Ordinarily I’m no listener to Party broadcasts. I’d sooner listen to my own wind. But tonight’s was no ordinary Party broadcast. The Führer was speaking at the Sportspalast on Potsdamerstrasse, and it was widely held that he would declare the true extent of his intentions towards Czechoslovakia and the Sudetenland.

Personally, I had long ago come to the conclusion that for years Hitler had been deceiving everyone with his speeches about peace. And I’d seen enough westerns at the cinema to know that when the man in the black hat picks on the little fellow standing next to him at the bar, he’s really spoiling for a fight with the sheriff. In this case the sheriff just happened to be French, and it didn’t take much to see that he wasn’t much inclined to do anything but stay indoors and tell himself that the gunshots he could hear across the street were just a few firecrackers.

In the hope that I was wrong about this, I turned on the radio, and like 75 million other Germans, waited to find out what would become of us.

A lot of women say that whereas Goebbels merely seduces, Hitler positively fascinates. It’s difficult for me to comment on this. All the same, there is no denying the hypnotic effect that the Führer’s speeches seem to have on people. Certainly the crowd at the Sportspalast seemed to appreciate it. I expect you had to be there to get the real atmosphere. Like a visit to a sewage plant.

For those of us listening at home, there was nothing to appreciate, no hope in anything that the number one carpet-chewer said. There was only the dreadful realization that we were a little closer to war than we had been the day before.

Tuesday, 27 September

The afternoon saw a military parade on Unter den Linden, one which looked more ready for war than anything ever seen before on the streets of Berlin. This was a mechanized division in full field equipment. But to my astonishment, there were no cheers, no salutes and no waving of flags. The reality of Hitler’s belligerence was in everyone’s mind and seeing this parade, people just turned and walked away.

Later that same day, when at his own request I met Arthur Nebe away from the Alex, at the offices of Gunther & Stahlecker, Private Investigators – the door was still awaiting the sign-writer to come and change the name back to the original I told him what I had seen.

Nebe laughed. ‘What would you say if I told you that the division you saw were this country’s probable liberators?’

‘Is the army planning a putsch?’