Berlin Diary (3 page)

P
ARIS
,
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.

P
ARIS
,
August
2

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

P
ARIS
,
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.

P
ARIS
,
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.

P
ARIS
,
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.

B
ERLIN
,
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.”

B
ERLIN
,
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.

B
ERLIN
,
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.

N
UREMBERG
,
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.