Dictator & Dictator

It was Benito Mussolini's show and small limelight did he give Adolf Hitler. Up to the very morning of their meeting in Venice last week both were nervous as tomcats. Each seemed to fear some hitch or double-cross. Each whipped his Press into absolute silence. Round about Venice, which Il Duce had not visited for eleven years, citizens, puzzled by elaborate preparations for they knew not what, jumped to a conclusion that Crown Prince Umberto was coming. Germans supposed their Chancellor was still in the Fatherland until their Press told them that he was already soaring over the Alps. Rome stressed that Berlin had asked for the meeting. Berlin tried to give an opposite impression by releasing press handouts explaining Chancellor Hitler's departure, with the stipulation that they must be falsely datelined so as to seem to have come from Italy. For the big show 3,000 picked Fascist militia were mobilized in Venice by steel-muscled, pantherlike Secretary of the Party Achille Starace and 80 bulging German detectives shook Venice's Grand Hotel with the tramp, tramp of their arrival. Paying guests were vexed as these Teuton sleuths commanded "Stay in your rooms this morning or leave the hotel. Every corridor must be empty when Der Fiihrer arrives." Sharp at 9:45 a. m. Il Duce was at Lido Airport in his favorite grey-green uniform of a Corporal of Honor of the Fascist Militia, perspiring under his black fez with red tassels. Out of a dazzling sky rocketed three Italian pursuit planes escorting two lumbering German airliners. Swooping down to a perfect landing the first German ship nosed up toward 220 gaudy Italian uniforms. A door popped open and Adolf Hitler sprang his little surprise. He stepped out not in Nazi uniform but wearing an old rain coat over a dark business suit and crushing in his left hand a rumpled brown hat. Click!--the heels of II Duce's black top boots snapped together and up went his arm in the Roman salute Nazis have borrowed. Up went Der Fuehrers arm, too, and Dictator eyed Dictator, each stern to the point of glowering. For the first time on record the unruly lock of hair which normally hangs forward over Adolf Hitler's brow was seen to have been neatly pomaded back. Smack!--Dictator Mussolini, now all smiles after shaking hands with effusive vigor, flung his left arm around Herr Hitler in a half embrace. Meanwhile the second German plane coasted in. and out bustled pompous Foreign Minister Baron Constantin von Neurath with a staff of high-collared experts. After ear-splitting national anthems. Mussolini linked his arm with Hitler's and led him toward a waiting motorboat, speaking German with fair fluency to a guest who speaks nothing else. As a disciple should. Chancellor Hitler drew back to let the world's No. i Fascist enter the launch first, but II Capo del Governo again threw his arm around Guest Hitler's shoulders, urged him forward in Italian: "Prego!" ("I beg you!"). With a dozen police motorboats roaring ahead to chase away jay-rowing gondolas, the official launch sped for Venice between two squadrons of Italian war boats which thundered salutes. -"Get into your rooms!" bellowed the German detectives at the Grand Hotel. "Into your rooms!" and they shoved several irate guests into rooms to clear all halls for Hitler. Most Venetians, not knowing who the little man in the rain coat standing beside their gorgeous Duce might be, shouted nothing but "Viva Mussolini!" Only a few German flags and a sprinkling of Nazi swastikas had been put up among the riot of Italian flags and Fascist banners. Except for some Ger mans who gathered on the opposite side of the Grand Canal and cheered them selves hoarse, the landing of Adolf Hitler at the Grand Hotel was no triumph. He was shown up to the honeymoon suite of Barbara Hutton and Alexis Mdivani, sacred also to the memory of William Randolph Hearst. Mr. and Mrs. George Bernard Shaw and Spain's Alfonso XIII. Meanwhile Mussolini had dashed off toward the great Fascist-built motor via duct more than two miles long connecting Venice with the mainland. As he stepped ashore a small Balilla (Fascist Scout) squirmed between policemen's legs and ran up to // Duce panting "Please sign my Fascist card!" Out came the Dictator's fountain pen and at this pause the Venetian crowd burst into huzzahs and swept police aside in a scramble toward the Leader. Four tall gondoliers pounced on small Benito Mussolini, raised him shoul der high and carried him to his motor car. Cynics observed: "Those gondoliers were detectives!" Zipping out of Venice, 77 Duce made for historic Villa Pisani once used by Napoleon. In Chancellor Hitler's honor it had been spruced up with furniture from Venice's old Royal Palace, staffed by royal servants, some of whom had served German Emperor Wilhelm II when he visited King Victor Emmanuel III in Venice just before the War. Last week His Majesty's furniture and servants sufficed without His Majesty. When Adolf Hitler, strict teetotaler and vegetarian, sat down to the official luncheon of 25 covers he alone refused wine and meat, drank water with his scrambled eggs and vegetables. After lunch Dictator and Dictator withdrew for the first of their two-man talks alone in German. Two days later the German Foreign Office experts were complaining: "The Chancellor has apparently no need of our advice. We have never had such a vacation. Everything is between them." The two days passed in a bedlam of parades and pageantry as Venice gradually learned to shout "Viva Hitler!" By night there were fireworks and torch-lighted gondola parades, but again and again those two-man talks in German. Baffled correspondents were reduced to cooking up tales that Hitler and Mussolini were playing a game of vanity in keeping each other waiting at their public appearances. These stories started when Der Fuehrer left the Grand Hotel ten minutes ahead of schedule for a review of Fascist Militia in the square facing St. Mark's. With no military escort, the smudge-mustached Chancellor in his nondescript business suit was half way across the square before a young woman squealed "Hitler!" Ten minutes later II Duce marched in on schedule at his famed quick step. First warmly greeting Der Fuehrer, he strode clear around the square inspecting Fascist militiamen. During the review which followed Mussolini gave each section the Roman salute while Hitler bowed to each from the hips. Since the German could say nothing in Italian the speech of the day was made by Il Duce from a balcony while Der Fuehrer retired behind a window. "Chancellor Hitler and I have not met to remake the map of the world!" shouted the Great Orator with his favorite trick of negative exaggeration. "Hitler and I. . . ." "No! ... 'I and Hitler!'" bellowed a Fascist from a crowd which then roared "Viva Mussolini!" for five minutes, ignoring Roman trumpet blasts for silence. When he could be heard Italy's Leader repeated a warning he often utters: "Europe is faced by a terrible alternative! Either she can achieve at least a minimum of political understanding, of economic collaboration, of social comprehension-- or her doom is irrevocably sealed!" Pointing through the window at Der Fue hrer as his collaborator in efforts to avert Europe's doom, // Duce drew cheers for the Chancellor and wound up with a bow to the greatness of the Italian people. Since this speech got everyone precisely nowhere and since Chancellor Hitler seemed uncommunicative toward his German entourage, the most popular man in Venice among correspondents was sleek young Count Galeazzo Ciano di Cortellazzo, son-in-law of Mussolini, who as the Dictator's press officer rejoices in the mouth filling title Il Capo del Ufficio Stampa del Capo del Governo. Count Ciano spilled some amazing beans. No written record of what he said exists and correspondents were forbidden to quote, but they came away with two impressions: 1) Chancellor Hitler had promised to renounce his design of drawing Austria into anschluss (union) with Germany and stood ready to support her independence; 2) Premier Mussolini had agreed not to object if a Nazi should be elected Chancellor of Austria. To Vienna this last was dynamite. The entire Austrian regime of Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss rests precisely on his dictatorial suppression of elections with the moral support of Italy, France and England. It is an Austrian axiom that Austrian Nazis would win any election held at this time and that the first thing a Nazi Chancellor would do would be anschhiss. Had Mussolini betrayed his visitor of both last year and this year. Little Dollfuss (TIME. Aug. 28; March 26)? With Vienna tense and Dollfuss haggard. Central Europe spent an uneasy 24 hours while Chancellor Hitler finished up the Venice visit. Only at the last moment did Il Duce put away his uniforms. Even then he wore a yachting cap. As the German airliner got ready to take off Mussolini helped Hitler up the ladder. They saluted. Hitler sat down inside. They saluted again. The big ship roared away. Der Fue hrer waved his hand, Il Duce his yachting cap--and correspondents buzzed around every German and Italian official to whom they could get access trying to make sense out of Count Ciano's beans. Ultimately Rome and Berlin supplied a consensus: Chancellor Hitler had agreed to keep hands off Austria in return for a promise by Premier Mussolini to support Germany's demand that the Great Powers accord her a substantial measure of rearmament. No agreement of any sort was signed. The fact that Der Fue hrer and II Duce have no witnesses of what they said and no record, except their memories, was admitted to create danger of possible misunderstandings. Officially the press offices of both dictators polished off the week by ordering Italian and German papers to say that the most important result of the Venice Conversations is the "cordial spiritual collaboration" thus begun between Dictator and Dictator. In Rome it was whispered that Mussolini found his guest much too visionary" on the first day but afterwards drew Hitler down somewhat from his cloud of Teuton mysticism.

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