Berlin at War (15 page)

liness, cleanliness and normality. A few essentials had certainly dis -

appeared, he noted, such as coffee and chocolate, but beyond that

‘the whole atmosphere was incompatible with the strain Germany

had undergone preparing for war’. Smith noted that the ‘gargantuan

performance’ of raising several million troops to fight in Poland had

‘had no more effect on the German home front than the wash of a

motor boat on a giant liner at sea’. His impressions seemed to be

confirmed when he accompanied a German officer down Unter den

Linden that spring: ‘Look around you, Herr Smith’, the officer said,

‘nowhere a sign of war. Not the slightest difference from two years

ago. Is that not the best argument for our strength? We shall

58

berlin at war

never be beaten.’ ‘It was heartbreaking’, Smith wrote, ‘but it seemed

true.’19

Such apparent confidence was little shaken when German troops

marched into Denmark and Norway in April 1940. Hitler had dressed

the invasions as a necessary action to secure his northern flank and

ensure the uninterrupted supply of iron ore from Sweden. But, though

the mood reports of the Nazi security service dutifully recorded that

the German people were ‘enthusiastic’ about the invasions,20 some

Berliners were clearly unsettled by an attack on countries that had little

record of hostility towards Germany. William Russell recalled listening

to the radio with a German friend when the occupation was announced.

As Goebbels finished telling the people of Denmark and Norway how

the invasion was for their ‘own protection’, Russell glanced across at

his companion. ‘She had tears in her eyes’, he recalled. ‘“That hateful

damn liar!” she said bitterly. “That hateful damn liar!”’21

Others were fundamentally unimpressed by what they saw as

a minor skirmish in a peripheral theatre. A scene recorded by a

journalist on the morning of the invasion was perhaps typical of the

low-key reaction of the Berlin public. He watched as a man walking

his dog through Berlin Zoo approached the barrier, where his entry

ticket was clipped: ‘
Morgen
’, said the doorman,

‘See we invaded Norway this morning?’

‘
Ja
,’ said the visitor, removing his cigar from his mouth, ‘and Denmark

too.’

‘
Ja
,’ said the ticket-taker handing back the punched ticket.

‘
Auf Wiedersehen
.’

‘’
Wiedersehen
.’22

It may well be that this laconic exchange was due to a natural caution

of discussing events with strangers, for fear of denunciation. But this

was clearly a muted response, even for the famously phlegmatic

Berliners.

When the Norwegian campaign was successfully concluded in early

May 1940, there was an upsurge in enthusiasm, not least because the

British and French had finally been engaged in the field and defeated.

As William Shirer noted after the German victory against the Royal

Navy and an Allied expeditionary force in Norway, ‘it would be hard

a guarded optimism

59

to exaggerate the feeling of triumph in the Third Reich today . . . as

they see it, Germany has at last met the great British Empire in a

straight fight and won hands down.’23

The mood reports compiled by the exiled German socialist party

concurred. One dated April 1940 noted:

An atmosphere has developed that is quite optimistic about the progress

of the war. It does not even occur to most people that Germany could

lose. The bourgeoisie, for instance, has not the least inclination to

wonder whether the war could end with something other than a

German victory. Very few people are concerned.24

In line with this assessment, the first newsreel with images of the

campaign in Norway was received with tremendous enthusiasm and

played to packed cinemas across Germany. For some at least, the victory

against the British and French at Narvik seemed to exorcise the spectre

of 1918 and fostered the belief that, this time, Germany might emerge

victorious.

But, for the majority, the invasion generated comparatively little

interest. Most German civilians understood that the conquest of

Denmark and Norway would not decide the war. Though there was

a certain sense of relief that the British and French had finally been

engaged, few believed that battle had been joined in earnest. That

campaign, they realised, was yet to come.

When German troops marched across Belgium and into France in

May 1940, the reaction in Berlin was initially one of stubborn caution.

Despite the blaring headlines from the Nazi press, most of the ‘extras’

produced to commemorate the attack went unsold and lay stacked

and bound in the streets.

Most Berliners, in fact, took the attack on France as phlegmatically

as they had taken the previous attacks on Poland, Denmark and Norway.

William Shirer noted that Berlin’s streets exuded a calmness and

normality that did not fit with the fact that the war had now entered

its supposedly decisive phase. ‘Yesterday and today have been so normal

here’, he wrote. ‘People going about their business just as usual. No

excitement in the air . . . repair work on the streets was going on just

as before. Workers were busy on the new buildings. No excitement

60

berlin at war

discernible in them.’25 Nazi mood reports perceived a ‘profound serious-

ness’, even ‘a certain scepticism’ in the German population.26

The reason for such seriousness and scepticism was obvious. With

every step the German armies took that summer, they were reawak-

ening memories of the First World War. The mention of Verdun or

Arras, or any number of other towns so bloodily fought over a gener-

ation before, sent shivers down German spines and provoked the fear

of a similar catastrophe. Howard Smith recalled a visit from an older

fellow resident in his guesthouse on Kurfürstendamm:

An ageing Prussian came to my room as soon as he had read the

headlines on his paper. He sat down and looked worriedly and intently

at me.

‘It’s begun,’ he said. I acknowledged it had.

‘Now it will really get started,’ he said, peering again at his folded

newspaper.

‘We didn’t want this war. We really didn’t.’ Tears welled in those

hard, old eyes as he proceeded to argue the oft-repeated German case.

This was typical of the World War generation; no faith in German

strength, believing more fully than any Englishman or Frenchman in

German inferiority, praying for mercy to the only foreigner within reach.27

In the face of such apparent pessimism from some sections of

German society, the Nazi regime sought to encourage more belligerent

attitudes in the population. One young Berliner recalled attending a

lecture in a cinema entitled ‘Hatred towards England’:

The speaker told us again how good we Germans were. We have

achieved so much and will achieve more, because we have the Führer.

There was one thing, however, that we couldn’t do: we could not hate.

We lacked hatred for England. So we had to learn how to hate. But

how that was to be achieved, he did not say. Should we murmur ‘I hate

England’ three times whilst brushing our teeth? Or whilst going to bed?

Or when being tested on English vocabulary? The speaker did not say

what I was to do.28

Yet for all the imprecations to hatred on the home front and the relent-

less advance of German troops across northern France, the mood in

a guarded optimism

61

the capital remained one of caution, at least until the campaign in the

west was successfully concluded.

Indeed, even after the fall of France in late June 1940, the public

mood in Berlin was hard to gauge. On the one hand, there was un-

bridled jubilation, with a number of high-profile parades and proces-

sions, and a three-day public holiday to celebrate the fall of Paris. The

festivities did not end there. As was customary on public holidays in

the Third Reich, flags were ordered to be displayed, and church bells

were to be rung. The mood on the streets, it seems, was exultant:

‘crowds cheered hoarsely in Berlin’, it was reported, no doubt spurred

by the ‘deafening radio fanfares’ which blared out ‘at all important

points of the city and in all shops, stores, offices and factories . . . Martial music filled the air.’29

When Hitler returned to his capital in early July, after the successful

conclusion of the French campaign, he was driven to the Reich

Chancellery on a carpet of flowers. According to press reports, ‘the

mile-long route from the Anhalter Station to the Chancellery was a

perfumed avenue of greens, reds, blues and yellows flanked by cheering

thousands who shouted and wept themselves into a frantic hysteria

as the Führer passed’.30

Though Nazi Germany had a track record of minutely stage-

managing such events, the enthusiasm demonstrated that day was

most certainly genuine. Indeed, the throwing of flowers at Hitler’s

convoy had even been expressly forbidden on security grounds, but

the crowds ignored the instruction. The celebrations continued at the

Reich Chancellery, where the streets were again blocked by the massed

ranks of Hitler Youth and the German Maidens, who filled the air

with their ‘incessant . . . shrill cheering’. Twice Hitler appeared on the

balcony of the Chancellery to greet the enraptured crowds. The press

report concluded: ‘Caesar in his glory was never more turbulently

received.’31

On the other hand, apathy – even anger – was also in evidence.

Ruth Andreas-Friedrich was one of those unimpressed by the overt

celebration of war. In mid-June, she confided to her diary:

Three and a half months have passed – fourteen weeks, during which

the German nation has been reeling drunk with one victory after

another. Put out the flags; take in the flags. Every window, every gable,

62

berlin at war

every tower, all a sea of swastika’d flags. Order for display of flags: ‘As

of today, for a period of one week.’ Ringing of church bells: three

days. Once again Christian tongues have to join in praising the bloody

victories of arms.32

This reflective tenor seems to have been shared by others in Berlin.

Though the Nazi mood reports from the end of the French campaign

paint a picture of public jubilation across Germany, some of those

recording events in the capital described a very different scene. One

Berlin journalist recalled sitting down to lunch in her office canteen

when news of the surrender in Paris was announced over the radio.

Everyone looks unhappily at his plate. Two fat tears fall into Karla’s

raw eel and parsley sauce.

‘Hurra!’ comes a sudden shout from the corner. Everyone winces.

‘Hurra!’ again, but this time with less authority. One of our scrubwomen

has jumped up, grabbed her glass and is cheering ‘Long live the Führer!’

Icy silence at every table. She sits down again, disconcerted.33

Missie Vassiltchikov would have concurred. A Russian émigrée, who

had found refuge in Berlin, she noted in her diary: ‘Paris surrendered

today. Strange how lukewarm the reaction is here. There is absolutely

no feeling of elation.’34

William Shirer, as ever, was able to see both sides. He warned, ‘it

would be wrong to conclude that the taking of Paris has not stirred

something very deep in the hearts of most Germans. “Germans Capture

Paris” are magic words to so many here.’ But he went on to say, ‘In

fact, Berlin took the capture of Paris as phlegmatically as it has taken

everything else in this war.’ To illustrate the point, he claimed that of

the five hundred people he observed enjoying the afternoon at a

popular bathing beach in the city, only three bought a copy of the

newspaper in which the fall of Paris was announced.35

It may be, of course, that such sources were mistaken in their assess-

ments or were reporting opinions that were not representative of the

majority of Berliners. However, the fact that these contemporary

commentators all make the same point makes their testimony rather

difficult to dismiss as anomalous. A recent study of selected ‘mood

indicators’ would seem to back up the conclusion that June 1940 did

a guarded optimism

63

not represent a peak in enthusiasm for war – or, indeed, a high point

in support for Hitler or the Nazi Party.36 And, as Howard Smith

observed, civilian morale in 1940 was resolutely downbeat, only light-

ened by the prospect of an end to the fighting:

The graph of German morale is not a graceful, snaky thing which

slithers upwards in long rises and downwards in slow, calm declines,

like the graph of almost any people living in peace. It is a low, jagged

line, which leaps spasmodically upwards in one instant and collapses

into sharp depressions in the next. The reason for its abrupt contours

is the unmitigated fear of this war . . . and [the people’s] gullible readi-

ness to believe anything, however fantastic, which indicates an early

end to it.37