Saturday Surprise

So big today looms Adolf Hitler in the minds of Europe's statesmen that Der Fuehrer's habit of always picking Saturday as the time suddenly to throw his weight about has caused the Continent's major stock exchanges to remain closed every Saturday--just in case the No.1 Nazi should upset prices.

Another gauge of the Realmleader's bigness this year was the recent scramble of statesmen, as soon as they heard that he was going to convene the Reichstag to make speeches of appeasement, conciliation and even flattery. In thus buttering Der Fuehrer, immaculate British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden led (TIME, Jan. 25). He was followed by French Premier Leon Blum, who as a Socialist and a Jew doubly hates the Nazis. And last week the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, inflexible Neville Chamberlain, who is perhaps to become the next Prime Minister after the Coronation in May, told his constituents at Birmingham: "Tomorrow Herr Hitler is expected to make an important speech. ... As the leader and spokesman of one of the most powerful and influential nations of Europe he has got it in his power to make an invaluable contribution. ... I am quite certain his words will find a warm response in this country."

This kind of British overture to last Saturday's curtain-raising in Berlin on "The World's Best Paid Male Chorus,"* spoke volumes. It meant that, at the end of four years of absolute power granted him originally by the German Reichstag, freely elected (TIME, April 3, 1933), Adolf Hitler is seen by all Europe as a portentous figure, no longer an upstart but a German Chancellor of almost Bismarckian stature, a figure clothed with the aura as well as the fact of Power. Thus Der Fuehrer was recently painted in what is today his favorite portrait (see cut). Up went the Opera House curtain in Berlin last week, and the world strained its ears as Messiah Hitler shared with his chosen Nazi Disciples the latest revelations of his almost feminine intuition.

Five Minutes, Under orders from Reichspropaganda-minister P. J. Goebbels, every German store and factory had ceased activity, every radio loudspeaker in the Fatherland was supposed to be on the nationwide Reichstag hookup. Messengers and street sweepers were under orders to drop everything and rush into the nearest cinema where sound apparatus was attuned to Der Fuehrer, and in iron tones the whole German people were told: "There can be no excuse for not having listened to every word spoken by our beloved Leader, Adolf Hitler!"

Almost every Reichstag Deputy was in Nazi uniform-exceptions being Dr. Alfred Hugenberg, "The Little Man In Blue" and once-great German press tycoon (TIME, July 10, 1933), and Lieut. Colonel Franz von Papen, who barely escaped death in the Nazi "blood purge" (TIME, July 9, 1934) but still enjoys Herr Hitler's favor and is today the German Ambassador and No. 1 Nazi plotter in Der Fuehrer's native Austria.

Looking like a parliament of soldiers, the uniformed Reichstag waited 30 minutes for its Messiah to arrive in flaring black military breeches, well-shined boots and unadorned brown shirt. Up jumped the Reichstag to salute and "HEIL HITLER!" Down sat the Reichstag. Minister of the Interior Dr. Wilhelm Frick nominated Minister-Prasident-Generaloberst Hermann Wilhelm Goring, fresh from his parleys in Rome with II Duce, to be Speaker again. Up jumped the Reichstag, thus electing him unanimously.

Down sat the Reichstag, then jumped up to vote unanimous extension of the Enabling Act (under which the Realmleader governs by decree without consulting the Reichstag) for another four years. This concluded the German legislative program of this session in just under five minutes, and the Reichstag sat back to-do its only other work: listen to Adolf Hitler.

"Surprises Concluded" Just eleven months ago, when the Reichstag last met, the Saturday Surprise hurled by Hitler was to send grey-green columns of Reichswehr soldiers goose-stepping into the Rhineland, from which they were barred not only by the imposed Treaty of Versailles but by the voluntary Locarno Pact (TIME, Dec.14, 1925)This Surprise-of-1936 the British refused to take tragically, pointing out that while it was a flagrant violation of treaties, nevertheless the Rhineland was German soil. Bereft of British help, the loud fury of the French had soon to subside. The Surprise-of-1937 last week was not even remotely so important to the French or British as his sending of soldiers into the Rhineland but it was sprung by Hitler as something immensely important to him and to all Germans. Surprise: "Acceptance of the Nobel Prize is herewith forbidden to all Germans for all future time!"

This was the Leader's idea of wiping out the stain of that "horrible insult, to German Honor," the awarding of the 1936 Nobel Peace Prize to an inmate of a Nazi prison camp.* Not only the Peace but all other Nobel Prizes are forever barred to citizens of the Fatherland. The new decree went on to set up three annual prizes of $40,000 each in the Arts and Sciences to go only to Germans. Reason given by the Ministry of Propaganda officially: "When we Germans do a thing, we do it thoroughly."

The next Surprise seemed redundant.

Although it may seem to the rest of the world that for the last four years most German orators have shouted themselves hoarse denying the "war guilt" of Germany as admitted, signed and ratified in the Treaty of Versailles, last week Der Fuehrer apparently considered it a great achievement to bring the Reichstag to its feet bellowing cheers at these words of the Realmleader:

"I hereby and above all else solemnly annul the signature extorted from a weak and impotent government against its better knowledge, confessing Germany's responsibility for the late War.

"My deputies, the restoration of our people's honor which outwardly found expression in the reintroduction of conscription, the creation of the air army, the rebuilding of the German navy and the reoccupation of the Rhineland were for me the expression of the gravest, most daring resolutions and labors of my life.

"A nation's honor can only be wrested from it and it can not be the object of barter. But with this declaration I wish to announce that the era of so-called Surprises has been concluded. As a State with equal rights, Germany with the fullest loyalty will henceforth do her share in settling European problems and in solving such problems as may concern not only ourselves but other nations." Only spectators who know both Germany and Hitler could fully appreciate the fervor of this declaration by Der Fuehrer or the fervor of the response evoked.

"Further," said the Realmleader, "I have more often than once expressed the wish and hope to come to equally good, hearty relations with all our neighbors. As an example, between Germany and France there can be no humanly thinkable cause for a quarrel. The German Government also has assured Belgium and Holland that it is ready to recognize and guarantee, at any time, these States as untouchable neutral territory."

Acquiescence of God. The rest of the two-hour speech rambled over "German equality;" Bolshevism (Hitler is against it); Colonies (Hitler is for them, but at the moment not fervently, saying, "We make no colonial demands or claim against States which took no colonies away from us."*; Generalissimo Franco and his Spanish Whites (Hitler is for them);, the League of Nations (Hitler is against it); and Germany's further Rearmament under the Nazi Four-Year Plan (TIME, Sept. 21). In a final German outburst the Messiah, almost weeping, rejoiced that the Fatherland's "truest fighters [have] hung their lives on mine" and conveyed to the Reichstag the revelation that Adolf Hitler can "count on the acquiescence of Him who stands above us all."

Flushed with emotion, Chancellor Hitler then departed amid the songs of the Reichstag chorus, convened the German Cabinet and radiantly conferred on seven Ministers, who have hitherto not been Nazis,f full membership in the Party, pressing upon each a gold party badge. Thus Der Fuehrer, on his Fourth Anniversary of Power, achieved what he has often spoken of as a "cherished dream": a Cabinet composed entirely of Nazis.

Four Years. Throughout the world nearly every newsorgan worth the name attempted a Sunday summing up of the Hitler Four Years which closed last Saturday. Although few subjects might seem more controversial, substantially objective journals were surprisingly agreed on the basic facts which are roughly about as follows: In four years Germany has regained the status of a Great Power and many of her once plaintive claims have become unchallenged rights. She once more has an army which is feared, an air force especially feared because so many Europeans think Hitler and Goring "capable of acting like madmen," and a navy still negligible against Great Britain but able to cork the Baltic neck of the Soviet bottle.

The standard of living has declined and there is chronic shortage of individual food items under Goring's Rearmament program of "Cannon instead of Butter." There are "Strength Through Joy" vacation treats and trips for workers on a grand scale which would have seemed incredible four years ago. In Germany the Protestants, Catholics and every other religious group except the Nazi mystics have been ruthlessly trampled by the State and the Jews have been legally reduced to a sub-citizen depressed class.

Regimented are boys & girls, youths and maidens in Hitler camps where an appalling number of bastards are conceived. To repopulate the countryside thousands of city Germans have been shoved off in "Labor Service" to farm or build and beautify Europe's best motor and strategic roads. Art, Literature, Education, Stage, Cinema and the Press are in Nazi lockstep.

Thus far Adolf Hitler has not obtained any lands beyond Germany's frontiers in Europe or the return of any colonies overseas. He has smashed the numerous, pettifogging States which cluttered up the Reich from an administrative point of view, breaking German eggs right and left to make the omelet of a strongly centralized, potentially efficient Nazi Realm.

*The 741 Deputies of the Reichstag. Each is paid $240 monthly; in the last two years the Reichstag has been in session a total of four days, its "work" consisting of passing unanimous votes of Nazi approval, cheering Nazi bigwigs to the echo, singing Deutschland Uber Alles and the Horst Wessel Lied in the Kroll Opera House, where it has met since the Reichstag Building was burned (TIME, March 6, 1933).

*Pacifist Carl von Ossietzky (TIME, Nov. 30 et seq.), who only last week succeeded in getting assurance that the Reich would not confiscate his $40,000 prize. *To this 100% ambiguous statement, mildly uttered, Der Fuehrer may at any time characteristically revert with angry vigor, making it mean then that Germany "claims" the colonies now under the British, French and other League Mandates "taken away from her after the World War," but such was not the meaning his amicable tone conveyed last week. /-Reichsbank President Schacht, Foreign Minister von Neurath, Finance Minister von Krosigk, Chief of Staff General von Fritsch, Admiral of the Fleet Raeder, Ruebenach (Transport) and Seldte (Labor).

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