Everything was in darkness, blacked out, huddling in the night, silenced by the fear of raiders. I glanced back at the bulk of the Pennine hills beyond our house: it was possible to make out the curve of the moors against the slightly less dark sky.
While I stood there, shivering, I heard the all-clear: the first single-note sound drifted in on the wind from miles away, but one by one the other sirens on their town hall roofs, their fire station gantries, their school outbuildings, their church towers, took up the eerie but comforting message. No raid after all, they said; not tonight. Maybe somewhere else is getting it, but not here, not now. It’s safe to leave shelter, to return to your beds.
I went back into the house, secured the door, and returned to the space beneath the stairs. Birgit was half awake, because of the sirens. I cuddled her fondly and helped her climb the stairs, taking her first to the lavatory then back to our bed. We crawled between the cold sheets, Birgit moving around many times while she tried to make her distended belly comfortable. I pressed against her, holding her, trying to warm her with my own chilled arms and legs.
xvi
The next morning, while Birgit was taking a bath, I went to my bureau in the corner of the living room. I took Dr Burckhardt’s letter from the lockable, central drawer.
I read again his expression of thanks, the request for me to stand back from normal Red Cross duties for a while, the continued payment of my wages. His plain letter, handwritten and hurried in tone, was for me a guarantee of reality. It was a link back through unreliable memories to that memorable conference in Lisbon. I was not misremembering that. I had been there and it had really happened.
I felt that a sign of my improvement was the fact that I was starting to recover from the attacks more quickly. As the day went by I was able to forget the hallucination about the air raid and I began to wonder instead what I could do to occupy my time until I heard from Dr Burckhardt.
I was idle and useless around the house, aggravating a situation I did not properly comprehend. It was not a happy period. During the week that followed my spectral vision of the air raid Birgit and I argued many times, over trivial matters and large ones. We spent time in separate parts of the house. I felt we were becoming strangers to each other and I had no idea what I could do about it. I was miserable when I thought about what she and I were becoming. All the excitement of knowing each other, all trust, all familiarity, most of the love, had been beaten out of us by the experience of war. Only the unborn child, restless in her belly, remained to link us together. But what would happen after he or she was born?
One evening, while I was listening to the BBC, I heard a report of the previous night’s RAF attack on the north German port of Kiel. It was described in the usual confident terms of the propaganda issued by the Air Ministry: the raid was pressed home by the crews with great skill and determination and while under attack from intense anti-aircraft fire. The target was described, as always, as a military one. In this case, many port installations and German army supplies had been damaged or destroyed. But the BBC also said that the damage had been widespread – surely that would mean many of the bombs fell outside the port area? Then there was the admission that more of our planes than normal had been shot down. It sounded as if the German night fighters had been unusually effective.
Inevitably, my thoughts turned to Jack. It is true that I did not often think about him deliberately, but that was because it was easier not to. For many years we had been so close: inseparable, our parents used to say about us. Some identical twins were like that. We did everything together, tied by an instinctive sense of kinship, of inherent oneness. We both tended to drift in a state of abeyance if we were separated. At school the teachers made us sit in different classes, but as soon as the breaks came we were together again. Because of that constant intimacy we grew up without many friends, our closeness not only self-sustaining but excluding too. It continued into early adulthood: when we were rowing together we used to say we were one mind in two bodies. But for the last five years, since our return from the Olympics, we had been almost completely separated, first by choice then more recently by the conditions of war.
Had we been drifting in abeyance once more, without each other? Because of my idleness around the house I began to think so, at least of myself. I thought back over my year of active pacifism, going it alone, or trying to, when most of the other men of my age were in the forces. None of my beliefs had changed, but I did begin to wonder if I had been approaching the problem the right way. Then there was Jack. Since the war began I had been making assumptions about him and his motives, but I knew that deep down we had to be much the same. We were much the same in so many other things. We had the same father, came from the same family tradition of tolerance, liberal conscience, anti-warfare. What might he be going through, while he flew against the enemy?
I had pushed Jack away from my conscious thoughts. I already knew how the war encouraged the temptation to avoid important decisions, to put things off, to try to suppress feelings, to stop worrying about this or that. But how could I have done that to Jack? The news of the raid on Kiel – in itself one more attack in a war filled with such attacks – reminded me yet again of the peril that he was facing in the RAF. I assumed that as an operational pilot he would be fully engaged in the bombing campaign. Every time he went on a raid his life was at risk.
I held secret knowledge that would affect him. Peace was imminent, while warfare continued. Danger remained until the last shot was fired, the last bomb dropped.
16
Selection of entries from the diaries of Dr Paul Joseph Goebbels (Bundesarchiv, Berlin, 1957), translated into English by T. F. Henderson. During this period Dr Goebbels was Gauleiter of Berlin and Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda.
March 28, 1941 (Friday)
Yesterday: Overthrow of the corrupt king of Yugoslavia. New King Peter is only seventeen years old. Churchill welcomes his coup as of the arrival of a saviour.
No air incursions overnight; news from Bulgaria as excellent as expected; more good news from Libya; we have made both these triumphs public. The Italians not doing so well in Abyssinia, but we need more details.
Working madly at full stretch, before a flying trip to Wilhelmshaven to inspect bomb damage. Already we are rebuilding the city, using the damage as an excuse to get rid of many outdated buildings and to remove the undesirables who live in them. Back by plane to Hamburg, then train to Berlin.
I am asked to review the cases of Betzner and two other ‘poets’, sentenced to prison for inappropriate activities. They are all swine who deserve longer sentences than the court was able to give them. Have ordered an investigation into their family backgrounds. There’s always something you can find out about scum like these.
Haushofer came to my office in the evening. Says that rumours of peace are running riot all over the USA, but that they appear to stem not from us but from London. Hess’s ranting about a peace party in Britain takes on a semblance of reality. At the same time, Roosevelt is thoroughly insulting. He claims the Reich’s wish for peace is not sincere. This is the sort of bumpkin we have to deal with.
April 4, 1941 (Friday)
Yesterday: A great gloom has descended over England as our successes continue. Twenty thousand tons of their shipping have been sunk in one day. More advances in the desert; the British are in complete retreat and surrendering on all sides. Where will we keep the extra prisoners? No incursions by air. We continue to smash the English cities. Half the population of Plymouth is homeless, the rest are suffering abject misery and screaming for surrender.
I am so busy during the day that I do not eat; everything is too much. Visitors call on me constantly. One of them was Speer, apparently wasting time because he has nothing to do while we are in Bulgaria. Speer is a snob and poseur who thinks he is the only one in whom the Führer confides. I remind him we are too busy now to be rebuilding Berlin.
Amongst other matters Speer mention
s that the Führer bitterly regrets that we are fighting England. He describes England as our natural ally. I have heard it so often I am almost ready to believe it. I tell Speer what we are doing to keep our English friends awake every night, teaching them a lesson with our bombers and undermining the possible support of the Americans. Nothing frightens Roosevelt more than the idea that we will make up with the English, so we are simultaneously smashing the British and helping the Americans stay out of the fighting.
The British Ambassador in Moscow has had a meeting with Stalin. Our sources say that it was longer than usual and appeared to be serious. They must know by now what we are planning! I wrote a note to the Führer on the subject, and signed and dated it to be on the safe side, but I will not trouble him with it just yet.
April 7, 1941 (Monday)
Yesterday: Belgrade was completely destroyed as we moved in on them. Russia pleads with us for peace; that’s more like it! USA predictably grumbles at us. Forty thousand tons of shipping sunk. Another successful night over England – how long can they put up with being bombed out of their beds every night? No air incursions by the RAF. Italy not doing well in Abyssinia, but they are all brown-trousered cowards who can cook their own goose.
Hectic but enthralling day, writing the story of Belgrade for the newspapers. We are emphasizing that it’s not finished yet, hard times lie ahead, but the action will be swift and decisive. Message received from the Führer: he wants to know if we are ready for the big push next month. I take it he means to ask by this: will the English have come around to our point of view by then? I tell him that it is so.
I have forbidden any more dancing in public places. Unsuitable activities in wartime have to be controlled. I called in the reporters from the American newspapers and told them that it was a public safety matter, because of the risk from the air incursions.
In the evening: Hess called in to see me. A rare visit. He is such a poof and a weakling! He is about to make another trip to Lisbon, says he has made up his mind on his own to do it, but what did I think? Of course what he means is that he is trying to find out from me what the Führer thinks. And that means he worries if the Führer will still let him go if he finds out. I gave Hess the assurances he wanted, but his stock has been lowered recently. If it goes wrong I will tell everyone he is mad, because most people think that anyway.
A glorious day for the Reich!
April 21, 1941 (Monday)
Yesterday: the Führer’s birthday. Hess came back a week ago from his trip to Lisbon without saying anything about it. So I put him up to delivering the radio tribute to the Führer, as there was no one else who would do it. I expected him to deviate from the script I wrote for him, but he read every word. No originality in the man.
No incursions here, but we sent 800 aircraft to London. The British are losing their morale. Even Churchill’s fine words cannot rally them after this. We shall follow it up with more. Good news on other fronts: Libya, Serbia, Greece, even the Italians have been holding their own in Abyssinia. The Führer told me last week that he does not want to have to send troops to help Mussolini again. Already our triumph in the Balkans has been delaying the main event. When we have cleared Greece of the English we can concentrate on the real war.
The public are not listening to the wireless often enough. It could be dangerous to morale. Who knows what they might do instead? I have issued new rules and incentives.
In the evening: another visit from ‘Fräulein’ Hess, visibly nervous because he thinks the Führer will find out what he’s doing. I reassure him that he need not worry, that the Führer is completely behind him. Hess is a toady! This is the first time he has tried to act without the Führer’s knowledge. A great lesson to be learned. He worries that we are hitting the British too hard, too successfully, that they won’t want to discuss peace. I convince him otherwise, because it is important that he makes his trip, if not for the reasons he thinks.
May 10, 1941 (Saturday)
Yesterday: A heavy raid on Mannheim, with much damage and many deaths. In revenge we send 200 aircraft to England, so they have nothing to laugh about. We hear of appalling damage done to the port of Hull, worse than anything they have done to us. Twenty thousand tons of shipping sent to the bottom by our U-boats.
Moscow has withdrawn recognition of some of the territories we have occupied. They sound as if they are worried about something. Stalin is planning to stay out of the war as long as possible, so that England and Germany exhaust themselves. Then the move to bolshevize Europe will begin. That’s what the Russians think, but by then it will be too late. Soon we will turn to the East. Two strokes at once will thwart them. Peace on one front and war on the other, both totally unexpected. It is dangerous to have so much depending on that lickspittle Hess.
This week’s newsreel is one of the best we have yet produced. I authorize it at once, and order that a copy be sent direct to the Führer at the Berghof. It has given me new confidence in our cause.
Goering sought me out after dinner. He is even fatter now than before and is having trouble breathing; he did not remove his ridiculous cap the whole time he was with me. He wanted to know what information I had about Hess, so I told him some of it. He showed me a flight-plan Hess has drawn up and offered to let the Luftwaffe take care of him if the Führer ordered it. So tempting. I wonder if the Führer is behind this after all? Hess is his favourite but everyone thinks he is mad. How else would the Führer close the war with England if Hess were stopped?
May 11, 1941 (Sunday)
Yesterday: This was the day the Führer planned for the next great strike. May 10 was the first anniversary of the start of the offensive in the West and his sense of opera demanded that we balance it with our move in the East. Not to be! The generals who are expected to do our work are snivellers! They say we have too many men in the Balkans, but the English have been kicked out of Greece so what do they have left to complain about? I have been trying to find out when the new date will be but no one seems to know when it is.
Huge raid on Hamburg in the early hours of this morning, but as always the British fliers were frightened away by our barrage of anti-aircraft fire. Most of their bombs fell in the river and few of the others went off. As if to make up for their failure, the English sent a paltry secondary force to scatter incendiaries on Berlin. Little damage but a great deal of pointless aggravation. Meanwhile we sent more than seven hundred aircraft to deliver the coup de grâce to London. It’s too early for confirmation, but the pilots report that London was ablaze from one end to the other.
Our short-wave broadcasts to the USA need improving, so I shall be taking personal control. There is no point pussyfooting about. Roosevelt is a danger to our plans, because of his ignorance of the issues and receiving too much influence from Churchill. We will seize Roosevelt by the throat and shake him until he falls apart. Few Americans realize that Roosevelt is a cripple.
I have forbidden all mention of Russia in our press. Just for the time being. If nothing else, it will rattle Stalin’s spies.
Hess disappeared as expected. He took off from the Messerschmitt factory in Augsburg on a supposed test flight, then headed off towards the north. He refuelled in Holland before flying out over the sea. To my amazement he followed the flight plan he showed me, so everyone knew exactly where he was. The man is mad, of course, and it has been the devil’s own job keeping him away from the American reporters. The Führer has been concerned about him for some time, it should be said and will now most certainly be said. With Hess gone it will be easier to convince everyone that he had become unstable. This is the line we take if everything goes wrong, as it surely must. Once I was certain Hess was on his way I alerted Reichsmarschall Goering at what I considered to be an appropriate time. The Luftwaffe will no doubt have dealt with the poor man, whose service to the Party has been without parallel. A great National Socialist hero! I shall be busy with this one as soon as we hear the reaction from the English. After that, we can get on with the
war. I would like to see Roosevelt’s and Stalin’s faces when they hear about Hess.
If Goering fails to deal with Hess, I shall complain about him again to the Foreign Ministry. It won’t have any real effect, but Goering hates Ribbentrop as much as I do and it will distract them from other things if they engage in another squabble.
To Lanke in the evening, to be with Magda and my children, and to indulge for once in an early night. Everyone around me has been in wonderful high spirits. We all sense that at last the real war is about to begin.
17
Holograph notebooks of J. L. Sawyer
xvii
I told Birgit that I had been called in to work for the Red Cross again, that I would not be gone for long. She asked no questions, offered no complaint. I needed to get away from the house for a while and we both knew it.
I travelled across the country to Lincolnshire, a journey which in peacetime, by car, would take only a few hours. Now, when members of the public were in effect banned from using their cars, public transport was the only way.
The slow train journey, calling at every station and with many unexplained delays, took me the best part of a day and a half, including one night huddling in the dismal waiting-room in Nottingham station after I missed my connection. I was exhausted by the time I reached Barnham, the town closest to my brother’s RAF station, and I counted myself lucky to find a vacant bedroom over the bar in one of the High Street pubs and went straight to bed.
Because I was so tired I assumed I would sleep through the night without interruption, but I felt as if I had only just dropped off when I was woken by the sound of engines.
Aircraft were flying low over the centre of the town, their engines straining and roaring. I thought I was used to the noise of aero engines, near and far, hostile and friendly, but these were entirely different. Waves of deafening sound battered against the sleeping town.