The House of Ullstein E-Book

Hermann Ullstein

• Herausgeber: Ullstein eBooks
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

»Their motto was political liberalism and modern culture«, Arthur Koestler wrote of the Ullstein family. Enthralling and full of the atmosphere of the period, Hermann Ullstein brings the early years of the Ullstein publishing empire to life. He portrays its impressive rise to become Europe's largest publisher, as well as the dramatic upheavals in Germany that led to the company's expropriation by the Nazis.

Leseprobe

HERMANN ULLSTEIN

The House of Ullstein

A Memoir

Translated by James SternEpilogue by Martin Münzel

Ullstein

Reprint at Ullstein Buchverlage 2016

© Ullstein Buchverlage GmbH, Berlin 2016

© Simon & Schuster, Inc, New York, 1943

© epilogue by Martin Münzel, 2013

(translation: Alexandra Roesch)

First published in the United States by Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1943,as The Rise and Fall of the House of Ullstein

Conversion eBook: CPI books GmbH, Leck

ISBN 978-3-8437-1497-6

TO MY WIFE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I.

The Night Before Hitler

II.

Hitler Pounces on the Press

III.

Three Quarters of a Century Ago

IV.

Rapid Rise

V.

A Period of General Consolidation

VI.

The Great War Intervenes

VII.

Through Storms to the Stars

VIII.

The Unexploited Power

IX.

In Hitler’s Hell

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Index

Annotations

Chapter I

THE NIGHT BEFORE HITLER

Dancing on the Edge of the Volcano

IN THE HUGE banqueting halls of Berlin’s Zoological Gardens the waves of pleasure are running high. It’s the last Saturday in January of the fateful year 1933. For years this last Saturday has been reserved for the culminating peak of Berlin’s social life—the Press Ball.

All Berlin—that is, everybody who is Somebody in society—is there. Whoever does not receive from the committee the white, elegantly printed invitation card, with his name inscribed, must indeed have some dark page in his own record. For it is only by invitation that one can attend this ball, this annual gathering of Germany’s most glamorous personalities.

In these vast, brightly lit and crowded halls, with their tiers of boxes round the walls, you find yourself amongst ministers of state, politicians, members of Parliament and the press, artists, poets, and the intellectual leaders of both the theater and the film worlds. You can move only very slowly, step by step, through these seven halls packed with illustrious people—the men wearing multicolored uniforms with rows of medals or evening dress with white ties, and women in dazzling evening dress. Indeed, it does not occur to one of these society ladies to appear in anything but fashion’s latest creation. For such is the tradition of the Press Ball. Nor will their ambition have been satisfied until they have read in the morning papers a detailed description of their appearance by a leading fashion expert.

See that group over there in the corner of the next room? Four of them are well-known dramatic critics. The man now joining them and shaking hands is the poet Fulda. Move a little closer, and you can hear what the critic is saying to him.

“I’ve just read your lovely poem in our ball’s program! Your style, my dear Fulda, defies imitation!”

There’s no denying that touched his vanity! Look at him smile!

The crowd is so dense here, it’s wiser to move on, though you can advance only inches at a time. A tango is being played in the next hall. That was Max Reinhardt, see him? Now we’re through, you can get a better view. Look, that’s Helene Thimig standing near the wall, with Felix Holländer. And there’s Professor Liebermann, talking to Spiro. He has aged lately, hasn’t he?

Here we are in the main hall. Now you … but what’s going on here? The great center box is empty! Where are the Chancellor and the ministers?

Suddenly you feel an ominous tension in the air. You can hear fragments of sensational news spreading from mouth to mouth:

“Chancellor Schleicher and his whole Cabinet have abdicated! President Hindenburg has already accepted his resignation!”

“Have you heard …?”

“Well, that’s what Minister of State Busch says, but he thinks there’s no need to worry, as only recently Hindenburg refused Hitler the chancellorship.”

Such statements, accompanied by a waltz from the next room, tend to allay their fears. You can see the worried faces brighten as the groups disperse in couples. Women smile again as they join in the revolving crowd.

Yes, that’s true enough. Only the other day Hindenburg told Hitler bluntly: “I can’t entrust the power of the state to a Party man desiring to become a dictator. I could not reconcile that with my oath and my conscience.”

What’s more, it’s only two months since the National Socialists suffered a considerable setback in the parliamentary elections. Of their 230 seats, they retained only 196. No doubt Hitler’s luck is on the wane, his star fading. He has surely ceased to be a danger. This present affair is nothing more than a brotherly tiff between Schleicher and Papen, both struggling to get the upper hand. That’s the general interpretation put on the Chancellor’s resignation, and with this in mind people lull themselves into a feeling of security.

Throughout the halls champagne is now flowing like water. Suddenly all eyes turn to a box in which there is much more going on than in the half-empty government loge next door.

“Whose box is that?” asks a newcomer.

“That? The Ullsteins’. Recognize Remarque? That’s he, just being introduced to Mady Christians, Berlin’s most charming actress. She’s married to Sven von Müller, one of the Ullstein editors. Behind her, sitting down, is Vicki Baum. Her last novel is another best seller. That’s Mr. Ross talking to her. He’s the son-in-law of the eldest Ullstein brother.”

The newcomer peers through his opera glasses.

“What about the Ullsteins themselves?”

“Not here. They don’t like appearing in public. They leave politics to their editors, and themselves remain in the background. … That’s Geheimrat Schaeffer entering their box. He recently joined their staff. Formerly he was Secretary of the Treasury. The man now greeting him is the Austrian Ambassador. … You know, of course, the Ullstein papers and magazines have the greatest circulation in all Germany.”

The band striking up now draws everyone on to the floor and obscures the view of the boxes. See that man with a monocle, making his way toward the minister’s box? That’s Professor Ludwig Stein, Ullstein’s “Diplomaticus.” Once a university professor, he’s now the political reporter for the Vossische Zeitung, which the Ullsteins own. Let’s try to get a little nearer. There are only a few privy councilors sitting in the box, all looking anxious. What’s that “Diplomaticus” is saying?

“No danger, gentlemen. I have reliable information that Papen is going to get in again. All the conservatives are standing firm together.”

This welcome news has already been announced to the world by cable and telephone from Ullstein’s.

“There’s no doubt,” says one of the councilors, “that Hindenburg will decide he’s got to remain loyal to his friends.”

“I wonder,” says a doubter. “Hindenburg has let down friends before.”

“But surely you haven’t forgotten that Hindenburg was elected President in preference to Hitler? He can’t let down his own voters.”

This remark sounds convincing. The skeptic is calmed. The dancing continues. The early hours of the morning arrive and no cloud has appeared to weaken the effects of champagne.

At five o’clock in the morning Kurt Safranski, one of the Ullstein directors, leaves the ball prematurely and goes home. He feels feverish. His wife tends him and puts him to bed, where he sleeps soundly for nearly twenty-four hours. When he finally wakes, he sits up and gazes at his wife.

“Any news?” he asks.

“Not much,” she answers sarcastically. “Hitler has been appointed Chancellor.”

Chapter II

HITLER POUNCES ON THE PRESS

NEXT DAY, January 31, 1933, everyone in the huge publishing house in Berlin’s Kochstrasse feels greatly excited. Work is impossible. Nervous groups stand around in the corridors, discussing, debating, speculating. The pessimists predict the end of the publishing house; the optimists consider Hitler’s chancellorship nothing but an interlude before the wild man’s imminent downfall.

Our grieved “Diplomaticus,” a pessimist, hurries off in one of the cars the firm always keeps parked before the door.

“The Chancellery!” he calls to the driver.

The ride takes barely ten minutes, but every second of it adds to our reporter’s gloom. Only two days ago at the Press Ball he himself had announced that Hindenburg did not want Hitler, that Papen would stage a comeback, and that there was nothing to worry about. All his prophecies have gone wrong. Has he suddenly lost his famous political flair? Well, he will soon see.

The car draws up in front of the Chancellery. Diplomatics jumps out and is about to rush in.

“Stop!” cries the porter. “Your pass!” Diplomaticus stands still in amazement. “But, Kessler!” he cries to the doorman, “you don’t mean to say you don’t know who I am!”

“Mr. Kessler to you!” is the answer. “Where do you want to go?”

“To the Secretary of State, of course!”

“He can’t see you!”

Diplomaticus now begins to feel uncomfortable. “Listen, my dear man, are you telling me you’ve orders to keep me out? You know I come here every day to get government news.”

The porter cuts him short. “Only those with a pass from Party headquarters can get by here.”

Very depressed, thinking that all is over so far as he is concerned, Diplomaticus returns to the office. There he discovers that his colleague Reiner, from the B. Z. am Mittag, has been treated in the same manner. All connection with the government seems to have been completely cut off. Reiner, however, chaffs Diplomaticus for being so down in the mouth.

“You mustn’t always look on the black side of things, my dear Professor,” he says. “I myself am still a confirmed optimist.”

“And on what,” asks Diplomaticus, “do you base your optimism?”

“On the fact that the German Nationalists will sit in Hitler’s Cabinet just as they did under Papen. They will occupy all key posts in the administration. Papen is going to be Vice-Chancellor, and the Ministries for Foreign Affairs, the Interior, the Treasury, the Reichswehr, and Agriculture will all be held by his friends. Now, what can Hitler do? Not a darned thing!”

This is news to Diplomaticus, but he does not show it. It’s now his turn to play his own trump card; though all communication with the government has been cut, he has, nevertheless, heard something of importance.

“At four o’clock this afternoon,” he tells his colleague, “Hitler will broadcast his maiden speech as Chancellor. Then we shall see if he’s going on sticking his neck out!”

“Of course he won’t,” says Reiner. “As Chancellor, he’s bound to be conscious of his responsibility. He can’t go on thundering as he did at his mass meetings. He’ll naturally see things in a different perspective.”

At four o’clock that afternoon all work in the Ullstein firm is stopped; Clausner, the leader of the National Socialist “cell,” has ordered all employees, editors included, to listen to the speech. Orders are orders.

Now this “cell,” a National Socialist agency set up to control business, employees and management alike, sprang into existence overnight as a kind of cogovernment along Russian-Bolshevik lines. There it suddenly was, a force to be reckoned with. Clausner already has lists of all the firm’s departments and their managers. He now informs these men that their duty is to see that a loudspeaker is placed in every department so that the Führer’s speech can be heard by all. The word “Führer,” by the way, is used officially for the first time. No one is allowed to leave his desk before the end of the speech. A feeling of tenseness runs through all the offices and workrooms.

Suddenly a gong sounds. Then comes the radio announcer’s voice, but it’s not the one we have grown accustomed to; it’s a strange, unpleasantly shrill voice, telling us that the Führer has just made his entrance. Then the microphones are switched on, and we hear Hitler greeted with wild cries of “Heil!” Now the shouting ceases as though by command.

“Volksgenossen!” Hitler begins. “For fifteen years an incapable government has been weighing upon our country. For fifteen years the Jews have exploited the German people. Eight million unemployed is the sad result of this failure, which has ruined our people and our Reich. From now on everything will change, for I have grasped the reins of government!”

Strange arrogance! Never before has a Chancellor dared to speak quite so disrespectfully of his predecessors.

“To wipe out unemployment will take me four years. Give me those four years, and I will create order.”

In a word, the Bolshevik pattern: a Four-Year Plan! Stalin used precisely the same phrasing when, in 1928, he proclaimed his Five-Year Plan for the socialization of agriculture.

“I shall be severe,” continues Hitler at the top of his voice. “I shall need no criticism, nor tolerate any opposition. I demand,” he concludes, screaming like a madman, “only obedience!”

We stare at each other in amazement. How does his demand for obedience coincide with the Constitution of the Reich which he has sworn to uphold? Wasn’t it only yesterday that Hitler solemnly gave his oath of allegiance to the President of the Reich? The Constitution recognizes no blind obedience, but only freedom of expression. What have the German Nationalist ministers to say to such an announcement? When he uttered the word “obedience” he was yelling just as he did at his mass meetings in the past. “God help us!” we mutter to one another, while we sit there waiting for the tirade to end.

At last it’s over. If it had been necessary to give orders to cease work, others were needed now for its resumption. The shock is so profound that for a long time many of us stand about, speechless, unable to move. Finally, someone venturing to utter an opinion is promptly challenged, and heated arguments follow. Only now do we discover how propaganda—here at Ullstein’s, where the democratic newspapers are printed—has all the time been working undercover. It soon transpires that almost one third of the personnel is at heart in Hitler’s camp, each one infected by the spirit of denunciation. Only now, however, do they dare say so—some hesitatingly, others threateningly. All the rest keep silent because a single word of criticism is relayed immediately to Clausner’s cell.

A few days after Hitler’s speech I had a conversation with one of our editors, a man named Kappusch, who had always expressed his devotion to me. Whenever I had talked with him in the past he had always reminded me of how I had once helped him and his family when he was in trouble.

Today, however, his tone was different. “They’ll all come along now,” he said. “From now on, everyone will want to become a member of the Party. But this honor must be deserved. Each person will have to prove that his heart is in National Socialism.”

I expressed my astonishment. “But, Kappusch,” I remonstrated, “you never used to talk like this. Since when have you, too, been a National Socialist?”

“Since the beginning of the movement,” was his answer. “Since 1923.”

“And in spite of that you have remained in this democratic publishing house?”

At this, he promptly let out a loud, humorless guffaw which sent a chill down my spine. It was then, and only then, that I perceived how for years we had been surrounded by enemies. No doubt this secret organization had for a long time kept a list of all people holding democratic opinions.

From now on denunciation thrived. Over everyone hung the menace of Clausner, now the big shot in the great publishing house. A few days after my conversation with Kappusch, there was a loud knock on my door and in walked Clausner himself, followed by two of his colleagues.

“We have come,” he began without any further formality, “to demand the dismissal of Director Ross. He is to leave the firm immediately.”

Now Director Ross was my eldest brother’s son-in-law and, incidentally, a brother of Colin Ross, the National Socialist, who had traveled widely for Ullstein’s as a journalist. His near relationship with a Party member, however, did not protect him.

“Why should Director Ross be dismissed?” I asked at once.

“We have learned,” said Clausner, “that he is associated with a man called Wendriner. Now we happen to know that this Wendriner is a friend of the Communist Tucholski.”

Now it was my turn to laugh.

“Gentlemen,” I told them, “I’m afraid you’re the victims of a misunderstanding. The Wendriner associated with Director Ross, far from being a Communist, is a retired captain of the German Army. There is, it’s true, another Wendriner—but he does not happen to be a person at all. He is, as a matter of fact, a humorous and fictitious character in the books of the novelist, Tucholski.”

The three men stared at each other in embarrassment. At last Clausner found his tongue.

“But isn’t the writer Tucholski a Communist?” he asked.

“At heart, possibly,” I said. “I really don’t know. In any case, his Wendriner stories are unpolitical.”

“In that case,” concluded Clausner magnanimously, “we’ll let it pass this time. But don’t forget to warn Director Ross.”

So saying, they left the room. And my nephew Ross, whom I called in and to whom I told the story, suffered no more than a shock on this occasion. In fact, after a minute or two, he burst out laughing at this astonishing mistake.

Apart from this, our sense of humor failed us. Terror reigned in the editorial offices, although, officially, freedom of expression remained inviolate. Everyone knew, however, that law and order had ceased to exist in Germany; the Constitution no longer protected citizens; and soon after Hitler’s seizure of power, his satellite Göring declared all Jews to be outlaws.

“Why should I let my police,” he cried, “be worried over a few Jews who have been beaten up or done to death?”

Nor did the Communists fare any better. They, like the Jews, were thrown into newly erected concentration camps, where they were set upon and tortured, their teeth knocked out, and their heads bashed in with iron bars. In the early mornings old people were forced to sprint to their work, and anyone collapsing was promptly thrashed. University professors were roped to benches and there treated to from twenty-five to fifty blows on their naked backs. Of these camps which sprang up like mushrooms, the one at Dachau, in Bavaria, was the most feared. But in another, at Oranienburg, near Berlin, equally frightful things went on. It was the will of the Führer that the “scum of the earth”—as the Nazis referred to their miserable prisoners—had to obey. Fear of such camps was sufficient, as may be imagined, to suffocate as much as one free word in the press.

Election Day for the new Parliament had been set for March 5. This time, however, no bets were being taken as to the possible winner. The terror paralyzing the people was considered enough to assure the victory of Hitler’s party. There was, nevertheless, a certain tension in the air, as though some catastrophe were imminent. Surprisingly enough, the first month of Hitler’s rule had passed without an earthquake splitting the ground beneath our feet or bringing the heavens down upon our heads. Then, suddenly, in the evening of February 27, we heard the shrill sirens of the fire-brigade cars as they came roaring out from all over the city, each heading in the direction of the Brandenburg Gate. A moment later one of our employees, who had been up on the roof, rushed in with the information that thick black clouds of smoke were sweeping across the sky from the neighborhood of the Reichstag building.

Taken completely by surprise, reporters rushed into the corridors and down the stairs. Then, over the phone, came the news that the Reichstag itself was ablaze from end to end.

“Incendiarism!” was the word that leaped to almost everyone’s lips. No sooner had we expressed this thought than the press was informed that the Communists had started the fire. These flames, announced the government, were to have been the signal for a Communist uprising.

A Putsch by the Communists? Why? Recently, they had been perfectly calm.

Then we heard that a young Dutchman by the name of van der Lubbe, stripped to the waist, had been caught while busily engaged in spreading the fire. The newspapers, however, were told to state officially that he was bound to have had accomplices who persuaded him to commit the crime. This was the line which the press was allowed to follow. The next thing we read was that Torgler, the Communist leader, had been arrested as chief conspirator, along with three Bulgarians, all well-known Communists, who lived in Berlin; and finally that the Führer himself, accompanied by Göring and Goebbels, had rushed to the scene of conflagration to assist in the work of extinguishing the flames.

The impression gained was that the “criminals” had been driven to the scene of the crime, for none of us really doubted that Hitler and his gang were the actual incendiaries. There they stood, simulating hypocritical indignation, while the ringleader, Hitler, shouted:

“Trust me to have the man guilty of this deed beheaded!”

Once again we saw him violating justice and the German law, which demanded capital punishment for murder alone. For incendiarism, the penalty had been a term of hard labor or imprisonment. Now, however, he saw fit to pass a law, according to which the penalty for high treason was death, too. And in this case it was a combination of high treason and incendiarism. Now is it right to judge someone according to laws which at the time of his crime were not in existence? But what does a man like Hitler care about justice and law? What, later on, did it matter to him whether the actual criminal was beheaded or some poor fool dragged to the scene of the crime, there to be arrested as a scapegoat?

Hitler’s and Göring’s motive in setting fire to the Reichstag was as clear as daylight: a device to promote another Bolshevist scare on the eve of the Reichstag elections. People could now vote for Hitler or be delivered to the Devil! The Reichstag fire just went to show what kinds of criminals the Communists were! (So far as Hitler was concerned, the suspicion which he had spread against the Communists was already a proven fact.) Should the Communists get into power, he cried to the people of Germany, they will deprive you of everything you have! (Thus attributing to others what he was planning himself.) They will rob you of your fortunes, rape your wives and daughters, and destroy all the fine things you have so painstakingly created. Only I, Hitler, can save you and all Europe from the deluge of Bolshevism. The man who does not vote for me is an idiot!

A clever ruse? Not at all. In fact, incredibly stupid! For not a soul in Germany doubted that Hitler and Göring had set the Reichstag on fire. It was pretty clear, too, that Joseph Goebbels had had a hand in it, for everything had been engineered so clumsily that the whole setup was quite transparent. Since those days I have often been asked if I wouldn’t have considered myself lucky to have had Goebbels as propagandist for our publishing house. Even in the light of his subsequent successes, I have always answered no. A man whose lies are always as short-lived as his would make a very poor salesman! No one believes him, but no one dares say so! It is no art for a man to force people to believe him.

The first people obliged to believe the fable of the Communist perpetrators were we newspapermen, and we received orders to print editorials stating that only the Führer’s vigilance had prevented the outbreak of the Communist revolution. “Beware of the Communist peril” was the slogan chosen by the government to drive the population to the polling booths on March 5.

Meanwhile, word leaked out about how the Reichstag was actually set afire. It certainly could not have been the work of a single man; if it had, the flames could not have leaped simultaneously from all parts of the building. What did happen was that Hitler’s Storm Troops, by an underground passage connecting the President’s official residence with the Reichstag itself, had found their way into the building. News now reached our editorial offices that a fireman had seen Storm Troop unit Number 17, known as the Horst Wessel Sturm, inside the Reichstag, in the act of starting the fire.

The very same editors who, a short while ago, had insisted on nothing but the truth now published Hitler’s lies without batting an eyelid. I asked several of these men how it was possible for them to do this against their inner convictions. One, with downcast eyes, explained that he had three children to support at home. Another had a sick wife who cost him a great deal of money. A third had aging parents. None of these poor devils could afford to tell the truth, for not only would he have lost his job as editor; the government would have seen to it that he never got another.

Yes, such were the motives which drove honest, middleaged people into the Hitler camp overnight and caused them to write articles against their better judgment. Over their heads hung the sword of Damocles and before their eyes stood the terror of the concentration camps. So they bowed their heads and wrote what none of their readers believed. Everyone, however, understood only too well why they did it.

Shortly before Election Day, March 5, by which time some five thousand newspapers had published the fairy tale about the “Communist Uprising,” a government spokesman dictated to representatives of all newspapers the following instructions:

Have it printed in your newspapers that it’s everyone’s duty to vote for his beloved Führer on Election Day. Sure you’ve got that? Everyone’s duty to vote for the beloved Führer!

Thus it was dictated, thus printed—forty million voters learned of the command. The impression was that a vote for anyone but the Führer was forbidden. Nor was anyone allowed to escape: old grandmothers practically unable to walk, sick men who should have been in bed, and farmer boys totally ignorant of politics—all were dragged to the polling booths. In the country, as also happened before Hitler got into power, the “secret” ballot was violated. Who could prevent the leader of a community, the chairman of the polls and a Nazi in the bargain, from controlling everyone’s vote? Party and government alike took good care to prevent any interference with the illegal public ballot.

The newly elected Reichstag convened in the Garrison Church in Potsdam, over the burial place of Frederick the Great, and, on Hitler’s command, one more decree was enacted, investing the Führer with dictatorial powers. Old Hindenburg forthwith relinquished his right of signature, without which a bill, according to the Constitution, could not become law. Thus the old President violated the Constitution to which he had sworn allegiance; he had broken his pledge which up to now he had always held sacred. To Hitler, who had likewise sworn allegiance to the Constitution, it was a matter of indifference. In the course of his career he had committed one act of perjury after another. Now that he had sovereign power, however, he could commit, or omit, at will; and we newspapermen began to understand what this meant.

Hitler now gave free rein to his favorite pastime—the persecution of the Jews. As a prelude to this game, the newspapers were requested to print accounts of crimes committed by Jews.

In the Polish village of … for instance, the butcher Isaac Levy has slaughtered a boy of seven years.

The impossibility of checking up on such a “crime” was assured by having the deed committed in Poland. Attention, however, had to be drawn to the “hideous offense” by having it reported in huge headlines. The atmosphere for anti-Semitism had to be created among the people. And the German press certainly did its share.

Three months later, all political parties were abolished. An exception was made, of course, for the National Socialists and, temporarily, for the German Nationalists—a delicate consideration on Hitler’s part for his allies whose leaders, for the time being at least, were still sitting in his Cabinet. In the editorial offices we wondered how the singleparty system was compatible with the principle of the party system at all! But this would be settled later on, we thought.

There were times, as a matter of fact, when Göring, now in charge of the press, was quite tractable and even increased our hopes for a modus vivendi. Alone among the National Socialists, he had a sense of humor. Between his frequent fits of blood lust and the desire to drag his enemies to the scaffold, he was given to moments of peacefulness which offered the illusion of conciliation. This led to fresh hopes that, although the newspapers in the future would have to remain uncritical, they might at least be allowed some independent existence. In view of this possibility, we summoned our Rome correspondent, Mario Passarge, who had witnessed the original Fascist model which Hitler had imitated in Germany, and questioned him on what had happened in Italy when Mussolini took over and what he believed we should have to face at home.

Born in Rome, the son of a German chemist, Mario Passarge had retained nothing of his native land but his Christian name. He was a typical blond Teuton—and the idol of the entire feminine element in our firm. Whenever he came to Berlin, all the girls were on tenterhooks to catch a glimpse of him. On this occasion, however, he arrived looking very gloomy, quite unlike his usual debonair self.

“Gentlemen,” he told us, “if Hitler intends, as it appears, to follow in the footsteps of Mussolini, then I’m afraid it’s no good my pretending to paint you a very encouraging picture of your future. In Italy, one newspaper after another was strangled. Some had to fold up; others, somewhat luckier, had to change ownership. None of you gentlemen sitting here, I’m afraid, will be together much longer. A change in ownership is the least that will be demanded, in which case all Jews will be expelled from the house. This is the situation as I see it, and I advise you not to allow yourselves any illusions.”

Passarge then began describing how Mussolini had proceeded against his enemies. No one in Italy, he said, was allowed even to utter the name of Matteotti, the Socialist leader whom the Fascists had bundled into a cab and taken for a ride and whose body was discovered some days later on a lonely spot about twenty miles from Rome.

“Was that Mussolini’s work,” asked the foreign correspondent of the Vossische Zeitung, “or that of the extremist Farinacci, whom Mussolini dropped immediately after the crime?”

“You’re right,” Passarge replied, “it was Farinacci. You seem to have studied my reports from Italy very well. But Farinacci’s dismissal was only for the sake of appearances. It did not stop the extremist element; on the contrary, it gave it fresh impetus. The same thing will happen in Germany. The extremists will gain the upper hand.”

Needless to say, we did not welcome this prophecy, but it is hardly to be wondered at that we did not heed the warning immediately. Who, after all, would have thrown up the sponge so soon? We Ullsteins, in any case, were trying to find some way of keeping our heads above water till the deluge should end, and we thought there was a chance of doing so when one day a certain Dr. Stadtler, from the German Nationalist camp, expressed in an application that we should have nothing to fear if only we would employ him as our political adviser. A meeting, attended by two nephews of mine, Dr. Stadtler, and myself, was accordingly held in a small restaurant. During the meal Stadtler maintained that he was on good terms with Hitler and constantly in and out of the Chancellery. He asked us to believe that he was acting in good faith and not to imagine that, just because he was friendly with leading Nazis, he did not have our interests at heart. All we had to do, he repeated, was to employ him as political adviser, and all Nazi demands would be satisfied. Well, Stadtler got the job, and he made his inaugural speech in the firm’s assembly rooms before our entire editorial staff. And here, in effect, was what he had to say.

“The great thing,” he proclaimed, “is for you all not only to co-operate with the new regime, but to do so with enthusiasm!”

Now this was going a bit too far. One could certainly be forced to co-operate, but not with enthusiasm! That was really asking too much. How can one rouse enthusiasm for a cause of which one disapproves? Stadtler no doubt meant very well by us, but circumstances were stronger than he.

The day after Stadtler’s speech, a rumor spread that all pacifist, Communist, and Jewish literature was to be burned. Although the government, restrained by the German Nationalist elements in the Cabinet, attempted to avoid extremism, the militaristic rabble, the Storm Troopers, and the Party leaders were all out for blood. The month of March, in fact, passed in a tempo bordering on revolution. All of the “beloved” Führer’s speeches, moreover, proved that he favored his most radical comrades, even the ultra-anti-Semite, Julius Streicher.

Julius Streicher deserves a chapter to himself. For years he and Hitler have been bosom friends and call one another by their Christian names, “Julius” and “Adolf.” Originally a schoolmaster, Streicher invariably carried with him, not books, as might be expected of a teacher, but a riding whip. When Hitler made him Gauleiter of Franconia, he used this whip on Jews who passed him in the streets of Nuremberg, at the same time demanding that they submit to all kinds of indecencies. Streicher is a sadistic monster. His lust for torturing Jews culminated in acts which I prefer not to set down in print. Hitler even gets a kick out of hearing of such practices, for au fond they are birds of a feather.

Towards the end of this month of March, Streicher arrived in Berlin and stayed at the Hotel Kaiserhof. From here he frequently set out to visit his friend Hitler, across the street. It now became quite clear to anyone familiar with the situation that something unusual was afoot. Although outwardly the streets appeared quiet enough, there was nevertheless—just as before the Reichstag went up in flames—that heavy sensation of tension. We newspapermen certainly had a presentiment that we were on the eve of another monstrous crime. Nothing, however, leaked out. No one knows better than the Nazis how to keep a secret.

The last day of the month ended the suspense. On the morning of the first of April the population woke to find all Jewish shopwindows smeared with huge black letters:

JEW.

A Jewish boycott had been ordered, to last for one day. Streicher, the instigator, had originally pleaded for a permanent boycott, but for once he didn’t get away with it. One day was all Hitler would allow him for a final warning to the Jews to curb their “arrogance.” But the victims were not confined to shopowners with Jewish names. For weeks, preparations had been made to detect all Jewish owners, especially those whose names did not sound Jewish. It was not always easy, for numerous stores were under part ownership of both Jews and gentiles. The Party, however, then made a decision. “When in doubt,” it said, “call them all Jewish!” And “Gentiles associated with Jews in business are swine deserving of no better treatment than Jews!”

Accordingly, firms under mixed ownership suffered the same fate. The boycott was so organized that what happened in Berlin happened at the same time, in the same way, all over Germany.

In the firm itself, we had barely had time to recover from the shock of this news when suddenly, an hour later, we heard some unusual noise, coming as though from the lower floors of the building. We flung open the doors and stood still, listening … to the clump, clump, clump of marching feet … feet in heavy boots, marching through the corridors. Then a stentorian command rang out, answered immediately by a chorus of at least thirty hoarse male voices: “Out with the Jews! Out with the Jews! Down with the Jewish domination!”

Now the troop drew nearer. The clump of their heavy boots grew louder. They reached the stairs, started mounting them.

“Out with the Jews! Out—with—the—Jewsl”

Fearing that something appalling was about to happen, my secretary pleaded with me to step back into my office. Now, and all at once, reporters came rushing to the scene. All were pale—for there were familiar faces in the marching troop, among them one of our draftsmen, a photographer, three of our compositors, a few printers and members of the editorial staff, and the whole crowd was led by one of our doormen who had always sprung to attention when I drove up in my car.

Starting in the circulation department, they then proceeded to the daily newspapers’ editorial offices, to the long-distance telephone booths and Morse-code rooms, and to the studios reserved for the cartoonists. Passing the empty conference halls, they climbed to the department for periodicals, through the editorial offices of the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung, the magazines for women, the monthlies, and the trade journals. Finally, before the firm’s archives, they came to a halt. Here followed a short-lived silence. Almost immediately a fresh group of demonstrators joined the others, whereupon they all burst once more into song: “Out with the Jews! Out with the Jews! Down with the Jewish domination!”

At this moment I happened to catch sight of one of my editors who, staring wide-eyed at the procession, was keeping time with the beat of the outrageous repetition by quietly clapping his hands.

Now the troop moved on again, marching toward the advertising department, the photographic laboratories, and the canteen on the fourth floor, where lunch was being cooked. Here for a few pfennigs a day many hundreds of our employees ate their midday meal; it was one of our charitable organizations designed especially for the staff. Though the additional payment we made to what the employees paid amounted to a quarter of a million marks a year, we never begrudged a penny of it, since it was spent on those who worked for us.

The procession then headed for the book department and from there for the top floor and even farther, to the radio station under the roof, the pneumatic post, and the switchboards. The gruesome troop paraded through all floors and all thirteen buildings belonging to the Ullstein house. For three solid hours they kept up their marching, not forgetting a single department.

At last it ended. The giant doorman, the leader, pronounced the demonstration over. Slowly, very slowly, calm returned, only to be interrupted by news of how the boycott went throughout the Reich.

At the close of two months of Hitler’s reign, our firm had been turned from a well-run organization into a battlefield of hatred. Once a place where a publisher felt it his duty to stand by his principles, to seek out the evildoer, and to expose injustices, it had become a tomb, brooding in silence over crimes and monstrosities.

Like a tiger, Hitler had pounced on one of the most valuable achievements of modern times—the free German press, which was responsible to the people and conscious of that responsibility. Now that press was a heap of ruins. What till yesterday had been a great power shaping public opinion, criticizing evil, and fighting corruption was today a puppet in the hands of terrorists who had kidnaped the government and who now took extraordinary precautions to prevent a word from being spoken against them.

Editors who only recently had shaped public opinion by virtue of their convincing arguments were now dummies in the clutches of devils who ordered innocent people to be held responsible for the Reichstag fire and who shamelessly declared that God had inspired the boycott of Jewish stores. Ullstein’s three or four million readers and its ten thousand employees were silent, helpless witnesses of what their firm was suffering. The publishing house which once employed the best brains in journalism, whose newspapers stood as a bulwark of justice and liberty, whose journals, periodicals, and books spread knowledge, culture, and spiritual nourishment amongst all strata of society— this organization had now become the mouthpiece of inferior men who made it their business to hammer relentlessly into the people’s heads just what each one of them was to think and feel.

And on what had the public to be informed? Newspapers had to tell the public how the members of various professions were to report for Sunday marches. Even old people were compelled to fall in behind the swastika. No one was allowed to remain at home. No one could drop from the ranks. If a person reported sick, the Nazi doctor examined him and decided whether he was fit to join the parade. A man desiring to accompany his wife to church was met with the following reply: “Nonsense! Church service blunts the intellect! Service to the state and the Führer comes first!”

Newspapers had to inform the public that Dr. Joseph Goebbels was about to celebrate his thirty-seventh birthday. A few days later they were compelled to announce that in Zehlendorf, a suburb of Berlin, a splendid monument in memory of Fritsche, a pioneer of anti-Semitism, had been unveiled. The statue was described as that of a Germanic male kneeling on top of a monster symbolizing the Jewish race. The man is in the act of swinging a hammer with which to smash the Jew’s skull. The Jew ducks, but obviously cannot escape. Every Sunday, school children from the neighborhood were brought out to gaze upon this work of art, there to have it drummed into their heads that Jews are monsters who have to be exterminated.

What was it Dr. Stadtler had said in his maiden speech in the Ullstein house? “Co-operate with enthusiasm!” Well, to be fair, I suppose he could not have been expected to know to what extent the German press was to be abused.

Much ado was now made about a new German law whose prime purpose was to supersede its antiquated counterpart from the “Jewish century.” The new law had to be graciously received, since none other than the Führer himself administered it.

“What is right? Right is what is National Socialist!”

No great brain is required to see that every form of injustice can be camouflaged under this elastic theme; it could justify any act committed by Party members. Within a few months we were to witness how even the judges of the Supreme Court in Leipzig had to dance to this new tune. Meanwhile, a university professor by the name of Schmitt, a man apparently capable of straightening out the most crooked legal paragraph, had been unearthed. Schmitt even claimed to be able to prove that equality of all men before the law was arrant nonsense—having its source, of course, in the “Jewish century.” Under the Hitler regime, at all events, mankind was not going to enjoy equal rights: one and the same act committed by two different persons became, oddly enough, two different acts. A murder committed by a member of the Party could easily be something to glorify. It was Professor Schmitt’s business to mold such conceptions into legal form.

July 1, 1933, saw perhaps the most flagrant of all violations of the Constitution. It was on this day that the newspapers published the first anti-Semitic legislation. Jews and all those married to Jews were deprived of their rights to remain, or become, civil servants. They were to be excluded from all professions exerting an influence over German cultural life. They were to be expelled, this meant, from the theater, films, radio, literature, and the arts. Let them, in other words, continue their shabby trading as much as they liked, but in the cultural life of the nation let none of them ever show his face again!

Joseph Goebbels fired this first shot, penned this decree. For this ambitious man bitterly resented the fact that he had not been offered a ministerial post. Accordingly, he took it upon himself to create and direct a brand-new ministry of his own, known as the Ministry of Propaganda. In this position he expected to be able to take over his rival Göring’s position as destroyer of culture, for this ministry, of his was to include everything pertaining to German cultural life: films, the theater, the arts, radio, and—most important of all—the press.

The internal organization, which Göring could not be bothered with, Goebbels promptly grabbed. Out of this he created an agency with which he could control the press—a bastion from which he could command. This agency he called the Reich’s Chamber of Culture. He appointed experts to serve in it, whose function was to turn all Germany into a kind of net to entrap all the editors of the Reich. Having caught them there, like so many insects waiting to be devoured, Goebbels then called a conference at which he gave instructions on just how the news was to be edited. This man, Joseph Goebbels, who for propaganda’s sake distorted and falsified the truth (and only a magician in the art of falsification could be capable of this), had the audacity to announce that:

At last decency and morality are to take the place of chaos! All we care about is the truth and nothing but the truth!

Those honorable representatives of the German press sitting before him were told by this monstrous liar that they had been the liars until he appeared on the scene.

Out of a rotten, irresponsible, Jew-ridden press there will now rise a new, decent, independent organization ready to serve the people! Nothing is more untrue than that the old press was ever free!

Flabbergasted, the audience listened. The German press never free? Was this man Hitler who had throttled the truth going to liberate the press? What on earth was Goebbels talking about?

The much-lauded freedom of the press was but an illusion; in reality it meant dependency on advertisers. Business interests controlled the press, and business-minded private publishers dictated to the editors what was to be written!

Doubtless Goebbels saw himself as a crusader, a knighterrant battling the dragon of unrighteousness.

These shackles are now to be cut. The liberated [sic] press shall serve the state alone, its one and supreme boss! The editors of all Germany are to be elevated to organs of the state, responsible only to the state, and no longer to the advertisers!

He failed to mention that free competition among German newspapers had constituted the best kind of control imaginable. No paper could print any untruth without risking exposure by a competitor. “Revelations” were met with “counterrevelations,” “assertions” with “refutations.” Everybody kept a strict eye on everybody else, and everything took place in broad daylight. That advertisers influenced the attitude of newpapers was false. Had anyone tried to get away with something not above-board, the attempt would have been thwarted immediately by the sheer weight of numbers in the newspaper business. Every editor was interested in keeping his reputation clean and would have dealt ruthlessly with any employee of the publicity department who dared take unfair advantage of his position for the sake of his advertisers.

Some papers, it’s true, served certain interests—agriculture, commerce, the Catholic Church, or labor—but always openly. There was never anything secret about such dealings. Ideologies, too, found expression in print, but not for private profit. And now men who had been experts in their field were condemned to listen in silence to the future dictator of the press accusing that formerly free institution of having been enslaved, and to hear him call that slavery, which he himself was about to introduce, the “true freedom.” From now on, official lies were to be the order of the day; nor could they be contradicted. According to Goebbels, all newspapers were to have the same contents, and God help the man daring to insert something on his own! The minister would simply have him dismissed, and that would be the end of him.

It must be difficult for the American people to conceive just what degree of slavery this systematic suppression of the press imposed. Goebbels’ Chamber of Culture had compiled a list of all those editors to whom he had granted the “privilege” of working. Knowing that any day the list could be canceled or revised, these men lived in fear and trembling lest something they wrote should fail to meet with official approval.

Every morning representatives of all papers had to appear in the Ministry of Propaganda to receive the orders of the day. And there they would sit, obediently taking notes.

Through their ambassadors in Berlin, France and England have protested against our National Socialist propaganda in Austria. This news must be suppressed.

In Washington, President Roosevelt made a speech dealing with suggestions for the World Economic Conference. Tell your readers that the speech was of no significance and disappointing to his listeners.

The Führer has promoted Group Leader Lehmann to the rank of Major Group Leader. This fact is to be front-page headline news.

The minister commanded; the newspapers obeyed; the readers were bewildered.

Goebbels now took the first chance to drive home the lesson of his omnipotence. A few words on the composer Hindemith, written by the music critic of our B. Z. am Mittag, served as pretext. The previous day, the conductor Furtwängler had asked the critic to give Hindemith a good notice, if he agreed that the composer deserved it, promising to use all his influence to prevent the review from leading to a casus belli. Fully aware that the Führer did not share his opinion of Hindemith’s work, the critic nevertheless wrote a paragraph in praise of it. Furtwängler, however, proved to have overestimated his influence with the Party leaders. Next morning the telephone rang in the editorial office of the B. Z. am Mittag.

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