The Sea & The Sun

Berlin newsorgans picked out with bold-face type last week certain phrases in a speech by Nazi Wilhelm Kube. Provincial Governor of Berlin & Brandenburg, which sounded like a hint that pudgy little Chancellor Adolf Hitler could easily be persuaded to accept a crown.

Cheered by 12,000 brownshirts in Berlin's vast Sportspalast, Governor Kube shouted: "Through the person of Adolf Hitler--whose mission is divine--every German has become more self-confident and valuable. It is wrong to speak in the plural of Nazi leaders. Our Nazi movement is monarchistic and knows only one leader--Adolf Hitler!"

Three days later Chancellor Hitler's personal newspaper, Der Volkischer Beobachter, sounded a German call to Empire worthy of rash Kaiser Wilhelm II. "The great events that expand the scope of history," said the Chancellor's organ, "take place upon the sea. It is the sea that creates world powers." Praising present-day German pocket battleships as superior to foreign fighting craft. Herr Hitler's paper cried: "We need not be anxious! . . . Today, modern naval tactics enable Germans, with their superior capacity for leadership, to escape the monotony of bombardment of the enemy fleet and to succeed with smaller means at their disposal than those which the enemy possesses.

"Germany has never abandoned her claim to be an ocean empire!"

Germany's empire beyond the seas--her colonies--was taken from her by the Treaty of Versailles, parcelled out in League mandates held by the victorious Allies. In London last week delegates to the World Monetary and Economic Conference were flabbergasted when German Delegate Dr. Alfred Hugenberg. Minister of Economics & Food in the Hitler Cabinet, reaffirmed Germany's pre-War claim to colonies and a "place in the sun."

Dr. Hugenberg, No. 1 German cinema & press tycoon, said: "We Germans are the poor devils and have nothing more to lose. From the German viewpoint wise and peaceful co-operation between debtor and creditor countries might include two large-minded measures whereby Germany's capacity to make international payments might be increased. One of these steps would be to give Germany again colonial domain in Africa, which might be used by her as a basis for . . . great works and construction. . . .

"The second measure would be to open up to Germans--that 'people without room'--territories for the settlement of their active race and for the construction of great works of peace."

At the German Foreign Office correspondents were told that while Dr. Hugenberg's speech "cannot be regarded as stating the official position of the German Government," nevertheless; it "sets forth fundamental considerations which undoubtedly will figure in the coming negotiations."

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