A Correspondent in Berlin

In the capital of the Reich, a handful of foreign correspondents try to tell the world of the march towards war. Among them is the American William Shirer, of CBS radio, who also keeps a personal diary. Berlin, in late August 1939, hums with rumours: the pact with Moscow has just been signed, troops are massing, the Nazi press pours out frenzied anti-Polish propaganda.

Working under the Nazi regime is a perilous exercise. Censorship watches every dispatch; Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry stages press conferences where the facts are distorted; a journalist who is too independent risks expulsion, or worse. But to remain in place is also to be a direct witness to a historic turning point.

Shirer faces a professional and moral dilemma. Report what he sees and understands, circumventing the censorship at the risk of expulsion and of losing his vantage point? Censor himself to stay in place and go on informing, however constrained? Or leave Germany, for safety and out of a refusal to serve, even unwittingly, the propaganda machine? The choice bears on his mission as a witness.