Summary of William L. Shirer's Berlin Diary

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 We had the best, happiest, and uneventest year of our lives in 1933. We lived it as we dreamed and planned, beautifully independent of the rest of the world. It couldn’t have gone on for ever.
#2 We have spent the past twelve months doing nothing significant. We swam, hike, and read. We had time to know each other, to loaf, and to wine and eat. We saw the bull-fights in the afternoon and the Barrio Chino at night in Barcelona.
#3 The shooting continued until midnight, when the Mobile Guards began to get the upper hand. Several times, the Place de la Concorde changed hands, but the police were in control by midnight.
#4 The rioting last night was the result of the Stavisky scandal, but the swindles demonstrate the rottenness and weakness of French democracy. Daladier and his Minister of the Interior, Eugène Frot, gave the U. N. C. permission to demonstrate, and they should have refused it.

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Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 26 mai 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798822523180
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on William L. Shirer's Berlin Diary
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

We had the best, happiest, and uneventest year of our lives in 1933. We lived it as we dreamed and planned, beautifully independent of the rest of the world. It couldn’t have gone on for ever.

#2

We have spent the past twelve months doing nothing significant. We swam, hike, and read. We had time to know each other, to loaf, and to wine and eat. We saw the bull-fights in the afternoon and the Barrio Chino at night in Barcelona.

#3

The shooting continued until midnight, when the Mobile Guards began to get the upper hand. Several times, the Place de la Concorde changed hands, but the police were in control by midnight.

#4

The rioting last night was the result of the Stavisky scandal, but the swindles demonstrate the rottenness and weakness of French democracy. Daladier and his Minister of the Interior, Eugène Frot, gave the U. N. C. permission to demonstrate, and they should have refused it.

#5

The story began to come out about the Austrian general strike. It was civil war. The Socialists were entrenched in the great municipal houses they built after World War I, but Dollfuss and the Heimwehr under Prince Starhemberg had control of the rest of the city.

#6

Hitler’s purge of the Nazi party was more drastic than first reported. Röhm did not kill himself, but was shot on the orders of Hitler. Other dead: Heines, notorious Nazi boss of Silesia, Dr. Erich Klausner, leader of the Catholic Action in Germany, Fritz von Bose and Edgar Jung, two of Papen’s secretaries.

#7

Dollfuss was murdered by the Nazis, who today seized control of the Chancellery and the radio station in Vienna. Apparently their coup had failed, and Miklas and Dr. Schuschnigg were in control. I could not shed any tears for Dollfuss after his cold-blooded slaughter of the Social Democrats last February.

#8

I was offered a job with Universal Service in Berlin, and I accepted. I thought I would 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 if I were Herr So-and-So. I said no.

#9

I miss the old Berlin of the Republic, with its carefree, emancipated, and civilized air. I dislike the constant Heil Hitler salutes, and the clicking of heels of brown-shirted storm troopers or black-coated S. S. guards marching up and down the street.

#10

Hitler arrived in Nuremberg today at sunset. The streets were packed with wildly cheering Nazis who covered the town’s beautiful Gothic architecture with their flags. I was shocked by the faces of the women when Hitler appeared on the balcony for a moment. They looked up at him as if he were a Messiah.

#11

Hitler’s speeches were so effective because of the atmosphere he created. The crowd was moved by every word he said, and they accepted every lie he told as high truth.

#12

The goose-step was a highly trained, semi-military group of Nazi youths who appeared for the first time today. They broke into a perfect goose-step, and the German spectators went mad with joy.

#13

The party officials packed in the Zeppelin Wiese with their twenty-one thousand flags unfurled in the searchlights like a forest of weird trees. They were merged completely with the Germanic herd under the mystic lights and sounds of the Austrian.

#14

Hitler spoke today to the S. A. storm troopers for the first time since the purge. He absolved them of any blame for the Röhm revolt. There was considerable tension in the stadium, and I wondered if just one of those fifty thousand brown-shirts wouldn’t pull a revolver.

#15

The German army had its day at the rally, fighting a realistic sham battle in the Zeppelin Meadow. The party rally came to an end, and though dead tired, I was glad I came.

#16

I was called to the Paris office on my eight o’clock call, where I was told that the King of Yugoslavia had been assassinated at Marseille this afternoon and that Louis Barthou, the French Foreign Minister, had been badly wounded. Berlin was not greatly disappointed, as King Alexander had been working more closely with the French bloc against Germany.

#17

I have been covering the fight in the Protestant church. A section of the Protestants seems to be showing more guts in the face of Gleichschaltung than the Socialists or Communists did. But Hitler will get them in the end and force on the country a brand of early German paganism.

#18

There has been a lot of talk about Germany secretly arming, though it is difficult to get definite information, and if you did get it and sent it, you would be expelled. Sir Eric Phipps, the British Ambassador, has asked the Wilhelmstrasse about it.

#19

The ball was held in Berlin on January 14, 1935. Tess had a new dress and looked fine. Goebbels, Sir Eric Phipps, François Poncet, Dodd, and General von Reichenau were present. Hitler had said that the Saar was the last territorial bone of contention with France.

#20

The drive for a general settlement is falling apart. The Germans are angry at the publication in London of a Parliamentary White Paper commenting on the growing rearmament of Germany in the air. Hitler refuses to see Simon.

#21

The German army was being built up, and Hitler announced this publicly for the first time. He had already wiped out the military sections of the Versailles Treaty, restored universal military service, and proclaimed the formation of a conscript army of twelve army corps or thirty-six divisions.

#22

The creation of a conscript army in open defiance of Versailles will greatly enhance Hitler’s domestic position, for there are few Germans who will not support it wholeheartedly. The great majority will like the way he has thumbed his nose at Versailles, which they all resented.

#23

The German holiday Heldengedenktag, which is Decoration Day, was observed today amid scenes unparalleled since 1914. Hitler and his henchmen were in the royal box, but he did not speak. General von Blomberg spoke for him.

#24

The pronouncement of the party was With the present day, the honour of the German nation has been restored. We stand erect as a free people among nations. As a sovereign state, we are free to negotiate and propose to co-operate in the organization of peace. Hitler’s proclamation to the German people was that Germany had finally given France the solemn assurance that it would never make territorial demands on France again.

#25

Hitler had a wedding ceremony performed at the Opera tonight. The party people told me that Goebbels was in a rage because of the lavish displays, and that the press was allowed to comment sarcastically. Many editors did not dare to.

#26

Hitler made a peace speech in the Reichstag tonight, and his thirteen-point program will convince many people. It was astutely drawn up. Germany will respect all other provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, except the territorial provisions.

#27

Hitler spoke until nearly ten o’clock. He was in an easy, confident mood. The diplomatic box was packed, the ambassadors of France, Britain, Italy, Japan, and Poland in the front row. Dodd sat in the third row.

#28

The Taverne, a Ristorante Italiano, run by Willy Lehman, a big, bluff German with nothing Italian about him, and his wife, a slim, timid Belgian woman, has become an institution for the British and American correspondents in Berlin.

#29

I had a good visit with my family, though I was too preoccupied with Franklin Roosevelt’s dictatorship to argue European affairs with Nicholas Roosevelt. I was still thinking about Ethiopia and the chances of war.

#30

Mussolini has begun his conquest of Abyssinia. According to an Italian communiqué, the Duce’s troops crossed the frontier yesterday in order to repulse an imminent threat from the Ethiopians. The Wilhelmstrasse is delighted. Either Mussolini will stumble and get himself heavily involved in Africa, whereupon Hitler can seize Austria, or he will win, defying France and Britain. Either way, Hitler wins.

#31

The German press was angry at Roosevelt’s denunciation of dictatorships and aggression, which was obviously directed at Mussolini. They were not told about what was happening behind the scenes in their own country.

#32

I had written in a mail series, some time ago, that the Nazis had pulled down all the signs saying that Jews were unwelcome in Garmisch. I had also remarked that Nazi officials had taken all the good hotels for themselves and put the press in inconvenient pensions.

#33

I had expected the interlude to be unpleasant, but it was pleasant. The Nazis had done a good job of propaganda, and they had greatly impressed most of the visiting foreigners with their lavish but smooth way of running the games.

#34

On March 7, Hitler tore up the Locarno Treaty and sent in the Reichswehr to occupy the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland. The French army did not move, and the German generals were not as nervous as they were this morning.

#35

Hitler’s latest peace proposal was to sign a non-aggression pact with Belgium and France, guaranteed by Britain and Italy. He also proposed to demilitarize both sides of the French and Belgian borders, forcing France to scrap her Maginot Line.

#36

Hitler spoke at the Reichstag today, and announced that German soldiers would be entering the Rhineland and restoring its honor. He also made a vow that Germany would never break the peace.

#37

Hitler got away with the invasion of the Rhineland. France did not march, and instead, it appealed to the League of Nations for help. The faces of Hitler, Göring, and Blomberg were all smiles this noon as they sat in the royal box at the State Opera to celebrate Heroes Memorial Day.

#38

The German troops that marched into the dem