Berlin Diaries, 1940-1945 by Marie Vassiltchikov

Her duties did not greatly excite her (she was constantly looking for excuses to go on long weekends to the country homes of rich friends, and in August 1942 complained bitterly because she was given only 16 days' leave when she wished to attend the wedding of Princess Maria-Adelgunde of Hohenzollern to a Bavarian prince at Castle Sigmaringen). Into this atmosphere Marie (Missie) Vassiltchikov fitted easily. The Foreign Ministry remained, therefore, a kind of aristocratic preserve, whose members treated their Nazi section heads with a condescension that at times verged on arrogant disrespect, and some of whom -like the former Rhodes Scholar Adam von Trott zu Solz - were active members of the anti-Hitler resistance. And after von Ribbentrop became Foreign Minister in February 1938, he preferred for the most part to rely on experienced officials and diplomats rather than party hacks. Until 1938 Hitler had given it wide latitude, while maintaining a parallel foreign affairs establishment of his own, directed by Joachim von Ribbentrop. Of all of the Government departments, the Foreign Ministry was the most resistant to complete Nazi domination, even after the outbreak of the war. Later she transferred to the Foreign Ministry, where her sister had found a position and where she went to work in the Information Department, collecting materials and photographs for propaganda purposes. This was a wise decision, for after an approach to the United States Embassy had been unproductive, she found work - thanks to the influence of a friend and her own proficiency in English - in the Wireless Service, the German equivalent of the BBC.

Almost penniless, but by no means without resources since she had a wide range of friendships and aristocratic connections, she went to Berlin with her sister Tatiana to see whether her friends would help her get a job. Since Lithuania became a Soviet sphere of influence as a result of the revision of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, she found herself cut off in a Germany at war.

She was at a friend's estate in Silesia when war broke out in 1939.

MARIE VASSILTCHIKOV was a White Russian princess who left Russia with her parents in 1919 and grew up in Germany, France and independent Lithuania, where her father had properties. BERLIN DIARIES, 1940-1945 By Marie Vassiltchikov.

Berlin Diaries, 1940-1945 by Marie Vassiltchikov