Evening star., 1939-12-28
Reporter in Berlin
Finds That Silence
Is Golden
Officials Treat Americans
With Courtesy. but
ToIkers Foce Troops
(40th of a Series.)
By WILLIAM L. WHITE.


80 what if we American newspaper
men working in Berlin do have the
jitters? Maybe you'd get them, too
if you were here. But the queer
thing is we can't say why We have
them. Officially every one in the
government we meet is the soul OF
courtesy.
And the very pleasant young men
in the propaganda ministerium who
are detailed to ride herd on us are
as nice and obliging as you could
wish, and some of them were Ger
man exchange students in the
States and in consequence are
Betas and things like that; or
maybe they went to Harvard, too,
or maybe they, too, have worked
on American newspapers and have
nice urbane ironical senses OF
humor and pretty soon get to seem
like YOUR old college chum.
Only, of course, that's the way
It would seem if it were a really
good system, and any system this
country sets up you can assume
will be good.
And then these stray Germans
who wander into your life appar-
emily from nowhere and who seem
to be seething with discomfort
against the regime and you agree
with them so they will tell you more.
Exchange Laws Drastic.
But is the Home Front really
wobbling on its last pins or are you
talking to some detective who is
noting all your questions, answers
and reactions to be filed away In
your -dossier?
Then that pathetic old German
lady who dates from the old regime
and who is so sorry for what these
new barbarians have done to the
Jews and the Poles and the liberals
and the Czechs-and who, because
she is worried about the outcome
of the war, wants to get her money
into good hard American dollars
and would even pay you a bonus
watch out for her! She may be all
she says and yet the pathetic old
snake-in- -the-grasS may turn out
to be a plainclothes cop, working
for the Gestapo, which is fine, up
right organization, trying to trap
you into violation of their exchange
laws, which are also fine, reasonable
laws, and 1 am going to set an ex-
ample in their observance, because
If they hook you on this one you go
to Jail for a couple of years and
your American Consul can do
nothing.
To say nothing, of course, OF the
very curious American newspaper
men with odd credentials from re-
markable American papers who now
and then diff into the Adlon Bar
and then vanish like the dew.
But don't get me wrong. or
course, there are also some very
fine ones, like the young man who
said he represented Father Cough
Inns Social Justice and who was
also here briefly. He went up to
the hotel room Of one of the old
line American correspondents here
who is noted for his outspoken bias
in favor of democracy, and began
the conversation as follows: Aren't
these Nazis beasts? Aren't they
fiends in human form? Aren't they
devils incarnate?"
Learn to Keep Mouths Shut.
But the old-liner did not warm
up to this approach and mumbled
something about being tired and
wanting to go to bed. He undoubt-
edly said this because he was tired
and wanted to 60 to bed. So the
Young fellow with the violent
opinions, representing Social JUS
tice, went away and has not been
seen in Berlin since, which is a
pity because he was fine, upstand-
ing fellow and in the habit OF buy
ing drinks. Social Justice is a fine
paper.
All of these things add up to the
reasons why the American cor
respondents here lead such clean,
upright, Christian lives and keep
their mouths shut and work hard,
which is easy because everybody is
so pleasant and friendly.
Only when you work too hard do
you get stretches of wondering just
who has the adjoining room, or
looking around to see If you are
being followed, or glancing over your
shoulder and then talking out OF
the corner of your mouth when you
make some simple remark about
how much nicer the weather is in
America.
During these periods you wouldn't
talk frankly to your own grand
mother for fear she may have a
dictograph in her hustle, and you
also get very, very mad at Miss
Dorothy Thompson for having re-
portedly said that every American
newspaperman who will work in
Berlin must be traitor to his
country! With nice office up in
the Herald Tribune Building and
couple of secretaries hopping
around and no mikes sewed into
the mattress 1t must be easy to
fo1k lilo fbrt oLo,,t tho other hovc