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Text originally published in 1942 under the same title.
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Publishers Note
Although in most cases we have retained the Authors original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern readers benefit.
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ASSIGNMENT TO BERLIN
Harry W. Flannery
CHAPTER I FIRST DAYS
MY ASSIGNMENT to Berlin came in October 1940. On October 24, a Clipper carried me from New York to replace William L. Shirer as a representative of the Columbia Broadcasting System in the Nazi capital.
The Clipper took me to Lisbon. Lisbon, as I saw it, was an international whirlpool into which were swept from every direction, people of all nationalities, races, colours and tongues, none wishing to stay, but all forced to remain long days, weeks, and sometimes months awaiting transportation. Lisbon, with its colourful stucco houses shining from the hillsides through nests of palms and funny bushy-topped trees, and with lush growths of flowers and ferns, was a beautiful spot. Its narrow winding streets, along which passed barefooted women jauntily carrying baskets on their heads, aged wrinkled men on pack-saddled donkeys, boys in two-wheeled carts driving loads of grain behind tiny mules, and tiny continually honking automobiles were interesting. But all this was lost on people in a nervous haste to leave.
It was a week before I was able to quit Lisbon, the first quiet period since Paul White had cabled me in St. Louis to go to Berlin. During those last days in the United States, I had rushed preparing to leave and had had no time to consider all that the assignment, meant. In Lisbon the dragging hours brought sober realization of the fact that I had actually left my home and family for the first time. I had gone from a bungalow down a tree-shaded street in suburban St. Louis, gone from Ruth and Pat, my wife and year-and-a-half-old daughter, who just a few days previously had waved a bewildered goodbye at the airport in St. Louis. In Lisbon, as I looked on scenes I should have liked to share with them, they had suddenly become far away. I was on my way to help cover a war.
Ala Littoria, the Italian airline, took me from Lisbon to Madrid. I took off from a field that I was to find typical of Europe, a grass-covered expanse on which the only concrete runways were short strips near the airport station. The plane itself was in no way like those in the United States. There were no freshly clean white linen towels for head rests on the back of the seats, no hostesses bringing chewing gum to help you adjust inner and outer air pressure in ascending and descending, no admonitions to fasten your safety belt when you went up or came downmine was worn and useless anywayand the crew did not bother to close the door to the cabin, where I watched the radio operator occasionally don his ear phones and listen for messages. We were over the clouds most of the way, only now and then getting glimpses of the waste brown terrain, more rolling than most of that in the United States and less dark, with green relieving the sun-baked expanses only as crowns upon the higher hills.
At Madrid the Spanish authorities argued about my leaving the plane, since I had only a transit visa, but I finally convinced them that I could not go on from there out of the country since I did not have the visa for my destination; I had been instructed by the German Embassy in New York to pick up my German visa in Madrid. The rush of my departure had made that necessary.
I expected to be in Madrid only long enough to call at the German Consulate and obtain my entrance visa to the Reich. I therefore asked the central police of the Spanish capital to extend my Spanish visa for forty-eight hours, presumably sufficient. But I had not yet realized that life in Europe, especially in the southern countries, moves more leisurely than in the United States. The German Consul taught me my first lesson. Although I saw a copy of my record, my name, address, age, passport number, and other details about me on his desk, he insisted that he had no instructions to grant me a German visa.
We must go through the usual routine, he said.
But you should have the visa ready for me here, I said. Your Consul in New York told me that all Id have to do was to come here and get the visa.
The bland German said that was impossible.
It is never done that way, he said. You must fill out a form and make application in the usual way. You will then get your visa in a month, if everything is all right.
I told the clerk I would pay for a wire to Berlin and that I must have immediate action, since my Spanish visa was good for only one more day.
I can send the wire, he said, but even then it will take at least fifteen days. I doubt whether you can get it that soon. Its never done.
The clerk rose and shook hands.
I hope you can get an extension on your Spanish visa, he said.
I walked out fumingly angry. I thought then I was meeting with the Spanish spirit of maana as it affected even the Germans who lived in a country like Spain. I did not know then that instead I was having my first experience of the methodical plodding of so-called German efficiency, a system that will not permit disturbance of routine, that cannot conceive of exceptions to revered procedure, that is founded on German discipline, and that, as the people blindly follow the rules set up for them, cannot conceive of any deviation from the normal.
Later in Germany, where they have stories to fit every situation and sometimes make fun of themselves, I heard a story about a wounded soldier who went to a hospital for treatment.
The efficiency there was marvellous, he was reported to have said. I went into the front door. On my left was a corridor for officers and on my right one for privates. I went to the right. There I found arrows pointed to one side for those badly wounded and to the other for those who had less serious injuries. I followed those for serious wounds. A few steps farther on, there were turns to the right and left again. One was for those who had been injured by shot and the other for those who had suffered knife or bayonet wounds. This division went on as I walked for three hours. Finally I came to the door which fitted my case exactly. I walked through it and came out on the street.
But did you get your wound treated? asked a friend.
No, said the soldier, but the efficiency was wonderful. It was a German model.
