GERMANY: One Thing Or Another

The German Reichstag, its membership now swollen to 855 members by the addition of Ostmark (Austrian) and Sudeten deputies, met in Berlin's Kroll Opera House one night early this week to hear the address of Führer Adolf Hitler on the occasion of the sixth anniversary of Nazi rule. While Germans listened with pride at the recital of past Nazi victories, an anxious world combed the speech for cues as to what Nazi moves could be next expected.

The cues were not long in coming, and they were sensational. They did not please either France or Britain. First, Herr Hitler notified Europe's chancelleries in the most direct manner possible that Germany wanted back the colonies she lost in the World War, colonies now largely held by Britain and France. Second, the Führer implied that Germany would stand by Italy in a Mediterranean crisis, declared that the two nations were determined to "defend our common interests together."

Colonies. The "theft" of the former German colonies, the Führer said, was "morally wrong" and "sheer madness." "To assume that it was permitted by the Lord God to a few peoples first to take possession of the world by force and then to defend their robbery by moral theories is perhaps comforting and above all easy for the possessors, but it is immaterial and uninteresting and non-binding for the have-nots," Herr Hitler declared. "No people have been born to be have-nots and no people to be haves." Threateningly the Führer added: "It will be one thing or another. Either property will be distributed on a basis of force and force will revise the distribution, or distribution will be based on the right of reason and then it will be impossible for a few powers forever to possess all the colonies."

Italy. Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, said Adolf Hitler, are strong enough to resist any coalition against them. In a direct slap at France he added that "If war is waged against Italy for any reason whatever it will see Germany and Italy side by side. . . . Nazi Germany knows what her fate would be if the international powers succeeded in defeating Italy. . . . Those who belittle the Italian Army were refuted by the Ethiopian campaign."

U. S. Herr Hitler served notice that in the future all attacks from foreign countries would be brought to the attention of the German people and answered in the German press. He attacked as "apostles of war" Alfred Duff Cooper, Anthony Eden and Winston Churchill, British statesmen, and U. S. Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes. Complained the Führer:

"In certain democracies it appears to be the special privilege of political and democratic life artificially to engender hatred against the so-called totalitarian States.

"After all, German soldiers have never yet fought on American soil except in the service of American independence.* On the other hand, American soldiers were called to Europe to help strangle a great nation that was struggling for its freedom. It was not Germany that attacked America, but America Germany."