Say “William Russell” and I would think of the initially slightly disreputable Irishman who made his name reporting for The Times in Crimea. He was described as “a vulgar low Irishman, sings a good song, drinks anyone’s brandy and water and smokes as many cigars as a Jolly Good Fellow. He is just the sort of chap to get information, particularly out of youngsters”. He went on to be knighted (CVO) and his bust is in the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral.
Say “William Russell” now and I will ask which one. The 20th century chronicler was a young (24) diplomat in the American Embassy in Berlin at the outbreak of war. He recorded his impressions from August 1939 up to April 1940 and what makes his account so compelling is that it was in print by the beginning of 1941, so no chance to revise his opinions in the light of later events.
It is an unvarnished, disjointed, scrappy book full of anecdotes and some repetitions but its authenticity shines through. He meets ordinary Germans in bars, on buses trains and in the street in Berlin and elsewhere. A trip to the Harz mountains at Christmas 1939 and a railway journey to Munich are really good bits of observation and travel writing. He depicts the mood in Germany better than any diplomatic cable. It is in a sense a tribute to the ordinary German and a robust condemnation of the Nazis. An overlooked classic.
”I never saw any evidence of an underground movement in Germany against the Nazis. On the other hand, I never saw any evidence of even seventy percent support of Hitler. There are, perhaps, two million members of the Nazi Party. That is not many in a nation of seventy million people.” (Berlin Embassy, William Russell)
Hitler’s speeches distorting reality are uncannily similar to Putin’s today as is the repression of opposition in Russia.
”Few signs of the public turning against Putin are reflected in opinion polls, but that may not be a reliable indicator in a region dominated by fear.” (FTWeekend, 24/25 February 2024)
It seems to me that the earlier William Russell also covered bits of the American Civil War.
The American diplomat and historian George Kennan was stationed at the embassy in Berlin right through the German declaration of war on the US in December 1941. His observations, of lack of enthusiasm for Hitler and for the war, are similar to Russell’s. On the other hand, after the war he wrote that the American occupying authorities ought to understand that nationalist German was Germany: he thought that its determination to avoid hiring anyone tainted by the regime simply led to needed administrators and technicians simply led to needed administrators and technicians moving to other sectors, where they were at once hired.
(All this from Kennan’s Memoirs 1925-1950.)