Wall Street palpitating

It is 150 years today since the death of George Templeton Strong, a New York lawyer remembered for his remarkable diary, which provides a near-daily description, a living history, of his city during the mid-19th century. He was as keen on writing about fire emergencies, financial panic (‘Wall Street has been palpitating uneasily all day’), and riots in the streets as he was about the nuisance of organ-grinders outside his house. Some say Strong’s is the greatest American diary in the nineteenth century.

Strong was born in his father’s house in Manhattan in 1820, and was educated at Columbia College. He trained as a lawyer, and joined his father’s firm, practicing as a real estate attorney. He married Ellen Ruggles in 1848, both of them keen amateur musicians, and moved into a house near Gramercy Park. They had one son (also George, but not born until 1856), who became a composer and painter and spent most of his adult life in Europe.

In the 1860s, and through the Civil War, Strong took on various public service roles, serving on the executive committee of the Sanitary Commission (a precursor of the American Red Cross), helping found the Union League Club of New York, and acting as a trustee of Columbia College. He was also a vestryman at Trinity Episcopal Church, and, from 1870 to 1874, president of the New York Philharmonic. He died relatively young, on 21 July 1875. A little further biographical information is available at Greenwich Village History, Mr Lincoln and New York, or Wikipedia.

Strong is mostly remembered for the daily diary he kept from the age of fifteen and for the next 40 years - amounting to some four million words. The manuscript diaries are held by the New-York Historical Society, and have been edited twice for publication. The first time was by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas (four volumes, Macmillan, 1952) - all of which can be downloaded as pdfs from this website. This version was abridged into one volume in 1988 for publication by University of Washington Press. According to Nevins: ‘Strong was an artist who was consciously trying to render his own city, his own time, his own personality in such form that later generations could comprehend them.’ 

The diaries were also edited by Vera Brodsky Lawrence for her three volumes: Strong on Music: The New York Music Scene in the Days of George Templeton Strong (University of Chicago Press, 1988-1999).

A few extracts from Strong’s diary (taken from the Nevins/Thomas volumes) can be found at Googlebooks in The Civil War - The Third Year Told By Those Who Lived It, edited by Brooks D Simpson; and in Writing New York - a literary anthology, edited by Phillip Lopate. Lopate says Strong’s diary is ‘the greatest American diary in the nineteenth century’, remarkable not only for its length but for ‘the flavoursome precision of the writing’.

Here are several extracts culled from Writing New York.

23 November 1851
‘Fearful calamity at a public school in Ninth Ward Thursday afternoon, a false alarm of fire, a panic, a stampede downstairs of 1,800 children, and near fifty killed on the spot and many more wounded - a massacre of the innocents. The stair banisters gave way, and the children fell into the square well round which the stairs wound, where the heap of killed and wounded lay for hours before help could reach them. The doors opened inwards. The bodies were piled up to the top of the doors; they did not dare burst them open and had to cut them slowly away with knives.’

5 July 1852
‘Have been at home all day writing. Tonight went on the roof awhile. It’s a beautiful sight the city presents. In every direction one incessant sparkle of fire balls, rockets, roman candles, and stars of all colors shooting thick into the air and disappearing for miles around, with now and then a glare of coloured light coming out in some neighbourhood where fireworks on a large scale are going off. A foreigner would put it in his book of travels as one of the marvels of New York, and compare it to a swarm of tropical fireflies gleaming in and out through a Brazilian forest.’

23 November 1855
‘I must ascertain whether the mighty bug-destroyer Lyons has no modification of his cockroach powder that will exterminate organ-grinders. We suffer peculiarly here, for the street is very quiet, and they play all round the square before they leave it and are more or less audible at each successive station. I have been undergoing the performances of one of the tribe for an hour and a half and have heard “Casta Diva,” “Ah, Non Giunge,” the first chorus of Ernani, and some platitude from the Trovatore languidly ground out six times each. It makes me feel homicidal. If Abel had gone about with hand organs, I shouldn’t censure Cain so very harshly. There goes “Casta Diva” for the seventh time!’

14 October 1857
‘We have burst. All the banks declined paying specie this morning, with the ridiculous exception of the Chemical, which is a little private shaving-shop of the Joneses with no depositors but its own stockholders.

Wall Street has been palpitating uneasily all day, but the first effect of the suspension is, of course, to make men breathe more freely. A special session is confidently expected, and the meeting of merchants at the Exchange at 3:30 P.M. appointed a committee that has gone to Albany to lay the case before Governor King. He ought to decline interference, but were I in his place I dare say my virtue would give way.

My great anxiety has been for the savings banks. Saw the officers of the two in which I feel a special interest (the Bleecker Street and Seaman’s). Both were suicidally paying specie and thus inviting depositors to come forward to get the gold they could get nowhere else and could sell at a premium. The latter changes from specie to bills tomorrow; the former did so this afternoon. All the savings banks are to do so tomorrow. The run has been very formidable; some say not so severe as it was yesterday, but bad enough. I think they will get through.’

14 July 1863
‘Eleven P.M. Fire bells clanking, as they have clanked at intervals through the evening. Plenty of rumours throughout the day and evening, but nothing very precise or authentic. There have been sundry collisions between the rabble and the authorities, civil and military. Mob fired upon. It generally runs, but on one occasion appears to have rallied, charged the police and militia, and forced them back in disorder. The people are waking up, and by tomorrow there will adequate organization to protect property and life. Many details come in of yesterday’s brutal, cowardly ruffianism and plunder. Shops were cleaned out and a black man hanged in Carmine Street, for no offence but that of Nigritude. Opdyke’s house again attacked this morning by a roaming handful of Irish blackguards. Two or three gentlemen who chanced to be passing saved it from sack by a vigorous charge and dispersed the popular uprising (as the Herald, World, and News call it), with their walking sticks and their fists.

Walked uptown perforce, for no cars and few omnibi were running. They are suppressed by threats of burning railroad and omnibus stables, the drivers being wanted to reinforce the mob. Tiffany’s shop, Ball & Black’s, and a few other Broadway establishments are closed. (Here I am interrupted by a report of a fire near at hand, and a great glare on the houses across the Park. Sally forth, and find the Eighteenth Ward station house, Twenty-second Street, near First Avenue, in full blaze. A splendid blaze it made, but I did not venture below Second Avenue, finding myself in a crowd of Celtic spectators disgorged by the circumjacent tenement houses. They were exulting over the damage to “them bloody police,” and so on. I thought discretion the better part of curiosity. Distance lent enchantment to that view.)

At 823 with Bellows four to six; then home. At eight to Union League Club. Rumor it’s to be attacked tonight. Some say there is to be a great mischief tonight and that the rabble is getting the upper hand. Home at ten and sent for by Dudley Field, Jr., to confer about an expected attack on his house and his father’s, which adjoin each other in this street just below Lexington Avenue. He has a party there with muskets and talks of fearful trouble before morning, but he is always a blower and a very poor devil. Fire bells again again at twelve-fifteen. No light of conflagration is visible. [. . .]

A good deal of yelling to the eastward just now. The Fields and their near neighbour, Colonel Frank Howe, are as likely to be attacked by this traitor-guilded mob as any people I know. If they are, we shall see trouble in this quarter, and Gramercy Park will acquire historical associations. O, how tired I am! But I feel reluctant to go to bed. I believe I dozed off a minute or two. There came something like two reports of artillery, perhaps only falling walls. There go two jolly Celts along the street, singing a genuine Celtic howl, something about “Tim O’Laggerty,” with a refrain of pure Erse. Long live the sovereigns of New York, Brian Boroo redivivus and multiplied. Paddy has left his Egypt - Connaught - and reigns in this promised land of milk and honey and perfect freedom. Hurrah, there goes a strong squad of police marching eastward down this street, followed by a company of infantry with gleaming bayonets. One A.M. Fire bells again, southeastward, “Swinging slow with sullen roar.” Now they are silent, and I shall go to bed, at least for a season.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 21 July 2015.

Better than Proust’s madeleine

‘I am startled to find that on the last page of my diary for 1980 I myself wrote: “There will be a nuclear war in the next decade.” And then in capital letters, as if the lower case formulation was still inadequate: “WE WILL SEE A NUCLEAR WAR IN THIS DECADE.” ’ This is from the youthful diaries of British historian Timothy Garton Ash - celebrating his 70th birthday today. It’s one of a few diary entries he revealed in a 1997 book - The File: A Personal History - based on his time in Berlin and a report compiled on him then by the East German secret police.

Garton Ash was born on 12 July 1955. His father, John, had been a Royal Artillery officer, one of the first to land in Normandy on D-Day, and later a finance expert advising schools in the independent sector. Timothy himself was schooled at Sherborne, and then studied modern history at Oxford University. He moved to Berlin, in the early 1980s, to further his postgraduate research, and then travelled widely through Eastern Europe reporting on the emancipation of Central Europe from communism. He was appointed foreign editor of the Spectator, but also wrote for The Times and The Independent.

Since 1990, Garton Ash has been a Fellow of St Antony’s College, Oxford, and, since 2004, Professor of European Studies at the University of Oxford, where he is also the Isaiah Berlin Professorial Fellow. In the US, he maintains a part-time residence at the Hoover Institution (Stanford University). There is very little personal information about Garton Ash readily available online other than that he is married to Danuta, has two children, and is based in Oxford. More readily available - at Wikipedia, for example, is information on his fellowships and awards.

After authoring, in the 1980s and early 1990s, several books on the recent history of central Europe, Garton Ash turned his attention to a more personal story. He discovered that the Stasi had kept a detailed file on his activities and movements while living in Berlin, and he returned to the city to look into the file, and, ultimately to write and publish a book on his findings - The File: A Personal History (HarperCollins 1997, republished by Atlantic Books in 2009, with a new afterword).

‘In this memoir,’ the publisher says, ‘Garton Ash describes what it was like to rediscover his younger self through the eyes of the Stasi, and then to go on to confront those who actually informed against him to the secret police. Moving from document to remembrance, from the offices of British intelligence to the living rooms of retired Stasi officers, The File is a personal narrative as gripping, as disquieting, and as morally provocative as any fiction by George Orwell or Graham Greene. And it is all true.’

Of interest to me, to this web site, is that Garton Ash kept a diary during his Berlin years (I’ve no idea whether he has continued to keep one in the 30 odd years since - I hope so), and used that diary to inform and colour his literary and moral adventures in Stasi-land. Unfortunately, however, he rarely quotes from his diary at any length, preferring to cite it as the source of some piece of information about his whereabouts or feelings or thoughts. However, here are a few short extracts, as quoted in The File directly from his diary.

In the first pages of the book, Garton Ash reproduces a Stasi observation report on him for 6 October 1979 when he made a trip to East Berlin. He follows this by describing the contents of his own diary for that day, which has Claudia ‘cheeky in red beret and blue uniform coat’. ‘Over Friedrichstrasse,’ his diary continues, ‘searched down to the soles of my shoes (Duckers. Officer very impressed.)’ He then continues with memories of the day before quoting this, also from his diary of that day: ‘Becoming yet more intimate . . . The torchlit procession. The cold, cold east wind. Our warmth. The maze - encircled. Slipping through the columns, evading the policemen. Finally to ‘Ganymed’. Tolerable dinner. C. re. her ‘Jobben’. Her political activity. We cross back via Friedrichstr. To Diener’s . . . c.0300 at Uhlandstr. Daniel, desperate and pale-faced before the flat door - locked out!’

At the end of this introductory chapter Garton Ash writes: ‘The Stasi’s observation report, my own diary entry: two versions of one day in a life. The “object” described with the cold outward eye of the secret policeman and my own subjective, allusive, emotional self-description. But what a gift to memory is a Stasi file. Far better than Proust’s madeleine.’

Garton Ash’s diary continues to inform and enrich his story in the book, part memoir, part analysis, part drama (in the sense that he confronts several of the people who had informed on him years earlier, and considers at length whether to mention their real names or not). But, as I’ve said, he rarely quotes more than a few words. Here’s some further, very brief, extracts from later in the book when he’s heading for Poland to cover the rise of Solidarity.

- ‘Poland was what journalists call a “breaking story”. To follow such a story is like being lashed to the saddlestraps of a racehorse at full gallop: very exciting, but you don’t get the best view of the race. Yet I tried to achieve a view from the Grandstand, even an aerial view, and to understand the story as part of history. The history of the present. For me, Poland was also a cause. “Poland is my Spain” I wrote in my diary on Christmas Eve 1980.’

- ‘On the day I left East Berlin, my diary records: “It seems to me now odds-on that the Russians will march into Poland. (And the Germans? Dr D. today says Ja.)” ’

- ‘I am startled to find that on the last page of my diary for 1980 I myself wrote: “There will be a nuclear war in the next decade.” And then in capital letters, as if the lower case formulation was still inadequate: “WE WILL SEE A NUCLEAR WAR IN THIS DECADE.” ’

As mentioned above, Garton Ash appears once only in my own diaries. This was in September 2005, and I was much taken up with my failure to get any attention for a novel I’d written and self-published, Kip Fenn - Reflections (more recently re-self-published in three volumes under the title Not a Brave New World - a trilogy in three wives). I had been very excited about this novel - the fictional memoir of an international diplomat, but one set in the future, spanning the whole of the 21st century, and very much focused on political and social issues, particularly the rich-poor divide. Despite its original format and story-line, I’d been unable to get anyone in the publishing industry to even glance at it, let alone take it seriously. 

That particular day, I noted in my diary several stories in The Guardian, all of which related directly to themes in my novel, in particular Garton Ash’s: Decivilisation is not as far away as we like to think.
Garton Ash concluded that article as follows: ‘In political preaching mode, we may take [hurricane] Katrina as an appeal to get serious about addressing these challenges, which means the great blocs and the great powers of the world [. . .] reaching for a new level of international cooperation.’ Yes, ‘Reaching for a new level of international cooperation’ was precisely the main and urgent theme of my novel.

I also note in my diary that day how the media was giving a lot of attention to the UN’s 60th birthday, and calling for an increase in the amount of aid to the developed world - again this was also major theme in my novel. Indeed, the career of the narrator, Kip Fenn, in my novel leads him to become head of a major new UN agency designed to fund sustainable development in developing countries to counteract the worst effects of climate change.

This article is a revised version of one first published on 12 July 2015.

Charlie instead of Concord

‘[Suu Kyi] came back after a hot trek in the sun to some village or other smelling strongly of cheap scent. It’s usual for enthusiastic ladies to spray Ma Ma with perfume [. . .] She said you know Ma Thanegi I’ve gone up in the world, they sprayed me with Charlie instead of Concord.’ This is part of a diary kept by Ma Thanegi, the personal assistant of Aung San Suu Kyi, during the early years campaigning for democracy in Burma. Today, Suu Kyi - the once celebrated global symbol of resistance to tyranny - turns 80.

Born in Rangoon (now Yangon) on 19 June 1945, Suu Kyi was the daughter of General Aung San, revered as the founder of modern Burma and architect of its independence from Britain. He was assassinated in 1947 when Suu Kyi was only two. Educated in Burma and later in New Delhi, Suu Kyi studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford. After graduating, she lived in New York City, where she worked at the United Nations, primarily on budget matters. 

In 1972, Suu Kyi married Michael Aris, a Cuban-born Englishman and a scholar of Tibetan culture, then living in Bhutan. They had one son the following year, and another in 1977. The family relocated regularly, living in Bhutan, Japan and India, but settling mostly in England. Between 1985 and 1987, she was working toward an M. Phil degree in Burmese literature at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London (and was elected an Honorary Fellow in 1990).

In 1988, Suu Kyi returned to Burma to care for her ailing mother but was soon swept up into the popular uprising against the military regime. After the bloody suppression of the 8888 Uprising, she emerged as the leader of the newly formed National League for Democracy (NLD). Though tens of thousands of demonstrators were killed, and the country placed under martial law by the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), Suu Kyi continued to campaign across the country. It was during these chaotic months that Ma Thanegi, then an artist aligned with pro-democracy painters, joined Suu Kyi as her assistant - and diarist, at the request of Suu Kyi’s husband to help keep him informed back in England.

Suu Kyi was first placed under house arrest in 1989, and spent nearly 15 of the next 21 years in detention, winning the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize while confined. Released in 2010, she led the NLD to a historic election win in 2015, becoming Myanmar’s de facto civilian leader. Her international standing plummeted after she defended the military’s brutal crackdown on the Rohingya in 2017, denying allegations of genocide at the International Court of Justice. 

In February 2021, the military staged another coup, arrested Suu Kyi, and later sentenced her to 33 years in prison on politically motivated charges. Some sentences were reduced in 2023, and she was moved to house arrest due to health concerns. As of 2025, she remains incommunicado at age 79, while the NLD has been effectively dismantled and Myanmar continues to descend into civil conflict between the junta and pro-democracy forces. Further information is available at Wikipedia, the BBC and Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Extracts from Ma Thanegi’s 1989-1990 diaries are quoted extensively in Peter Popham’s biography The Lady and the Peacock (Doubleday, 2011 - see Googlebooks), and they offer an earthy, unsentimental portrait of the woman once hailed as ‘the Burmese Gandhi’. 

Here is how Popham introduces, in his ‘Afterword’, this diary material: ‘There are many things about Suu’s life that are fascinating and instructive. It is extraordinary to observe a woman emerge from the comforts and duties of a suburban life in her early forties and take on a stature and role unimaginable even a year before. [. . .] Within months of accepting the leadership of the democratic movement she was already a legend throughout her country. But it never went to her head. I obtained proof of that when an acquaintance in London, who unfortunately I cannot name, gave me the diaries kept during Suu’s campaigning trips in 1989 by Ma Thanegi, her close companion. Suu’s radiant humanity shines out of those pages, along with her good humour, her stoicism, her appreciation of modern lavatories, and her frequent explosions of temper.’

Popham goes on to say that he met Ma Thanegi three times, and that when he told her he’d been given a copy of her diaries and planned to use them in his book, ’she did not demur’. He then explains how he believes he was betrayed by Ma Thanegi during an undercover trip to Burma in 2010, and how this led to his expulsion (before being able to conclude an interview with Suu Kyi). Ma Thanegi had spent three years in prison, and when released in the mid-1990s, had shown herself to be far more of a critic of Suu Kyi than a friend. Popham suggests she had been ‘won round’ by the country’s military intelligence. Suu Kyi herself did not cooperate with Popham in writing the biography, but Ma Thanegi’s diaries do provide a unique and substantial primary resource. 

Popham reproduces extracts without academic referencing. However, what emerges is a vivid, often intimate account of life on the campaign trail - packed roads, military harassment, star-filled nights, and soft-boiled eggs eaten before dawn. Thanegi is not reverent: she describes Suu Kyi’s tantrums, fatigue, and wistfulness as much as her charisma. There are detailed accounts of wardrobe choices and comic tales of being sprayed with knock-off perfume by well-meaning villagers.

Here are a few entries from Ma Thanegi’s diaries, mostly undated as quoted by Popham.

‘Gandhi is Suu Kyi’s role model and hero. Everyone knew it was going to be dangerous: some of the students had the Tharana Gon sutra chanted over them to prepare themselves for sudden death, a mantra recited in Buddhist ritual over the body of the deceased. Some became monks or nuns for a few days in preparation.’

***

‘Great harassment in Bassein, [. . .] armed soldiers barred the way out of the house we were staying in, only allowing us out in twos and threes to visit friends etc.’

***

‘An Australian senator came to see Ma Ma at 8am, [General Saw Maung had] told him elections would be held soon, after discussions with parties . . . Spent the whole night at Ma Ma’s place. Ma Ma up and down stairs whole evening, signing letters, seeing to papers, books. Dr Michael phoned after Ma Ma finished writing a letter to him.’

***

‘Left Rangoon at 4.45 am, fifteen minutes late. Ma Ma a bit annoyed. She was sleepy in the early part of the morning. I held her down by the shoulders on bumpy roads: fragile and light as a papier-mâché doll. Forced to stop unplanned at Pyawbwe . . . Ma Ma VERY annoyed. Stopped for sugarcane juice at Tat-kone: delicious! Ma Ma loved it. Lunch at Ye Tar Shay. People in the villages amazed and overjoyed to see Ma Ma. Ate lunch, fried rice ordered from Chinese restaurant next door.’

***

‘Ma Ma looked so wistful when I swiped chilli suace and onions from under her very nose. Later I relented and picked out onions sans sauce for her. Chilli sauce v. unhealthy stuff in Burma.’

***

11 February 1989

‘She wore green plaid longyi, white jacket, green cardigan with matching scarf and gloves. Got up (had to) at 4.30. Left for Loilam at 5.30, after I insisted she eat soft-boiled eggs.

At her request I borrowed a tape of Fifties and Sixties songs to listen to on the way, coincidentally the same we were listening to in Rangoon. I remember her singing along loudly ‘Love you more than I can say’ as she scooted upstairs. We sang along with the tape on the way: ‘Seven lonely days.’ etc.

Ma Ma v. annoyed at easy going plans. There was supposed to be a convoy on the road ‘for our protection’ but there was no one in sight. We reached Loilam without seeing any. Ma Ma hit the roof.’

***

‘Wonderful sight at Dukgo: as we entered the town the local NLD had issued red NLD caps and we marched in singing a democratic song which was also blared out from one car. We pushed in front of the MI’s videos and still cameras. Ma Ma had been saying for days how she was on the brink of losing her voice but it came on full, clear and strong as she started to talk at the NLD office, amplified out into the road, and she sounded darn mad.

While Ma Ma was talking, people crept up to listen at the side of the road. Police and soldiers told them to get back but we told them to come up and listen. Planned for Ma Ma to walk to jail to visit prisoners but when she came out of the NLD office such a large crowd followed her that we were afraid the police - who hurried to the police station and closed the gates - would say we were invading it and shoot us down. So many kids and women in the crowd that we decided just to pass the police station and jail by.

We walked out of town, crowds following, and I was afraid we would be walking all the way home. But at last, with the last goodbye, Ma Ma got into the car.

Had engine trouble all the way: water pipe broke late afternoon. Stopped for a while at Jundasar at a rice mill. Also we had to stop near a stream just before Dai-oo. Large pack of stray dogs - one of the boys shouted at them about 2/88. SLORC’s rule banning groups of more than five gathering together . . . [. . .]

Ma Ma sat in car and asked if I didn’t feel a sense of unreality about all we are doing. I said, dealing with stupid people can get us caught up in weeks of stupidity, no wonder it makes us all feel so weird.’

***

24 March 1989

‘Left Rangoon 6 am by boat [. . .] Reached Kim Yang Gaung in evening but no one came out of their houses. The whole place deserted, people peeping from deep inside darkened huts, only a few dogs going about their business. Learned that a local man who was democratic-minded was shot dead through forehead by army sergeant or corporal one week ago.

From there a long cart ride to Let Khote Kon. Easier to have gone on by boat but one of the NLD organisers felt we should visit that place and he was right. Ma Ma made speech in compound of a dainty little old lady named Ma Yin Nu. A very big crowd. I gave Ma Yin Nu a photo of Ma Ma . . .

Equally long cart ride back to boat, though it felt longer. Soon it became very dark. We never saw such large stars. As usual I pestered Ma Ma, telling her the names of my favourites. Halfway along our cart met a bunch of armed soldiers, five or six, who rudely called out to us, asking who we were, where we were going etc. There were about six carts in our caravan, our boys were travelling behind us but immediately they brought their cart up and parked between us and the soldiers. . .

Back on the boat at 8.30 pm and found out that we couldn’t leave because it was overloaded with people - NLD people from the villages we had visited had come along for the ride. Damn. And the tide was going out. We slept on moored boat, one corner partitioned off with two mosquito nets where Ma Ma and I curled up unwashed.’

***

‘Ma Ma getting to know well the Burmese character, the bad side. Said she is fed up to the teeth with pushy egoistic stupid people. She is getting to know the true Burmese character and is getting depressed by it. I have a feeling she is too idealistic and emotionally vulnerable. Easy-going as we Burmese are, we are totally selfish, ostrich-like in dealing with unpleasantness and very short-sighted.

When she is in a pensive mood I would search her face and feel a deep sorrow that so many burdens are on this frail-looking and gentle person. I think she needs to be more cynical to deal with the Burmese and of course hard-hearted to some extent. She feels hurt when people complain about the rudeness of our boys, I tell her politeness would not penetrate the thick skulls and dim minds of these people.

She came back after a hot trek in the sun to some village or other smelling strongly of cheap scent. It’s usual for enthusiastic ladies to spray Ma Ma with perfume that they all think is great, and the perfumes are either something called Concord or Charlie. Charlie is slightly more expensive, or Tea Rose, the scent of rose, and we are beginning to recognise these three. Ma Ma is more often sprayed with Concord and we hate this spray business. These ladies are not too careful where they aim the nozzle. Sometimes it gets into her face or her mouth, she has to be careful about moving her face or it would go into her eyes. She said you know Ma Thanegi I’ve gone up in the world, they sprayed me with Charlie instead of Concord.’

This article is a much revised version of one first published on 19 June 2015.

Early South African diary

Adam Tas is remembered today not only as a key figure in early Cape Colony history but also as the author of what is often considered South Africa’s first political diary. Written in prison 320 years ago, his journal is a vivid and detailed account of colonial tensions, injustice, and resistance. Only some parts of the diary survive - starting in June 1705 - and these have been collated and annotated in an edition published by the South African Library.

Tas was born in 1668 in Amsterdam and arrived at the Cape of Good Hope in 1697. Like many Dutch settlers of the time, he sought opportunity in the expanding Dutch East India Company (VOC) colony. By 1704, he had married the wealthy widow of a prominent landowner, and he soon found himself among the elite burgher class of the colony.

During Governor Willem Adriaan van der Stel’s administration, which began in 1699, tensions grew between independent settlers (known as ‘free burghers’) and the VOC’s increasingly monopolistic control over agriculture and trade. Tas emerged as the leading voice of protest against what he and others saw as corrupt practices by van der Stel and his allies. In 1706, Tas led the drafting and submission of a formal petition to the VOC authorities in the Netherlands, signed by 63 burghers, accusing van der Stel of abuse of power.

In retaliation, van der Stel had Tas arrested and imprisoned in the Castle of Good Hope. He was held for over a year without trial. The controversy, however, drew the attention of the VOC headquarters in Amsterdam, and in 1707 van der Stel was recalled. Tas’s efforts had helped bring about one of the earliest recorded successes of colonial resistance against VOC administration. Tas died in 1722. A little further information is available at Wikipedia.

Tas’s diary, kept during his imprisonment, provides historians with a rare first-person account of political thought and resistance in the early Cape Colony. It documents not only the daily routines and hardships of incarceration but also his reflections on justice, governance, and the role of conscience in public life. 

The original diary, written in Dutch, was lost but two partial copies survive. One, held in the Government Archives in The Hague since 1706, covers the period from 13 June to 14 August 1705. Another copy, discovered in Cape Town in the early 20th century, includes most of the material from the Hague manuscript and extends to December 1705, January, and February 1706. The South African Library later published a compendium of the two copies, as edited by Leo Fouché, with Dutch and English on facing pages. In addition to the diary itself, the book contains a detailed appendix discussing the broader political conflict with van der Stel. It is freely available to read online at Internet Archive. See also Historical Publications South Africa.

June 1705 [first entry]

‘Shortly after midday put in Hans smith and his good dame; they did send three Hottentots before with some goods, the which the said Mr. Hans Jacob had brought with him for us yesterday from the Cape. And first he did deliver me a letter from my sister Tas, together with one ream paper brought over by Mr. Fredrik Paran from Mr. Ysbraud Vincent, as also the book containing the story of the brothers Cornelia and Jan de Wit, and eleven numbers of the ‘Boekzaal’ lent a time ago to Mr. Starrenburg, and thereafter to Mr. van Putten. Further, 5 pair women’s and two pair men’s stockings sent us by mother out from the old country, two parcels powders, the book of sermons by the Rev. Balthazar Becker of blessed memory, and a canister with 8 measures tea, the same purchased for us by Mr. Kina; likewise 3 earth jars of gin of Mr. Pfeijffer; as also 6 lbs. hops of the same, but without invoice - sufficient good for the poor farmer. Last a letter from Mr. Kina, writing me how that the vessels ‘de Unie’ and ‘Zandhorst’ was come to anchor in Table Bay the 11th current, the last with a full cargo of timber for the Cape. Further that the ‘Berkenroode’ and another Zeelander likewise was upon point to come in. He do write also of his being for a time forth of his office by reason of some damned commission they do put upon him, for to be present at the unloading the wares from out the vessels. He writes me too that the third mate, David Brouwer, of Delft, hath got him a wife; and last he give me to know how that Hendrik ten Damme was lately become book-keeper at f.30, and a full-blown cashier, and that in the space of five years; whereto he did add, if that do so continue, he shall shortly grow to be Governor, for that, as it do seem, his fortunes in this kingdom is fast assured, etc.

After Hans smith with his goodwife had spent a little time with us, the lady with her dish of tea, etc., and we two together with our glass or two of wine and sundry pipes tobacco, they did make their way home at their ease. Am told among other things how that Mrs. Selijns is brought to bed of a son, as also how she is come together again with her husband, and how they do now live together. If this be like to hold, time will discover.’

14 June 1705 

‘Dull morning, with rain. A goodly rain too in the night, it being now blessed weather, for the which we do owe God thanks. Not to church to-day. Mr. Bek holding service at Drakenstein. Rained this day in showers, with sometimes hail between. Am told that Mr. Bek have made no sermon at Drakensteiu to-day, considering it did rain too hard. Our clerical crew in this country do vastly fancy their ease.’

9 December 1705

‘Warmish morning. Put in this morning my brother Jacobus van Brakel. Had news to tell, and among the rest how that there was four men at the Cape the Governor purposed for to oppress and persecute whatever he was able, to wit, Husing, Meerland, van der Heijden, and Tas, that was the foremost men chargeable with the mischief that was occasioned him, and there might one day befall those men what was befallen certain rioters and robbers in the riots at Amsterdam, that was hanged from a window of the weigh-house; a scurvy parable to even with rogues and rioters honourable men that would spend their strength in service of the community. Further, that the Governor thought to appear presently at Stellenbosch, for to take some persons there to task, or read them something of a lesson. At home they do scare children with a bogey, but men that do live in honour and in innocence, and are conscious of no ill-doing, need not to be dismayed of any man. Also a certain woman (T. D.) had been saying that the Governor might fairly lay certain parties by the heels, and had gotten for answer that mayhap the same could break the Governor his neck. But there is no man he hath more diligently taken aim against than my uncle Husing, albeit he cannot do the man the smallest hurt. Also he had averred that there was three things he had done, the which should breed him the greatest mischief, the first that he did conclude a contract with my uncle Husing for the slaughtering, the second that he had yielded the right to barter, and the third that he had given the wine contract unto Pfeiffer singly. So that he is now in a parlous strait place, nor knows where he shall turn. Meantime he do go about to win folk to his following. The aforesaid lady did likewise observe that the Governor was mighty astonished Diepenauw was fallen off of him, nor had he looked for it of the fellow. I doubt not in due course there shall more things befall him, the which he looked not for. And hereto may the good God send His blessing, for the posture of things here is now grown so outrageous, as it do go beyond all bound and measure. When brother van Brakel had eat breakfast here and drunk a glass or two of wine, he set forward to Mrs. Elberts’. This day the rest of our grain carried to the mill; it come to 16 muids. In the afternoon our slaves been busy cutting the ripest of the corn. In the evening come Mr. van der Heijden here for to speak with me; I did retail him the above news, and after a pipe of tobacco he took his leave.’

By golly, what a day!

‘By golly, what a day! It is seldom that days which one has anticipated in imagination for weeks or months ever measure up to one’s expectations, but this one has gone far beyond.’ This is Joseph Clark Grew - a career American diplomat who died 80 years ago today - starting a long diary entry about the day he took up a posting as ambassador to Japan. He served for nearly a decade in Tokyo, up to and including Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour, after which he was interned for some months. Once back in the US, he published his diaries under the title Ten Years in Japan.   

Grew was born in 1880, in Boston, Massachusetts, into a prominent New England family with deep roots in American history. He was raised in an environment that valued public service and international awareness, and he received his early education at the private Groton School in Massachusetts, a training ground for many future American leaders. He went on to attend Harvard University, graduating in 1902 with a degree in history.

Grew joined the US Foreign Service in 1904 and quickly proved his competence in various international postings. Early assignments included Cairo, Mexico City, and Berlin, where he gained experience in complex diplomatic environments. His career advanced steadily, and he was posted to major European capitals, including a significant tenure in Vienna. Grew served as secretary of the American delegation to the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919, an important early career milestone. In 1927, he was appointed Ambassador to Switzerland, and later, to Turkey. 

Grew married Alice Perry, the daughter of a US Navy admiral, in 1905, and they would have four children. Alice often accompanied Grew on his foreign postings and played a supportive role in his career, hosting social functions, for example, that were essential to diplomatic work.

Perhaps Grew’s most consequential role was as US Ambassador to Japan from 1932 to 1941. He witnessed firsthand the rising tensions between the US and Japan and attempted to avert the drift toward war. After the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, he was interned in Japan for several months before being repatriated. He then served as Under Secretary of State and played a key role in shaping post-war U.S. policy toward Japan.

Grew retired in 1945 and spent his later years writing and reflecting on his diplomatic service. He died on 25 May 1965, just two days before his 85th birthday, leaving behind a legacy as one of America’s most experienced and thoughtful diplomats. Further information is available from Wikipedia and The New York Times.

Grew kept detailed diaries for much of his working life. In 1944, after returning from Tokyo, Hammond, Hammond & Co published a first volume of his diary entries: Ten Years in Japan - a contemporary record drawn from the Diaries and Private and Official Papers of Joseph C. Grew. This can be read freely online at Internet Archive. Subsequently, in 1952, Houghton, Mifflin published Turbulent Era: A Diplomatic Record of Forty Years, 1904-1945. This comprehensive two volume selection of Grew’s diary entries, as edited by Walter Johnson, can also be read online. The following entry, detailing his first day as American ambassador to Japan, is taken from Ten Years in Japan.

6 June 1932

‘Tokyo. By golly, what a day! It is seldom that days which one has anticipated in imagination for weeks or months ever measure up to one’s expectations, but this one has gone far beyond. I was up at the absurd hour of 4:45 a.m., hating to miss a trick. Thick fog and only the shadowy form of other ships to be seen. We had skirted along the coast of Japan last evening and had anchored in the roads of Yokohama sometime during the night after the foghorn had wailed drearily for an hour or more. Then, at 5:30, pandemonium: the stewards banging with full force at every cabin door and shouting in raucous voices for us to get up and meet the quarantine officer, and five minutes later repeating the performance. Those stewards certainly know how to carry out their orders with the utmost thoroughness, but I wonder if others don’t get the same results without making you want to punch them on the nose for the way they do it.

Anyway, we did meet the quarantine officer at 6 a.m., although it was quite unnecessary for Alice and our daughter Elsie (who had slept for only two hours) to have dressed so early, as a special Japanese officer had been deputed to look after us and he went through our passports with Parsons without seeing us at all. Another Japanese officer examined our police dog, Kim, and issued a special health certificate, while still a third man took charge of our baggage. It was all done with quiet efficiency and the least possible bother.

Then, even before we docked at 7, the reception began. Yesterday there had been a flight of welcoming radiograms. This morning one deputation after another came on board and to our cabins. These visitors included half a dozen Japanese newspaper correspondents and photographers, and finally the good Edwin Neville, Counsellor of the Embassy, and his wife. We posed for photographs and were asked questions by the press; naturally I refused to say a word about politics, but my answers to their innocent questions were later adroitly manipulated into a quoted interview, the Japan Times bearing headlines, MR. GREW GIVES AN INTERVIEW, which began out of a clear sky: ‘I have written a book called Sport and Travel in the Far East but I know hardly anything about the present Japan. I hope to get down to serious study when I’m settled in my new post. Mrs. Grew’s mother, who was a daughter of Commodore Perry . . .’ etc., etc. Some mother-in-law!

Well, we took leave of Captain Ahlin of the President Coolidge and motored to Tokyo in a drizzling rain, but the ugliness of the route was lost on me as Neville and I, who drove together, had too many interesting things to talk about. Then the Embassy. Big bushes, smooth green lawns, flowers, fountains, tessellated pools, and the buildings themselves, four of them, white with black ironwork trimmings, already framed in luxuriant trees - a real oasis in the more or less ugly surroundings of the new-grown city. The residence is on the crest of a hill looking down on the chancery and the dormitories, to which one descends on little stepping-stones through a thick grove of leafy woods. As for the interior of the residence, when we had explored it with the Nevilles, examined the furniture and curtains and the thick luxurious carpets in the big salon and the little salon and the still littler salon, the smoking-room with its wonderful wainscoting, its many bookshelves and abundant deep cupboards (where at least I shall have space enough to file and store, separate and catalogue, to my heart’s content), the loggia, the banquet hall, the private dining-room, the cloakroom, and the seven bedrooms and the four bathrooms, the ironing-room, sewing-room, and storerooms - while Elsie emitted little shrieks of delight and Kim wagged his entire acceptance of the new situation - I asked Alice how many cons she found, and she answered: ‘Not a single con; they’re all pros.’

We all went to the chancery, passing the swimming pool on the way. I met all the staff and then received the principal American correspondents: Babb, of the Associated Press; Byas, of the New York Times; Vaughn, of the United Press; Fleisher, of the Japan Advertiser. We chatted, and I spoke of my hope for the closest cooperation which would be of mutual benefit and urged them to drop in often. Colonel McIlroy and Captain Johnson, the Military and Naval Attachés, told Neville that their regulations required them to call on me in full uniform, but I sent back word I hoped they would forget their regulations, as we could have a much pleasanter and more satisfactory chat if they would cut out the gold lace, which would undoubtedly leave me tongue-tied.

Maya Lindsley Poole and Parsons came to lunch. I didn’t know Maya until she introduced herself at table. It was amusing to remember that when she was pointed out to me at the Copley Hall dance in January, 1904, as the girl who had just returned from Japan, and later when I asked to be introduced to ‘the girl who had just returned from Japan,’ I was led up to Alice instead.

At 3, Neville came to take me to the Diet to call on Viscount Saito, who could not leave the session to receive me at the Gaimusho, or Foreign Office. He is old - over seventy, I believe - and looks old and tired. Conversation was halting, and he seemed to have too much on his mind to concentrate, but he is decidedly distinguished; he was formerly an admiral in the Navy and Governor-General of Korea, and has now stepped into the breach as Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs to tide over, with his personal prestige, and probably temporarily, a difficult cabinet situation. I stayed a very short time, knowing that he was busy in the session and that we could talk only platitudes; left with him notes asking for audiences with the Emperor and Empress, copies of my letters of credence and the letters of recall of Cameron Forbes, my predecessor, and a copy of my proposed speech to the Emperor. As Neville liked it, we sent it in. Afterwards I called on Baron de Bassompierre, the Belgian Ambassador and Dean of the Diplomatic Corps - very pleasant.

Then, at 5, Alice had the entire staff with wives and daughters to tea - sixty-five people. What a staff! And what a situation that enabled us to give a reception, with buffet, for sixty-five people on the very day of our arrival! Cam Forbes’ Japanese servants are all on the job and functioning like clockwork; I suppose we shall keep them all.

Bingham and Parsons came to dinner. The latter is to stay with us until he can get his apartment in one of the dormitories into shape. I have written up the day while the initial impressions are still fresh, and now, thank heaven, I shall hit the hay at 10:30 and hit it hard.’

We can conquer the world

‘Beginning with Lublin, the Jews in the General Government [Poland] are now being evacuated eastward. The procedure is a pretty barbaric one and not to be described here more definitely. Not much will remain of the Jews. On the whole it can be said that about 60 per cent of them will have to be liquidated whereas only about 40 per cent can be used for forced labor.’ This is Joseph Goebbels writing in his diary in 1942, not long after the Nazis had formulated their Final Solution policy. Goebbels committed suicide 80 years ago today, the day after Hitler and his wife (see He loves me so much); but, unlike Hitler, Goebbels went to some lengths to preserve an historical record of his life - 75,000 pages of his diaries.

Goebbels was born in 1897 into a Catholic family at Rheydt, an industrial town in the Ruhr district. From early childhood he suffered a deformation in his right leg and wore a brace and special shoe, which left him with a limp. At the start of World War I he volunteered for military service, but was rejected. He studied at universities in Bonn, Berlin and Heidelberg (where he was awarded a PhD), and then worked as a journalist, and tried to write novels and plays.

Goebbels joined the Nazi party in 1924, and became allied with Gregor Strasser, Nazi organiser in northern Germany. He came to the attention of Hitler, who gave him a private audience in April 1926, and then appointed him a party leader for the region of Berlin. He soon discovered his talent for propaganda, writing tracts such as The Second Revolution and Lenin or Hitler, and launching the Nazi newspaper Der Angriff (The Attack). In 1928, he was elected to the Reichstag (one of only 10 Nazis), and the following year he became the Nazi party propaganda chief. In 1931, he marred Magda Ritschel, and they would have six children. However, Goebbels was an inveterate womaniser, and was known to have had many affairs.

Goebbels played a key role in successive election campaigns, and was instrumental in seeing Hitler elected leader in 1933. Goebbels, himself, was made minister for propaganda and national enlightenment, a position he then held until his death. He worked assiduously to centralise and control all aspects of German and cultural life, not only the press, but the media, the performing arts, literature, etc, purging them of Jews, socialists, homosexuals and liberals. At the same time, he ensured a development of high culture, such as Wagner’s operas, and plenty of light entertainment for the masses. Once war began in September 1939, his influence over domestic policy strengthened, and, increasingly, with Hitler appearing in public less, he became the face and the voice of the Nazi regime. As a dedicated anti-Semite, Goebbels was strongly linked to the Nazi Final Solution policy, and, especially, the deportation of Jews from Berlin.

In the final stages of the war, Hitler, before killing himself, appointed Goebbels Chancellor of Germany, but it was empty gesture, since a day later - on 1 May - Goebbels and his wife killed themselves, having already murdered their six children. Further biographical information on Goebbels can be freely obtained online at Wikipedia, the Jewish Virtual Library, or from the pages of Doctor Goebbels: His Life and Death by Roger Manvell and Heinrich Fraenkel available at Googlebooks.

Goebbels began to keep a diary in 1923, shortly before his 27th birthday, while unemployed. Most of his early entries were about a young woman with whom he was having a turbulent relationship (and whom, in fact, had given him the diary). According to biographers, the diary quickly became a kind of therapy for the troubled young man. Apparently, these early diary entries show little interest in politics, and there is no mention of Hitler or the Nazi movement until the following year. i.e. after Goebbels first met Hitler in July 1925.

In 1934, the year after Hitler had become Chancellor and appointed Goebbels a minister, Goebbels published an edited version of his diaries for propaganda purposes: Vom Kaiserhof zur Reichskanzlei. Eine historische Darstellung in Tagebuchblättern (From the Kaiserhof to the Reich Chancellery: A Historical Account from the Pages of a Diary). This was translated into English in 1938 and published by Hurst and Blackett as My Part in Germany’s Fight.

Wikipedia has a full entry on Goebbels’ diaries, and their history. Goebbels filled 20 hand-written volumes until 1941, and then - fully aware of their historical value - had them stored in underground vaults at the Reichsbank in Berlin. Thereafter, he dictated his entries to a stenographer, who typed up corrected versions. In 1944, he ordered all his diaries to be copied for safekeeping, and a special darkroom was created at his apartment for the diaries to be transferred to microfilm, a recent invention. The boxes of glass plates containing the microfilmed diaries were buried at Potsdam; and the original handwritten/ typed diaries were stored in the Reich Chancellery. Goebbels made his last entry on 10 April 1945.

Some of the original diaries survived the aftermath of the war - a complicated story involving ex-President Herbert Hoover and Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent Louis P. Lochner. (For more on this see Andrew Hamilton’s excellent article in Counter-Currents Publishing). These diaries were edited and translated by Lochner and first published in English in 1948 by Doubleday (New York) and Hamish Hamilton (London) in 1948 as The Goebbels Diaries, 1942-1943. Hamilton notes: ‘An instant bestseller upon its release, the book was serialized in newspapers and magazines and became a Book-of-the-Month Club selection. The Hoover faction and Doubleday, however, were forced to surrender most of their profits to the Office of Alien Property and destroy 30,000 copies of the book still in stock. The original sheaf of 7,000 transcribed pages was, however, deposited at the Hoover Library at Stanford, where it remains today.’

Further extracts appeared in print over the years. In 1962, came The Early Goebbels Diaries: the journals of Joseph Goebbels from 1923-1926 (edited by Helmut Heiber, translated by Oliver Watson, published by Praeger, New York; Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London). In 1978, came The Goebbels Diaries: the last days as edited Hugh Trevor-Roper (one of the central characters in the Hitler diary debacle - see Dacre’s non-fake diaries) and translated by Richard Barry (published by Putnam, New York; Secker and Warburg, London).

Controversy surrounded the publication in 1982 of The Goebbels Diaries: 1939–1941, as translated and edited by Fred Taylor (Hamish Hamilton, 1982; Putnam, New York). According to New York Magazine, the diary material was bought ‘from an unidentified German source in a shadowy deal in London’, and, ‘while no one is claiming the book is a forgery its story is one of publishing practices that seem, at the very least, sloppy and misleading to readers.’ The article goes on to explain how the diary pages may well have been doctored in an effort to tailor history from a Russian perspective.

Meanwhile, the 1,600 glass plates of microfilm buried at Potsdam had been discovered by the Soviets and shipped to Moscow, where they sat unopened for decades - until discovered by a German historian, Elke Fröhlich, in 1992. Then, over 15 years (1993-2008), Fröhlich and others edited the entire collection on behalf of the Institut für Zeitgeschichte, with the support of the National Archives Service of Russia. They were published in a definitive edition of 29 volumes (each one about 500 pages) by K. G. Saur Verlag as Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Teil I Aufzeichnungen 1923-1941. It has been estimated that despite the various English editions of the Goebbels diaries, only about 10% of the total, now published in German, has actually appeared in English.

A few extracts in English from Goebbels’ diaries can be found online. Most of the following were found on PBS’s website The Man Behind Hitler, but a couple (those from 1942) came from The Nizkor Project website (which has filtered out only those entries concerned with the fate of the Jews.)

4 July 1924
‘We need a firm hand in Germany. Let’s put an end to all the experiments and empty words, and start getting down to serious work. Throw out the Jews, who refuse to become real Germans. Give them a good beating too. Germany is yearning for an individual, a man - as the earth yearns for rain in the summer.’

17 July 1924
‘I’m so despondent about everything. Everything I try goes totally wrong. There’s no escape from this hole here. I feel drained. So far, I still haven’t found a real purpose in life. Sometimes, I’m afraid to get out of bed in the morning. There’s nothing to get up for.’

13 April 1926
‘. . . I learned that Hitler had phoned. He wanted to welcome us, and in fifteen minutes he was there. Tall, healthy and vigorous. I like him. He puts us to shame with his kindness. We met. We asked questions. He gave brilliant replies. I love him. . . I can accept this firebrand as my leader. I bow to his superiority, I acknowledge his political genius!’

16 June 1926
‘Hitler is still the same dear comrade. You can’t help liking him as a person. And he has a stupendous mind. As a speaker he has constructed a wonderful harmony of gesture, facial expression and spoken word. The born motivator! With him, we can conquer the world. Give him his head, and he will shake the corrupt Republic to its foundations.’

26 October 1928
‘I have no friends and no wife. I seem to be going through a major spiritual crisis. I still have the same old problems with my foot, which gives me incessant pain and discomfort. And then there are the rumours, to the effect that I am homosexual. Agitators are trying to break up our movement, and I’m constantly tied up in minor squabbles. It’s enough to make you weep!’

15 September 1930
‘I am shaking with excitement. The first election results. Fantastic. Jubilation everywhere, an incredible success. It’s stunning. The bourgeois parties have been smashed. So far we have 103 seats. That’s a tenfold increase. I would never have expected it. The mood of enthusiasm reminds me of 1914, when war broke out. Things will get pretty hot in the months ahead. The Communists did well, but we are the second-largest party.’

31 January 1933
‘We’ve made it. We’ve set up shop in Wilhelmstrasse. Hitler is chancellor. It’s like a fairy tale come true! He deserved it. Wonderful euphoria. People were going mad below. . . A new beginning! An explosion of popular energy. Bigger and bigger crowds. I spoke on the radio, to every German station. “We are immensely happy,” I said.’

11 May 1933
‘Worked until late at home. In the evening, I gave a speech outside the opera house, in front of the bonfire while the filthy, trashy books were being burned by the students. I was at the top of my form. Huge crowds. Superb summer weather began today.’

20 June 1936
‘Yesterday: Schwanenwerder. We were waiting for Max Schmeling’s fight with Joe Louis. We were on tenterhooks the whole evening with Schmeling’s wife. We told each other stories, laughed and cheered. . . In round twelve, Schmeling knocked out the Negro. Fantastic, a dramatic, thrilling fight. Schmeling fought for Germany and won. The white man prevailed over the black, and the white man was German. I didn’t get to bed until five.’

23 October 1940
‘Churchill has issued an appeal to the people of France: impudent, offensive and bristling with hypocrisy. A revolting, fat beast. I drafted a speech with a sharp, withering response. If we don’t answer them, the English will continue to draw strength from their illusions.’

10 December 1940
‘Yesterday: A glorious day in Berlin. We are two hours late. Very heavy air raid on London. Some 600,000 kilograms. Entire districts of the city engulfed in flames. Only one aircraft lost. A really fine show. London is playing things down, but the American reports are strong and vivid. Nice to hear. The previous day they were talking about a decline in our offensive capability.’

24 June 1941
‘Sixteen hundred feet of newsreel from the start of our Russian campaign. Some of our new weapons are shown - huge monstrosities that smash to pieces everything in their way. The divine judgement of history is being passed on the Soviet Union.’

27 March 1942
‘Beginning with Lublin, the Jews in the General Government [Poland] are now being evacuated eastward. The procedure is a pretty barbaric one and not to be described here more definitely. Not much will remain of the Jews. On the whole it can be said that about 60 per cent of them will have to be liquidated whereas only about 40 per cent can be used for forced labor. The former Gauleiter of Vienna, who is to carry this measure through, is doing it with considerable circumspection and according to a method that does not attract too much attention. A judgment is being visited upon the Jews that, while barbaric, is fully deserved by them. The prophesy which the Fuehrer made about them for having brought on a new world war is beginning to come true in a most terrible manner. One must not be sentimental in these matters. If we did not fight the Jews, they would destroy us. It’s a life-and-death struggle between the Aryan race and the Jewish bacillus. No other government and no other regime would have the strength for such a global solution of this question. Here, too, the Fuehrer is the undismayed champion of a radical solution necessitated by conditions and therefore inexorable. Fortunately a whole series of possibilities presents itself for us in wartime that would be denied us in peacetime. We shall have to profit by this.

The ghettoes that will be emptied in the cities of the General Government now will be refilled with Jews thrown out of the Reich. This process is to be repeated from time to time. There is nothing funny in it for the Jews, and the fact that Jewry’s representatives in England and America are today organizing and sponsoring the war against Germany must be paid for dearly by its representatives in Europe - and that’s only right.’

13 December 1942
‘The question of Jewish persecution in Europe is being given top news priority by the English and the Americans. . . At bottom, however, I believe both the English and the Americans are happy that we are exterminating the Jewish riff-raff. But the Jews will go on and on and turn the heat on the British-American press. We won’t even discuss this theme publicly, but instead I give orders to start an atrocity campaign against the English on their treatment of Colonials. Efforts are under way to declare Rome an open city, so that it won’t be bombarded. The Pope is studying the question of air raids on Italian cities and seems to be exerting pressure on the English to spare at least certain districts. The declarations issued by the Vatican on this question are extremely clever and cannot but win favor for the Pope, at least in Italy. But the Italians are willing to accept any help offered them in this painful situation. The Italians are extremely lax in the treatment of Jews. They protect the Italian Jews both in Tunis and in occupied France and won’t permit their being drafted for work or compelled to wear the Star of David. This shows once again that Fascism does not really dare to get down to fundamentals, but is very superficial regarding most important problems. The Jewish question is causing us a lot of trouble. Everywhere, even among our allies, the Jews have friends to help them, which is a proof that they are still playing an important role even in the Axis camp. All the more are they shorn of power within Germany itself.’

3 April 1945
‘At the daily briefing conferences the Luftwaffe comes in for the sharpest criticism from the Führer. Day after day Göring has to listen without being in the position to demur at all. Colonel-General Stumpff, for instance, refused to subordinate himself to Kesselring for the new operations planned in the West. The Führer called him sharply to order saying that the relative positions of Kesselring and Stumpff were similar to those of him and Schaub. In the West, of course, it is now and for the immediate future a continuous process of muddling through. We are in the most critical and dangerous phase of this war and one sometimes has the impression that the German people, fighting at the height of the war crisis, has broken out in a sweat impossible for the non-expert to distinguish as the precursor of death or recovery.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 1 May 2015.

Clumsy by being over-sincere

‘If as a diarist he is often clumsy by being over-sincere, as a student he devotes too much effort to transcribing his sources and too little to considering their interrelations.’ This was written by a biographer of the diaries of Franz Xaver von Baader, born 260 years ago today. A German philosopher, theologian, physician, and mining engineer, he was renowned for his contributions to mysticism and Christian theosophy. Although he kept diaries, they are predominantly religious and philosophical in content; moreover, they only seem to have been published in the original German.

Baader was born on 27 March 1765, in Munich, the third son of Franz Peter Baader, the court physician to the Elector of Bavaria. Like his father, he pursued medical studies, at the universities of Ingolstadt and Vienna, briefly practicing medicine before moving to England to study mineralogy and engineering (1792-1796). There, he developed an interest in philosophy and theology. In 1820, he retired from his engineering career, and thereafter published one Fermenta Cognitionis in six parts from 1822 to 1825, in which he combats modern philosophy and recommends the study of Böhme.

In 1826, Baader was appointed professor of philosophy and speculative theology at the newly established University of Munich. ​In 1838, he publicly opposed the interference of the Roman Catholic Church in civil matters and, in consequence, was interdicted from lecturing on the philosophy of religion for three years.

Baader’s personal life was marked by his deep spirituality and intellectual pursuits. He was influenced by the mystical writings of Jacob Böhme and Neoplatonism. His philosophical approach combined elements of mysticism, theosophy, and Catholic theology, distinguishing him from other German philosophers of his era. He died in Munich, unmarried, in 1841. Further information can be found at New Advent, Prabook and Wikipedia.

Baader certainly kept journals - published in the original German as Tag und Studien Bücher. They are predominantly religious and philosophical in content; however, his youth diaries - Jugendtagebücher - are said to offer a more valuable personal perspective. After his death, between 1851 and 1860, his works were collected and edited by a number of his disciples and published in 16 volumes - his diaries are in volume XI. Although I cannot find any extracts from his diaries online, Dennis Osborn Leuer does discuss - in a biographical paper available online at Oxford University Research Archive - Baader’s diaries and their relevance (in the Life and Works of Franz von Baader, 1976)

The Beginnings of Baader’s Naturphilosophie: Religion and Nature in the Tagebücher

‘Baader’s Journal’s of 1786-1793 are primarily, as he declares them to be, private documents of self-development. This is only formally contradicted by their semi-public character: they were seemingly modelled on contemporary confessions such as Lavater’s (published) Geheimes Tagebuch and copies of Baader’s rather studied étalage du moi were sent directly to his religious preceptor, J. M. Sailer. Secondarily, Baader’s journals are notebooks on his studies. If as a diarist he is often clumsy by being over-sincere, as a student he devotes too much effort to transcribing his sources and too little to considering their interrelations. For these reasons, and because of their dual character, the journals at first sight appear shapeless. Having said this much, and in awareness of the lack of coherence even in Baader’s formal writings, his diary would seem an inauspicious place to begin organizing the fragments of his Naturphilosophie into an intelligible structure. But such early writings are normally understood in terms of the author’s characteristic statements, that is, in terms of the ideas which survived. In this perspective, Baader’s journals show not only the varied intellectual ambience of early Romanticism, but, in embryonic growth, the enduring major theme of Naturphilosophie. Stated briefly, that theme was the intuited unity of spirit (Geist) and nature (Natur). Once alleged, it spoke for the corresponding philosophical union of religion (or psychology) and natural science, which became the very task of Naturphilosophie.’

Lloyd George’s scant diaries

David Lloyd George, the only Welshman to serve as UK Prime Minister, died 80 years ago today. Although not a diarist, his literary estate, held by the National Library of Wales, does include a dozen diary manuscripts. Most of these have been digitised, and the pages can be viewed online. However, they do not seem to have been transcribed, and the original handwriting is difficult to decipher. As far as I can tell, there are no published extracts from these diaries. Nevertheless, Lloyd George is a key focus of diaries kept by at least three people close to him: Frances Stevenson, illicit lover and then second wife - see We had great fun; Albert James Sylvester, David Lloyd George’s personal assistant - see He is a very great man; and George Allardice Riddell, a key adviser to David Lloyd George - see Riddell and Lloyd George.

Born in Manchester in 1863, Lloyd George was raised, after his father’s early death, in Llanystumdwy, Wales, by his uncle, a strong Liberal and Nonconformist. This upbringing is said to have shaped his political views, instilling a deep commitment to Welsh nationalism, social reform, and radical Liberalism. He entered politics as the Member of Parliament for Caernarfon Boroughs in 1890, and quickly gained a reputation as a fiery orator and champion of social justice. As Chancellor of the Exchequer (1908-1915), he introduced landmark reforms, including the 1911 National Insurance Act, laying the foundations of the welfare state. His controversial ‘People’s Budget’ of 1909, which aimed to tax the wealthy to fund social programmes, led to a constitutional crisis but ultimately strengthened democratic control over the House of Lords.

During World War I, Lloyd George played a key role in mobilising Britain’s war effort. In 1916, he replaced H. H. Asquith as Prime Minister, leading a coalition government. Under his leadership, Britain saw victory in 1918; and he then played a key role in the postwar peace process, notably at the Treaty of Versailles. However, his postwar administration faced economic difficulties, industrial unrest, and the Irish War of Independence, leading to his resignation in 1922.

Lloyd George remained politically active but never returned to power. He spent his later years writing and advocating for international peace. Created the Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, he died shortly thereafter, on 26 March 1945. Despite controversy over his policies and personal life, he is remembered as one of Britain’s most dynamic and reformist leaders. Further information is available from Wikipedia, History of the UK Government, Encyclopaedia Britannica, and The National Library of Wales.

Lloyd George was not a natural diarist, however, he did leave behind a modest collection of diary material, all contained in the papers of William George, David Lloyd Georges brother (purchased by the National Library of Wales in 1989). The diary from 1886 contains an account of his personal life and his political career. It describes his first public speech - in Blaenau Ffestiniog on 12 February - and describes his political activities and ambitions in some detail.

Further details on this diary can be found at the People’s Collection Wales: ‘This diary is one of a series kept by David Lloyd George while he was working as a solicitor in Criccieth. It is, perhaps, the most fascinating, as it was written just as Lloyd George was on the brink of launching into a political career. The diary contains lengthy entries giving details of Lloyd George's personal life and public activities. In particular, he describes his first public speech at Blaenau Ffestiniog on 12 February, which made a deep impression locally and led to speculation that he might be invited to stand as a Liberal candidate for Meirionethshire that year. During subsequent entries Lloyd George describes his political activities, aspirations and ambitions candidly and in some detail. There are also a number of revealing references to his courtship with Margaret Owen of Mynydd Ednyfed, Criccieth.’

The diary can be viewed digitally online at the Library website, but as far as I know, it has not been transcribed. The Library also provides summary information about 11 other diary manuscripts it holds, as follows:

David Lloyd George's other diaries

1887 Jan-Nov

1878 The Diary of the Calvinistic Methodists, brief entries for July-December

1880 Pocket note-book bearing brief diary notes for the whole of the year, some in shorthand

1881-1882 Loose papers bearing diary entries, fairly complete, some in detail

1883 Detailed diary entries written on the reverse of a printed voters' list for the county of Merioneth

1884 Ditto

1885 Renshaw’s Almanac and Diary

1887 Diary and Memoranda. Very few entries; almost completely blank

1888 The Legal Pocket Book & Calendar 1888 containing brief entries for only a few days

1888 Collins’ Pocket Diary bearing few entries

1892 Calendar and Diary of the Alliance Assurance Company bearing brief entries from January to July.

My heart was beating

‘My heart was beating like some young student’s before the big exam. Was I going to be able to step out onto this land that I have been striving to reach for four years with so many sacrifices and struggles? And if so, shall I be able to do any useful work?’ This is from the diaries of Oscar Jászi, the much-admired Hungarian historian and politician known for his advocacy of liberal democracy and social reform. He was born 150 years ago today, and at the time of this diary entry was arriving for the first time in the United States, where he would soon join Oberlin College as a history professor.

Jászi was born on 2 March 1875 in Nagykároly (now Carei, Romania) to his physician father and his second wife. Unhappy with their Jewish origins, his father converted the family to Calvinism in 1881. Oscar studied political science at the University of Budapest, and although he had a low-paid and long-term job in the ministry of agriculture, he developed his interest in politics by studying the country’s agricultural policies. In 1900, he launched with friends the journal Huszadik Század (Twentieth Century), and, under a pseudonym, published combative articles about the countries social structures. A year later, Jászi and friends founded the Sociological Society, promoting liberal and democratic ideas. His research and writing focused on political sociology, nationalism, and the need for democratic governance.

During World War I, Jászi became increasingly involved in politics and was instrumental in the short-lived Hungarian Democratic Republic of 1918, serving as Minister for Nationalities in Mihály Károlyi’s government. He attempted to negotiate autonomy for Hungary’s ethnic minorities to prevent the disintegration of the country but was unsuccessful. Following the collapse of the republic and the rise of the communist regime under Béla Kun, followed by the right-wing counterrevolution, Jászi was forced into exile in 1919. First he went to Vienna where he worked to keep Hungarian democracy alive, and from whence he travelled extensively to meet with other emigres.

Jászi settled in the US in 1925, and was appointed a professor at Oberlin College in Ohio, continuing his academic work on nationalism and Eastern European politics. He remained a strong critic of authoritarianism in Hungary and the broader region, advocating for democratic federalism. He wrote several influential books, including Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Hungary and The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy. He died in 1957. Further information is available at Wikipedia and in the major biography A Twentieth Century Prophet: Oscar Jászi 1875-1957 by György Litván (CEU Press, 2006 - available to preview at Googlebooks). 

Jászi left behind half a life time of diaries - written from 1919 until his death - in 39 notebooks, now held by Columbia University Libraries. Litván discusses these diaries in his preface: ‘From the very first sentence [. . .] it is clear that he had been keeping a diary before then, and that this was broken off during the turbulent days of the 1918 revolution and was obviously lost or destroyed during the Second World War, along with so many other documents. The Hungarian-language segments of the diary, from between 1919 and 1923, was published in 2001 by the Institute of Political History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The remaining, predominantly English-language segments are as yet unpublished, and use has been made of them only in connection with a few details (e.g. the recital given by Bela Bartok at Oberlin College or Jaszi’s 1947 trip to Hungary). With its detailed daily record of the weather, his own mood, his reading matter, meetings, lectures, correspondence, the articles or other pieces of writing that had been completed, college and domestic business, there can be little doubt that Jászi did not intend his diary to be published. Of course it proved to be of incalculable assistance in putting together this biography - particularly in the case of events, episodes or periods for which no other source exists or is known. (Among these, for instance, are the negotiations or conversations that he conducted with Masaryk, Benes, Maniu and other politicians, the internal disputes with fellow exiles in Vienna and America, and various other, far from exclusively political matters.) Still, the very amplitude of the diary material imposed a heavy responsibility on the author when it came to deciding which items of information might be omitted and which could not.’

Elsewhere in the biography, Litván gives a few verbatim extracts from the diaries buried in his text, as in this extract here [italics are for clarity only). 

‘The diary preserved every aspect of the almost month-long voyage [to the US] in exhaustive detail. Jászi already decided on the first day that his companions were of no interest, most of the travelers being Jewish emigrants from the Ukraine, though he did also hear some words of Hungarian. The food was moderate. As the ship put out to sea, “after all the anxieties, I was seized by a blithe contentment - as if I had been freed from five years imprisonment.” He repeats that several more times during the voyage, but various anxieties also resurface. On August 6th they docked a Varna, on the 8th there was “a marvelous passage through the Bosporus,” on the 9th they were held up at Istanbul, but by the 11th they had arrived at Piraeus, the harbor for Athens, where the ship was moored for several days, so that Jászi, despite the heat, walked round the Acropolis, as he had not previously visited Greece (nor was he to do so again). By the 14th they had reached Patras, from where the next day, with many new passengers on board, they made their way, without putting into harbor again, down the Mediterranean, through the Strait of Messina, past Sardinia and then the Algerian coast, through the Strait of Gibraltar to the Atlantic Ocean.

They were on the approaches to the port of New York, according to the diary, on August 30th: “My heart was beating like some young student’s before the big exam. Was I going to be able to step out onto this land that I have been striving to reach for four years with so many sacrifices and struggles? And if so, shall I be able to do any useful work?”

He passed the immigration controls on Ellis Island without incident. Even while still on the boat Jászi had received a letter from banker and industrialist Robert Caldwell in which the latter informed him that he would be at his service if there was anything he needed. They finally docked on September 1st: “And when the ship passed in front of the Statue of Liberty to enter the city fired by feverish activity, I was so overcome by emotion that I burst into tears on the ship’s bridge.” ’