"What Will Mr. Stalin Say?"

Leaving Paris for Germany last week was tall, well-built, 21-year-old Grand Duke Vladimir, who two months ago inherited through the death of his father, Grand Duke Cyril, the title of pretender to the extinct Russian throne. Ostensibly "Tsar" Vladimir was going to Germany to visit his sister, the Grand Duchess Kira, wife of former Kaiser Wilhelm's grandson, Prince Louis Ferdinand, remembered in the U. S. chiefly as a onetime Ford automobile factory worker. Actually, bigger things than a mere family reunion were in the air.

Meeting the Grand Duke in Paris were many of his White Russian "subjects"--generals now turned taxi drivers, counts reduced to waiting on tables, colonels who have become doormen. In a rented hall "His Majesty Vladimir II, Tsar of All the Russias," held "court," his subjects kneeling in obeisance as he proceeded slowly down an aisle to the tune of God Save the Tsar, the old Russia imperial anthem. Reported preparing to meet the acknowledged head of the Russian Imperial House in Germany, however, was a powerful, potential ally, a sworn enemy of the Communist Russia that must be overturned before the Romanovs can again rule. He was Fuehrer Adolf Hitler.

No lover of crowns, Fuehrer Hitler would nevertheless not be averse to using any sentiment that exists for a Romanov restoration in Russia to further his own ambitions for an "independent," German-dominated Ukraine. A Romanov trek back to St. Petersburg (now Leningrad) is probably outside the realm of possibility, but a substitute throne at Kiev, capital of the Soviet Ukraine, might well be "Tsar" Vladimir's if he plays ball with Fuehrer Hitler, and if Nazi plans work on schedule.

That Nazi plans have been carefully worked out was evident last week when the German press speculated on the possibilities of a brand-new nation of 45,000,000 inhabitants springing out of eastern Europe, and printed a map of future "Great Ukraine." Most of the new State would be carved out of the Soviet Union, where 30,000,000 Ukrainians live under the rule of Dictator Joseph Stalin, but a sizable chunk would also come out of Poland (3,200,000 Ukrainians) and a generous slice out of Rumania (800,000 Ukrainians).

The acorn from which the Ukrainian oak is expected to grow is the autonomous district of Ruthenia, eastern tip of the German-dominated remainder of Czechoslovakia. Poland tried to coax Hungary into grabbing Ruthenia last month, but Germany effectively vetoed the idea. The 725,000 Ruthenians differ only slightly from Ukrainians in dialect and religion.

In Chust, Ruthenia's capital, a German mission arrived recently to form a "Ukrainian Free Corps" on the order of the Austrian Free Corps before Fuhrer Hitler absorbed Austria, and the Sudeten Free Corps before the Sudetenland was "freed." The corps's job will doubtless be 1) to undermine the civil authority of Poland, Rumania and the Soviet Union in Ukrainian districts, 2) to work up a separatist movement, 3) to create incidents which will eventually make "necessary" Ruthenia's--i.e., Nazi Germany's--intervention to restore "law and order," and liberate Ukrainian kinsfolk.

Meanwhile, all "stateless" Ukrainians in Germany were asked to register at a recently opened Ukrainian "confidential office." The number of Ukrainian broadcasts from German stations increased and throughout Ukrainian districts appeared new radio sets ostensibly supplied by Nazi agents. Ukrainian deputies to the Polish Parliament dared to ask for "self-government" for their districts.

The granary of Russia, the Ukraine has long attracted Adolf Hitler as the best potential bread-supplier to the Nazi Fatherland. The Ukrainian masses have also long rebelled against "foreign" rule. They do not like Dictator Stalin, King Carol II of Rumania or their Polish masters. Because they were under German domination for only the eight closing months of the World War, Nazis hope that they prefer German tutelage as the least of evils.

Adolf Hitler's Ukrainian "liberation movement" might find easy conquests in Poland and Rumania, but undoubtedly it will have tough going in Russia. Not only has Dictator Stalin a better army than Poland or Rumania, but long ago he took pains to silence if not kill all Ukrainians inclined to demand "extra rights." As one of "Tsar" Vladimir's entourage last week pungently expressed it: "This is all very well, but what will Mr. Stalin say?"

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