Monday, Oct. 25, 1937

Windsors in Naziland

Facts about Germany which came over the cables last week as the world press eagerly followed the Duke and Duchess of Windsor's inspection of how the common people fared in Naziland (TIME, Oct. 18):

P: Unemployment has been reduced in the four years since Adolf Hitler came to power from just over 6,000,000 to just over 500,000.

P:The Nazi Winter Relief has 10,000,000 needy Germans card indexed. Its staff numbers 1,400 who expend yearly 400,000,000 marks ($160,680,000). To take one item, the Nazi Winter Relief distributed last year gratis 492,000 tons of coal, or one-third of the entire coal produce of the Saar Basin.

P:At the Berlin model workers' suburb of Tegelsee a four-room cottage with garden may be purchased by a German workman by paying $12.40 per month for a total of three years. In nearby apartment houses, not especially provided for workers by the Nazi regime, the monthly rent of a four-room flat is $15.20.

P: Clothing distributed to the Nazi poor is mostly of artificial textiles, the standardized garments being made in six sizes, misfits exchangeable, alterations and special fitting not attempted by the State.

P: The largest manufacturing building in Europe is the so-called Hindenburg Hall of the Krupp Works at Essen, measuring 1,000 feet square. In it 7,000 men were employed during the War making artillery, today 3,500 fill it building locomotives. No women are allowed in the Krupp Works--not even the Duchess of Windsor.

P: The highest wages paid to miners in the Westphalia fields are paid by the French-owned de Wendel properties. This famed international munitions trust uses cast-iron props and other gadgets considered "advanced" in Europe throughout its Friedrich Wilhelm Mine. There the average miner's monthly wage is 210 marks ($84.35) and ne rents nis nouse and garden from the de Wendels for 24 marks per month ($9.64).

P:The Rhine-Prussia Corp.'s new plant now building will extract from coal 70.000 tons of gasoline and 20,000 tons of byproducts annually, is to be a major supply link in the Fatherland's Rearmament.

P:One thousand miles of Autobahn (speed-limitless motor roads) have now been built by the Nazis, who continue to open more at the rate of 650 miles yearly, have projected a total of 4,500 miles.

P: The Leader Adolf Hitler, after becoming Chancellor in 1933, founded four national Ordensburgs or Schools for Leaders. It will take five more years to complete these elaborate establishments, featured by "castles" built like medieval keeps, where the Leaders will be schooled. Most nearly completed is Castle Crossen-see in Pomerania, where the Leaders sleep in low, thatched buildings intended to suggest National Socialist links with the peasantry and the soil. Training at Crossensee of the first class of Leaders has just been completed and they are now going to work as teachers of 1,080 Leaders, youths between 20 and 28 who have passed four rigorous physical examinations, are pure Aryans, will devote 60% of their time to instruction in sports, must all become competent aviators before graduating from the four-year course. Afterward they will bear the title Junker, roughly equivalent to "Knight," will go from their Ordensburg to become municipal, state or party officials, with a few given executive positions in German business. Each Leader is encouraged to marry at once and his wife and children if any are supported by the State while he continues training, up each morning at the Ordensburg at 6 a. m.

Arrangements. At the White House last week Mrs. Franklin Roosevelt said she will be ''delighted" to show the Duke and Duchess through District of Columbia Negro slums and nearby model houses, added that she "supposes" they will visit the White House.

Madam Secretary Perkins corrected an interpretation of her offer to extend "facilities" to the Duke and Duchess, indicated that it stands but is not to be interpreted as an "invitation" to come over as guests of the Department of Labor.

The International Chamber of Commerce officially denied reports from Berlin that either it or its President Thomas J. Wratson would "sponsor" the visit of the Duke and Duchess.

Mr. Will Hays issued denials that the U. S. cinema industry wished to engage the Duke at a salary of $100,000 to act internationally in the capacity which Mr. Hays fulfills nationally, "Cinema Tsar."

In Berlin, an elderly, indomitable English lady planted herself one morning last week in front of the Duke's hotel, sane at the top of her voice clear through the song For He's a Jolly Good Fellow!

Germans were greeting His Royal Highness with broken-English shouts of "Hel-low Teddy," the Duke replying by giving the Nazi salute in the famed languid, halfway fashion of Adolf Hitler. Bug-eyed German moppets could be heard shouting to each other all week "Da geht der Konig von England." ("There goes the King of England!")

The King of England, George VI, last week wrote a letter to one of his aunts telling her that His Majesty also takes the keenest interest in housing conditions among his subjects. Aunt Alice, Countess of Athlone, promptly released this to the British press which gave it about the same prominence as the Duke of Windsor's interest in housing conditions.

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