Raid & Renunciation

A dictator who does everything with a flourish and is quite apt to do two opposite things at once is Poland's gruff temperamental, walrus-whiskered Marshal Josef Pilsudski. On the same day last week the Polish Government made historic peace overtures to Adolf Hitler-whom most Poles hate and fear-and staged with real tear-gas bombs a sensational sham air raid on Warsaw, a capital to whose citizens "air raid" means a German air raid.

HRANAHEE! A pandemonium of sirens, alarm bells and whistles brought all Warsaw business to a stop, just before Chancellor Hitler received in Berlin the new Polish "Goodwill Minister," suave M. Jozef Lipski. WHAM! Enemy planes scored direct hits on Warsaw's main railway station with confetti bombs as station employes touched off cannon crackers and released a flock of pigeons. Clang! Clang! Fire engines dashed through Warsaw to pretend to put out fires which blazed on the roofs struck by confetti bombs. The crackling, roaring flames were real but they belched from flame pots always under control.

To "save" Warsaw, zealous Polish defenders released clouds of artificial fog, supposed to blind the enemy planes. Citizens, who had been warned day before to reinforce the windows of their homes and offices with paper strips, were sternly warned to stay indoors "in case of gas attack." The attack came, though it was only tear gas and only a few unwary citizens were caught in the streets, promptly to be rescued by Red Cross volunteers wearing gas masks. Warsaw, a city of 1,200,000, was paralyzed by the sham raid for seven hours. That night the Government shut off all electric current to remind Warsawites that their central power station was supposed to have been destroyed.

"There were no casualties at all!" boasted a proud official of the War Ministry. "Now in our raid in Vilna several people were injured by large bags of straw dropped by the somewhat over-zealous attacking forces."

Morning after, weary Warsawites read in their papers that while their capital was being "attacked" Herr Hitler and M. Lipski had had a most amicable conversation in Berlin. They kept off the subject of the Polish Corridor which Germany would like to have and Poland is resolved to keep. In purely general but significant terms they issued a communique which, while binding nobody, contained an oral non-aggression pledge. "Germany and Poland," they declared, "renounce any use of force in their mutual relations."

Always quarrelsome, Warsaw editors were instantly at each other's throats in interpreting the Lipski-Hitler communique. "It does not inspire even the most moderate optimism," gloomed the conservative Kurjer Warszawski. But the also conservative Gazeta Polska hailed it as "one of the most important events of the last 15 years, in view of the fact that Polish-German relations have been generally regarded as the tinder box of Europe."

Neutral observers recalled that Poland, which has always relied on France as her champion against Germany, has grown increasingly nervous since Britain, France, Germany and Italy signed Benito Mussolini's Four Power Pact (TIME, June 19). What if this "Big Four" should start negotiating secretly among themselves? What if they should evolve behind Poland's back their own solution of the Corridor Question and try to force it upon Poland "for the general good of Europe?''* In Paris the Lipski demand at Berlin was interpreted as a warning to France that Poland, too, can play, in case of dire necessity, the game of betraying an ally and making secretly the best terms she can with Germany. Promptly certain French and even British papers broke out in a rash of warnings to the Polish Government against falling into a German trap.

Le Petit Parisien splashed out what purported to be the text of a secret memorandum from German Minister of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels for the guidance of German diplomats. Excerpts: "Toward Poland the National Socialist Government of Germany has adopted for the moment a more conciliatory policy. Indeed, special efforts are being made to obtain in a different fashion the satisfaction of Germany's claims [to the Corridor]. It goes without saying that these claims have in no way been abandoned."

When fiery, club-footed Dr. Goebbels denied at Berlin the existence of any such memorandum signed by him, Editor Albert Jullien of Le Petit Parisien snorted, "Instead of denying the policy the German Government denies the existence of the document. ... It goes without saying that we consider this denial worthless and that we maintain in the most formal manner the absolute exactitude and complete authenticity of the document."

*British Prime Minister MacDonald is said to lean toward a solution which would: 1) give the present Polish Corridor to the Reich, thus uniting Germany proper with East Prussia; 2) provide Poland with a new corridor to the sea around the eastern end of East Prussia-an arrangement which Poles violently oppose since they patriotically hold that their present access to the sea is not a mere "corridor" at all but the historically Polish province of Pomorze.

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