Isolation

Without spending a cent of the vast propaganda funds demanded in the new French budget, France last week was in the most favorable international position she has held since the War.

France's new popularity was a present from Adolf Hitler. Hitlerism fed and grew fat on defeated Germany's monumental inferiority complex. What Handsome Adolf failed completely to realize was that the antiSemitism, the ranting speeches, the promises of ancient military glory that were winning him votes and power at home were isolating his country from the world and ruining her foreign trade.

In a crude effort to improve world opinion Chancellor Hitler last week sent out two "goodwill" envoys. To Britain young Dr. Alfred Rosenberg, who bears the curious title of Chief of the Foreign Politics Division of the Nazi Party. To Scandinavia one Alexander Bogs. Neither was a trained diplomat, both were more used to roaring at Brownshirt crowds than dealing with urbane, stable governments. If Chancellor Hitler was unskilled in the choice of his envoys, he was even more unfortunate in choosing the time for sending them out.

In Geneva the Nazi delegate to the Disarmament Conference, Rudolf Nadolnv, locked horns with French and British delegates on the question of Germany's right to rearm, and whether or not to count the Stahlhelm and Nazi Storm Troopers among the effectives of the German army. Italy, long a German ally in disarmament squabbles, suddenly sided with her War-time allies by announcing that for her part she was willing to have her Blackshirts numbered with her regular army.

In this atmosphere, sad-eyed young Dr. Rosenberg arrived in London, utterly ignorant of the extent of anti-Nazi sentiment in Britain. British newspapers welcomed him with the reminder that in Germany he is known as Der Judefresser ("The Jew Gobbler") and that he had once said:

"On every telegraph pole from Munich to Berlin the head of a prominent Jew must be stuck."

As a gesture, Nazi Rosenberg laid at Britain's cenotaph to her War dead a wreath marked with a swastika and bound with the imperial colors. Hardly was his back turned than some one snipped off the swastika. Shortly thereafter one Captain J. E. Sears removed the wreath itself, was fined 40 shillings in police court. Claridge's Hotel, where Nazi Rosenberg was staying, was in constant turmoil with Communists demonstrating outside the door, mysterious strangers distributing leaflets in the lobby.

In Mme Tussaud's famed waxworks museum, three Communists splattered red paint all over a figure of Handsome Adolf and hung a sign round its neck: "Hitler the Mass Murderer." Arrested, they sat quietly in police court, then jumped to their feet and bawled in unison: "DOWN WITH HITLER! DOWN WITH FASCISM!" Six policemen tackled them at once and wrestled all over the floor.

First important call of Jew-Gobbler Rosenberg was on Foreign Secretary Sir John Simon. Exactly what passed, Britain did not learn last week, but the Daily Herald, frequently better informed than other London newspapers through tips from Laborite M. P.'s, announced that Dr. Rosenberg "ruined his chances at the outset" by declaring Germany's definite intention to fight for the manufacture of heavy guns, tanks, airplanes. Sir John is reported to have said that no support for German schemes could be expected from British public opinion. In the House, where all could quote him, Sir John announced crisply: "I have informed Chancellor Hitler's Ambassador frankly and fully of British feeling toward the Nazi regime."

In the House of Commons white-whiskered old George Lansbury, leader of the Opposition, demanded:

"Why should Fascist agitators and propagandists be allowed the free run of London when you won't allow a Communist in?"

Said Home Secretary Sir John Gilmour:

"If anything is done contrary to the interests of this country I will give him his marching orders."

The only thing that Der Judenfresser could think of was to summon 100 British reporters to his room and lecture them in German for half an hour, without providing an interpreter.

The most important reaction came from Britain's Minister of War, round-faced Douglas McGarel Hogg, Baron Hailsham. As firm a Tory as Winston Churchill, whom he slightly resembles, Lord Hailsham, former Lord Chancellor of Britain, said:

"The powers will be faced with the gravest condition if Germany leaves the Geneva conference for the second time. ... I think--and I am speaking without consultation with my colleagues--that the juridical result of this would be that Germany would be bound by the Treaty of Versailles, and an attempt to arm would be a breach of the Treaty. This would bring into operation the sanctions which the Treaty provides."

Goodwill Delegate Rosenberg suddenly left for Berlin. In Stockholm his colleague Alexander Bogs exclaimed: "We sent a gentleman to London who was treated like a churl. It was a real tragedy."

Sanctions. Did this mean that France and Britain might exercise their rights under the Treaty and send troops to the Rhine bridgeheads again? Would President Roosevelt be expected to send another expeditionary force to Coblenz? Apparently not. Secretary of State Hull hastened to remind the U. S. Press that the U. S. had never signed the Treaty of Versailles, was no party to its provisions. France, satisfied with having won the British Government to its point of view, eschewed talk of reoccupation, said that the only "sanctions" that could be applied would be an economic blockade of Germany under the League of Nations-- harder to enforce than Prohibition.

Arms Dossier. France did have one more weapon to spur public opinion against isolated Germany: the famed secret dossier on hidden munitions and secret arming in Germany. All last week the French Press echoed with threats to publish this document which has cropped up before in bitter League disputes. Neutral observers doubted that it would be published. The document does exist. It is extremely detailed, but France cannot publish its full text without giving German authorities important tips on the how & who of France's military espionage. True in the main, there are also enough Gallic exaggerations and inaccuracies in it to help Germany deny it in toto.

Speeches. Faced by a hostile world, what would Germany do next? No help to the international situation was Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen who went to Muenster over the week-end and announced:

"The world will agree that for only a brief period can a great nation be robbed by material means of the vital rights which under the divine law of things belong to it. ... From Pacifism has sprung a nonfighting aspect on life. Pacifists wrote of one who died on the field of honor as if he died an unnatural death. The battlefield is for a man what motherhood is for a woman!" Seriously worried, Adolf Hitler summoned his puppet Reichstag to hear a great speech on Germany's foreign situation. Should he back down on rearmament he would lose face in Germany. Should he continue to roar he would draw the European ring tighter around him. Closer together than they had been since the War. hoping Hitler would not move brashly toward another war, France, Brit- ain and Italy waited.

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