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Leila smiled and nodded. These days, any thoughts of Munich brought mixed emotions. She missed the elegant architecture, the river curving gently through the city, the green lungs of the parks. But it also brought back memories of Hitler’s supporters marching through the streets, of attacks on Jews and the constant danger facing her parents.
Glancing up at the clock on the office wall, she noticed it was already quarter to nine. ‘Well, if I’m going to get this bulletin into shape before my meeting with Alec, I’d better get to work.’
When Leila had first arrived in England in the mid-nineteen-thirties, she had managed to scrape together a modest income – translating academic works, and writing for magazines. Frances McFadden’s contacts had proved invaluable and on Leila’s list of credits was the translation of the works of a famous Austrian playwright, and the compiling of a modern German textbook for English schoolchildren. She had also found a publisher for her book on the women of Nazi Germany.
In 1939, when war was declared, most German nationals living in Britain were automatically interned, and Leila and the children were initially on the internment list. But fortunately, her talent had been spotted by a Foreign Office mandarin, who asked her to join the newly created BBC German Service.
‘You’d be far more use working for us, MrsLabowski, than languishing in some prison camp in the middle of Oxfordshire.’
Relieved, Leila had taken British citizenship and signed the Official Secrets Act. Now, she was one of several German-speaking newsreaders who worked in shifts broadcasting news bulletins to their home country.
The remit of the German Service was to transmit accurate, unbiased news to the German people about the progress of the war – even if accuracy meant sometimes having to broadcast negative stories about British military progress. Bulletins were transmitted on the hour throughout the day. Written by BBC staff news journalists, they were then translated and read by native German speakers – mostly freelancers like Leila. There was concern that these freelancers might not be trustworthy, possibly sending secret messages to people back home, so a British ‘switch censor’ sat with them during bulletins to check they did not deviate from the script. In his hand, the censor held a ‘switch’, which was connected to the microphone. If he detected any deviation, he could ‘switch’ the newsreader off in an instant.
Each bulletin was followed by expert analysis by British political commentators. From time to time the service produced talks given by well-known German emigrés. Thomas Mann, the Nobel Prize-winning novelist, who had fled his home city of Munich for sanctuary in New York, was a frequent contributor, as was his daughter, Erika. An actress and writer living in England, Erika approached these talks with an almost messianic zeal, urging her countrymen to abandon Nazi Germany. At the start of the war these talks were subjected to considerable scrutiny to ensure that they did not break BBC and government guidelines of objectivity, but slowly the shackles had loosened and people like Erika were able to speak with real passion. The Service also commissioned satirical comedy skits about Hitler and other leading Nazis, using actors and writers who were refugees from Germany.
At ten o’clock, Leila and Alec, the news editor, filed into Hugh Carleton Greene’s office. Leila’s translation of the bulletin already lay on his desk. He stood up as they entered. ‘It’s Leila, isn’t it?’
‘Yes…it’s good to meet you, sir.’
‘Oh, Hugh please, and I’m pleased to meet you too. Alec has nothing but good things to say about you. I know you worked at theMunich Post– an excellent newspaper.’
Leila blushed. ‘I was only their deputy political editor – under Edmund Goldschagg. He was a good teacher.’
‘I met him once, before I moved to Berlin in ’34. He was a fine man. Well, we must have lunch or something and chew the cud. I loved Munich.’
‘Me too,’ replied Leila sadly.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Hugh. ‘That was crass of me. It must be terrible to be separated from the city you love. And I’m sorry about your husband too. I hope you don’t mind, but Alec filled me in on what happened to him.’
‘No, I don’t mind. It’s better to be open about these things.’
‘Good,’ said Hugh, sitting down at his desk. ‘Well…to work. Do sit down, both of you.’ He pointed at the two chairs opposite his desk. ‘I see we’re leading the bulletin with the RAF bombing raid on southern Germany last night. It’s only the second or third time the bombers have got that far, isn’t it?’
‘Yes…They had Karlsruhe, Stuttgart and Nuremberg in their sights,’ replied Alec. ‘But the topography’s a bit tricky round there and, in the end, they missed Stuttgart completely.’
‘Quite so…I understand it’s part of a new strategy by Bomber Command. Up till now they’ve been concentrating their firepower on the industrial cities on the Ruhr and northern oil terminals. But it’s now thought that bombing civilian targets might break the Germans’ morale. I suspect this raid on the south is just the start.’
For Leila, this was not welcome news. Nuremberg was only a hundred and fifty kilometres from Munich, meaning her hometown could well be next. Her parents’ apartment in the centre of the city would be very vulnerable.
Hugh sucked thoughtfully on his empty pipe. ‘How do you think the people will react to this new RAF tactic, Leila?’
Leila was flattered to be asked – it was rare for newsreaders to be asked for their opinion, and she sensed that Hugh might be sizing her up. ‘Funnily enough, I was just wondering the same thing. If the RAF manage to get as far as Munich it could hit Hitler personally quite hard. After all, the city is his emotional as well as his political home. As you know, it’s the place where the Nazi Party was born, and the citizens had been promised they would be safe from attack.’
Hugh nodded. ‘Interesting to see how it plays out.’
They ran through the rest of the running order – the German 6thArmy had made its first assault on the city of Kiev, and the British submarine HMSCachalothad been sunk in the Mediterranean by an Italian torpedo boat.
‘Pretty depressing all round,’ said Hugh, knocking his pipe out into an ashtray. ‘Well…if there’s nothing else?’
A couple of hours later, Leila was facing the microphone in the newsreaders’ booth, with Alec acting as the switch censor. As the second hand on the studio clock ticked round to midday, the sound engineer on the other side of the glass flashed the red ‘on air’ light, and Leila began:
‘Nun folgt eine nachrichtensendung der BBC…’
After the bulletin, Leila’s job was to be continuity announcer for the German programmes that followed – an analysis of the day’s news, a talk from an émigré philosopher, and a comic sketch featuring the actor Herbert Lom doing a passable imitation of Hitler.
Leila watched the sound engineer barely containing his laughter on the other side of the glass. But she couldn’t laugh. To her mind, nothing about Nazi Germany was at all amusing.
Her shift finished at five, when she was replaced by her colleague Heinrich. ‘Guten abend, gnädige Frau. Looking lovely as always…’
