, numbering sixty, had presumably perished. I wondered who was right.

Captain Schultze, as we worked out our interview, also mentioned that he was the U-boat commander who had sent a saucy radio message to Mr. Winston Churchill advising him of the location of a British ship which he had just sunk so that the First Lord might save the crew. But only a day or two before, Mr. Churchill had told the House of Commons that the German submarine commander who had sent him that message had been captured and was now a prisoner of His Majesty’s government.

I reminded the captain of that, and asked him if he could give me the text of his message. His logbook was at Kiel, but we telephoned there and had the message read back to us. That made me feel a little better. Shortly before the broadcast this evening something else happened which made me feel better still. As we were leaving the Admiralty, an officer brought us a Reuter dispatch saying that the
Browning
had just landed at Bahia, Brazil, with the crew and passengers of the
Royal Sceptre
all safe.

One good break followed another. To my surprise, as our broadcast got under way, the captain’s English
did indeed improve, just as predicted. His accent was terrific, but in some way his words poured out very distinctly. You could understand every syllable. Most men of his type, I’ve found, when put before a microphone, read their lines mechanically. But to my delight he proved to be a natural speaker, talking as though we had never written a line.
¹²

B
ERLIN
,
September
29

Germany
’s peace offensive is now to be backed by Russia
.

In Moscow last night Ribbentrop and Molotov signed a treaty and a declaration of purpose. The text of the latter tells the whole story:

“After the German government and the government of the U.S.S.R., through a treaty signed today, definitely solved questions resulting from the disintegration of the Polish state and thereby established a secure foundation for permanent peace in eastern Europe, they jointly voice their opinion that it would be in the interest of all nations to bring to an end the state of war presently existing between Germany and Britain and France. Both governments therefore will concentrate their efforts, if necessary, in co-operation with other friendly powers, towards reaching this goal.

“Should, however, the effort of both governments remain unsuccessful, the fact would thereby be established that Britain and France are responsible for a continuation of the war, in which case the governments of Germany and Russia will consult each other as to necessary measures.”

This is ludicrous, but may mean that Russia comes into the war on the side of Germany. The same Nazi circles which last August said that Britain and France wouldn’t fight after the first Nazi-Soviet accord, tonight were sure that the two democracies would agree to stop the war now. They may be wrong again, though I’m not quite sure.

B
ERLIN
,
September
30

The talk of peace dominates all else here today. The Germans are sure of it, and one of the secretaries of the Soviet Embassy told me today Moscow was too. He said London and Paris would jump at the chance for peace now. The
Völkische Beobachter
observes today: “All Europe awaits the word of peace from London. Woe to them who refuse it. They will some day be stoned by their own people.”

Did a four-way broadcast with London, Paris, and New York tonight, but seeing the show was running late, I slashed my part so much it didn’t make much sense.

Ciano to see Hitler here tomorrow. Talk of the Germans using him to pressure London and Paris to make peace.

B
ERLIN
,
October
2

Just heard the BBC announce that English planes had flown over Berlin last night. A surprise to us here. No air-raid alarm. No sound of planes. But they’re all lying these days. The Germans say they’ve sunk the
Ark Royal
, for instance.

The family of Eleanor K., a naturalized American girl of German parentage who has been very helpful
to me here for years, has been after me since yesterday to do something about locating her. She left Amsterdam for Berlin a few days ago, but failed to arrive. I went over to the consulate today and got G. to put through a blitz call to the German secret police at the Dutch border. Answer: Eleanor is under arrest there. How shall I explain that to her family?

The local enthusiasm for peace a little dampened today by Churchill’s broadcast last night. I have been wondering about that one tube of shaving cream my ration gives me for the next four months. My beard will be pink.

A. blew in Saturday (September 30) accompanied by an American girl he had met in Warsaw. They had been wandering in the wilds of eastern Poland
for three weeks—between the German and Russian armies. He said they had lived for days on stale bread, wandering from village to village. Stale bread was all the peasants would sell them, though they had butter and eggs and meat. Most villages had already set up local soviets. A., who never loved the Poles and rather liked the Nazis, says whole villages in eastern Poland far off the beaten track, off the railroads and main roads, villages with no military importance whatsoever, have been destroyed by the German Luftwaffe for no reason he could think of. He says the German planes would often dive on lone peasant women in lonely fields and toss a bomb on them or machine-gun them. He saw the bodies. A. and his lady friend finally made their way to the German lines, rode for several days in open box-cars with German refugees, and eventually got to Germany.

Whitey, back from Poland, says he flew over Warsaw Saturday (September 30) and it was in flames. What few buildings he could see in the heart of town that weren’t burning were in ruins. He thinks tens of
thousands of civilians in the city have perished. He spent three days with the Soviet army, but was not greatly impressed. He was struck by the number of women in the Red army. Whitey took part in a peculiar mission. Göring had a report that several German airmen captured by the Poles had been murdered in a concentration camp near the Russian border. Four German planes, one with Whitey and some German officers, the other three loaded with coffins, set off to find the bodies. They dug up graves all over eastern Poland, but never the right ones. Finally in a field they thought they had at last discovered what they were after. There was a big mound, freshly covered over. They dug furiously. They found—fifty dead horses.