Authors: Roger Moorhouse
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