Assignment to Berlin [antikvár]

Chapter IFIRST DATSMy assignment to Berlin came in October 1940. On October 24, a Clipper carried me from New York to replace William L. Shirer as a representative of the Colimibia Broadcasting System in the Nazi capital.The Clipper took me to Lisbon. Lisbon, as I saw it, was an international whirlpool into which were swept from every direction, people of all nationalities, races, coloui's and tongues, none wishing to stay, but all forced to remain long days, weeks, and sometimes months awaiting transportation. Lisbon, with its colourful stucco houses shining from the hillsides through nests of palms and funny bushy-topped trees, and with lush growths of flowers and ferns, was a beautiful spot. Its narrow winding streets, along which passed barefooted women jauntily carrying baskets on their heads, aged wrinkled men on pack-saddled donkeys, boys in two-wheeled carts driving loads of grain behind tiny mules, and tiny continually honking automobiles were interesting. But all this was lost on people in a nervous haste to leave.It was a week before I was able to quit Lisbon, the first quiet period since Paul White had cabled me in St. Louis to go to Berlin. During those last days in the United States, I had rushed preparing to leave and had had no time to consider all that the assignment meant. In Lisbon the dragging hours brought sober realization of the fact that I had actually left my home and family for the first time. I had gone from a bungalow down a tree-shaded street in suburban St. Louis, gone from Ruth and Pat, my wife and year-and-a-half-old daughter, who just a few days previously had waved a bewildered good-bye at the airport in St. Louis. In Lisbon, as I looked on scenes I should have liked to share with them, they had suddenly become far away. I was on my way to help cover a war.Ala Littoria, the Italian airline, took me from Lisbon to Madrid. I took off from a field that I was to find typical of Europe, a grass-covered expanse on which the only concrete runways were short strips near the airport station. The plane itself was in no way like those in the United States. There were no freshly clean white linen towels for head rests on the back of the seats, no hostesses bringing chewing gum to help you adjust inner and outer air pressure in ascending andI