Who would have thought that the Germans would hide their Panzer divisions behind an enormous hessian curtain? Yet they did, and on 29 August, 1939 a gust of wind detached it from its moorings, revealing hundreds of tanks to the Daily Telegraph’s stringer, Clare Hollingworth, on the Poland/Germany border.
Of course there had been rumours, which is why the 27-year-old reporter, who had been a foreign correspondent for all of three weeks, decided to borrow the British consul’s car and go for a little recce. She told the border guards she was going shopping, and since the bonnet sported a diplomatic flag, they waved her through. Hollingworth bought wine and aspirin before taking a detour along the edge of the valley where the wind did its work and she got the scoop of the 20th century.
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