Berlin at War (5 page)

vast accumulation of gifts that was presented on the long negotiating

tables. He had received a selection of presents from his inner circle

at midnight the previous evening, but most would be presented this

morning. As his secretary Christa Schroeder wrote to a friend that

week:

the number and value of the presents this year is staggering. Paintings

(Defregger, Waldmüller, Lenbach, even a glorious Titian), then wonderful

Meissen sculptures in porcelain, silver table- and centre-pieces, magnif-

icent books, vases, drawings, carpets . . . aircraft and ship models and

similar military items which give him the greatest pleasure.6

Yet, in addition to such treasures from his political colleagues and

admirers, Hitler also received countless more modest gifts from

ordinary Germans: pillows and blankets embroidered with swastikas,

handicrafts, huge cakes, boxes of sweets and local delicacies. ‘How

many thoughts from fanatical, adoring women’, Schroeder mused,

‘had been woven into this handiwork!’7

An hour or so later, after a short breakfast, Hitler left the Chancellery

to review a parade on the Wilhelmstrasse, where the
Leibstandarte
,

the SS-
Totenkopf
and a battalion of
Schutzpolizei
marched past in perfect order, to the blare of a military band. The streets – festooned as they

were with swastikas and thronged with well-wishers – gave an impres-

sive foretaste of what was to follow.

The next hour was taken up receiving the congratulations of

esteemed guests, delegations and the representatives of foreign powers.

The first to attend was the Papal Nuncio, bringing the best wishes of

the new Pope, Pius XII. He was followed by the President of Bohemia

and Moravia, Emil Hácha, and the President of Slovakia, Jozef Tiso.

Next, Hitler received the congratulations of the Reich Government, a

delegation of senior Wehrmacht personnel, and a visit by the Lord

Mayor of Berlin, Dr Julius Lippert. Telegrams were also delivered,

among many others from King George VI and from Henry Ford. Lastly,

4

berlin at war

at 10.20, Hitler was formally awarded the Freedom of the City of Danzig,

presented by the city’s Gauleiter, Albert Forster.

Then, shortly before 11.00 that morning, Hitler once again climbed

into his Mercedes Tourer to be driven to the reviewing stand, located

on the East-West Axis. For the duration of the short journey, as he

passed the countless columns of troops mustered for the parade, he

stood impassively in the footwell of the Mercedes, his right arm

outstretched in salute.

The majority of Berliners, now thronging the route of the parade, had

probably endured a rather less hectic morning. They might have listened

to the radio, or taken the opportunity offered by the public holiday to

enjoy a leisurely breakfast. Those preparing to visit the city centre

would have discussed which vantage points to head for. Those who

planned to stay at home could listen to proceedings from the comfort

of their armchair, as the entire occasion would be relayed by a team

of radio commentators, with light music punctuating the action.

Listeners with a trained ear would even notice the usual musical

choreography at work; the jaunty ‘Badenweiler March’, for instance,

which signalled the imminent arrival of the Führer.

Special editions of the news magazines were crammed with pictorial

accounts of Hitler’s life and achievements. The newspapers, too, published

special editions to mark the occasion. All of them would have repro-

duced the text of the congratulatory speech given by Joseph Goebbels,

who had exhorted the previous night that: ‘no German at home or

anywhere else in the world can fail to take the deepest and heartiest

pleasure in participation. It is a holiday of the nation, and we want to

celebrate it as such.’8

Most newspapers also carried a large selection of congratulatory

letters and poems sent in by readers. The SS paper
Das Schwarze Korps

quoted readers expressing their ‘eternal pride’ in ‘the miracle’ of Hitler,

or lauding Berlin as the ‘epicentre of events at this momentous time’.9

Another paper followed suit, printing the dubious poetic musings of

an eighty-year-old reader, who, it was claimed, was ‘delighted to have

experienced these times’.10 Goebbels’ Berlin paper
Der Angriff
carried

a saccharine piece expressing the congratulations of three ‘unknown

Berliners’ – a policeman, a housewife and an SA man.11

* * *

prologue: ‘führerweather’

5

For those who ventured into the city centre that morning, a genuine

spectacle awaited. All Germans were obliged to hang out a swastika

flag on such an important day, and it was an instruction that few dared

to contravene. Nonetheless, many Berliners went beyond mere

perfunctory compliance. In the suburbs, countless balconies and

windows were adorned with flags, photographs or elaborate garlands.

The city centre was extravagantly festooned. In the commercial

districts, almost every shop and office building had photographs or

busts of Hitler mounted in their windows, surrounded with flowers

and wreaths. All ministries and state-owned enterprises, of course,

competed with each other to demonstrate their devotion. Nazi Party

offices cast restraint to the four winds and hung portraits and framed

slogans on their outside walls. Central streets of the capital – especially

in the main administrative district – were barely recognisable.

Wilhelmstrasse, for instance, where the Reich Chancellery was

located, was a sea of swastika banners, while Unter den Linden and

Friedrichstrasse were also decked with flags, bunting and festive

garlands. One publishing house even sought to outdo its rivals by

erecting an enormous 25-foot portrait of Hitler, complete with flood-

lights and flags, bearing the words ‘Our Loyalty: Our Thanks’.

The centrepiece of the celebrations was the East-West Axis; a newly-

constructed boulevard running for seven kilometres west of the

Brandenburg Gate. According to one eyewitness, on both sides of the

carriageway stood ‘dazzling white miniature temples of wood . . . orna-

mented with clusters of scarlet, white and black swastika flags . . . At

other prominent points forests of masts displayed the devices of all

the districts of Greater Germany.’12 The American correspondent

William Shirer could not help but be impressed by the scene: ‘I’ve

never seen so many flags, standards, golden eagles and floodlit pylons

in my life’, he wrote, ‘nor so many glittering uniforms, or soldiers, or

guns. Nor so many people at a birthday party.’13

Shirer’s excitement was understandable. With 50,000 troops poised

to participate in the parade and as many as two million spectators

ready to watch, it was to be the largest ceremonial event ever staged

by the Nazis. The most fortunate, or best connected, would have

secured a seat in one of the large grandstands surrounding Hitler’s

reviewing platform. On either side of the East-West Axis, close to the

Technical High School, a pair of large tribunes had been constructed.

6

berlin at war

The first, on the south side of the boulevard, was open to the

public. The other, on the north, contained a VIP enclosure to accom-

modate Hitler’s special guests and assorted representatives of the

military and the Party. Each grandstand had been built to hold approx-

imately five thousand spectators, and was flanked by enormous pillars,

each topped with a gilded eagle clutching a swastika in its talons.

Those who had managed to find a seat would have had every reason

to feel extremely pleased with themselves. From there, they could watch

the afternoon’s proceedings in relative comfort.

One spectator who had done especially well was a young Wehrmacht

lieutenant, Alexander Stahlberg. As he recalled in his memoirs, a

simple ruse was all that was required to get a seat in one of the

grandstands:

I learned that thousands of tickets were being issued solely to Party

members and prominent personalities, so (quite without authority) I

put on my new made-to-measure dress uniform, hung the sword of

the Pasewalk Cuirassiers at my side and went down to the [grand-

stand]. There I simply followed the signs to the individual groups of

seats on the stand. CD – Corps Diplomatique – seemed to me the best

chance, and in the twinkling of an eye there I was amidst all the pomp

and circumstance of the foreign military attachés.14

Most spectators, however, had no such luck. They lined the route

of the parade dozens deep, waiting. There was much pushing and

shoving, as ever more Berliners joined the throng and all had to be

held back by the lines of smiling SS and SA men with their arms

linked. Some children complained of tiredness and asked incessantly

whether the Führer was there yet. Others wriggled through to the

front rank of the crowd, where they could watch proceedings through

the legs of the men in the police cordon. As the tension rose, some

spectators fainted and had to be revived by the nurses of the Red

Cross; a few – despite the imprecations and threats of the police –

bravely perched on windowsills or climbed the still-bare trees of the

Tiergarten to get a better view. Nonetheless, despite the strain and

the excitement, the crowd was generally in excellent humour. William

Shirer described it as ‘a pure holiday mood . . . The Führer’s birthday

was a national holiday, with the result that all the youngsters of the

prologue: ‘führerweather’

7

city were in the front row . . . with the elders, usually the whole family

– father, mother, uncle, aunt – grouped behind.’15

The crowd was a microcosm of Nazi Germany. Alongside Berliners,

it included representatives of every district, province and
Gau
of the Reich. Regional accents and dialects proliferated; Rhinelanders rubbed

shoulders with Saxons, Bavarians with Frisians and Sudeten Germans

with East Prussians. Every uniform imaginable was represented, from

the dark brown overalls of the
Reichsarbeitsdienst
to the short trousers of the Hitler Youth and the smart field-grey parade dress of the

Wehrmacht. In the hours before the spectacle, the crowd entertained

themselves listening to martial music piped through the network of

loudspeakers. They would have swapped stories, compared notes

perhaps on how many times they had seen their Führer in the flesh,

or maybe tentatively expressed their concerns about the precarious

international situation. Most, however, would have simply been happy

to be there, to enjoy the holiday atmosphere and participate in such

a memorable occasion. Then, as Hitler first appeared – making his

way to the reviewing stand – the crowd was briefly hushed before

erupting into a chorus of cheers and hurrahs.

Of course, there were also some present who did not support the

Nazis and had turned out in the Tiergarten merely to witness what

they had rightly expected would be an historic spectacle. One such

Berliner recalled that, as the crowd roused itself to acclaim Hitler’s

arrival, she and her partner dived into a side street to avoid any

accusation of recalcitrance. ‘Behind us’, she wrote:

the crowd stretched out the ‘German Greeting’. ‘Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!’

we hear them shout. Those who don’t raise their arm are arrested. Yet,

as we look around, we see around fifteen or twenty people who, like

us, have managed to extricate themselves from the crowd and have

hastily disappeared into the calm of the side street. ‘Good day’, we say

as we pass. ‘Good day’, they reply genially. One of them even raises

his hat with a smile. 16

Some were not so cowed, however, and dared to register a protest.

‘On a kitchen stepladder in the middle of the push sits a workman’,

one eyewitness wrote, ‘lean, unshaven, in blue mechanic’s overall. He

looks pensively at the rolling trucks. “You take all that, and no gas,”

8

berlin at war

we hear him growl, “and it’s just junk.” People around look up at

him, horrified. When they see that no one is protesting, they venture

an approving smile.’17

The majority of the spectators, however, would scarcely have noticed

such independently minded protest. Most of them were doubtless lost

in the moment, enjoying seeing their Führer at close quarters and

revelling in the enthusiasm exuded by the rest of the crowd. The cult

surrounding Hitler was very much in place by 1939, with all Nazi

ceremonial being minutely stage-managed so as to consciously and

deliberately invoke wonder and reverence in the watching public.

Many of those witnessing events that day in Berlin would have felt

euphoric emotions akin to a religious experience.

After the initial excitement of Hitler’s arrival and the progress of

his motorcade along the East-West Axis, a hush descended as the

Führer reached the reviewing platform. As Alexander Stahlberg