Steve Wick - The Long Night: William L. Shirer and the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

THE LONG NIGHT

A LSO BY S TEVE W ICK

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THE LONG NIGHT

W ILLIAM L. S HIRER AND
T HE R ISE AND F ALL OF THE
T HIRD R EICH

STEVE WICK

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THE LONG NIGHT

Copyright Steve Wick, 2011.

All rights reserved.

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First published in 2011 by

PALGRAVE MACMILLAN

in the United Statesa division of St. Martins Press LLC,

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ISBN 9780230623187

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data.

Wick, Steve.

The long night : William L. Shirer and the rise and fall of the Third Reich / by Steve Wick. p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-230-62318-7 (hardback)

1. Shirer, William L. (William Lawrence), 19041993. 2. Journalists United StatesBiography. 3. World War, 19391945Journalists Biography. 4. World War, 19391945Press coverageUnited States. 5. FascismGermanyPress coverage. I. Title.

PN4874.S49W53 2011

070.4332092dc22

2011005262

[B]

A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.

Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.

First edition: August 2011

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the United States of America.

In memory of Lt. Michael Murphy May 7, 1976June 28, 2005

We owe respect to the living. To the dead we owe only the truth.

Voltaire

The historians task is not to disrupt for the sake of it, but it is to tell what is almost always an uncomfortable story and explain why the discomfort is part of the truth we need to live well and live properly. A well-organized society is one in which we know the truth about ourselves collectively, not one in which we tell pleasant lies about ourselves.

Tony Judt

What can I say? At least you opposed evil. You werent corrupted. You and I and the many locked up here, and the many more in other places of detention, and tens of thousands in concentration campstheyre all resisting, today and tomorrow

Yes, and then they will kill us, and what good did our resistance do?

Well, it will have helped us to feel that we behaved decently till the end. And much more, it will have helped people everywhere, who will be saved for the righteous few among them, as it says in the Bible. Of course, Quangel, it would have been a hundred times better if wed had someone who could have told us. Such and such is what you have to do; our plan is this and this. But if there had been such a man in Germany, then Hitler would never have come to power in 1933. As it was, we all acted alone, we were caught alone, and every one of us will have to die alone. But that doesnt mean that we are alone, Quangel, or that our deaths will be in vain. Nothing in this world is done in vain, and since we are fighting for justice against brutality, we are bound to prevail in the end.

And what good will that do us, down in our graves?

Quangel, I ask you! Would you rather live for an unjust cause than die for a just one?

From the novel Every Man Dies Alone, by Hans Fallada, page 430

CONTENTS

TIMELINE OF EVENTS

PROLOGUE

L EAVING B ERLIN

Berlin, December 5, 1940

S now had fallen all night, and as morning broke over the metropolis, Bill Shirer set out in a taxi from the Adlon Hotel for the airport at Tempelhof. He felt as if hed been running nonstop for days or weeks or years. On top of the fatigue, hed had too many whiskeys the previous nights as he planned his getaway, and this morning his stomach churned. The alarm that had overcome him in previous weeks grew more intense as the cab negotiated the snowy streets.

The final mile to the airport stretched on and on until finally there it was, dark buildings set against an overcast sky. Each night Berlin became a vast city of dark streets and dark buildings trying desperately to hide itself from British bombers, but the morning sun revealed all its secrets. Shirer was sick of being in a blacked-out city, sick of the darkness and the fear and the inability to live any kind of happy life. He missed the bright nights listening to great music. He loathed the government censors and the officious bureaucrats and the journalists who played along with them. On top of everything, he missed his wife, Tess, and their two-year-old daughter, Eileen.

He had not expected the weather to turn so bad. It only heightened his worry. Three big passenger planes had crashed in previous days because of icing problems. If the storm worsened, the plane would not take off and the airport would be shut down. Hed have to try again another day, and every day brought unexpected risks. If the plane did take off in the storm, he feared that the wings would ice up and the pilot would have to drop lower over the mountains. Anything could happen then. His friend Wally Deuel, in a panic after the three crashes, had left Berlin the day before on a train to Stuttgart, where he hoped to find a safe flight out of the country.