INTERNATIONAL: Europe v. Dillinger

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The assassination of Austria's Chancellor and the mobilization of Italy's army exactly 20 years after Imperial Austria declared what grew into the World War sent U. S. stock values crashing down to their 1934 lows last week. Not to be caught napping in case Europe again went up in flames, editors from the Atlantic to the Pacific put their biggest blackest headlines over news from Vienna, Rome and Berlin and wrote solemn pieces on the coincidence of dates, the possibilities of conflict. In London the "American War Scare" was loftily pooh-poohed, but repercussions of the Dollfuss murder stirred the Great Powers and set statesmen toiling as they have not toiled in years to keep peace.

Germany. Official Germany was on edge with hope that the butchers of Engelbert Dollfuss would succeed in upsetting the Austrian Government. When they were clapped into jail Adolf Hitler had to work fast. Unfortunately the German Chancellor's duly appointed Inspector General for Austria, blustering Theodor Habicht, had said while broadcasting from Munich at the height of the excitement that Dollfuss' slayers were "returning" to Germany. That slip caused Chancellor Hitler to fire Herr Habicht from his job.

It was also necessary to fire the German Minister to Austria, well meaning Dr. Kurt Rieth, who had doubtless thought he was serving his Government when he undertook to dicker for the butchers and promised them safe entry into Germany. This blunder was irretrievable but it gave intuitive Chancellor Hitler one of his bright ideas. He has long been looking for a way to ease German Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen, protégé and "best comrade" of President von Hindenburg, out of his Cabinet (TIME, July 9). Impulsively Chancellor Hitler dashed off an effusive letter, "requesting you, Dear Herr von Papen to aid ... in [bringing] back to normal and friendly paths our long unfortunate relations to the German Austrian State. ... I have, therefore, . . . proposed to the Reichspräzident [von Hindenburg] that you should be called temporarily to the post of Minister to Vienna as a special mission at the same time leaving the Reich Cabinet. Once again I thank you. . . ."

Glad to leave blood-purged Berlin, where he nearly became a "suicide" month ago, Franz von Papen packed up in haste for Vienna where the Austrian Government had by no means decided to accept him as persona grata. Ignorant or careless of diplomacy's rigid code, Chancellor Hitler had committed the unheard of blunder of dispatching an envoy without the prior consent of the nation to which he is accredited. This left Austria free to administer a stinging snub which would make Adolf Hitler the laughing stock of Europe. In Vienna it was said that Benito Mussolini was strongly urging Austria to snub Der Führer.