Posted on 09/05/2008 5:20:49 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
A stream of singing Nazis marched into Nuremberg yesterday in preparation for the party congress opening today. Although rain was general in Germany, tens of thousands were on the roads. A huge tent city outside the walls will accommodate most of the visitors. Adolf Hitler was expected to make his chief address, defining his foreign policies, at the close of the congress next week.
British authorities reported they had received no work on Hitler’s terms for a Czechoslovak settlement, but, when revealed, they were expected to be severe. Also it was believed he had set a time limit for acceptance of the Sudeten German demands.
A statement that Hitler wished to avoid war came from a Sudeten German leader, but he asserted there would be no compromise and that demands so far made were not the maximum. Frank Ashton-Gwatkin of the British mission had a long talk with Konrad Henlein. The Henleinist stand seemed stiffer than ever, and in Prague it was feared some German victory this weekend would be sought.
Foreign Minister Bonnet of France, at a speech dedicating a monument to American aid in the world war, said his country wanted from the United States help in keeping the peace rather than assistance in another war. Ambassador Bullitt said our role in a conflict was unpredictable.
Battalion after battalion, they are streaming in this evening through the city’s ancient gateways, bands playing and close-knit ranks chanting Nazi marching songs.
It is a familiar scene, for this is “Parteitag,” the annual Nazi congress, the tenth since the party was instituted and the sixth since Adolf Hitler attained supreme power in the Reich. It opens formally tomorrow when the Chancellor and the chief party leaders arrive.
The only change year after year is that the gathering grows bigger. This year it will be the biggest of all, for it celebrates the new Greater Germany, including Austria, now the Ostmark, a mere German province. About 30,000 Austrian Nazis are bring brought here to celebrate the annexation.
Thus old Nuremberg, whose history dates back nine centuries, becomes host this year to something like twice its own population of 450,000. There are 195,000 district leaders alone; battalions of Storm Troops total 84,000 more; black-uniformed Elite Guards number 48,000; Labor Service battalions another 45,000 men, and Hitler Youth and Hitler Girls and Women will be here in proportionate numbers. Huge army and air force contingents will come in later.
[The following three paragraphs were faded in the fiche so I don’t guarantee the accuracy of the transcript-Homer]
All these are being housed in a vast tented city outside the walls – some of the tents holding nearly a thousand person – which is almost as but as Nuremberg itself. The tent city is laid out in streets named for Nazi heroes and has its own central square, Adolf Hitler Platz – quite naturally.
Storm Troopers and Elite Guards ??? to line the streets when the Chancellor goes to and fro. Labor Service men maintain camps, each of which has its own commissary and field kitchens and sanitary conveniences.
All street traffic has already ??? in Nuremberg, except for ??? official cars and motor messengers and the streets, sidewalks and roadways alike are packed with ???, mostly uniformed, inspecting the decorations, already a little bedraggled in the rain. Yet continuously newcomers pour in.
Special railway sidings are being
kept for members of the diplomatic corps, who will arrive later in the week on their own train and live in it while here. Foreign correspondents will be similarly lodged for the first time. In former years a hotel was set aside for them, but this year it has been needed for Japanese guests.
There are also a hundred Arabs from Trans-Jordan and Northern Africa present as special guests of Hitler. Nobody knows who they are, although there is a good deal of guessing about them.
Predictions as to what will happen at this year’s congress are plentiful and varied, and all are likely to be incorrect. The spectacular features are, of course, known in advance. Four of them are outstanding.
First, there will be the ceremonial opening of the congress in the Congress Hall Tuesday, when the party standards will be paraded and the roster of the dead called while muffled drums roll in salute.
Wednesday will be the day of Labor Service, when 40,000 lads of 20 or thereabouts will march past the Chancellor, spades on their shoulders as soldiers carry rifles. Half of them will be stripped to the waist as they are when at work. The command will be given, “Heil, Hitler!” and 40,000 burnished spades will be raised in salute. The steel will catch the sunlight, and what was a host of brown-skinned young men will become a sea of shimmering radiance.
On Friday night 195,000 party wardens from all towns and villages of the Reich will march in a great torchlight procession to the Zeppelin meadow. About 25,000 massed swastika flags will fill the lanes between their brown-clad ranks and 150 searchlights will flash upward, making a great canopy of iridescence, whence they will pass away into the surrounding darkness.
Saturday will be devoted to a great show of Hitler Youth and Sunday to a six-hour parade of Storm Troops and Elite Guards. The following Monday will be the army’s day, when a picturesque sham battle and a fly-past of the air force will be staged and the congress will close with Hitler’s farewell address, usually the most important of all the talks he makes during the week, but as to what this and other addresses may reveal it is quite useless to speculate because nobody knows. The Nazi organization keeps its secrets well.
Marxism will be denounced, of course, and there will be a new call for a national effort to make the Four-Year Plan an economic triumph. It is quite likely also that the Chancellor’s final speech may disclose the main lines of his policy toward Czechoslovakia, but nobody knows, and anything may happen.
For this, it must be emphasized, is not a congress or convention in the sense used elsewhere. The delegates do not confer, no decisions are made, and decisions previously arrived at are not debated. Hitler and his mouthpieces speak, and the delegates listen. Then they go home and tell what they have heard and see that the sentiments expressed are duly carried out.
“I have been moved but not surprised recently to hear your countrymen declare that if France were again attacked they would come again to her defense. But that is not what we want from you. We do not want help in view of war for we do not want war. What we want is help in preserving and organizing peace and making a better world to live in.”
United States Ambassador William C. Bullitt, who inaugurated the monument, stressed the sympathies between France and the United States, but added:
“If war should break out again in Europe no human being could undertake to state or prophesy whether or not the United States would become involved.”
[Mr. Bullitt was quoted as having said in an extemporaneous address at a Bordeaux City Hall dinner Saturday night that France and the United States were “indefectively united in war as in peace.”]
M. Bonnet, in speaking of the Czechoslovak situation, made this declaration:
“We do not hide from ourselves the gravity of the Czechoslovak problem. But we hope, thanks to the pacific sentiments that should animate all peoples, thanks to the consciousness of their international responsibilities that the governments of Berlin and Prague should have and thanks to the close and loyal collaboration of Great Britain and France, that the heavy menace that lies over Central Europe will be lifted.”
Then M. Bonnet added:
“France in any case will remain faithful to the pacts and treaties that she has signed. She will remain faithful to the engagements that she has taken.”
Taken in conjunction with the address of his close friend, Ambassador Bullitt, M. Bonnet’s speech was intended as a manifestation not only of the friendship between France and the United States but also of their common will for peace.
There was a tribute to the past and to those who came and fought here.
“The hour of your intervention was for us an hour of destiny,” M. Bonnet declared. “You did not come to the aid of victory, but in the dark moment of Verdun and the submarine warfare. You came from what has been rare in the history of the world and in the policy of countries – moral reasons. President Wilson felt the current of public feeling in his country. He and his people did not want war, but the defense of peace. Your action and his were the result of the sovereign moral law that governs your people as it governs ours.
“That is why there is no need between us for engagements, for pacts or for alliances mysteriously made in secret chancelleries. We know that American public sentiment will be with us whenever justice is on our side. And we know, too, both of us, that this Franco-American solidarity, however powerful it may be in our hearts, will cease to exist the moment one or the other of our peoples ceases to desire above all other things the peace of nations and the liberty of men.”
Supporting his argument with quotations from President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull, M. Bonnet declared that the Franco-American, like the Franco-British, friendship was no exclusive partnership and no political combination. It sought no conquest or advantage. On the contrary, it sought the growth of the same spirit of fraternity among other peoples and their inclusion in the friendship.
Mr. Bullitt spoke of the debt of the United States to all European nations and expressed the hope that there would be no war.
“We believe in the unity of Europe,” he said. “We are grateful to every race in Europe for the contributions it has made to our own civilization. We should regard a war in Europe as a war between bothers in a Continent that should be united.”
He saw hope for peace in a restoration of trade.
“Other nations plead that they have been forced to measures of autarchy by lack of access to raw materials and shrinkage of their international trade,” he said. “Is it impossible to take them at their word and begin negotiations for their reintegration in the economic body of the world?”
Mr. Bullitt’s speech showed strong sympathy with France.
“Between the United States and France there remains today,” he said, “deep and confident friendship – mutual devotion to the ideals of liberty, democracy and peace. The basis of our profound understanding is old wisdom or common sense.
“Americans and Frenchmen alike know it is happier to live as free men than as slaves. We know that although there have been able and successful dictators it is better to have government of, for and by the people. We know that no nation has a monopoly on all the human virtues and that no nation is without defects. We know that no race is superior to any other in all ways.”
Bernard Ragner, commander of the American Legion, Department of France, spoke for the American veterans and delivered greetings to their war comrade M. Bonnet.
The ceremonies were held in beautiful weather and more than 7,000 Frenchmen and Americans had made the trip from Bordeaux and the surrounding country to witness the dedication.
Wednesday will be the day of Labor Service, when 40,000 lads of 20 or thereabouts will march past the Chancellor, spades on their shoulders as soldiers carry rifles. Half of them will be stripped to the waist as they are when at work. The command will be given, “Heil, Hitler!” and 40,000 burnished spades will be raised in salute. The steel will catch the sunlight, and what was a host of brown-skinned young men will become a sea of shimmering radiance.
And what do we get? Balloon drops.
There also follows a story about the French foreign minister praising the U.S.A.
Foreign Minister Bonnet of France, at a speech dedicating a monument to American aid in the world war, said his country wanted from the United States help in keeping the peace rather than assistance in another war.
Yeah, whatever.
Way at the bottom there is a little story about the Knights of Columbus. I know my brother Knights have a ping list but this one might not be significant enough.
A word about the ads. Ever since Errol Flynn ran through Sherwood Forest in tights last spring, the department stores have been selling hats that look similar to his. Coincidence? Finally, I do not mean any disrespect to poor Mrs. Amato or her family, but I was struck by the juxtaposition of the story of her suicide and the adjacent ad for jewelry that will help the ladies "look more appealingly fragile than ever before." Ladies: Don't take this look too far!
One of the notable convention visitors was Robert Byrd, who was beginning only his third term in the US Senate in 1938....
“A stream of singing Nazis marched into Nuremberg yesterday in preparation for the party congress opening today. Although rain was general in Germany, tens of thousands were on the roads.”
There was singing in Denver but on the other hand the Democrats did have better weather.
I think he might have been escorting Margaret Sanger.
Sounds like just a lot of effort to put on a show to dazzle and stupify the general public with flashy symbols. Hmm. Why does that sound familiar?
Good one. I’m surprised Obama was honest enough to make a big fat Zero his defining symbol.
Interesting thread, WW2 styles and info.
I started running ads on September 2. If you are interested you can go into my profile and choose In Forum-Articles and check them out. I plan to carry on in this strange manner for the next 7 years or so, so if you want I can add you to the Real Time +/- 70 Years ping list.
And Bird was recognized according to his quaint custom, by renaming the stadium in Bird's honor...
Along with most of the surrounding buildings and highways! ;-)
so if you want I can add you to the Real Time +/- 70 Years ping list.<<<
Yes, please add me to your ping list.
Thank you for putting out the effort to start these threads,
I remember WW2, better than I want to at times.
I thought that convention was two weeks ago in Denver.
Caught this interesting little tidbit:
“There are also a hundred Arabs from Trans-Jordan and Northern Africa present as special guests of Hitler.”
You remember the war and you are internet savvy. I'd say that puts you in the top 1%.
You are now on the ping list.
Only partially internet savvey, still learning.
We did have a Freeper that was a code breaker in WW2.
I have not heard from her in a year or two, she did not post much here, but wanted my every ping.
Thanks for putting me on the ping list.
[Mr. Bullitt was quoted as having said in an extemporaneous address at a Bordeaux City Hall dinner Saturday night that France and the United States were “indefectively united in war as in peace.”] "
Just the other day I broke down and bought Pat Buchanan's "Unnecessary Book," er, I mean "Unnecessary War."
Now, don't get me wrong -- I'm no fan of Buchanan.
But it turns out, he has some quite interesting things to say about this time period, including the following quote from Franklin Roosevelt:
"Those who count on the assured aid of the United States in case of a war in Europe are totally mistaken... To include the United States in a Franco-British front against Hitler is an interpretation that is 100 percent false." -- September 1938 (page 224).
In fact, Buchanan argues, FDR like Chamberlain did not really oppose Hitler's moves to restore the old German Empire, so long as it was done PEACEFULLY.
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