GERMANY: GERMANY First Martyr

"First Martyr"

Skiing down the glittering white shoulder of a Bavarian alp on the Austro-German border a group of black spots loomed large to an Austrian frontier patrol. In the huge, still basin a single shot sounded loud, a puff of smoke looked small against the snow. One of the coasting black spots crumpled, slid into a sprawled heap. Thus did a nervous Austrian soldier kill one Philipp Schumacher, private in the German Reichswehr.

Adolf Hitler, with a fine instinct for an "incident," last week hastened to Nuremberg with Colonel-General Werner von Blomberg, his Minister of Defense, and General Kurt von Hammerstein, Commander of the Reichswehr. He ordered a state funeral for Private Schumacher. Bareheaded, he led the parade. He delivered the funeral oration, laid a huge laurel wreath on the unlucky private's grave.

"Schumacher," cried the Chancellor, "is the first martyr of the Third Reich. . . . We are confident that his death has not been in vain and that out of it will come what we long for. The murderers of this German soldier are not identified with the millions of our racial brethren across the border. If these, our brethren, could freely raise their voices they would solemnly disavow the murderers and the principles responsible for this bloody crime."

The Reichswehr Ministry declared Schumacher had not crossed the border, insisted the killing was inspired by "personal brutality and love of conflict."

Meanwhile Austria's nimble little Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss had apologized to the German Minister in Vienna for Schumacher's death. Faced with Dictator Hitler's shrewd appeal to the native Germanism of Austrians, Dictator Dollfuss protested that he was doing "everything to bring about swift and complete clarification of this sad occurrence." His preliminary findings showed that Private Schumacher had unwittingly crossed the border.