Berlin Diary (57 page)

Broadcast for a third time at two a.m., and now, sick in the stomach from nothing I’ve eaten, to bed.

B
ERLIN
,
April
10

It is plain from what I have heard today that Hitler and the High Command expected Norway to give up without a scrap. Now that it hasn’t, the complete confidence of yesterday is evaporating. An inspired statement today warned the populace that “yesterday was only the beginning of a daring enterprise. Allied counter-action is still to be reckoned with.” As a matter of fact, I get an impression in army and navy circles that if the British go in with their navy and back it up with strong landing-forces, Germany will have a much bigger fight on her hands than she bargained for. The German weak spot is its lack of a navy. The garrisons in the western Norwegian ports can only be supplied by sea. Also there are no suitable airfields north of Stavanger.

Following a brief account of the naval battle between German and British destroyers at Narvik today, the High Command mentions something that has us a bit baffled. It remarks that on April 8—that is, the day
before the Germans seized the Norwegian harbours—“a British destroyer was sunk in another affair.” Several of us have a hunch that if we could find out what that “other affair” was, we might penetrate the mystery of how the German navy managed to get warships and landing-parties into so many Norwegian ports so quickly without the British navy doing anything about it.
²⁰
As it is, it is incomprehensible.

B
ERLIN
,
April
11

London reports that Bergen and Trondheim have been recaptured by the Allies. The German High Command flatly denies it. It also categorically denies London reports that there has been a great naval battle in the Skagerrak—scene of the World War Battle of Jutland, incidentally. Only naval losses admitted up to date are the 10,000-ton cruiser
Blücher
in Oslo Fjord and the 6,000-cruiser
Karlsruhe
off Kristiansand, both sunk by Norwegian coastal batteries the morning of the 9th.

Learn that Hitler has warned Sweden of the dire consequences of acting unneutral at this present juncture. As far as I can learn the Swedes are scared stiff, will not come to the aid of their Norwegian brethren, and will take their medicine later. Strange how these little nations prefer to be swallowed by Hitler one at a time.

A Foreign Office spokesman told us today that Mr. Hambro, President of the Norwegian parliament, was an “unclean gentleman and a Jew.” The Nazi man in Norway
turns out to be a former War Minister, one Vidkun Quisling, and he seems to have had a fairly strong fifth-column organization. One man in the Wilhelmstrasse told me he would be the Norwegian premier. The
Börsen Zeitung
complains of King Haakon’s “unintelligible attitude…. By his inflexible attitude he has shown himself to be badly advised and not the true protector of the interests of his people.”

The BBC tonight quotes Churchill as having said in the House of Commons today that “Hitler has committed a grave strategical error” and that the British navy will now take the Norwegian coast and sink all ships in the Skagerrak and the Kattegat. God, I hope he’s right.

B
ERLIN
,
April
14

I’ve at last found out how the Germans, without an adequate navy, occupied the chief Norwegian ports along a thousand-mile coastline under the very nose of the British fleet. German troops with guns and supplies were transported to their destinations in cargo boats which ostensibly were on their way to Narvik to fetch Swedish iron. These freighters, as they’ve been doing since the beginning of the war, sailed within the Norwegian three-mile limit and thus escaped discovery by the British navy. Ironically!—they were even escorted to their goals by Norwegian warships which had orders to protect them from the British!

But that does not explain how the British let half the striking power of the German fleet—seven destroyers,
one heavy cruiser, and one battleship—get all the way up the Norwegian coast unobserved.

German naval circles admit that their seven destroyers were wiped out by a superior British attacking force at Narvik yesterday, but say they hold the town. Tomorrow’s papers however will say:
“GREAT BRITISH ATTACK ON NARVIK REPULSED.”
When I showed an early edition of one of the papers to a naval captain tonight, he blushed and cursed Goebbels.

Learn General von Falkenhorst has posted the following proclamation in Oslo: “The Norwegian government has turned down several offers of co-operation. The Norwegian people must now decide the future of their Fatherland. If the proclamation is obeyed, as it was with great understanding in Denmark, Norway will be spared the horrors of war. However, if any more resistance is offered and the hand which was held out with friendly intentions rejected, then the German High Command will feel itself forced to act with the sharpest means to break the resistance.”

Hitler is sowing something in Europe that one day will destroy not only him but his nation.

B
ERLIN
,
April
17

Hitler has sent greetings today to the royal family of Denmark on the occasion of the birth of a daughter to the Crown Princess!

The German press and radio turned its big guns on Holland today. Said an inspired statement from the Foreign Office: “In contrast to Germany, the Allies do not wish to prevent the little states from being drawn into the war”!

B
ERLIN
,
April
18

Joe [Harsch] back from Copenhagen with a nice tale. He reports that on the evening of April 8 the Danish King, somewhat disturbed over that day’s reports, summoned the German Minister and asked him for assurances. The Minister swore to His Majesty that Hitler had no intention of marching into Denmark and that the day’s silly rumours were merely “Allied lies.” Actually at that moment, as the German Minister knew, several German coal ships were tied up in Copenhagen harbour, where they had arrived two days previously. Under the hatches, as he also knew, were German troops.

At dawn up came the hatches and the German soldiers piled out. The Royal Palace is but a short distance from the docks. Up the streets towards the palace marched the Nazi troops. The amazed Danes, going to work on their bicycles, could not believe their eyes. Many said afterwards they thought it was some film being shot. As the Germans approached the palace, the King’s guards, however, opened fire. The Germans returned it. When the King heard the firing, Joe says, he sent his adjutant out to tell his guards for goodness’ sake to stop shooting. The adjutant, waving wildly a white handkerchief, dashed out and gave the order to cease fire. The Germans, thankful for this co-operation, surrounded the palace. Meanwhile Danish workmen, riding to work on their bicycles, were ordered by the Germans to take a side street and avoid the palace. Some of them did not understand German quickly enough. The Germans fired, killing a dozen or so. X, a Yankee businessman who happened to be in Copenhagen, thinks the Germans are minimizing their naval losses. For one thing, he says he saw the masts of a
sunken pocket-battleship not sixty miles from Copenhagen.

Today, it is true, the German Admiralty called on the populace to show more patience and discipline and stop besieging the Admiralty for news of relatives. It promised that the relatives of the dead would be duly notified. Meanwhile I learn that the Gestapo has forbidden relatives who do know that one of their kin has been killed to publish death notices in the papers. Only two or three families of the top naval men who were killed have been permitted to publish the fact.

Wounded sailors and soldiers who escaped with their lives from the
Blücher
are arriving with horrible burns on their faces and necks. It seems that when the cruiser went down, it set loose on the water a lot of burning oil. Many men swimming about were burned to death. I suppose some of them died half from drowning, half from burning—a nice combination.

Not a word about these things in the press. The German people are spoon-fed only the more pleasant and victorious aspects of the war. I doubt that in their present mood they could stand much bad news.

Note that the Danes have been ruined by the German occupation. Denmark’s three million cows, three million pigs and twenty-five million laying hens live on imported fodder, mostly from North and South America and Manchukuo. Those supplies are now cut off. Denmark must slaughter most of its livestock, one of its main sources of existence.