Reporting on Hitler Read online

  The economy improved. Though there was turbulence in the years after 1918, culminating in the hyperinflation crisis, from the middle of the 1920s Reynolds was reporting on an improving picture, so much so that Germany was becoming a fierce competitor to Britain in global trade. ‘Germany with increasing frequency beats Great Britain in open competition,’ he wrote in 1925.144 Reynolds reported on how Germany’s shipbuilding industry was depressed, but in a good position to win orders ahead of other countries because it could fulfil orders more cheaply. He supported this assertion with the example of a German manufacturer which signed a contract to build five motor-ships for a British firm. Its price was £300,000 cheaper than any British rival and it could do the work more quickly.

  In a series of articles in 1925 about the country’s powerful industrialists, entitled ‘The Masters of Germany’, Reynolds was warning of a coming trade war between Britain and Germany. He did offer some reassurance for worried readers at home. He wrote an article asserting that shoe-sellers in Berlin viewed British products as superior. ‘For elegance, distinction, fashion, there is no comparison,’ he was told by one. ‘After hearing from most of my German acquaintances that the British Empire has collapsed and that England is definitely done for,’ Reynolds said, ‘I felt that the pleasure of discovering that we can beat the world at cobbling was worth the extra money.’145

  By 1928 the progress of Germany’s recovery was sufficient for Reynolds to write a series of articles exploring ‘Why Britain Loses Trade’. The newspaper struck a worried tone in an article promoting the series. ‘It is remarkable that in recent months we have been losing in the world markets to Germany and other European countries.’ Concerned that its readers were not aware of just how much danger British business faced from overseas competitors, the ever-patriotic Daily Mail ‘instructed its special correspondent, Rothay Reynolds, an expert in the languages and life of Middle Europe, to carry out a careful investigation’. His conclusion was ominous. ‘Germans and other European people are able to beat us, even though it is generally admitted that British workmanship is the best.’146

  Reynolds revealed how large German companies such as Siemens were dominating their industries and making leaps forward in science and engineering. Cheap labour and the use of machines – and women – to boost productivity were also given as factors that put Britain at risk of falling behind. The impact of the articles was such that an association representing British electrical and manufacturing firms was spurred to publish a response in the Mail. While Reynolds’s articles were interesting, it said, they ‘show a tendency to magnify the achievements of the German and Belgian manufacturers out of due perspective’.147

  These articles not only revealed British fears of a German revival – they highlighted the progress being made by the Weimar Republic. The economy was still shaky but markedly healthier than in 1924 and earlier. ‘Germany has been declared as a going concern,’ said Seymour Parker Gilbert, who oversaw reparations payments, in the spring of 1929. Reynolds fully agreed with that verdict. ‘Trade was booming. Germany was engaged in a neck and neck race with Great Britain for second place after the United States in the export trade of the world.’148 The installation of Europe’s first traffic lights at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, rather than a junction in London, seemed to symbolise Germany’s economic development.

  The issue of reparations remained a point of contention between Western countries a decade after the war. The German economy had been boosted by American loans agreed in 1924 under the Dawes Plan, which restructured the agreements struck at Versailles. It had eased the reparations burden but made the German economy dependent on overseas loans and investment. The Daily Mail’s reporting on German industry, motivated by a fear that its success was weakening Britain’s economy, was followed by an article in May 1928 headlined ‘Why Germany Can Pay’. Reynolds reviewed a book, The Mythology of Reparations, which suggested that Germany was fully able to meet its post-war obligations and pay the money owed under the Treaty of Versailles and subsequent Dawes Plan. The book is ‘certain to command widespread attention,’ Reynolds wrote. ‘It bears out the view consistently expressed by the Daily Mail that Germany can pay.’149

  In August 1929, politicians from Germany, Britain, France and several other countries convened at the Hague in the Netherlands for a conference to discuss reparations. Despite the economic progress, German calls for a new deal and withdrawal of foreign troops from the Rhineland had grown. Reynolds was there to witness the conference, at which it was agreed in principle to implement the Young Plan, which restructured German debts again. He travelled back to Britain on the same boat as Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Snowden and his wife. ‘The restoration of the political and economic sovereignty of Germany is one of the great achievements of the conference,’ Snowden said, words that Reynolds duly passed on to readers the next day. The train carrying British politicians and journalists was greeted in London by crowds singing ‘For he’s a jolly good fellow’.150

  The reparations deal seemed to have removed another obstacle to Germany’s recovery. The Weimar Republic, after such a volatile beginning, looked capable of enduring success. ‘Money was being poured into Germany. All the world had such a high opinion of the ability and ingenuity of an industrious people that offers of money came from every side. Americans were hawking money in Germany. Anybody who could offer any sort of guarantee got money,’ observed Reynolds.151

  This flow of easy money was a key reason for the boom years of the Weimar Republic, the Goldene Zwanziger – Golden Twenties – of economic recovery. It also contributed to its downfall. At the end of October 1929, the Wall Street Crash sent shares tumbling in America and marked the start of an unprecedented economic panic. Foreign loans were recalled and Germany, as one of the biggest recipients of US loans, was plunged into crisis. It was a fateful period for Germany. Earlier in October its Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann, the architect of Weimar’s success, had died of a sudden stroke at the age of fifty-one.

  Reynolds had seen him at the Hague in August and sensed that he was unwell. ‘I had had the impression that the hand of death was on him,’ he recalled.152 He was correct. Stresemann’s talents had been such that Reynolds thought the course of Germany’s history might have been different if he had lived. Yet even the guile and craft of Weimar’s master statesman may not have been sufficient to contend with the volatile years that followed. Unemployment soared as the violent economic impact of the Great Depression undid the steady progress achieved since 1923. Germany was a broken country and its mainstream politicians, whose success had kept the extremists at bay, were under pressure as never before. The mood darkened. On a visit to the Rhineland in December 1929 to witness the withdrawal of the British troops stationed there, Reynolds was struck by the blank expressions of the local population. ‘They were faces of stone.’153

  - CHAPTER VI -

  RISE OF THE NAZIS

  In March 1930 the Centre Party’s Heinrich Brüning was appointed Chancellor by President Paul von Hindenburg, replacing Hermann Müller of the Social Democrats. The bespectacled Brüning’s academic background and serious manner were seen as the perfect remedy to the economic crisis engulfing Germany. But his financial reform policy ideas proved immediately unpopular and his parliamentary support in the Reichstag ebbed away. In July, Hindenburg invoked Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution, which authorised rule by emergency decree, but the Reichstag passed a bill to reject the attempt. An impasse had been reached and elections were called.

  The September election was the first to be held in Germany for two years. A lot had changed. Hitler’s Nazis had grown in prominence throughout the latter half of the 1920s and by the end of the decade had a membership numbering tens of thousands. They made their presence felt in the build-up to the elections, rowdily protesting and marching in the streets. Alarmed, the Interior Ministry issued a statement warning that Hitler’s Nazis were attempting to ‘bring about the overthrow by violence of the German
Republic. The party and the organisations which it has created are so constructed that they can all be used as united and militarily disciplined fighting troops.’

  The warning did not work. The National Socialists achieved an incredible electoral breakthrough, increasing their number of seats in the Reichstag from twelve to 107. Almost a fifth of electors voted for them. The Social Democrats, led by Otto Wels, retained their position as the largest party, taking a quarter of the vote and winning 143 of the 577 seats. But it was Hitler’s night.

  The next time Reynolds went to the Reichstag he had to fight his way through a mob shouting ‘Heil Hitler!’ Once he was inside the atmosphere was equally charged.

  Within the building there was the singular spectacle of these 107 men, all wearing khaki shirts and red armbands, blazoned with swastikas, marching to their places in a long file. Members of the moderate parties, among them women with white hair, looked bewildered as they saw the invasion of the house by men who might have been colonial soldiers.154

  A few days after the election Reynolds reported on a rather abrupt change of heart by the government. ‘After careful and critical examination of the political situation in Germany,’ said the Interior Ministry’s Dr Wirth, ‘I can say that there is no sort of danger of rebellion in Germany.’ The Nazis apparently posed no threat. Reynolds thought the change in view was motivated by a desire to placate worried overseas investors, who had been alarmed by the electoral breakthrough of Hitler and the far-right.

  Reynolds saw first-hand how Hitler’s supporters were behaving in the wake of their triumph. Joseph Goebbels, a senior member of the Nazi leadership, led a demonstration of 3,000 supporters in the heart of the capital. It was a show of force, designed to impress upon Berliners the strength of the Nazi movement. The election breakthrough was just the beginning of their bid to win power, Goebbels said. ‘If this cannot be done in a legal way, then we shall try to do it in an illegal way.’

  Joseph Goebbels laughs with Hitler. An early supporter of the Nazis, Goebbels served as the regime’s Minister of Propaganda between 1933 and 1945. (Wiener Library)

  Nazis in the audience were fired up. Police who attended the scene were derided as ‘Zörgiebel’s dogs’, a reference to the socialist head of the Berlin police. At first the policemen withstood the abuse, but then the Nazis stepped up their insults. ‘You will be the first to dangle from the lamp-posts,’ they jeered. Reynolds looked on from a distance as the police charged the Nazi rabble and beat them with rubber sticks. Even Goebbels relished the fight and was among those hit by police.

  Ten Nazis were arrested in the wake of the violence. Goebbels had the gall to follow them to the police station and demand an explanation for the police action. He was swiftly evicted from the building. Reynolds wrote a long report on the violence headlined ‘Mob Jeers at Police’ in which he expressed the hope that this ‘teutonic fury will be restrained’.155 His view was clear. He thought the Nazis posed a threat to order and stability and recognised that something had stirred in a sizeable portion of the German population. A fury had been unleashed. Their anger at how Weimar Germany had fared, worsened by the economic crisis, was real. In the National Socialists they had an outlet at the ballot box, whose growth in electoral terms was perfectly legitimate. But Reynolds was worried by the behaviour he witnessed in the wake of their advance.

  Not all Germans shared the anger felt by those who voted for the Nazis. The more reasonable among them recognised the progress the republic had made and remembered how previous economic crises had been overcome. They were still in the majority, but support for Hitler was quickly growing.

  One man who was a supporter of Hitler’s efforts in Germany was Lord Rothermere, who had assumed control of the Daily Mail after the death of his brother Lord Northcliffe in 1922. Within days of the 1930 election he was prominently airing his views in the pages of his newspaper, proclaiming that Hitler and the Nazis were a force for good and deserved to be respected. ‘They represent the rebirth of Germany as a nation,’ he wrote. He praised the emerging party’s success and called it ‘the beginning of a new epoch in the relations between the German nation and the rest of the world.’ The election, he predicted, would prove ‘an enduring landmark of this time.’156 Hitler took note of this rare overseas support and Rothermere had his reward – a scoop in the form of an exclusive interview with the man himself. It fell to Reynolds to conduct the interview with Hitler, just five days after criticising the violent Nazi mob. He was in an awkward situation, caught between the admiring glances of a rich and powerful media baron, who happened to be his employer, and a politician of dubious character, who surrounded himself with violent supporters.

  But he had a job to do. The interview with Hitler was a real coup for the Daily Mail and Reynolds was under personal orders from Rothermere to make it a success. He spoke to Hitler on the evening of 26 September. It was the first time the two men had met in seven years. Hitler was exhausted. He had spent all day in a courtroom in Leipzig, giving evidence on his feet for more than two hours in the trial of two army officers accused of Nazi Party membership.

  The first thing Reynolds noticed was that Hitler’s face was dead white. Hitler started by talking about Lord Rothermere’s article on the rebirth of Germany. ‘I need hardly tell you that I have read Lord Rothermere’s article with the keenest interest, and you will not be surprised when I say that I read it with the greatest astonishment. We Germans are not accustomed to find that people of other nationalities should understand what we have in our hearts.’

  After this flattering opening, Hitler returned to a familiar subject: the supposed inequities of the Treaty of Versailles. ‘What Lord Rothermere has made English people understand is that Germany must have the same rights as other countries after being twelve years in the penitentiary of Versailles,’ he declared to Reynolds. He then turned to a second familiar topic, warning that communism would spread in Germany unless the country was treated fairly. ‘If Europe decides to make Germany serve a life sentence, then she must face the danger of having an embittered nation, desperate to the verge of crime, in her midst. What that would mean a child can guess – Bolshevism.’

  Reynolds brought up the violence of some Nazi supporters and the accusations that the party would try and seize power by force. ‘People have tried to associate me with a mania for rebellion,’ Hitler replied. ‘I ask you: why should I instigate a rebellion when I have today 107 members of my party in the Reichstag and count on having double that number in the next Reichstag?’

  Hitler quickly moved the discussion on to relations between Britain and Germany. ‘The English and Germany,’ he said, ‘cannot remain enemies forever just because they fought against each other for four and a half years. … To have a strong party in Germany which will form a bulwark against Bolshevism is in the interests not only of England but of all nations. You have difficulties before you, and the time may come when German friendship is not without its value.’

  The discussion ended with more praise for Rothermere. Reynolds’s employer was an astute man, Hitler said, to have recognised the ‘life and energy’ of Germany. ‘To have seized upon this outstanding fact shows that Lord Rothermere possesses the true gift of intuitive statesmanship.’157

  The two men parted and Reynolds rang the office to give his account. Daily Mail readers the following day found the long article ‘Hitler’s Special Talk to the Daily Mail’ dominating page nine. Hitler’s comments were reported in the order laid out above. There were also comments, seemingly given as the opinion of Reynolds, sprinkled throughout the piece, which cast a favourable glow over Hitler. ‘The moment he spoke I realised that there was in him a burning spirit that could triumph over bodily weariness,’ he wrote, adding that Hitler spoke with ‘great simplicity and with great earnestness’. He continued: ‘I was conscious that I was talking to a man whose power lies not, as many people think, in his eloquence and in his ability to hold the attentions of the mob, but in his conviction.’

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sp; Caught between Rothermere and Hitler, Reynolds strayed from an independent line with glowing references to Hitler’s ‘conviction’ and ‘earnestness’. But most of the piece was taken up by straightforward reporting of what Hitler had to say. It was an unfiltered portrayal of Hitler’s message – a message that was two-sided. On one hand he was reaching out to Britons, flattering and responding graciously to Rothermere’s support. But there was also an implicit threat: Germany had been crushed by Versailles and unless the shackles were lifted, Europe would suffer. He used the ogre of Bolshevism to fuel fears that Russian communism could spread unless his demands were granted in future.

  ‘We know now what his idea of a settlement was,’ Reynolds later wrote. Yet Hitler’s comments about Bolshevism and Versailles were cleverly designed and set the tone for the type of overtures he would repeatedly make during the 1930s. Drawing a link between the strength or weakness of Germany and the spread of communism was his primary method of winning western opinion round to his regime.

  In Britain there was a receptive audience. In the immediate wake of the Versailles Treaty, some said its punitive terms were storing up trouble for the future. The economist John Maynard Keynes was among those who thought that impoverishing Germany was hardly conducive to future peace. There was a growing feeling that Germany had been wronged by the treaty. Other countries became magnets for increasing resentment, notably the old enemy France and newly communist Russia. As Labour politician Hugh Dalton reflected later: ‘Some became stupidly anti-French; others stupidly anti-Russian; others reverted to a sentimental pro-Germanism, based on some myth of special kinships or national resemblance, or in the sporting habit of a handshake after a fight.’158