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Show MY MOST INSPIRING MOMENT LP dMk- - . , With these words, ringing in my ears, I walked part way up the and then hailed a taxi to the German Broadcasting House. I had hardly sat down at the typewriter Tier-gart- en Mil JP V fiir .-- lv-- .- : before some impulse .moved me to turn on the radio to hear what the BBC in London had to say. It would be much too early I was sure, to have any British reaction to Hitler's offer of peace. That would be some- thing for the Prime Minister and his cabinet to mull over and that might take days. How wonderfully wrong I was! This particular broadcast from London was being made in German but no matter. Its message was a re- sounding, "No" to Hitler. The BBC was very emphatic. Its speaker heaped ridicule on Hitler's very- - utterance. There could be no peace with Britain as long as Hitler held his booted heel upon the prostrate bodies of once-fre- e European nations. I was speechless with relief and joy. A number of German officials and military officers had come in to listen to the BBC. Their faces fell. They could not believe their ; ears. "Can you understand these British fools? Turning down peace now? They're crazy!" Maybe. But crazy: in a way that gave me one of the most inspiring moments of my life. This time the British would not give up.- There w4as still hope that our Western World would not accept the dark night of Nazi savagery. In one of the lowest moments of their proud history the British had shown the courage that lights the way toward a decent life for mankind. As Me BBC report came in over the radio, 1 was speechless with relief. - pense of most of Europe enslaved by the had Nazis.-AndmceHitler con-solidat- ed his conquests and then probably pushed into Russia and the Balkans, Great Britain would be at his mercy. Still,- - less than two years before, I had seen the British, then under Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, surrender abjectly at Munich to Hitler at the expense of the Czechs. The British people had applauded their leader. Churchill, one knew, was of a considerably different stripe, but the people were the same. The war had gone badly. Their Allies had surrendered. Alone, they could not hope to defeat Germany. And if they continued the war, they knew their great cities would be destroyed by the German Luftwaffe My feelings as I returned from Compiegne to Berlin that midsum- mer of 1940 were that the British probably would opt for peace. It was understandable. No doubt my feelings were swayed by what I heard in Berlin. Every German I Calked to, in the army, government, Nazi party, in the street, was absolutely certain that Britain would accept Hitler's ILLUSTRATION BY MITCHELL HQO , expected offer of peace. I thought I knew the consequences. Hitler would have goaway with his military aggression. He would rule most of the European continent and with an iron hand. A long dark age would seKin in the Western World. We woulosuffer from it, too, in America. Britain at this moment offered the only hope v that history might still take a better turn for the future. It was, I felt, a slightjiope. It was against this background and in this mood that on the evening of July 19, 1940, 1 walked over from my hotel to the Kroll Opera; where the rubber-stam- p Reichstag was meeting to hear a speech by Adolf Hitler. In the Wilhelmstrasse that day there was little doubt that the dictator would offer peace to Britain. A host of generals, who crowded the lobby of the Adlon Hotel, where I lived, said the same thing. They were in a jovial, expansive mood. After Hitler's speech to the Reichstag, I would have to hurry out to the left them As Reichstag, I was in the opposite son and common sense in Great Britain as much as elsewhere. I consider I mood. to walk over to the It seemed to me to mark the end of the world, at least to the kind of world I thought fit to live in. After all, as someone in America had written, the "wave of the future" apparently belonged to the Nazis. The barbarians had taken over. radio station and make my daily late broadcast to CBS in America. I did not relish the thought. If I showed my despair, the censors would cut me T" off the air. ' '. As expected, Hitler did offer peace that evening. Worse, from my viewpoint, he made his proposal sound magnanimous and 'perfectly reason able. I had heard all of his great Reichstag speeches down the years, but this, I had to admit, was one of his best. As I listened, I knew it would convince the German people and a good part of the neutral world per- haps even the British people them- - or many years I wondered how Fthe BBC in London could have broadcast so quickly what seemed to be a momentous and crucial decision of the government (the answer came within an hour after Hitler had fin ished speaking). His speech had been broadcast, and London, we knew, would be picking it up. But then it would have to be translated and the British cabinet would have to meet to jieliberateon it. JThisJwould take. selyeslfitxjliil drive a wedge between them and their political leaders, above all, Winston Churchill. x Hitler said in -- V: '. part:... V. "In this hour I feel itvto be my duty . . . to appeal once more to rea- myself in a position to make this ap-peal since I am not the vanquished begging favors but the victor speak- ing in the name of reason. can see no reason why this war must go on." Hitler was not more specific than that. But was it. not enough? . x hours and probably days. How had the British Prime Minister been able to answer so swiftly? Churchill gave the answer many years later in his memoirs. The BBC, he said, didn't wait for his decision. Everyone in Great Britain knew what the answer would be. The BBC, said Churchill, made the announcement "without any prompting from His Majesty's Government, as soon as Hitler's speech was heard over the radio," The Prinie Minister himself never bothered to reply to Hitler's proposal. Family Weekly, November 29, 1964 , |