On to Rearmament

Not so much as pausing in his stride, Realmleader Adolf Hitler accepted his smashing Saar plebiscite victory (TIME, Jan. 21), passed on last week to Nazidom's next objective: to force the Great Powers to recognize and assent to the Fatherland's rearmament in violation of the Treaty of Versailles.

All week der Reichsfuehrer stayed snug in his Bavarian mountain retreat. Such is popular ignorance under the Nazi system of "guided news," that in Berlin crowds gathered every day outside the Realmleader's office in Wilhelmstrasse, shouting plaintively from time to time, "Leader, dear Leader, come out to us!" Stolid police saw no reason why they should explain that the Dear Leader was some 400 miles away. Exultant Berlin papers hailed him as the greatest vote-getter of all time, far greater than Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Now the world could no longer scoff, Germans exulted, at German election figures. Under League supervision in the Saar results were the same as they have been time and again in Germany-- better than 90% for Hitler, whereas Roosevelt has never done better than 56%.

At the Ministry of Propaganda & Public Enlightenment joyous Dr. Paul Josef Goebbels hailed the Saar result as proof that Germans do not want Democracy, free speech, freedom of the Press, racial equality or cultural liberty. They want Nazi authority, as good Catholics want the authority of Rome, good Communists, the authority of Moscow. Even testy old Admiral von Levetzow, hard-boiled Nazi chief of Berlin police, beamed and bubbled with good humor last week. He decreed that Stresemannstrasse, named after Germany's late, great Nobel Peace Prize winning Foreign Minister (TIME, Dec. 20, 1926), should be renamed Saarlandestrasse. Since beauteous Widow Stresemann, once the "Queen Kathe" of swank Berlin night clubs, happens to be a Jewess, Admiral von Levetzow was congratulated last week on having winged two birds with one pellet.

"Peace with Honor!" In Realmleader Hitler's post-plebiscite radio address from Bavaria he repeated his familiar statement that, having got the Saar, Germany would ask no more territory from France. Then he thundered: "Great and unconditional is our determination to attain for Germany equality!"--i. e. in armaments.

To a British correspondent who managed to see him at Munich, Realmleader Hitler declared with rising inflection: "If anyone attacks Germany, he will fall into a hornet's nest because we love freedom as much as we love peace. . . . We give assurance that no pressure, no need, no force will ever lead us to sacrifice our honor, or the right to equality with other nations! I regard it as indispensable to announce this."

Thus the League of Nations was faced with Nazidom's next demand even before the League Council could get around last week to deciding how and when to give Germany the Saar. In Geneva all was gloom. The League plebiscite had produced a result diametrically opposed to the sympathies of most League statesmen, however much they had discounted it in advance. Glumly they agreed to hand over the Saar on March 1 to Germany--a nation which stalked out of the League as haughtily as did Japan.

Since to hand over the Saar is a complex business, the Council left all details to Premier Benito Mussolini's keen henchman at Geneva, Baron Pompeo Aloisi, Chairman of the League's Saar Committee (TIME, Dec. 17). If the Committee gets bogged before Feb. 15, Baron Aloisi will ask the Council to meet in extraordinary session, cut Gordian knots.

81% v. 3%. Under the Aloisi pact signed late last year in Rome (TIME, Dec. 10), Germany agreed to pay France 900,000,000 French francs for the Saar mines. No pay, no mines. Last week Germans were confident that citizens of the Saar, who have used French francs for the last 15 years and recently possessed 1,800,000,000, would cheerfully hand over this sum in a currency backed 81% by gold in exchange for German marks with a gold backing of less than 3%. According to Germans the "monetary patriotism" of Saarlanders equals the rest of their German patriotism, will drive them to enable Adolf Hitler, by a feat of monetary legerdemain, to pay France for the Saar mines with Saar patriots' French francs.

Even this may be possible, Frenchmen readily agreed. They noted, however, that Saar folk have been shipping their francs in a mad rush to France, The Netherlands, Switzerland. Guesses of how much of the original 1,800,000,000 francs now remains in the Saar ran as low last week as 150,000,000. In the Saar meanwhile Nazis whacked together 350 booths in which Saar folk will be compelled to exchange for German marks any French francs or other foreign money they possess after March 1.

"Nothing Easier!" To keep Saarlanders happy and ready to hand over their francs, Germany's propaganda machine roared full blast. Ex-Schoolmaster Josef Buerckel, recently appointed Governor of the Saar, informed German capitalists, already saddled with a major unemployment problem, that they owe it to the Fatherland to give jobs at once to the 40,000 Saar unemployed.

Fifteen thousand Nazis who have slaved for more than a year in the Saar were promised last week free cruises and other rest junkets by the Hitler movement called "Strength Through Joy." Over the air and in German papers appeared hospitable orders, "Invite a Saarlander to come and visit you! Give him free board and lodging. Make him happy!"

Two a Minute. Meanwhile French frontier guards were said to be admitting Saar Jews and other Saarlanders who fear Nazidom at a rate of one every 30 seconds. Most refugees told tales of terrorism which could not be checked. As soon as the plebiscite result was known, Saar Nazis rushed to non-Nazi Saar newsorgans, hung crepe upon the doors. Even the staffs of 100% Catholic papers fled pellmell. Most Saar police at once went Nazi, strove to keep their jobs by peaching on fellow policemen whom they claimed were non-Nazi. Of 120 police under suspicion about 30 were collared, seemed destined for Nazi concentration camps. Finally no check on Nazi terrorism was possible last week because the League's Saar Governing Commission dared not respond to incessant appeals for protection by ordering out the international plebiscite army of Britons, Italians, Netherlander and Swedes. Shrugged an Italian soldier: "Unless I get orders from Geneva, I just don't see people beaten up in the streets."

Abroad irony was the refuge of displeased statesmen. Smiled Soviet Foreign Commissar Maxim Maximovich Litvinov: "A majority of the Saar population have told us that they wish to be German and to share in every respect the fate of their countrymen." On the theory that the Saar plebiscite proves the nature of Germans, French Premier Pierre Etienne Flandin purred, "A precious experience, most precious."

In Eupen and Malmedy, the two little cantons taken from Germany and given irrevocably to Belgium by the Treaty of Versailles, local Nazis last week stuck up poster slogans "GERMANY, DON'T FORGET US!" until arrested by local police. Toy balloons bearing similar slogans were released by hundreds when the wind was blowing toward Germany.

The Government of Lithuania, observing that German machine-gun corps had mobilized with a possible intent to seize Memel (ceded by Germany at Versailles), ordered counter mobilization, reported "All quiet."

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