Hell Memel!

Heil Memel!

In the semi-autonomous district of Memel, Lithuania, last week, the greeting everywhere was "Heil!" Uniformed storm troopers marched through the streets. Banners proclaiming the familiar One People, One Reich, One Will stretched across buildings. The only Nazi trappings missing were pictures of Adolf Hitler and swastikas. Lithuanian State police moved out. Lithuanian troops kept strictly to their barracks and the Lithuanian Governor, his decrees defied, resigned to be replaced by another who refrained from issuing orders.

Memel technically went to the polls to elect deputies to its new Diet, but actually the German majority there was holding a plebiscite to return to the Reich. As in regular German elections, the opposition did not dare to campaign. The United Memel German Party won easily, claiming at least 26 of the 29 Diet seats. Said 50-year-old Horse Doctor Ernst Neumann, Fuehrer of the Memel Germans: "We are still Lithuanian State citizens in name, but inwardly we no longer have any connection with Lithuania." Adolf Hitler did not think that last week was a propitious time to take over Memel.

As for Lithuania, her statesmen feverishly tried to make friends with the Reich to save what pieces there were left to save. Memel, a district of 1.099 square miles on the Baltic, formerly part of East Prussia, was detached from Germany by the Treaty of Versailles, was taken by Lithuania in 1923. The port of Memel, with 38.545 inhabitants, contains iron foundries, ship-building yards, breweries, chemical plants. Because it is the country's only developed outlet to the sea, its formal appropriation by Germany would be almost irreparable to Lithuania. But Lithuania had some friends left, however ineffective. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain told the House of Commons that the French and British Embassies in Berlin had been instructed to express the official hope that the German Government "will use its influence to insure respect" for the 1924 Memel Statute finally giving the district to Lithuania.

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