ambassador, Mowrer recalled: “Dodd announced he had no wish to mix in Germany’s affairs.”
Dodd for his part assessed Mowrer as being “almost as vehement, in his way, as the Nazis.”
Threats against Mowrer increased. Within the Nazi hierarchy there was talk of inflicting physical harm on the correspondent.Gestapo chief Rudolf Diels felt compelled to warn the U.S. embassy that Hitler became enraged whenever Mowrer’s name was mentioned. Diels worried that some fanatic might kill Mowrer or otherwise “eliminate him from the picture,” and claimed to have assigned certain Gestapo men “of responsibility” to stand discreet watch over the correspondent and his family.
When Mowrer’s boss, Frank Knox, owner of the
Chicago Daily News
, learned of these threats, he resolved to transfer Mowrer out of Berlin. He offered him the paper’s bureau in Tokyo. Mowrer accepted, grudgingly, aware that sooner or later he would be expelled from Germany, but he insisted on staying until October, partly just to demonstrate that he would not bow to intimidation, but mainly because he wanted to cover the annual Nazi Party spectacle in Nuremberg set to begin September 1. This next rally, the “Party Day of Victory,” promised to be the biggest yet.
The Nazis wanted him gone immediately. Storm Troopers appeared outside his office. They followed his friends and made threats against his bureau staff. In Washington, Germany’s ambassador tothe United States notified the State Department that because of the “people’s righteous indignation” the government could no longer hope to keep Mowrer free from harm.
At this point even his fellow correspondents became concerned. H. R. Knickerbocker and another reporter went to see Consul General Messersmith to ask him to persuade Mowrer to leave. Messersmith was reluctant. He knew Mowrer well and respected his courage in facing down Nazi threats. He feared that Mowrer might view his intercession as a betrayal. Nonetheless, he agreed to try.
It was “one of the most difficult conversations I ever had,” Messersmith wrote later. “When he saw that I was joining his other friends in trying to persuade him to leave, tears came into his eyes and he looked at me reproachfully.” Nonetheless, Messersmith felt it was his duty to convince Mowrer to leave.
Mowrer gave up “with a gesture of despair” and left Messersmith’s office.
Now Mowrer took his case directly to Ambassador Dodd, but Dodd too believed he should leave, not just for his safety but because his reporting imparted an extra layer of strain to what was already a very challenging diplomatic environment.
Dodd told him, “If you were not being moved by your paper anyway, I would go to the mat on this issue.… Won’t you do this to avoid complications?”
Mowrer gave in. He agreed to leave on September 1, the first full day of the Nuremberg rally he so wanted to cover.
Martha wrote later that Mowrer “never quite forgave my father for this advice.”
ANOTHER OF DODD’S EARLY visitors was, as Dodd wrote, “perhaps the foremost chemist in Germany,” but he did not look it. He was smallish in size and egg bald, with a narrow gray mustache above full lips. His complexion was sallow, his air that of a much older man.
He was Fritz Haber. To any German the name was well known and revered, or had been until the advent of Hitler. Until recently, Haber had been director of the famed Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for PhysicalChemistry. He was a war hero and a Nobel laureate. Hoping to break the stalemate in the trenches during the Great War, Haber had invented poison chlorine gas. He had devised what became known as Haber’s rule, a formula,C × t = k, elegant in its lethality: a low exposure to gas over a long period will have the same result as a high exposure over a short period. He also invented a means to distribute his poison gas at the front and was himself present in 1915 for its first use against French forces at Ypres.On
Dodd for his part assessed Mowrer as being “almost as vehement, in his way, as the Nazis.”
Threats against Mowrer increased. Within the Nazi hierarchy there was talk of inflicting physical harm on the correspondent.Gestapo chief Rudolf Diels felt compelled to warn the U.S. embassy that Hitler became enraged whenever Mowrer’s name was mentioned. Diels worried that some fanatic might kill Mowrer or otherwise “eliminate him from the picture,” and claimed to have assigned certain Gestapo men “of responsibility” to stand discreet watch over the correspondent and his family.
When Mowrer’s boss, Frank Knox, owner of the
Chicago Daily News
, learned of these threats, he resolved to transfer Mowrer out of Berlin. He offered him the paper’s bureau in Tokyo. Mowrer accepted, grudgingly, aware that sooner or later he would be expelled from Germany, but he insisted on staying until October, partly just to demonstrate that he would not bow to intimidation, but mainly because he wanted to cover the annual Nazi Party spectacle in Nuremberg set to begin September 1. This next rally, the “Party Day of Victory,” promised to be the biggest yet.
The Nazis wanted him gone immediately. Storm Troopers appeared outside his office. They followed his friends and made threats against his bureau staff. In Washington, Germany’s ambassador tothe United States notified the State Department that because of the “people’s righteous indignation” the government could no longer hope to keep Mowrer free from harm.
At this point even his fellow correspondents became concerned. H. R. Knickerbocker and another reporter went to see Consul General Messersmith to ask him to persuade Mowrer to leave. Messersmith was reluctant. He knew Mowrer well and respected his courage in facing down Nazi threats. He feared that Mowrer might view his intercession as a betrayal. Nonetheless, he agreed to try.
It was “one of the most difficult conversations I ever had,” Messersmith wrote later. “When he saw that I was joining his other friends in trying to persuade him to leave, tears came into his eyes and he looked at me reproachfully.” Nonetheless, Messersmith felt it was his duty to convince Mowrer to leave.
Mowrer gave up “with a gesture of despair” and left Messersmith’s office.
Now Mowrer took his case directly to Ambassador Dodd, but Dodd too believed he should leave, not just for his safety but because his reporting imparted an extra layer of strain to what was already a very challenging diplomatic environment.
Dodd told him, “If you were not being moved by your paper anyway, I would go to the mat on this issue.… Won’t you do this to avoid complications?”
Mowrer gave in. He agreed to leave on September 1, the first full day of the Nuremberg rally he so wanted to cover.
Martha wrote later that Mowrer “never quite forgave my father for this advice.”
ANOTHER OF DODD’S EARLY visitors was, as Dodd wrote, “perhaps the foremost chemist in Germany,” but he did not look it. He was smallish in size and egg bald, with a narrow gray mustache above full lips. His complexion was sallow, his air that of a much older man.
He was Fritz Haber. To any German the name was well known and revered, or had been until the advent of Hitler. Until recently, Haber had been director of the famed Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for PhysicalChemistry. He was a war hero and a Nobel laureate. Hoping to break the stalemate in the trenches during the Great War, Haber had invented poison chlorine gas. He had devised what became known as Haber’s rule, a formula,C × t = k, elegant in its lethality: a low exposure to gas over a long period will have the same result as a high exposure over a short period. He also invented a means to distribute his poison gas at the front and was himself present in 1915 for its first use against French forces at Ypres.On
Similar Books
