Berlin Diary: XXXVII

We're back to the western front in Belgium in this excerpt, and then we'll finish out the extraordinary month of May, 1940, back in the relative safety of Berlin. Oh, and Shirer has a long (communal) chat with General von Reichenau.  

Excerpt from Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent, 1934-1941, by William L. Shirer.  Copyright by the author, 1940,1941.  Published by Alfred A. Knopf, June 20, 1941

Aachen, May 21, 1940

"Finally got to the actual front today and saw my first battle---along the Scheldt River in western Belgium.  It was the first actual fighting I had seen since the battle for Gydnia in Poland last September.  

Driving to the front we again went through Louvain.  Surprising how many people had returned.  The peasants had brought in food.  To our amazement, a small vegetable market was functioning in a ruined street.  

Heading southwest from Brussels, we drove along the road to Tournai, still in Allied hands.  At Tubize, a few miles southwest of Waterloo, the familiar signs of recent fighting---the houses along the streets demolished, half-burt debris everywhere.  So far, I thought, this war has been fought along the roads---by two armies operating on wheels.  Almost every town wholly or partially destroyed.  But the near-by fields untouched.  Returning peasants already tilling them.  

About noon we reached the Enghien  and drove the headquarters of Gerneral von Reichenau, commander of the 6th Army.  Headquarters were in a chateau not far from town.  In the park leading to the Schloss anti-aircraft guns were mounted everywhere.  It was one of those pleasant Renaissance chateaux that dot the countryside in Belgium and France, and the park and lawn leading up to it were cool and green.  

Reichenau, whom I had seen occasionally in Berlin before the war, greeted us on the porch.  He was tanned and springy as ever, his invariable monocle squeezed over one eye.  With typical German thoroughnessand with an apparent frankness that surprised me, he went over the oeprations thus far, stopping to answer questions now and then.  In a brief cable to CBS scribbled out later from my notes taken during the interview, I wrote:

"Despite the German successes to date, Reichenau emphasized to us that the fighting so far had been only an enveloping movement, and that the decisive battle had yet to take place.  

"When and Where?"  I asked him.  

"'Where," he laughed, "depends party on what the enemy does.  When and how long it will last, I leave to the future.  It can be short or long.  Remember, the preliminary fighting at Waterloo lasted several days.  The decisive battle at Waterloo was decided in eight hours.'

"Reichenau admitted that 'possibly our progress will now be slowed up if Weygand decides to make a grand stand.  We started this battle absolutely confident.  But we have no illusions.  We know we have a big battle ahead of us.'

"Reichenau said the German losses were comparatively small, so far, averaging about one tenth of the number of prisoners taken.  Last official counting of prisoners was 110,00, not counting the half-million Dutch who surrendered.

"Someone asked how the German infantry got across the rivers and canals so fast, seeing that the Allies destroyed the bridges pretty well.

"'Mostly in rubber boats,' he said."

Some futher quotations from Reichenau I noted down roughly.  

"Hitler is actually directing the German army from his headquarters.  Most of the blowing up of brides and roads in Belgium is carried out by French specialists....I ride 150 miles a day along the front and I haven't seen an air-fight yet.  We've certainly been surprised that the Allies disn't try at least to bomb our bridges over the Maas River and the Albert Canal.  The British tried it only once in the day-time.  We show down eighteen of them.  But there seems to be no doubt that the English are holding back with their air force.  At least that's the impression I got."

And I got the impression that this rather bothered him!

Further notes of talk with Reichenau:

"English have two army corps in Belgium, largely motorized.  Belgians hold the north sector; British the centre and southern flanks....We encountered one Moroccan division.  It fought well, but lacked staying power and didn't hold out long.... The hardest fighting the first days was along the Albert Canal.  Then, later, along the Dyle Lind, especially around Gembloux, northwest of Namur.."  

A few more questions and answers.  The gneral is in almost a jovial mood.  He is not tense.  He is not worried.  You wonder: "Have these German generals no nerves?"  Because, after all, he is directing a large army in an important battle.  A few miles down the road two million men are trying to slaughter one another.  He bosses around almost a million of them.  The general smiles and, jauntily, says good-bye.  

"I've just given permission for you to go to the front," he says.  His eyes light up.  "You may well be under fire.  But you'll have to take your chances.  We all do."

He turns us over to adjutant, who wines us with an excellent Bordeaux, no doubt from the cellar below.  Then off to the front.  

Soon we hear the distant rumble of artillery.  We are on the road to Ath, which I note on my map, is as near to Lille, still held by the French, as it is to Brussels.  More evidence now that the battle is just ahead.  The Red Cross ambulances pass by more frequently.  The stench of dead horses in the village streets.  In the pastures off the roads, cattle lying motionless on the grass, felled by a bomb or a shell.  

Near Ath we make a little detour and hit down a pleasant country lane.  A first lietenant, recentaly an official in the Wilhelmstrasse ministry, who is one of our guides, stands up, Napoleon-like, in the front seat of the car and goes through great gesticulations to give us signals, now to turn, then to stop, etc.  Our dirvers all soldiers, say his excited signals mean nothing; the boys at the wheels of our cars laugh...But the lieutenant smells the blood of battle, though we are still some distance from it.  

We come, all of a sudden, on a very pungent smell.  All that is left of a small, miscellaneous French column after a German air attack.  Along the narrow road are a dozen dead horses stinking to heaven in the hot sun, two French tanks, their armour pierced like tissue paper, an abandoned six-inch gun and a 75; and a few trucks, abandoned in great haste, for scattered about them are utensils, coats, shirts overcoats, helmets, tins of food, and----letters to wives and girls and mothers back home.  

I note the freshly dug graves just off the road, marked by a stick on which hangs a French helmet.  I pick up some of the letters, thinking perhaps one day I can mail them or take them to their destination and explain, maybe, what the last place, where the end came, was like.  Just the scrawled letters: "Ma chere Jacqueline," "Chere Maman," etc.  I glance through one or two.  They must have been written before the push began.  They tell of boredom of army life and how you are waiting for your next leave in Paris, "ma cherie."

The stench of the dead horses in the late spring sunshine is hard to endure, though someone has sprinkled lime on them.  So we push on.  We pass a tiny village.  Five or six houses at the crossing of a path with the road.  Cattle graze in the pastures.  Pigs squeal about the barnyards.  All are thirsty, for the farmhouses are deserted.  The cows have not been milked for some days and their udders are painfully swollen.  

We can hear the guns pounding very clearly now.  We speed down the dusty road past endless German columns of trucks carrying troops, carrying ammunition, carrying all-important oil, hauling guns, big and small.  The bridge over a stream or a canal at Leuze has been blown up, but German engineers have already constructed an emergency one over which we go.  

Leuze is jammed with vehicles and troops.  Blocks of houses have been smashed to smithereens.  Some still smoulder.  We stop for half an hour on a pleasant little square, surrounded by a church, a school, ad the City Hall or some government building.  The school is a Red Cross station.  I meander over to it.  The ambulances are lined up, waiting to unload the wounded, seven or eight of them, waiting.  Even with the wounded there is the same machine-like, impersonal organization.  No excitement, no tension.  Even the wounded seem to play their part in this gigantic businesslike machine.  They do not moan.  They do not murmur.  Nor complain.  

We get a bite to eat while we wait----a piece of brown bread with some sort of canned fish ragout spread over it.  Then off to the front.  Before we start, the army officer in charge warns of the danger.  Warns that we must follow his orders promptly.  Explains how to dive for a near-by field and lie flat on your belly if the Allied planes come over or if the French artillery opens fire.  Our party is a little tense now as we go forward.  We proceed north, parallel with the front, and back of it about five miles to Renaix, hurry through the town, and then north towards the Scheldt River, where they're fighting.  Infantry on foot, almost the first we've seen---on foot---are deploying down various spaths towards the river.  Heavy artillery---and this is amazing to see---six inch guns, pulled by caterpillar trucks, and on rubber tires, are being hauled up a hillside at forty miles an hour.  (It is one of the German military secrets, such big guns being hauled so fast?)  Finally we stop,.  A battery of six-inch guns, concealed under the trees in an orchard at the right of the road, is pounding away.  Now we have a view over the valley of the Scheldt and can see the slopes on the other side.  The artillery thunders, and a second later you see the smoke from teh shells on the far slopes.  An officer explaines they're bombarding the roads behing the enemy lines.  You can follow the winding roads on the other side by teh smoke of each exploding shell.  We pile out of our cars, but immediately someone orders us back.  Someone explains we're too exposed.  Enemy planes or artillery could get us here.  Sow e cut back, and then turn due west and climb a hill beyond the the artillery positions, so that they are now behind us, firing over our heads.  This an artillery observation post in the woods at the summit of the hill.  We sit on a slpe and look through the trees towards the front line.  

But it's disappointing.  You see so little, actually.  You cannot make out the infantry, or what they're doing.  An officer explains they're fighting along the river there below.  The Allies still hold both banks, but are retreating across the Scheldt.  The only evidence you have of infantry fighting is that the German artillery barrage advances.  Then stops.  Then starts again much nearer to us.  You conclude that the other side has counter-attacked, and the Germans attack, behind its artillery barrage, must start all over again.  An amateur officer from the Wilhelmstrasse insists he can follow the infantry.  I grab my glasses.  The infantry is invisible.  

From the smoke of the exploding shells on the slopes across the Scheldt you can see that the Germans are giving the enemy's rear lines a terrific pounding.  Through field-glasses yous ee how the Germans shoot up the road, following all the windings.  After a while there is a great cloud of smoke spreading over the far side.  So far we haven't heard much of the German artillery as a factor in their amazing progress.  The work of the Stuka bombers took most of our attention.  But it's obvious that this German motorized artillery, brought up to position right behind the advancing tanks at forty miles per hour, is a tremendous factor.  The Allies probably had not reckoned that artillery could move so fast.  Around us now the Germans are firiing with six-inch guns and 105's.  The noise is not so deafening as I expected.  Perhaps one's ears get used to it.  

A young soldier comes up and attempts to plant some propaganda on us.  Remarks offhand that last might the British counter-attacked, got back as far as the woods where we are, and carried off all the civilians.  Most of us are not impressed.  I conclude that if they did counter-attack and came back for an evening, most of the civilians probably went back with them of their own accord, so as not to fall into German hands.  Even the Italians with us laugh.  

I note that all over the front all afternoon hover two or three reconaissance planes, German, obviously directing artillery fire.  They cruise above the battlefield unmolested.  But there are no planes directing Allied artillery fire, which is strange.  The lack of observation planes along puts the Allies in a hole.  In fact we did not see an Allied plane all day long.  Once or twice we get an alarm, but no planes show up.  How England and France are paying now for the criminal neglect of their aviation!

As the afternoon wears away to the pounding of the guns, artillery units near us get orders to take up new positions forward.  The advance, you suppose, is going ahead according to schedule.  Immediately from all around us in teh woods, men and motors, which we have not even see, limber up, the men toss off some of the tree limbs which have so completely camoflauged them and get off.  We take a last look at the Scheldt Valley, at the smoke rising from the bursting shells on the other side of the river.  Probably it all has meaning for these German officers around us.  Each whistling shell has a certain errand.  Each gun and truck rushing down teh road is going to some place assigned to it.  Each of the thousands upon thousands.  The whole chaos (to me) of the battlefield is in reality a picture of a well-oiked machine of destruction in action.  

We drive back to Brussels.  German dive-bombers fly past us, going up to do a little late-afternoon work.  At Brussels German fighters and bombers demonstrate over the city.  This is the German idea of how to impress the population....

It is midnight before we reach Aachen.  At Masstricht the Germans are expecting British bombers.  A quarter of a mile from the repaired bridge, a soldier stops us.  All lights must be put out.  We drive along in teh moonlight---it's almost full moon tonight; lovely---across the bridge.  A quarter of a mile away, a soldier stops us; says we can put on our dim lights.  Efficiency.

Most of the boys in the party have looted Brussels for the second time and are worried that the Germans (who still keep a customs shed at the old Dutch-German border!) will take away their booty.  But they do not.  

Too late to broadcast, so I write a story to be phoned to Berlin, cabled to New York, and there read over the air.  I've hardly sat down to write when the British come over Aachen.  I leave my room, which is on the next to top florr (having moved out of the attic), and write my piece in the dining-room on the ground floor.  The anti-aircraft of all calibres keep thundering away.  Now and then oyou feel the concussion of a bomb and hear it exploding.  Our little hotel is a hundred yards from the station.  The British are obviously trying to get the station and the railroad yards.  You hear the roar of their big planes; occasionally the whirr of German night chasers...

My call comes through about one twenty a.m.  I can hardly make myself heard for the sound of the guns and the bombs.  
While writing my story, I keep notes on the air-raid.

12:20 a.m.    Sound of anti-aircraft
12.40        Air-raid sires sound off
12.45        Big anti-aircraft gun near by thunders suddenly
12.50        Sound of cannon from German chasers
1.00        Light anti-aircraft around station blazes away
1.15         Still going on.  

I went to sleep for four hours, until just after four a.m.  But after my call to Berlin, being a little sleepy, I went up to bed and fell immediately asleep

Berlin, May 24, 1940

Two weeks ago today Hitler unloosed his Blitzkrieg in the west.  Since then this has happened:  Holland overrun; four-fifths of Belgium occupied; the French army hurled back towards Paris; and an Allied army believed to number two million men and including the elite of the Franco-British forces, trapped and encircled on the Channel.  

You have to see the German army in action to believe it.  Here are some of the things, so far as I could see, that make it good:

It has absolute air superiority,  It seems incredible, but at the front I did not see a single Allied plane during the day-time.  Stuka dive-bombers are softening the Allied defence positions, making them ripe for an easy attack.  Also, they're wrecking Allied communications in the rear, bombing roads filled with trucks, tanks, and guns, wiping out strategic railroad stations and junctions.  Furthermore, reconaissance planes are giving the German command a perfect picture of what is going on.  Against this, the Allies have no eyes; few of their reconnaissance planes get over.  Also, Allied bombers have completely failed to disturb German lines of communications by day-time attacks.  One of the sights that overhwelms you at the front is the vast scale on which the Germans bring up men, guns and supplies unhindered.  Because of the thorough manner in which the Belgians and French destroyed their railroad bridges, the German command decided to use exclusively motor transport.  All day long at the front, driving along at forty or fifty miles an hour, you pass unending mechanized columns.  They stretch clear across Belgium, unbroken.  And they move fast---thirty or forty miles an hour.  You wonder how they are kept fed with gasoline and oil.  But they are.  Gas supplies come forward with everything else.  Every driver knows where he can tank up when he runs short.  

What magnificent targets these endless columns would make if the Allies had any planes!

And what a magnificent machine that keeps them running so smoothly.  In fact it is the chief impression you get from watching the German army at work.  It is a gigantic, impersonal war machine, run as cooly and efficiently, say, as our automobile industry in Detroit.  Directly behind the front, with the guns pounding the daylight out of your ears and the airplanes roaring overhead, and the thousands of motorized vehicles thundering by on the dusty roads, officers and men alike remain cool and business-like.  Absolutely no excitement, no tension.  An officer directing artillery fire stops for half an hour to explain to you what he is up to.  General von Reichenau, directing a huge army in a crucial battle, halts for an hour to explain to amateurs his particular job.  

Morale of the German troops fantastically good. I remember a company of engineers which was about to go down to the Scheldt River to lay a pontoon bridge under enemy fire.  The men were reclining on the edge of the wood reading the day's edition of the army daily paper, the Western Front.  I've never seen men going into a battle from which some were never going to come out alive so----well, so nonchalantly.  

The contention of the BBC is that these flying German columns---such as the one that broke through to the sea at Abbeville---are weak forces which cannot possibly hold what they get, is a myth.  The Germans thrust not only with tanks and a few motorized infantry, but with everything.  Light and heavy motorized artillery goes right up behind the tanks and infantry.  

Berlin, May 25, 1940

German military circles here tonight put it flatly.  They said the fate of the great Allied army bottled up in Flanders is sealed.  

Berlin, May 26, 1940

Calais has fallen.  Britain is now cut off from the Continent.  

Berlin, May, 28, 1940

King Leopold has quit on the Allies.  At dawn, the Belgian army, which with the British and French had been caught in an every narrowing pocket for a week in Flanders and Artois, laid down its arms.  Leopold during the night had sent an emissary to the German lines asking for an armistice. The Germans demanded unconditional surrender.  Leopold accepted.  This leaves the British and the French in a nice hole.  High Command says it makes their position "hopeless."  Picked up a broadcast by Reynaud this morning accusing Leopold of having betrayed the allies.  Churchill, according to BBC, was more careful.  Said, in a short statement to Commons, he would not pass judgment.  

Great jubilation in the press here over the capitulation of the Belgians.  After eighteen days, the Berlin papers remind us.  It took the Germans just eighteen days to liquidate the Poles.  They'll probably have the rest of the Allied army in their pocket before the weekend.  Churchill, according to the BBC, warned the House to expect bad news soon.  

For the first time, communiques today kept pouring out of the "Führer's Headquarters."  All of them sounded as if they'd been dictated by Hitler himself.  For example this typical attempt to sound generous: "DNB.  Führer's Headquarters, May 28.  The Fuhrer has orderd that the King of the Belgians and his army be given treatment worthy of the brave, fighting soldiers which they proved to be.  As the King of the Belgians expressed no personal wishes for himself, he will be given a castle in Belgium until his final living-place is decided upon."  

Decided upon by whom?  

Nazi propaganda is doing its best to show that Leopold did the decent, sensible thing.  Thus the wording of a special communique which the German radio tells its listeners will "fill the German nation with pride and joy":  

"From the headquarters of the Führer it is announced: Impressed by the destructive effort of the German army, the King of the Belgians had decided to put an end ot further senseless resistance and at ask for an armistice.  He has met the German demands for unconditional capitulation.  The Belgian army has today laid down its arms and therewith ceased to exist.  In this hour we think of our brave soldiers...The entire German nation looks with a feeling of deep gratitude and unbounded pride upon the troops...which forces this capitulation...The King of the Belgians, in order to put an end to the further devastation of his country, reached his decision to lay down arms, against the wishes of the majority of his Cabinet.  This Cabinet, which is mainly responsible for the catastrophe which has broken over Belgium, seems to be willing even now to continue to follow its English and French employers."

The headlines tonight: "CHURCHILL AND REYNAUD INSULT KING LEOPOLD!---THE COWARDS IN LONDON AND PARIS ORDER TO THE CONTINUATION OF THE SUICIDE IN FLANDERS."  The German radio said tonight: "Leopold acted like a solider and a human being."

I saw at the front last week the terrible punishment the Belgian army was taking; saw all of Belgium, outside of Brussels, laid waste by the German artillery and Stukas.  You can sympathize with Leopold in a sense for wanting to quit.  But the French and British say he did it without consulting them, thus betryaing and leaving them in a terrible situation, with no chance of extricating their armies from the trap.  The three armies together had a small chance of fighting their way out.  With half a million excellent Belgian troops out of the picture, the fate of the British and French armies, it would seem is sealed.  

A nice, civilized war, this.  Goring announces tonight that as a result of information reaching him that the French are mistreating captured German airmen, all French flyers captured by the Germans will immediately be put in chains.  Further, Goring proclaims that if he hears of a German flyer being shot by the French, he will order five French prisoners shot.  Futher still, if he hears of a German flyer being shot "while parachuting," he will order fifty French prisoners shot.  

Allies, as far as we know, are shooting parachutists who fail to surrender, because these boys were largely responsible for the fall of Holland and play hell behind the lines.  Probably ordinary German flyers parachuting from shot-down planes have been mistaken for the dreaded parachutists.  Goring's order, however, is obviously part of Hitler's technique of conquering by sowing terror.  B., who was in Rotterdam last week, says the town was largely destroyed after it had surrendered.  German excuse is that the surrender came after the Stukas had left the ground and they could not be recalled in time!  This sounds flimsy, as they all carry radios and are in constant touch with the ground.  

Göring added that the above rule of shooting fire to one or fifty to one would not apply to the English, "as they have not yet given grounds for such reprisals."

The Propaganda Ministry tonight showed us a full length news-reel, with sound effects, of the destruction in Belgium and France.  Town after town, city after city, going up in flames.  Close-ups of the crackling flames devouring the houses, shooting out of the windows, roofs, and walls tumbling in, where a few days ago men and women were leady peaceful, if not too happy, lives.  

The German commentator's enthusiasm for the destruction seemed to grow as one burning town after another was shown.  He had a cruel, rasping voice and by the end seemed to be talking in a whirl of sadism.  "Look at the destruction, the houses going up in flames," he cried.  "This is what happens to those who oppose Germany's might!"

And is Europe soon to be ruled and dominated by such a people---by such sadism?

Berlin, May 29, 1940

Boss of one of the big American broadcasting chains (not Columbia) cables the German Broadcasting Company today: "PLEASE ARRANGE BROADCAST BY KING LEOPOLD."

Lille, Bruges, Ostend captured!  Ypres stormed!  Dunkirk bombarded!  Fate of encircled Allied armies sealed!...the incredible headlines went on today without a let-up.  Tonight still another phase  of this gigantic battle, without precedent in history, appeared---at least in Berlin---to be drawing to a conclusion.

The German High Command told the story today in these words at the beginning of its communique today: "The fate of the French army in Artois is sealed.  Its resistance south of Lille has collapsed.  The English army which has been compressed into the territory around Dixmunde, Armentieres, Bailleul, Beruges, west of Dunkirk, is also going to its destruction before our concentric attack."

And then this evening the German command announced that in rapid attacks designed to crush the British armyYpres and Kimmel hav been stormed.  

In reality, the Germans tell us, the French and British armies since yesterday have been isolated, the one from the other, and each trapped in a tiny pocket.  The smaller pocket, which is in the form of a square, the sides of which are about twelve miles long, lies south of Lille---between there and Douai.  In that small square is that is left of three French armies, and tonight the Germans are battering them from four sides.  The larger pocket runs roughly in a semicircle around the port of Dunkirk, reaching inland for some twenty-five miles.  Here the British are trapped.  

What next, then, if the British and French armies either surrender or are annihilated, as the Germans say they will be in their two pockets?  The first invastion of England since 1066?  England's bases on the Continent, barring a last-minute miracle, are gone.  The lowlands, just across the Channe and the narrow sourthern part of the North Sea, which it has always been a cardinal part of British policy to defend, are in enemy hands.  And the French Channel ports which linked Britain with its French ally are lost.  

Most people here think Hitler will now try to conquer England.  Perhaps.  I'm not so sure.  Maybe he'll try to finish France first.  

One weird aspect of yesterday's fighting: When the Germans yesterday took French positions east of Kassel, they actually ambushed the French fortifications along the Franco-Belgian border from behind, from the reverse side.  

Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, killed in action on the western front, was buried with military honours in Potsdam today.  If things had gone smoothly after 1914, he probably would have been the German emperor.  Present at the funeral were the Crown Prince and Princess, Mackensen and a lot of World War officers in their quaint spike helmets.  The former Kaiser sent a wreath.  

More on the nerve war:  An official statement tonight says that for every German civilian killed and every stone damanged in German during the night raids of the British, revenge will be taken many times over.

Berlin, May 30, 1940

Our Memorial Day.  I remembered it when one of the consuls phoned and reminded me of a month-old golfing date.  How many killed in the Civil War?

A German dropped in today.  He said: "How many years will the war last?"  The question surprised me in the light of the news.  Last week three Germans in the Wilhelmstrasse bet me the Germans would be in London in three weeks---that is, two weeks from now.  

This German also mentioned a matter that's been bothering me: German losses and the effect on the people of not being allowed to know by Hitler what the losses are and who is killed.  (Hitler will not permit the publication of casualty lists.)  He said pepple are comparing that situation with the one in 1914-18, when every day the papers published the names of those lost, and every few months, he said, a resume of the total casualties up to date in killed and wounded.  But today no German has the slightest idea of what the western offensive has cost in German lives.  He doesn't even know what the Norwegian campaign cost.  The last figures he had were on the Polish campaign, and even then he was skeptical of those Hitler gave.  

The great battle in Flanders and Artois neared its end today.  It's a terrific German victory.  Yesterday, according to the German High Command,  the British made a great bid to rescue what is left of the BEF by sea.  Sent over fifty transports to fetch their troops along the coast around Dunkirk.  Germans say they sent over two flying corps to bomb them.  Claim they sank sixteen transports and three "warships," which no doubt is exaggerated, and hit and damaged, or set on fire, twenty-one transports and ten warships, which is probably an even greater exaggeration.  British sent out hundreds of planes to protect their fleet.  The Germans claim they shot down 68 British planes.  The British claim they shot down 70 German planes.  

What is left of the three French armies cut off in Flanders and Artois is being gradually annihilated, one gathers from the German reports.  Today the Germans say they captured the commander of the 1st French Army, General Prieux.  They'd already go General Giroud, commander of one of the other two armies, the day he took over.  The French apparently are entirely surrounded.  The British still have the sea open and are undoubtedly getting as many men as possible.  London yesterday said that the British were fighting "the greatest rear-guard action in history."  But they've been fighting too many of these.  

Much talk here that Hilter is getting ready to bomb the hell out of London and Paris.  A press and radio campaign to prepare his own people for it is already under way.  Today the attack was mostly against the French.  The Völkische Beobachter called them "bastardized, negroized, decadent,"  and accused them of torturing German airment whom they've captured.  It said that soon the French will be made to pay for all of this.  The papers are full of talk of revenge for this and that.  

The German Ambassdor to Belgium gave us a harangue at the press conference today on how he was mistreated by the French on his way out of Switzerland.  As a German told me afterwards, the Germans seem incapable of apprehending that the hate against them in France and Belgium is due to the fact that Germany invaded these countries---Belgium without the slightest excuse or justification----and laid waste to their towns and cities, and killed thousands of civilians with their bombings and bombardments.  Just another example of that supreme German characteristic of being unable to see for a second the other fellow's point of view.  Same with the wrath here at the way their airmen are being treated.  The other side is tough with airmen coming down in parachutes because it knows Hitler has conquered Holland by landing parachutists behind the lines.  But the Germans think that other side should not defend itself from men dropping from the skies.  If it dows, if it shoots them, then German will massacre prisoners already in her hands.  

Berlin, May 31, 1940

Italy seems to be drawing near to the day of decision---to go in on Germany's side.  Today Alfieri, the Italian Ambassador, saw Hitler at his headquarters.  

It was three weeks ago today that Hitler hurled is armies into Holland, Belgium, Luxemburg and France in a desperate effort to knock out the Allies in one blow.  So far, after three weeks, he has had nothing but success.  What it has cost him in lives and material, we do not know yet.  This is what he's accomplished in three weeks.  

1.  Overrun Holland; forced Dutch army to surrender.  

2.  Overrun Belgium; forced Belgian army to surrender.

3.  Advanced far south of the extension of the Maginot Line on a front extending over two hundred miles from Montmedy to Dunkirk.  

4.  Knocked out the 1st, 7th, and 9th French Armies, which were cut off when one German army broke through to the sea.

5.  Knocked out the BEF, which is also surrounded.  Some of the men, at least, of the BEF, are getting away on ships from Dunkirk.  But as an army it's finished.  IT cannot take away its guns and supplies and tanks.  

6.  Obtained the Dutch, Belgian and French Channel coasts as a jumping-off place for an invasion of England.  

7.  Occupied the important coal mines and industrial centres of Belgium and northern France.  

I said in my broadcast tonight: "The Germans have certainly won a terrific first round.  But there has been no knockout blow---yet.  The fight goes on."  

Some of my friends thought that was being a bit optimistic---from the Allied point of view.  Maybe.  But I'm not so sure.  

First American ambulance driver to be captured by the Germans is one Mr. Garibaldi Hill.  The Germans have offered to release him at onece.  Only they can't find him.  

Word from our people in Brussels today that there is food in Belgium for only fifty days.  

Ran into one of our consuls from Hamburg.  He says the British have been bombing it at night severely.  Trying to hit, for one thing, the oil tanks.  He claims they're dry.  It seesm that the Germans took all the anti-aircraft guns from Hamburg for use at the front.  Hence the British came over without any trouble and were able to fly low enough to do some accurate bombing.  The population got so jittery that the authorities had to bring some of the guns back. "