"The Very Last Minute"

"The Very Last Minute"

Stolid Germans, munching veal sandwiches and sugar-topped kuchen at Hamburg's airport last week, failed to recognize Edward of Wales as he landed from the 40-passenger British air liner Heracles. Escorted by bristling Luft Hansa officials, H. R. H. sauntered into the refreshment room, sat down among the munchers, nibbled his first meal in Germany since the War.

Many a German has less German blood than Britain's Edward. During the War patriotic letters to the London Times urged that "His Majesty King George V must be made King of Hanover, as his ancestors were before him!" Last week the Prussian Province of Hanover was not looking for a King. But in Berlin a highly successful revue, The Very Last Minute, was cut by the police, merely because Edward of Wales had landed in Hamburg 160 miles away.

In The Very Last Minute actors dressed as British tourists have been nightly "shown around the world," have boasted at sight of each new marvel that something better of the same kind exists in the United Kingdom. On reaching Venice the guide exclaimed. "How fairylike is this Venetian night!" Whereat a Briton stoutly boasted, "The Prince of Wales is even more so!"

Berliners had guffawed for a week at this slander. His presence in Germany apparently aroused Berlin Schupos (police) to order it cut out of The Very Last Minute. Meanwhile slandered Edward, who had paused for only an hour in Hamburg, was winging toward Copenhagen, escorted by four squadrons of Danish Air Force Planes. Ten thousand Danes roared a welcome as he landed at Kastrup, Copenhagen's airport, and was warmly greeted by Crown Prince Frederik, Prince Valdemar (the King of Denmark's uncle) and three of his sons, Prince Erik, Prince Viggo and Prince Axel. Exclaimed Britain's Edward, whose grandmother was Denmark's Alexandria: "Do you know it has been 20 years since I was in Denmark!"

In his favorite role of "Empire Salesman," H. R. H. then opened at Copenhagen the largest British fair ever held among Danes. From London Lord Beaverbrook's Daily Express, tireless champion of a tariff wall around the Empire, sniped at the Empire Salesman, charged flatly that his Danish trip is "ill advised."

It was also a Swedish trip. But did Edward of Wales go to Sweden looking for a bride? Swedish newspapers persisted in mentioning honey-haired Princess Ingrid, plump, Protestant and 22 (H. R. H. is 38).

That King George and Queen Mary have put their eldest son under heaviest pressure to marry, even doing over Marlborough House at a cost of many thousand pounds to receive the Empire's bride (TIME, Nov. 4, 1929), all England knows.

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