Shirer´s Berlin Diary

[Bcarver]

Yes. "Shirer" is an Ashkenazi Jewish last name, a variation of "Sherer", both mean "barber".

Shirer describes leaving Germany in The Nightmare Years, and there is not a word about any broom handle rapes (I think you might be thinking of NYPD circa 1997...) Shirer does relate that his wife was strip-searched.

Thanks for clearing that up Vadim. I do remember the readers digest article but not very clearly. I could have swore that he said he was assaulted as well. But that was 20 some years ago. Does he say his wife was assaulted or just strip searched? Maybe I read more into it than he intended?

[Bcarver]

Yes. "Shirer" is an Ashkenazi Jewish last name, a variation of "Sherer", both mean "barber".

Shirer describes leaving Germany in The Nightmare Years, and there is not a word about any broom handle rapes (I think you might be thinking of NYPD circa 1997...) Shirer does relate that his wife was strip-searched.

Thanks for clearing that up Vadim. I do remember the readers digest article but not very clearly. I could have swore that he said he was assaulted as well. But that was 20 some years ago. Does he say his wife was assaulted or just strip searched? Maybe I read more into it than he intended?

[Vadim K]

Been a while since I read The Nightmare Years but I dont recall him mentioning any molestation of anyone, just that the Gestapo men were rude and subjected Tess (his wife) to the strip-search even though she was recovering from some surgery or something like that. I might even be able to find the exact quote for you, give me some time.

[Vadim K]

Ahnenerbe, as promised, here is Shirer's account of leaving Vienna. Since there was no love lost between him and the Nazis, if anything else had happened I am sure he would have mentioned it.

MY DIARY IN Vienna for the ninth of June, 1938, reads: “Leaving tomorrow. The Gestapo have been here for two days checking over my books and effects.… Tess is in no shape to travel, all bound up in bandages still, but we are going by air.” We felt exhilarated at the prospect of escaping on the morrow from this now Nazi land. I was on my guard, though. It was not so easy to leave Austria. The Gestapo was on the prowl, not only for Jews and dissident Austrians but also for foreigners who might be trying to get their money out in violation of the currency laws.

About noon, Tess, the baby, a young Austrian woman coming along as nurse, and I drove out to the airport. Inside the building I explained to the Gestapo chief that Tess was too weak from recent operations to stand up, and that I would go over her exit permit and the inspection of her baggage with him. On entering the waiting room, I helped Tess lie down on a bench and asked her not to move.

The Gestapo chief, a German of—I soon saw—limited intelligence but unlimited sadism, was not only skeptical but also suspicious. If the woman was my wife, why did she not have an American passport? Patiently—I was determined to keep my cool until I got safely out of this country—I explained the American law. So then the lady was Austrian! my tormentor cried. All Austrians had to have German passports. I asked him to look closely at the exit permit, stamped by the main Gestapo office in Vienna. This, thank God, impressed him. But then he reverted to character. Tess, he said, would have to stand up, like all the other passengers, to assist in the baggage inspection. I started to protest. I regretted by this time that I had not brought one of her doctors along to back me up, but it probably would not have made any différence. I began to raise my voice, whereupon my Gestapo man signaled a police inspector to take me away.

I was led into a small room, where two police officers went through all my pockets, frisking me from top to bottom. They then led me to another small room, adjacent. “Wait here,” they said. When I started to say I had to get back to my invalid wife to help with her baggage inpection, they closed the door in my face. I heard the lock turn. Five, ten, fifteen minutes. It seemed like hours. By now it was certainly time for our plane for Geneva to leave.
Just then I heard Tess cry: “Bill, they’re taking me away! They’re going to strip me! Where are you?”

I pounded the door. Through the window I could hear and see the Swiss racing the motors of their DC-3, impatient at being held up. After what seemed an age, a plainclothesman unlocked my door and led me to a corridor connecting the waiting room with the airfield. I tried to get into the waiting room to find Tess, but the door was locked. Once again I heard the Swiss revving up their plane. They were probably leaving without us—I could not see the plane from the corridor. THEN A DOOR opened. Out stepped my wife, the nurse supporting her with one arm and holding the baby in the other.

“Hurry!” snapped an official. “You’ve kept the plane waiting.” I held my tongue and grabbed Tess. She was gritting her teeth, trying to hold back her outrage. “They stripped me, the bastards!” she blurted out. “They tore off some of the bandages! The bitches!” I had never heard her curse before. I grabbed her other arm. We pushed through the door leading outside. We hurried as fast as we could across the grass. The plane stood there, fifty yards away, both engines humming. I wondered what more could possibly happen in the next few seconds before we could clamber up the steps into that blessed plane. Then we were inside it, and it was lurching across the field, gathering speed for take-off.
[...]
“Why in hell did they strip you, those Nazi bastards?” I asked Tess.
“Bitches,” Tess corrected me. “At least they use women for such jobs. Tough little Hitler maidens from Germany.”
“But why? I told them you were all bandaged up from the operations. ”
“They were looking for money,” Tess said. “They were sure we were smuggling a fortune out beneath the bandages. They didn’t believe us until they saw the mess.”

http://www.americanheritage.com/arti...984_4_65.shtml

[Bcarver]

Thanks Vadim, I was young when I read this, and I just added more into it. You know how memory is...he gives a good account of his experience.