REPORTING FOR DUTY

The Taverne was an Italian restaurant in the heart of Nazi Berlin, owned by an amiable German and his Belgian wife. But it served as more than an eatery in the years of the Third Reich, doubling as a refuge where correspondents working for the international media would meet night after night to share stories and ensure each other’s safety.

Life became dangerous for foreign correspondents working in Germany as soon as Hitler was appointed chancellor in January 1933. The Nazi regime made it clear that critical reports would not be tolerated, with propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels leading efforts to influence and pressurise the foreign press. The sources reporters had relied on for information started to fear for their lives. “I beg you not to let anybody know that you heard this from me, or it might get around and I should be arrested,” Rothay Reynolds, the Daily Mail’s bureau chief in Berlin, heard from one source soon after Hitler took power.

Hermann Göring, another of Hitler’s chief associates, invited foreign newspaper journalists based in Berlin to meet him early in 1933. Vernon Bartlett, one of the