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Louis Lochner 1887 - 1975
Introduction Louis Paul
Lochner first went to Europe as a representative of the Ford Peace Ship
before going to Berlin in 1920 as a journalist. Like many other journalists
assigned to cover Europe for U.S. newspapers and services, Lochner came from
the Midwest. The son of Frederick—a Lutheran minister—and Maria von
Haugwitz Lochner, he was born in February 1887 in Springfield, Illinois.
Lochner graduated in 1905 from the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. After
earning a bachelor’s degree and Phi Beta Kappa honors from the University
of Wisconsin in 1909, he edited the Wisconsin Alumni Magazine and the
Cosmopolitan Student. In 1910 he married Emmy Hoyer, with whom he had
a daughter and a son. The eruption of world war in 1914 led the pacifistic
Lochner to lecture for the University of Wisconsin extension service and the
American Peace Society, a division of which he later directed. In 1915 he
became secretary to Henry Ford, as well as secretary and press agent for the
tycoon’s ridiculed Peace Ship. A year later Lochner traveled to Stockholm
and the Hague to serve as secretary at the Neutral Conference for Continuous
Mediation. After 1918 he edited the International Labor News Service and
reported for the Milwaukee Free Press, and in 1924 he joined
the Berlin staff of the Associated Press. Fluent in German, Lochner quickly
established contacts within the Weimar—and later the Nazi—governments,
and became the Associated Press’ Berlin bureau chief in 1928. As a dedicated reporter, Lochner earned access to
important people and events. He covered the Pilsudski coup in Poland in 1926
and the maiden flight of the dirigible Hindenburg in 1936, as well as
the Amsterdam and Berlin Olympics. Well-respected by those in power, he
witnessed decisive diplomatic conferences in the major European capitals and
interviewed Gustav Stresemann five days before the beleaguered Weimarer
Republic’s last president died. Lochner interviewed Hitler in 1930 and
1933, and accompanied the Fuehrer to visit Mussolini in 1938. Accepted by
the suspicious Nazis as a trustworthy man, they allowed Lochner to accompany
the German Army into Poland, the Lowland countries, France, Yugoslavia and
Greece. He also followed the Finnish Army into the Soviet Union. A witness to the French capitulation at Compiegne,
Lochner entered a deserted Paris. Afterwards he returned to Berlin
determined to stay in Nazi Germany as long as possible in order to report in
careful detail on the war overtaking Europe. Life magazine praised
his reports, claiming “since the War started, his dispatches have been
consistently the most complete and the most authoritative to reach the
United States from the German side. While Lochner has had no opportunity to
view the Allied side of the present War, his reports have maintained an
admirable objectivity.” In 1939 he received the Pulitzer Prize for
distinguished service as a foreign correspondent. When the United States and Germany declared war on
each other in December 1941, the Berlin government rounded up Lewis Lochner
and all other U.S. Americans who remained in the Third Reich. Lochner was
interned for almost five months at Bad Nauheim near Frankfurt am Main, then
released in exchange for German diplomats and correspondents in May 1942.
That August the Associated Press allowed him eight months’ leave of
absence for an extended lecture tour throughout North America in which he
departed from his tradition of editorial restraint and began assailing
Nazism. Besides warning of the Nazi threat and in October
1942 publishing What about Germany?, Lochner tried to lead a quiet
life. He soon returned to work, however, as a news analyst and commentator
for NBC from 1942 to 1944. From 1944 to 1946 he traveled to Europe, where he
served as a war correspondent with the 9th, 1st, 3rd
and 7th U.S. Armies. In 1959 he joined the Board of Directors of
the American Council on Germany; he also served the Missouri Synod of the
Lutheran Church and Rotary International. In his “retirement,”
Lochner’s stepdaughter Rosemarie acted as his secretary, helping him write
books on industrialists of the Third Reich, Hoover and Germany, as well as
articles for Lutheran magazines. Lochner died in January 1975 in Wiesbaden,
in what was then West Germany, where he had lived since 1971. Louis Lochner had worked as a reporter in Berlin
since the early days of the Weimarer Republic. During that time he earned a
reputation among foreign journalists in Germany as thorough, fair and slow
to sensationalize. Naturally then, when the Nazis came to power in 1933,
Lochner became one of the foreign journalists they trusted most. Although he
could not easily be duped, the native Midwesterner could be counted on to
produce factual articles dealing with diverse aspects of life in the Third
Reich. A man of consistent integrity, Lochner made his way into the private
quarters of Nazi headquarters as well as accompanied Hitler in a variety of
settings. Because he was allowed to witness the Fuehrer in less contrived
moments, not staged for public consumption, Lochner often saw sides of Adolf
Hitler that revealed the German dictator’s truer nature, which the public
usually did not see. Lochner first met the leader of Nazi Germany in
person in February 1930. The Associated Press sent Lochner to Basel,
Switzerland to cover the Bank for International Settlements’ first annual
meeting of its governing board. Returning to Berlin via Munich, he stopped
in the Bavarian capital to seek out the upstart who continued to gain
increased popularity among the Germans. He was eager to meet the leader of
the still-small National Socialist German Workers’ Party and have a look
at the man whose “meteoric political career had often engaged my
journalist attention.” Hitler had not yet come to power, but already had
involved himself in much intrigue. Lochner learned that both Hitler and his only
personal friend, Ernst Roehm, were staying at the Braun Haus, the
newly-built Nazi headquarters. A
renowned homosexual, an early head of the terroristic Sturmabteilung
(“SA”) and the only person to use the familiar “Du” form of
“you” with Hitler, Roehm often accompanied Hitler in the days before the
latter became the dictator of greater Germany. Sitting in the Braun Haus
with the SA chief, Lochner watched as Roehm’s adjutant—“a beautiful
boy in his teens”—entered the room where they sat and whispered into
Roehm’s ear. “The Fuehrer is ready to receive you” Roehm relayed. Rudolf Hess met Roehm and Lochner at the door of Hitler’s office and
stood behind the Nazi leader during Lochner’s short interview with
him—taking thorough notes the entire time. Throughout the
conversation—during which everyone stood—a Hitler not yet fully sure of
himself periodically would look to Hess “as though to find support”;
without exception, Hess would nod in approval. Roehm, however, soon clicked
his boots in salute and left the room. Lochner
took careful notice of the appearance of the Nazi leader and of his
surroundings: “Hitler in those days always wore a dark blue or black
business suit, white shirt, black tie and party button. He reserved the
brown uniform for party events.” Lochner found Hitler’s voice to be
still hoarse from his frequent public speaking at Nazi meetings and
demonstrations. “His gestures were nervous, his eyes piercing; his hair,
as always, parted on the right side”; a portrait of Friedrich the
Great—Hitler’s adored hero—hung behind him over the desk. “It
has often been remarked” Lochner later said, “”that Hitler’s success
is due in part to his ability to ingratiate himself with visitors whom he
hopes to win over, by saying what he thinks they want to hear.” During
their meeting Hitler voluntarily discussed German-U.S. relations, saying “It should be easy to come to an
understanding with the United States.
The only thing that divides us is the problem of reparations, which I insist
are political debts. Investments, loans, and so forth, are good with us. But
we shall see to it that political debts are cancelled.” In addition,
Hitler bantered on about his tactics toward political adversaries, his
experience in the recent election campaign in Thuringen and his demand for a strong, restored German
army. Hitler’s ambitions for Germany mirrored his own desire to win
attention for himself. A psychotic with an incredibly weak, volatile ego,
Hitler made continual effort to reinforce his limp self-esteem. Perhaps the
epitome of the efforts undertaken to glorify the man who got a willing
German people to vote him into dictatorship, the annual Nuernberg Nazi Party
rallies provided him each autumn with a desperately needed emotional boost.
In order to publicize his power and circulate his image around the world,
Hitler made sure the German and foreign press accompanied him to these
rallies. Suffering the masses which thronged Nuernberg each
September to steal a glimpse of their beloved Fuehrer, Lochner
would attend the rally every year it took place to report for the folks back in the far-removed, Depression-battered United
States the bizarre frenzy which had overtaken civilized old Germany. Sitting
in a press car sandwiched between Hitler’s open limousine and one
containing his closest collaborators—Goering, Goebbels, Hess, Himmler—Lochner
would watch Hitler’s beaming face as the official procession passed for
five miles through Nuernberg. Placed so very close to the head car, Lochner
could “study [Hitler’s] face and note with what satisfaction he heard
the ecstatic cries that, in volume, reminded one of the organ notes of
Niagara Falls.” The bemused journalist noted that Hitler “laps up
popular adulation. He gets terrific enjoyment from driving slowly through
the narrow, winding streets of the ancient city, with ‘heil’ing
thousands fairly oozing from the miniature windows and hugging the quaint
gables.” One time, however, the procession turned onto a
street empty of people. Lochner saw Hitler’s face quickly turn red with
rage. “Why aren’t there any people here?” the Fuehrer demanded of his
chief adjutant, Wilhelm Brueckner. Evidently the adjutant’s explanation
did not suffice, for the screaming Hitler ordered “You get out and report
to me later.” Lochner watched as “Meekly the huge bodyguard climbed out
of the car, looking sheepish, and our procession moved on,” making its way
to the castle perched above Nuernberg. Later that day Brueckner reappeared, winded after
having climbed the steep approach to the castle. He clicked the heels of his
spurred boots, offered Hitler a Nazi salute and reported “Mein Fuehrer,
the street is so narrow at that point the wheels of the cars were on the
sidewalks. It would have been dangerous for any people to stand there.” By
that time, however, the infantile dictator had become so “spiritually
intoxicated” by the crowds that he didn’t care. He flippantly replied
“In Ordnung”—“it’s okay”—and resumed searching the
crowd for its expressions of adoration and approval. Standing there in an
alcove of the castle, looking out over the thousands of people below,
listening “with visible emotion” to the shouting of “Heil Hitler,”
the German dictator would turn to Lochner, saying “Ist das nicht
wunderbar?”—“Isn’t that wonderful?” To muster the euphoria of the masses, Hitler relied
on electrifying speeches, delivered in a most animated, severely overdone
manner. Lochner once heard from someone close to the Fuehrer that he wrote
his thunderous, mesmerizing speeches in advance: “He walks up and down in
his vast study” the source had said, “dictating torrents of words which
his secretaries have difficulty in taking down. Often...he seems to be in a
trance. It is the masses he sees and to whom he is speaking.” Curious
about this, Lochner asked Hitler during a subsequent interview if writing
speeches in advance didn’t “cramp your style?” “Not at all” Hitler
quickly replied. “When I compose a speech, I visualize the people. I can
see them just as though they were standing before me. I sense how they will
react to this or that statement, to this or that formulation... I naturally
prefer off-hand speaking, because then you can adapt every phrase and every
gesture to your particular audience, but I don’t feel hampered by set
addresses.” On one occasion Lochner attempted to get a copy of
one of Hitler’s prepared speeches before it had been delivered.
Sympathetic to U.S. Americans in general and to U.S. journalists in
specific, “Putzi” Hanfstaengl had told Lochner “I’ll take you into
the Reichs Chancellory and seat you in the corridor next to the big study.
By the time mein Fuehrer leaves the building for the Reichstag,
I’ll be able to give you a copy of the manuscript. Then you can get an
early start on your story and your translation.” Lochner entered the chancellory at noon. At the door, along the
staircases, in the coatroom and at throughout the corridor stood “grim SS
guards in forbidding black uniforms...sworn to protect the life of the
dictator.” Putzi sat Lochner in one of the corridor’s alcoves,
“assuring the guards in his jocular Bavarian manner that I was neither a
nihilist nor a bomb thrower. He then buzzed around to find a copy of the
speech for me.” Periodically the tall, husky Hanfstaengl would reappear to
say the speech still was not yet finished. “There was” Lochner noted,
“a constant coming and going of men whom Hitler apparently summoned to go
over certain sections of the speech... They nodded a surprised welcome at
seeing me in this holy of holies.” Rudolf Hess and Minister of Labor Frank Seldte stopped to shake the
waiting reporter’s hand. “Both seemed amused at my insistence that every
minute counted when it came to relaying a German government pronouncement.
European journalism isn’t so speedy!” Half an hour later—the crowd on the Wilhelmstrasse
hoarse from screaming “We want our Leader”—Putzi reassured the
increasingly impatient Lochner “The speech will be ready for you in a few
minutes. Anyway, the Fuehrer must leave for the Reichstag soon.” At 1:50
PM the door of Hitler’s office opened and the corridor guards all clicked
their heals in attention. Hitler rushed past, followed by several
attendants. Lochner later reported “In a moment he was gone. In another
moment the heils outside swelled to a deafening roar. In still
another moment there was absolute silence.” Then, “Putzi emerged from
the chief secretary’s room with a long face. ‘Sorry’ he said, ‘but der
Fuehrer said he intended to change his manuscript in a few places while
speaking. So he left word that no copy may be released now’.” Disgusted
over wasting so much time for nothing, Lochner learned to never again ask
for a preview of Hitler’s speeches. He continued, however, to report from
firsthand experience, using what he saw as an indication of the Nazi regime
and its fanatical leader. One recurrent scene, which plainly illustrated the
Fuehrer’s innermost condition, arose out of Hitler’s obsession with
pageantry. The incident Lochner found the most “grotesque” involved
Hitler’s leaving the Old Chancellory to attend the gala study of the New
Chancellory—“a display of pomp that was a fit epitome of the grandeur of
the Nazi Third Reich.” Lochner recounted “It was all in the same
building and under the same roof, but the Fuehrer did not merely stroll from
one wing to another.” Accompanied by Goering, Hitler first sent a top
sergeant wearing a steel helmet marching in the fore, followed by two
privates with rifles and bayonets poised for action. Then, Hitler arrived
“austere, unsmiling, with knitted brows, looking neither to right or left;
and at a respectful distance behind him, rotund, bemedaled Hermann Goering,
slightly out of breath because of the pace at which the miniature parade was
proceeding.” Another time Lochner witnessed this same
self-indulgent pageantry “at the unforgettable scene” at the Reichstag
on 1 September 1939, when Hitler announced the beginning of the Second World
War. Early that morning the German commander of the Wehrmacht ordered the
army to “meet force with force.” German soldiers already were rushing
into Poland when at seven o’clock the Propaganda Ministry called foreign
journalists and asked them to attend a Reichstag session at ten that
morning. Lochner later recalled: “A few minutes before the appointed hour,
a strange procession filed into the crowded Kroll Opera House”—the home
of the mock German assembly since the Nazis had burned the official
Reichstag building in 1933. “As the solemn marchers approached...they
looked like...guests from some foreign country. Though we were accustomed to
all sorts of uniforms in Germany, the garb we saw below us was something
distinctly new.” Hitler and his entourage—Goering, Hess, Brueckner
and Schaub—“had blossomed out in new, natty, well-fitting, excellently
tailored uniforms of field gray. The garb was not military, although Hitler
gave that impression in his address, by saying that he had donned “the
field gray uniform” which he wouldn’t exchange for the brown party suit
until victory was achieved.” Later, Lochner learned that while most rank
and file assumed Hitler had put on a military uniform, he had merely ordered
new Nazi Party uniforms in army gray instead of regulation brown: “Even in
that detail Adolf Hitler had prepared for his war!” The meticulousness of Hitler’s obsession with
exaggerated processions which he staged for self-aggrandizement was closely
matched by his preoccupation with art. Having been a dejected, obscure
“artist” in Vienna, he used his office as the supreme dictator of
Germany—and later of much of Europe—to rewrite his own history. As he
did in so many ways, Hitler relived in adulthood many of the dynamics of his
childhood. This time, however, he acted the part of the victor, not the
victim. Somehow he subconsciously strove to recreate the conditions of his
early life, relive them—even if vicariously—and ultimately absolve
himself of bitterly painful memories. In Lochner’s memoirs he revealed there was an
aspect of Hitler’s character “which is less known in America. This is
his penchant for art. Get him started on art and he forgets government
cares, party worries, and international complications.” Shortly before the
last Nuernberg Nazi Party rally in September of 1938, Lochner and a group of
journalists had followed Hitler on his official Italian tour of Rome, Naples
and Florence. They had been warned in advance of the meeting not to raise
such touchy issues as the integrity of Czechoslovakia, which then was the
most burning issue before the cabinets of Europe, but rather “to wait for
our host himself to select his theme.” Back in Germany in time to attend what would be the
last Nazi Party rally, Hitler welcomed the journalists in the Great Hall of
the Nuernberg castle. Still stimulated from his state visit to the land of
Germany’s Fascist partner, he chose for his theme “his hobby, art. He
spoke feelingly of the superb architecture of medieval Nuernberg, and then
broke into a paean of praise for Italy’s priceless art galleries,” some
of which he had been able to briefly visit during his stay. “The greatest wish I have” Hitler had pined,
“is that I might go incognito to Florence and, at leisure, study the
unparalleled masterpieces of the Uffizi and Pitti galleries.” The Fuehrer
continued “but unfortunately that cannot be done. Suppose I were to wear a
false beard. In some accidental way this fact might be revealed, and of
course all Europe would say I came to Italy with some deep-laid, sinister
plot. And if I were to go as I am, too many people, having seen pictures of
me, would recognize me and I couldn’t wander through the galleries all by
myself.” More than all other arts, Hitler loved architecture.
Albert Heilmann, an architect in Munich who fought in the trenches with
Hitler in the First World War, once told Lochner a revealing story. As they
enlisted in the army, soldiers of that war had to complete a questionnaire.
Where the form asked the enlistee to “State your profession,” Hitler
answered, “I wanted to be an architect.” Being invited to inspect the
completed New Chancellory, Lochner said he was not surprised to learn that
several halls in the upper story had been set aside for architectural models
of stadiums, city halls, administration buildings, and “even whole
municipal layouts.” In his leisure hours Hitler would come to these rooms
and design Practbauten, “structures of splendor”—what Lochner
described as “buildings calculated to bear testimony to Nazi Germany’s
greatness.” Being a master of theatrics himself, Hitler often
sought the company of notables from the German stage and screen. Lochner
observed this in 1935, when he and his wife attended an evening reception
hosted by Propaganda Minister and Frau Goebbels following the annual
automobile show. “About ten o’clock that evening” Lochner remembered,
“there was the usual commotion that heralds the arrival of Germany’s
dictator and an adjutant hastily requested that the guests form an aisle.”
Hitler functionarily passed the diplomatic corps. “He came to where we
were standing—opera singers, actresses, stars of the screen, newspaper
folk. His face brightened. Here and there he stopped to grasp the hand of
some stage beauty or to greet a well-known actor.” Dorothea Wieck, the star of Maedchen in Uniform—“Maidens
in Uniform”—had never attended a reception where among the guests
appeared the Fuehrer. Somewhat shy and nervous, she asked to stand between
Lochner and his German-born wife, Hilda de Terra Steinberger. When Hitler
reached the Lochners he “took one sharp look at our movie friend and said,
‘You are Dorothea Wieck, are you not?’ She nodded, blushing. He shook
her hand firmly and passed on.” Shortly, one of Hitler’s adjutants
returned and told Wieck “Der Fuehrer requests that you sit at his
table.” When Lochner looked at the collection of guests at Hitler’s
table, he noticed that there was not “a diplomat among them; not a captain
of industry, nor a savant, nor a representative of the press. Only men and
women from the theatrical world were seated around the Teuton autocrat.”
Thought Lochner: “They formed a jolly, hilarious group”; he had never
seen Hitler “so carefree. He laughed, told stories, slapped his thigh. He
seemed more at home with the theatrical people then with anyone else. He
appeared to enjoy telling them jokes and stories.” At that same reception Lochner looked for indications
of Hitler’s alleged personal magnetism. “Again and again I had heard
women say, ‘Once you look into Hitler’s eyes, you are his devoted
follower forever after’. I was curious to know how my German-born but
American naturalized wife would take to this strange man. To my relief I did
not see the gleam of that peculiar something in her eyes of a woman who had
succumbed to the Hitler charm.” Instead, Hilda Lochner reported to her
husband: “I looked for that hypnotic gaze so many women rave about, but he
didn’t impress me. Did you notice, though, the unusually fine quality of
his uniform. And yet they say he is such a simple man!” As a journalist
repeatedly allowed into the private world of the German Fuehrer, however,
Louis Lochner knew that Hitler was anything but “simple.” By the end of the summer of 1941, U.S. entry into the
Second World War seemed imminent, yet as Louis Lochner remembered “nobody,
either among my foreign or my German friends, dated the breach of diplomatic
relations or the outbreak of war earlier than the spring of 1942.” It came
as a surprise when the Hitler regime—expecting a state of war with the
United States to begin soon—began excluding U.S. journalists from press
conferences “staged in honor of pro-Axis statesmen.” Lochner also
recalled “More and more we had to listen to vulgar diatribes against
America and the American chief of state at the daily press pow-wows. Had we
been accredited diplomats” he maintained, “we should have had to leave
in protest. As correspondents charged with getting the news, even the
unwelcome or the unsavory, we had to remain, boiling inwardly.” Even more surprising and unexpected than the climatic
changes in Nazi behavior toward the few remaining U.S. Americans in the
Third Reich, the start of direct U.S. involvement happened suddenly. “So
little did even my best sources of information anticipate Pearl Harbor and
the events which followed” Lochner later explained, “that I decided to
get out of the poisoned atmosphere of Berlin and away from politics and war,
to attend the Mozart Festival in Vienna. It was the happiest week I had
spent since the beginning of the war” he said. “Operas, masses,
symphonies, chamber music—it was a far cry from the hymns of hate on the
Wilhelmstrasse.” When Lochner returned to Berlin, his “enthusiastic
description” of the festival was “rudely interrupted” by a telephone
call by his compatriot Ed Shanke, who announced that “our country had been
invaded by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor” and that “The German newsmen in
America have been arrested by the FBI.” Lochner pointed out “We didn’t
need to tell each other that, under the German system of reprisal, we were
slated for similar treatment.” Immediately, Lochner set off to attend news
conferences at the U.S. embassy and at the German Foreign Office to learn
what would happen next. At the Foreign Office daily press conference Lochner
found “a tense atmosphere. Little groups getting into huddles in various
parts of the hall. Many a European correspondent with whom I had worked
shoulder to shoulder for years” he recounted, “came to say goodbye and
to express the hope that America would bring freedom to a sorely tried
European continent.” At about one o’clock—when such press conferences
usually began—a Herr Schmidt entered the room. Unlike other times,
however, instead of taking his customary place at the end of a large
rectangular table, Schmidt barked “One moment please! The German
correspondents in the United States have, contrary to custom and a
gentleman’s agreement, been arrested by the American authorities. I must
therefore ask the American correspondents here present” he went on, “to
leave the conference and proceed forthwith to their homes.” This, in
effect, meant a house arrest. In an act of defiant support, the other reporters
present cheered the U.S. journalists. Lochner retold hold “Silently and
with dignity the American correspondents tried to file out. But it was
impossible. As though by a common impulse, our colleagues from Switzerland,
Sweden, Spain, Argentina, even Japan, and from virtually all the subjugated
countries of Europe formed an aisle and insisted upon shaking our hands,
often adding in a subdued voice, ‘Good luck,’ ‘Auf Wiedershen,’
or ‘Our sympathies are with you.’ Dr. Schmidt” he continued,
“had remained standing at the exit door, and as we filed by, he solemnly
seized the hand of each departing American and shook it.” Lochner later
learned that after they left, Schmidt remarked that “there was nothing
personal about his ejection of the Americans,” but that as per orders his
official relations with them had ceased and they had been “blotted out”
as accredited reporters. Stopping at his former office to pack his belongings
and to try to issue one last dispatch, Lochner left the Foreign Office and
returned to his home. There, he conferred with his wife as they both tried
to anticipate the possible fates that might await them. As Lochner later
reported, “It was a queer feeling, after recent days of excitement, late
hours, nerve-racking probing into the possibilities of the political
situation, suddenly to have time on one’s hands. I found myself” he
admitted, “wandering about our apartment rather aimlessly, following my
wife from room to room like a faithful dog. Then, I pulled myself together
and agreed with Mrs. Lochner that we had better begin in earnest to pack.
But what” he wondered, “could we pack?” Lochner did not know whether
or not he would be allowed to take personal belongings such as papers or if,
as rumor had it, “every departing American would be permitted to take but
one piece of baggage with him.” He also questioned if perhaps the rather
benign “house arrest” imposed on U.S. Americans would be followed by
“a real arrest through the Gestapo.” First the Lochners packed an overnight bag for him in case he was
detained separately. Although he did not smoke, they included in it several
packs of cigarettes as “They do wonders with guards and minor
officials.” Before they could pack anything else, however, the phone began
endlessly ringing with calls of concern from foreign friends: “One of us
seemed to be at the receiver continuously. And, hardly had we had our first
quiet supper in weeks” Lochner griped, “before more friends called, this
time in person.” Not knowing how the Gestapo might view their visiting
“the enemy,” they came after dark. Finally—after midnight—the last
of the well-wishers departed and the Lochners went to bed, “dead tired.”
Within an hour the doorbell rang three times.
“There they are” Lochner said he and his wife exclaimed almost
simultaneously. From his room Lochner heard a man inquire “Is Mr. Lochner
at home?” Before his wife could answer he shouted “Here I
am.” He recounted: “The corridor was but imperfectly lit on account of
the daily blackout; so suddenly two flash-lights were turned on me. Two
Gestapo officials in plain clothes “ he retold, “revealed their
badges.” The older of the two “curtly but very politely” ordered
“Come along.” When Lochner asked why, the agent replied “Sorry, we
can’t tell you.” The agents followed Lochner to his room while he
dressed. When he muttered “Guess I’d better take this along” one of
the perplexed agents asked “But how did you know that we were coming?”
to which Lochner responded “Why do you think I’m a newsman?” The agent
said the bag was unnecessary and assured Lochner’s wife “It’s a mere
formality—in a few hours your husband will be back.” Lochner insisted
anyway and left with the bag in hand. Before the agents led him out the
door, the wily reporter pleaded use of the toilet and scribbled on a note
his wife would find “Inform the Embassy, our AP office, and the Foreign
Press Association.” With that, he was gone. The Gestapo took Lochner to their headquarters on the
Alexanderplatz. On the third floor Lochner entered a section marked
“Secret State Police” where iron gratings and “a door with steel bars
and an enormous lock offered an ominous welcome.” Once locked inside the
door Lochner had to write his name and date of birth—leaving him to
presume “this was a method of obtaining specimens of our handwriting.”
Passing through a long corridor and past questioning tables, he next found
himself in the company of several other U.S. American reporters. Together,
the men waited under “a particularly stern and grim picture of Der
Fuehrer—one of the most forbidding among the thousand I have seen”
and another portrait from which “the glaring eyes of SS chief Heinrich
Himmler glared piercingly down upon us.” Within a couple hours several other U.S. journalists
arrived and were “given a hearty cheer.” One of the men, Ed Shanke, had
been pushed into a “miniature car, so, after good American fashion, he
tried to put his feet on a table, being careful, however, to spread out a
newspaper under them.” Instantly a guard demanded “We still have Kultur
in Germany. Take down your feet. You can do that” he derided, “when
you get to America, but such manners aren’t tolerated in a civilized
country like ours. Here we are still human.” Already severely fatigued from weeks of unrelieved
rigorous work, the men grew increasingly tired as the hours passed. Finally
Hugo Speck, one of the bolder of them “decided to take matter into his own
hands by spreading his overcoat on the floor and quickly falling asleep on
it.” It did not take long before a guard jerked him awake, screaming
“Look here, you can’t do that. Get up!” As Lochner recounted,
“Before the nonplussed official knew it, Hugo had seized his arm and was
raising himself on it.” Surprised by the U.S. American reporter’s
nonchalance, the guard offered “There, there. You may sit in that chair
and lay your head on the table, but you mustn’t lie on the floor.” The guard’s schizophrenic behavior only betrayed
the confusion on the part of the Gestapo concerning what to do with their
docile prisoners. Lochner wrote later that “No one seemed to know what to
do with us, either the guards or the dozens of officials who peered at us as
they came on duty. We felt like monkeys” he said. “We learned only much
later that there had been a mix-up between the Foreign Office and the
Gestapo.” Apparently von Ribbentrop had ordered those U.S. Americans still
in Germany to remain in their homes until 11 December, at which time they
would be taken to police stations for identification before being interred.
“The Gestapo” Lochner explained, “had decided to grab us in the middle
of the night, as they were wont to grab Jews, republicans, and nonconformism
clergymen.” Stranded without obvious ideas of what would become of them, the
imprisoned journalists simply waited. “So here we were” Lochner retold,
“fifteen marooned and forgotten newsmen, without the faintest idea of what
was likely to happen to us next. The breakfast hour had come and gone” he
complained, “but nobody had brought us anything to eat or drink. We
refrained from mentioning to each other that we were getting ravenously
hungry.” At about noon the Gestapo’s guards led the men into
a room, where one of them found a radio. He just got it to work as the one
o’clock news ended with the announcer closing with “Thereupon the
American correspondents in Germany were arrested.” After the broadcast the
men became “so insistent upon food that one guard finally said timidly he
would supply it if we were willing to pay for it.” Soon “a buxom lass
appeared with huge pots containing two meat balls for each and plenty of
boiled potatoes, and a bottle of mineral water a piece.” The fastidious
Lochner noted “Price (including generous tip) sixty cents.” The clandestine commercial transaction was worth it,
for Lochner reported “The morale of the group rose perceptibly once we had
food in our stomachs, and we were all set to hear the broadcast of
Hitler’s address to the Reichstag when, just as suddenly as everything
else had happened thus far, an official came to order us to put on our coats
and get our baggage.” When the men left the Gestapo headquarters they
found a van waiting for them. It took them to Gruenau, the Berlin suburb
where the 1936 Olympic’s world rowing championships had been hosted. At Gruenau the Nazis filed the men into an unheated
summer resort, the Hotel Riviera. “The hot water heating will be turned on
soon” one of the guards promised, seeing the men’s disappointment at the
cold rooms. Although they were assigned a couple men to each room, all
fifteen huddled into one of rooms that boasted a working stove. One of the
men, Ernie Fischer, disappeared briefly; when he returned he brought a
“priceless utensil: a tea kettle. It was a life saver” Lochner swore.
“During the three days of our confinement it was almost constantly in
use.” The next day brought the men welcome good news. Just
as several SS men from Berlin demanded the keys “of such bachelors as had
their own private apartments,” the Foreign Office’s sympathetic Dr. Emil
Rasche—“who had already proven himself as a friend of the press
people”—and Dr. Froehlich of the U.S. American section of the Propaganda
Ministry arrived. Rasche announced that the U.S. State Department had agreed
to grant German journalists diplomatic status concerning their treatment and
the Germans were considering allowing the press to remove their belongings
with them when they left the Third Reich. As Lochner realized, “that too
would depend upon reciprocity.” Later that same afternoon a guard came for Lochner,
saying “Somebody has come to see you, but you must not tell anybody,
especially not our superiors, and you can talk with her only on the
veranda.” When he reached the hotel’s terrace Lochner found his wife,
who had been informed by an anonymous caller of her husband’s whereabouts.
Besides bringing apples and cigarettes for the imprisoned men, she delivered
“some canned goods to relive the monotony of our daily prison fair, and
American magazines galore.” As they spoke Lochner’s wife explained how
once she had learned of their internment, made her way to Gruenau and how
then “a combat of wits and eloquence had ensued until she finally broke
down the resistance of the good-natured but responsibility-laden guards
sufficiently for them to permit our brief meeting.” Within a day of obtaining relief supplies, the men
listened as a SS official relayed the latest instructions: “The internees
are to consider themselves free and return to their homes as quickly as
possible. By nine o’clock tomorrow, Sunday morning, they are to be at the
American Embassy with their luggage.” Lochner soon returned to his wife,
yet theirs was a tense reunion. “A night followed” he remembered,
“during which few Americans in Berlin slept. The German government
declined to allow the American diplomats and journalists more than
twenty-four hours for their departure from the capital. That meant, at least
for us internees” Lochner explained, “that during the night personal
affairs had to be straightened out, messages left, powers of attorney
signed, farewells made and baggage checked”. The Lochners went to the “occupied” U.S. embassy
on Sunday morning to find a hectic, maddening scene. While the courtyard
swarmed with German soldiers, the Gestapo “was in evidence everywhere.”
Swiss diplomats who were assuming U.S. diplomatic responsibilities were
moving into the embassy in the midst of this melee and the embassy corridors
“were messed up with baggage of every shape and description. Friends of
departing Americans” Lochner reported, “were seated in every reception
room, awaiting their turn to say good-bye. Heavy-set teamsters were
incessantly passing in and out of the building to fill three huge vans with
baggage and official records.” In the late forenoon three large buses arrived to
transport the one-hundred and twelve U.S. Americans in Berlin to the
Potsdamer Bahnhof. As the buses made their way through the German capital,
Lochner noted “With a curious glance we took in the familiar sights of
Goebbels’ swanky palace, the Tiergarten, the super-spacious Reichs
Chancellory, the busy Leipziger Platz. There were no demonstrations” he
found to his surprise. Lochner reasoned “The German PEOPLE have no quarrel
with us.” Loaded onto a special train with six sleepers, one dining car and two
baggage cars, the U.S. Americans traveled until ten o’clock that evening,
when they reached “the internationally famous spa Bad Nauheim. Here” they
were told, “we were to be interned until all the details of the exchange
of American and German diplomats and newsmen had been arranged.” Lochner
recalled bitterly “We were virtual prisoners for five full months!” |
