Host Angered

Nazi Germany probably is more confused today than it has been since the days in 1933 when the Hitler Government first came to power. . . . Submarine crews in Hamburg have been refusing to leave on trips unless they are released from the necessity of coming to the surface before torpedoing belligerent commercial vessels. . . . For some time certain persons have been firmly convinced that Germany intended to invade The Netherlands. . . It was learned today that the conservative Army high command flatly refused to countenance any such action. . . .

So ran a dispatch on the front page of the New York Herald Tribune one day last week. Had it been datelined London or Paris, most propaganda-wise readers would have passed it by with an indulgent smile. But it was datelined Berlin, signed by 27-year-old Seymour Beach Conger, newly appointed chief of the Herald Tribune's Berlin bureau. It .had slipped easily through German censorship, which concentrates on suppressing "undesirable" writers, not undesirable words.

Next day, when correspondents gathered in the Propaganda Ministry for their regular morning conference, there was hell to pay. Blond, youthful Dr. Karl Bomer, head of the press department, grimly read passages from Newsman Conger's dispatch, exclaiming: "Lies! . . . Scoundrelly reporting! ... False to the last syllable!" Added another propaganda official: "It's worse than a lost battle!"

Deprived of his right to attend press meetings or send dispatches, because of this "violation of the hospitality of the Reich," Newsman Conger was effectively silenced. Stern Dr. Bomer offered to restore his privileges if the Herald Tribune would print a retraction. But it was unthinkable that the Herald Tribune would take orders from Berlin, repudiate what its own correspondent had written. Said Managing Editor Grafton Wilcox in Manhattan: "If there is an official German denial, we'll print that." There was no German denial.

Thus ended, six weeks after it began, Beach Conger's brief career as a Berlin bureau chief. Born in Berlin, he is the son of a foreign correspondent: the late Seymour Beach Conger Sr. spent 13 years in Russia and Germany for Associated Press, was attached to the German Army during World War I. Young Conger was graduated from the University of Michigan in 1932, went twice around the world, then joined the Herald Tribune staff two years ago.

When Joseph Barnes gave up his job in Berlin and went home for a rest (weary of constant Nazi threats to muzzle him), Herald Tribune editors debated long over Beach Conger's youth and inexperience, finally gave him Barnes's place. Blond, meticulous, with close-cropped hair and thick-lensed spectacles, Conger looks like a respectable German official. Within two hours after his arrival in Berlin he had telephoned more people than Joseph Barnes knew. Most of them were young Nazis who had once been his schoolmates.

They could not help him last week. Day after he was expelled from Dr. Bomer's conference a Nazi agent handed him his passport and visa. By week's end he was on his way to The Netherlands, homeward bound. The Herald Tribune office in Berlin was silent, forbidden to gather news or send messages out of Germany. A Nazi agent was on guard outside the door. For German coverage the Herald Tribune was dependent on press services alone.

Other newsmen in Berlin, though they sympathized with Conger's predicament, were undeniably irked by his lack of discretion. Since war began they have been allowed far more latitude than correspondents in London or Paris, have sent their dispatches uncensored on condition that they report nothing unfavorable to Germany. Now they fear that Conger's exploit will serve as an excuse to end this comparatively comfortable system, wind foreign journalists in a stricter web of censorship.

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