Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent 1934-41

by William L. Shirer

For the first time since 1871, German troops staged a victory parade through the Brandenburg Gate today. They comprised a division conscripted from Berlin. Stores and factories closed, by order, and the whole town turned out to cheer. Nothing pleases the Berliners—a naïve and simple people on the whole—more than a good military parade. And nothing more than an afternoon off from their dull jobs and their dismal homes. I mingled among the crowds in the Pariserplatz. A holiday spirit ruled completely. Nothing martial about the mass of the people here. They were just out for a good time. Looking at them, I wondered if any of them understood what was going on in Europe, if they had an inkling that their joy, that this victorious parade of the goose-steppers, was based on a great tragedy for millions of others whom these troops and the leaders of these people had enslaved. Not one in a thousand, I wager, gave the matter a thought.