Berlin Diary: XLVI

We're coming to the close of William Shirer's career as a foreign correspondent in Berlin.  Due to the overarching censorship of the Nazi regime, which has pretty much prevented him from doing his job---reporting the news---he has decided to leave Berlin.  He's closed up their apartment in Geneva, his wife and child are on their way across France and Spain headed toward Lisbon whence they'll pick up a boat that will take them to the states, and Shirer, lighter at heart, is bound and determined to start wrapping up some business before he goes...

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

Berlin, November 5, 1940

"If all goes well, I shall leave her a month from today, flying all the way to New York---by Lufthansa plane from here to Lisbon, by Clipper from ther 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 the are very cranky.  

Berlin, November 6, 1940

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 rea leaders produced by the democracies sicne 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 Chamerblain 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 Wilkie turned out to be a bitter enemy of Berlin, the Nazis figured that, were he elected, there would be a two months' interim in 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 more than any other factor in the war except Winston Churchill.  No wonder there were long faces in the Wilhelmstrasse tonight when it became certain Roosevelt had won.
          
Berlin, November 8, 1940

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 hed his speech in another beer cellar, the Löwenbräu.  As with all his speeches since the British began to come ovre, he began it after dark so that the meeting was over before the RAF bombers arrived.  His address today raised a small 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 me 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 Fuhrer 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 military 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 had 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., sincce 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.  

Berlin, November 9, 1940

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

The chief of the Air-Raid Protection in Berlin recently advised 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 neighbors 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 chage, 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 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, Molotov insisted on sending a regiment of GPU plain-clothes men, and Himmler would agree to only a company of them.  Then Hiter and Ribbentrop exerted all the pressure the could to force Stalin to send Molotov here just before the American elections.  For some reason they though 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 timong 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.  

Berlin, November 11, 1940

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 Kruezberg dance.  He's getting a little old now and is not quite so nimble or graceful, though still very good.  The hall was packed.  

Berlin, November 12, 1940

A dark, drizzling day, and Molotov arrived, his reception being extremely stiff and formal.  Driving up the Linden to the Soviet Embassy, he looked to me like a plugging, provincial schoolmaster.  But to have survived in the cut-throat competition of the Kremlin he must have something.  The Germans talk glibly of letting Moscow have that old Russian dream, the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, while they will take the rest of the Balkans, Rumania, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria. If the Italians can take Greece, which is beginning to look doubtful, they can have it.  

When I went to our Embassy today to get a tin of coffee from my stores, which I keep there, the box, containing a half-year's supply, was gone.  It had just disappeared.  If I were not leaving shortly, this would be a blow.  Coffee, ever since it became impossible to buy it in Germany, has assumed a weird importance in one's life.  The same with tobacco.  Some times the Embassy takes pity on me, but for the most part I smoke German pipe tobacco.  Of late it has made foul smoking.  

Berlin, November 14, 1940

We thought the British would come over last night when Ribbentrop and Göring were feting Molotov at a formal state banquet.  The Wilhelmstrasse was very nervous at the prospect, for they did not like the idea of adjourning to the cellar with their honoured Russian guests.  Instead, the British came over this evening---shortly before nine p.m., the earliest yet----while Molotov was host to the Germans at the Soviet Embassy.  Molotov, we hear, declined to go to the cellar and watched the fireworks from a darkened window.  The British were careful not to drop anything  near by.  

According to the German radio and the Warsaw Zeitung, Mr. Hoover's American representative here has offered his congratulations to Dr. Frank, the tough little Nazi Governor of Poland, on the anniversary of his year in office.  He congratulates him for what he has done for the Poles!

My information is that there will be no Polish race left when Dr. Frank and his Nazi thugs get through with them.  They can't kill them all, of course, but they can enslave them all.  

Berlin, November, 1940 (Undated)

A pleasant dinner and evening at X's in Dahlem.  Two well-known German figures present, one a high Nazi official, and they spent the evening telling jokes on the regime, especially on Goebbels, whom they both appeared to loathe.  About ten pm. the British came and we went up on the balcony to watch the fireworks, which were considerable.  Once there came the familiar whistle of a bomb just before it lands near you.  Automatically we all dived through the open door into a pitch-dark bedroom, landing in a heap on the floor.  The bomb shook the house, but we got no splinters.  Pitiful how few planes the British can spare for thsi Berlin job. There were not more than a dozen of them tonight.  They have done comparatively little damage here so far.  

Berlin, November 20, 1940

Today was Busstag, some sort of German Protestant holiday.  Feeling low, I went to a candlelight concert in the Charlottenburg castle and heard a string quartet play Bach nobly.  I am definitely getting away from here by plane to Lisbon on December 5 if I can get all the necessary papers in time.  The Foreign Office, the police, the secret police, and so on must approve my exit visa before I can leave.  And getting Spanish and Portuguese visas is proving no easy job.  Harry Flannery has arrived from St. Louis to take over.  

Berlin, November 23, 1940

Was having a most excellent dinner and some fine table-talk at Diplomat G.'s about eight-forty five this evening when the butler called me away to the phone.  It was one of the girls at the Rundfunk saying that the British bombers were about ten minutes away and that I had better hurry if I wanted to broadcast this evening.  I dashed out to my car.  An air-raid warden who had the advance notice tried to stop me from driving away, but I brushed past him.  I was not familiar with the blacked-out streets in this neighbourhood and twice almost drove at great speed into the Landwehr Canal.  I reached the Knie, about two miles from the Rundfunk when the sirens sounded.  To stop, obey the law, put my lights out, park and go to a shelter, as the law insisted?  That meant no broadcast.  Better to have remained at the dinner and enjoyed an evening for a change.  I had never missed a broadcast because of air-raids.  I decided to disobey the law.  I left my hooded lights on and stepped on the gas.  One policemenn after another along the Kaiserdamm popped out waving a little red lamp.  I raced by them, at fifty miles an hour.  It was a stupid thing to do, because several times I just brushed other cars which had stopped in the darkness and put out their lights, as the law prescribes.  You could not see them.  By miracle I did not smash into any of them, but about three blocks from the Runfunk I decided my luck had been good enough, pulled up my car, and sprinted to the radio before the police could snatch me into a public shelter.

I hear from party circles that Julius Streicher, the sadistic, Jew-baiting czar of Franconia and notorious editor of the anti-Semitic weekly Stürmer, has been arrested on order of Hitler.  No tears will be shed within or without the party, for he was loathed by nearly all.  I shall always remember him swaggering through the streets of Nuremberg, where he was absolute boss, brandishing the riding whip which he always carried.  he has been arrested, say party people, pending investigation of certain financial matters.  It Hitler cared much, he could make some additional investigations.  He could look into the little matter of how it came about that so many party leaders acquired great country estates and castles.  

Berlin, November 25, 1940

I have at last got to the bottom of these "mercy killings."  It's an evil tale.  

The Gestapo, with the knowledge and approval of the German government, is systematically putting to death the mentally deficient population of the Reich.  How many have been executed probably Himmler and a handful of Nazi chieftains know.  A conservative and trustworthy German tells me he estimates the number at a hundred thousand.  I think that figure is too high.  But certain it is that the figure runs into the thousands and is going up every day.  

The origin of this peculiar Nazi practice goes back to last summer after the fall of France, when certain radical Nazis put the ideal up to Hitler.  At first it was planned to have the Fuhrer issue a decree of law authorizing the putting to death of certain persons found mentally deficient.  But it was decided that this might be misunderstood if leaked out and be personally embarrassing to Hitler.  In the end Hitler simply wrote a letter to the secret police administration and the health authorities authorizing the Gnadenstoss (coup de grace) in certain instances where persons were proved to be suffering fron uncurable mental or nervous diseases.  Philipp Bouhler, state secretary in the Chancellery, is said to have acted as intermediary between Hitler and the Nazi extremists in working out this solution.  

At this point Bethel, already mentioned in these notes, creeps into the story.  Dr. Friedrich von Bodelschwingh is a Protestant pastor, beloved by Catholics and Protestants alike in western Germany.  At Bethel, as I have noted down previously, is his asylum for mentally deficient children.  Germans tell me it is a model institution of its kind, known all over the civilized worl.  Late last summer, it seems, Pastor von Bodelschwingh was asked to deliver up certain of his worst cases to the authorities.  Apparently he got wind of what was in store for them.  He refused.  The authorities insisted.  Pastor von Bodelschwingh hurried to Berlin to protest.  He got in touch with a famous Berlin surgeon, a personal friend of Hitler's.  The surgeon, refusing to believe the story, rushed to the Chancellery.  The Führer said nothing could be done.  The two men then went to Franz Gürtner, Minister of Justice.  Gürtner seemed more troubled at the fact that the killings were being carried out without benefit of a written law than that they were being carried out.  However, he did agree to complain to Hitler about the matter.  

Pastor von Bodelschwingh returned to Bethel.  The local Gauleiter ordered him to turn over some of his inmates.  Again he refused.  Berlin then ordered his arrest.  This time the Gauleiter protested.  The pastor was the most popular man in his province.  To arrest him in the middle of the war would stir up a whole world of unnecessary trouble.  He himself declined to arrest the man.  Let the Gestapo take the responsibility; he wouldn't.  This was just before the night of September 18.  The bombing of the Bethel asylum followed.  Now I understand why a few people wondered as to who dropped the bombs.  

Of late some of my spies in the provinces have called my attention to some rather peculiar death notices in the provincial newspapers. (In Germany the custom among all classes is to insert a small paid advertisment in the newspapers when a death occurs, giving the date and cause of death, age of the deceased, and time and place of burial.)  But these notices have a strange ring tot hem, and the place of death is always given as one of three spots: (1) Grafenneck, a lonely castle situation near Munzingen, sixty miles southeast of Stuttgart; (2) Hartheim, near Linz on the Danube; (3)the Sonnenstein Public Medical and Nursing Institue at Pirna, near Dresden.  

Now, these are the very three places named to me by Germas as the chief headquarters for the "mercy killings."

I am also informed that the relatives of the unfortunate victims, when they get the ashes back---they are never given bodies---receive a stern warning from the secret police not to demand explanations and not to "spread false rumours."  These provincial death notices therefore take on more meaning than they might otherwise.  I will note down some typical ones, changing the names, dates, and places, for obvious reasons.  

Leipziger Neueste Nachrichten, October 26: "JOHANN DIETTRICH, FRONT SOLDIER 1914-18, HOLDER OF SEVERAL WAR DECORATIONS, BORN JUNE 1, 1881, DECEASED SEPTEMBER 23, 1940.  AFTER WEEKS OF UNCERTAINTY, I RECEIVED THE UNBELIEVABLE NEWS OF HIS SUDDEN DEATH AND CREMATION AT GRAFENECK IN WURTTEMBERG."

From the same paper in October: 'AFTER WEEKS OF UNCERTAINTY, THE INTERNMENT OF MY BELOVED SON HANS, WHO DIED SUDDENLY ON SEPTEMBER 17 AT PIRNA, WILL TAKE PLACE ON OCTOBER 10."

Again: "WE HAVE RECEIVED THE UNBELIEVABLE NEWS THAT MY MOST BELOVED SON, THE ENGINEER RUDOLF MULLER, DIED SUDDENLY AND UNEXPECTEDLY NEAR LINZ-ON-THE-DANUBE.  THE CREMATION TOOK PLACE THERE."

Another: "AFTER THE CREMATION HAD TAKEN PLACE WE RECEIVED FROM GRAFENECK THE SAD NEWS OF THE SUDDEN DEATH OF OUR BELOVED SON AND BROTHER, OSKAR RIED.  INTERMENT OF THE URN WILL TAKE PLACE PRIVATELY AT X CEMETARY UPON ITS RECEIPT."

And: "AFTER WEEKS OF ANXIOUS UNCERTAINTY WE RECEIVED THE SHOCKING NEWS ON SEPTEMBER 18 THAT OUR BELOVED MARIANNE DIED OF GRIPPE ON SEPTEMBER 15 AT PIRNA.  THE CREMATION TOOK PLACE THERE.  NOW THAT THE URN HAS BEEN RECEIVED, THE BURIAL WILL TAKE PLACE PRIVATELY ON HOME SOIL."

This last notice is signed October 5, indicating that the authorities delayed three weeks in delivering the ashes.  Twenty-four such advertisements, I'm informed, appeared in the Leipzig papers the first fortnight of last month.  

I am struck by the second from the lat of these notices by the expression: "After the cremation had taken place, we received the sad news of the sudden death..."  Struck too by the expression used in the first two: "after weeks of uncertainty" came "sudden death"; and by the use of the words "unbelievable news."

Now wonder that to Germans used to reading between the lines of their heavily censored newspapers, these notices have sounded highly suspicious.  Does sudden death come naturally after "weeks of uncertainty" ?  And why are the bodies cremated first and the relatives told of the deaths later?  Why are they cremated at all?  Why aren't the bodies shipped hom, as is usually done?  

A few days ago I saw the form letter which the families of the victims receive.  It reads:

"We regret to inform you that your­­­­­_____, who was recently transferred to our institution by ministerial order, unexpectedly died on ­­­­____ of ____.  All our medical efforts were unfortunately without avail.

"In view of the nature of his serious, incurable ailment, his death, which saved him from a lifelong instituitional sojourn, is to be regarded merely as a release.  

"Because of the danger of contagion existing here, we were forced by order of the police to have the deceased cremated at once."

This is hardly a reassuring letter, even for the most gullible of Germans, and some of them, upon its receipt, have journeyed down to the lonely castle at Grafeneck, it seems, to make a few inquiries.  They have found the castle guarded by black-coated SS men who denied them entrance.  Newly painted signs on the road and paths leading into the desolate grounds warned: "Seuchengefahr!" ("Keep away!  Danger of pestilence!")  Frightened peasants near by have told them how the SS suddenly took over and threw a cordon around the estate.  They told of seeing trucks thundering into the castel grounds---but only at night.  Grafeneck, they said, had never been used as a hospital before.  

Other relatives, I'm told, have demanded details from the establishment at Hartheim, near Linz.  They have been told to desist, and that if they talk, severe punishment will be meted out.  Some of them obviously have taken their courage in their hands to publish these death notices, no doubt hoping to attract public attention to the murderous business.  The Gestapo, I hear, has now forbidden publication of such notices, just as Hitler, after the heavy naval losses in Norway, forbade the relatives of drowned sailors to publish notices.  

X., a German, told me yesterday that relatives are rushing to get their kin out of private asylums and out of the clutches of the authorities.  He says the Gestapo is doing to death persons who are merely suffering temporary derangement or just plain nervous breakdowns.  

What is still unclear to me is the motive for these murders.  Germans themselves advance three:

1.  That they are being carried out to save food.

2.  That they are being done for the purpose of experimentation with new poison gases and death rays.  

3.  That they are simply the result of the extreme Nazis deciding to carry out their eugenic and sociological ideas.  

The first motive is obviously absurd, since the death of 100,000 person will not save much food for a nation of 80,000,000.  Besides, there is no acute food shortage in Germany.  The second motive is possible, though I doubt it.  Poison gases may have been used in putting these unfortunates out of the way, but if so, the experimentation was only incidental.  Many Germans I have talked to think that some new gas which disfigures the body has been used, and that this is the reason why the remains of the victims have been cremated.  But I can get no real evidence of this.  

The third motive seems most likely to me.  For years a group of radical Nazi sociologists who were instrumental in putting through the Reich's sterilization laws have pressed for a national policy of eliminating the mentally unfit.  THey say they have disciples among many sociologists in other lands, and perhaps they have.  Paragraph two of the form letter sent the relatives plainly bears the stamp of this sociological thinking: "In view of the nature of his serious, incurable ailment, his death, which saved him from a lifelong institutional sojourn, is to be regarded as merely a release."  

Some suggest a fourth motive.  They say the Nazis calculate for ever three or four institutionalized cases, there must be one healthy German to look after them.  This takes several thousand good Germans away from more profitable employment.  If the insane are killed off, it is further argued by the Nazis, there will be plenty of hospital space for the war wounded should the war be prolonged and large casualties occur.  

It's a Nazi, messy business.*

*On December 6, 1940, the Vatican condemned the "mercy killings."  Responding to the question whether it is illicit for authorities to order the killing of those who, although they have committed no crime worthy of death, nevertheless are considered no longer useful to society or the state because of physical or mental deficiencies, the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office held that "such killings are contrary to both natural and divine law."  It is doubtful if the mass of German Catholics, even if they learned of this statement from Rome, which is improbable, understood what it referred to.  Only a minority in Germany know of the "mercy deaths."

Berlin, November 27, 1940

Flannery, though he has just arrived, must leave for Paris.  The Nazis pledge us to secrecy about a big story they claim will break there next week.  In radio, we must be there beforehand, if possible, to make our technical arrangements.  But I shall depart from this city on December 5, anyway.  Many stories about increasing sabotage in Holland.  The Germans are furious at the number of their men, both in the army and police, who are being shoved into the numerous Dutch canals on these dark nights and drowned.  X tells me a funny one.  He says the British intelligence in Holland is working fine.  Both sides in this war have build a number of dummy airdroms and strewn them with wooden planes.  X says the Germans recently completed a very large one near Amersterdam.  They lined up more than a hundred dummy planes made of wood on the field and waited for the British to come over and bomb them.  Next morning the British did come.  They let loose ith a lot of bombs.  The bombs were made of wood."