"Superman!"

In Geneva last week a thick-spectacled Turk, near-sighted Foreign Minister Dr. Tewfik Rushdi, presided over the Council of the League of Nations. Absent but up for scrutiny was Germany.

If a single Council member, even remote Chile or puny Denmark which is almost under Adolf Hitler's thumb, could be found to approve Germany's rearmament in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, then the Council could not so much as rebuke Germany, for the Council can act only by unanimity.

To help Councilmen make up their minds, Maxim Maximovich Litvinoff, roly-poly Soviet Foreign Minister, made the speech he would have made at Stresa had Russia been invited to that Conference (TIME, April 22).

"What is to be done," asked Russia's Litvinoff, "if a State demanding or seizing the right to armament is ruled by people who have announced to the whole world a foreign program consisting not only of a policy of revenge but also of unlimited conquest of foreign territory and destruction of the independence of entire States --people who, having publicly announced such a program, far from repudiating it, continuously circulate it and bring up their country in this spirit? . . .

"We would be happy to discuss this question in the presence of and with the participation of representatives of the State concerned. We would be happy to have from that State an official declaration of its repudiation of a program of revenge and conquest and of its readiness to collaborate with us in a collective guarantee of the security of all States, including itself, and in common effective guarantees for non-violation of the peace of the world.

"These are unfortunately thus far impracticable hopes, and we are bound to draw appropriate conclusions from this fact."

Many another Councilman spoke, Britain's judicial Sir John Simon, France's forthright peasant-tongued Pierre Laval, Spain's verbose and lyric Salvador de Madariaga, but they all added up to the same verdict. Even rawboned Danish Foreign Minister Dr. Peter Munch had no good to say of his country's huge Nazi neighbor. He merely said that he knew everyone would understand why Denmark "could not'' (i. e. dared not) vote against Germany and must abstain.

Present as the only friend of the accused was Poland's towering knobby-knuckled Foreign Minister Josef Beck who steered Poland into her ten-year non-aggression pact with Germany (TIME, Feb. 3, 1934). Last week the German Press was so hopeful that Poland would deadlock the Council that even when Nazis in the Polish Corridor were mobbed and beaten by irate Poles no newspaper in Germany was allowed to print the fact. At Geneva cool Colonel Beck at the last minute cast Poland's vote with that of all Council members except abstaining Denmark to approve two measures:

1) The League formally arraigned Germany for an offense against the sanctity of treaties in rearming in violation of Part V of the Versailles Treaty.

2) The Council set up a special com-mission which will endeavor to obtain quick, concerted action should Germany still further violate the Versailles Treaty, for example, by building a navy as big as the one Realmleader Hitler told Sir John Simon he is going to build, or should Germany seize one of her former colonies, or fortify the Demilitarized Zone of the German Rhineland.*

Nazidom's reaction to the judgment of the League was to invoke the Biblical injunction "Judge not!" Postulated an official spokesman for the German Foreign Office, "They had no right to judge Germany, no right!" Adolf Hitler, who was vacationing in his Bavarian snuggery, telephoned orders that Foreign Office Undersecretary von Billow, nephew of the late Chancellor, was to call on British Ambassador Sir Eric Phipps and administer the strongest possible verbal rebuke. This was done. Meanwhile the Realmleader's personal newsorgan announced, "Geneva has become the platform for world Bolshevism!"

Flying to Berlin for his 46th birthday Herr Hitler dictated this note to the 13 countries which joined in the League Council's censure vote last week: "The German Government sees in the deliberations of the Council of the League of Nations an attempt at new discriminations against Germany and consequently rejects it in the most resolute manner. . . ."

This sounded well in the German record, but throughout the Fatherland a gripping sense of fear began to preoccupy the German people. The Geneva verdict (even when interpreted as "Bolshevism") made them realize how few friends they have. Even Portugal had voted against Germany, even Mexico.

Sensing the popular fear, Minister of Propaganda Dr. Paul Josef Goebbels leaped to the microphone and over a nationwide hookup told 65,000,000 Germans that "the entire Nation loves Hitler because it feels in his hands like a child in its mother's arms!

"He is the best-trained military expert --better than a general! He knows each gun and machine gun better than a specialist. . . . He is a master of diplomacy. He is a superman!"

*The French Intelligence Service, which ascertained the precise details of German rearmament months before they were admitted by Hitler & Goring, last week reported with like precision of detail that German militarization of the Demilitarized Zone is now well under way, specifically at Coblenz and other "bridge heads" occupied after the War by U. S. troops.

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