"Centre Of The World!"

The greatest show of human antics on earth takes place at Nuernberg, the grey-walled medieval city which up-to-date Nazis have made the busy world hub of antiSemitism. Annually it is swamped by some 1,500,000 Germans, bursting with health, who arrive in high good humor for their yearly emotional spree, the Parteitag. Announced as Adolf Hitler's "honor guests" this week in Nuernberg were 100 certified Jew-baiting Arabs brought especially from Palestine and Africa, and Frau Mathilde Ludendorff, widow of the great German Wartime strategist. Today she zealously crusades for her own unique doc trine: "The priests of Tibet are gradually conquering the world. Our German people must resist the temptations of these rulers of the Roof of the World whose aim is to make the Germans their slaves."

There is no evidence that Herr Hitler thinks Frau Ludendorff an eccentric and she thinks "Germany is Paradise." So does potent Dr. Robert Ley, leader of the Labor Front into which 20,500,000 Ger man workers have been mustered. Keynoted Orator Ley last week as 1,500,000 Nazis began heading toward the Parteitag: "If there is a Paradise, I feel sure it cannot be more beautiful than National Socialist Germany! . . . There are persons who preach to a snickering audience that: 'Faith moves Mountains.' This is said to have happened 2,000 years ago. Now National Socialism has moved a whole nation! . . . Our life is one of work and joy, and Germany is not a vale of tears." Getting down to cases and European fears last week of another world war (see p. 29), the Labor Front's Ley declared: "Cabinet councils in London and Paris realize that the Fuhrer does not leave anything to chance as Wilhelm II did. If in 1910, 1911 or 1912 the Kaiser had acted like Hitler and not let things slide, the Great War would never have come or Germany would have won it.

"Today we have once more the best and strongest army in the world. . . . Geneva no longer exists! . . . Germany is again the centre of the world." Nuernberg this week is again the centre of Germany. Each year the swarms of arriving Germans are solemnly given by the Nazi Party, for the better ordering of their emotions, a "Theme." In 1933 the first Parteitag Theme was VICTORY. Next year it was WILL, then FREEDOM, next HONOR and last year LABOR. This week the Theme for Herr Hitler, Frau Ludendorff and all other Germans is GROSSDEUTCHER REICH (Greater Germany).

In the city proper of Nuernberg (see map) are the Deutscher Hof (hotel of the Fuehrer), the Grand (hotel of the guests of the Fuhrer); ancient Nuernberg Castle, where most-friendly journalists are entertained; the Rathaus, where the Dictator was greeted as usual this week when he entered Nuernberg; and Adolf Hitler Square, the big marketplace back of the Liebfrauenkirche across which unending rivers of uniformed Germans were to march hour after hour past the Fuehrer.

The German character not only craves size, but loves neatness. The 1,500,000 Germans who rally at Nuernberg each year could not possibly be housed or hold their mass festivities in the town itself (normal pop. 450,000). As a result, in the past five years a titanic Parteitag Geldnde, or party grounds, has been in the process of construction, in what used to be Nuernberg's Luitpold Park (see map). The area is larger than that of the old walled town.

Not content with just one big stadium for outdoor shows and one big hall for indoor shows, the Nazis will have no less than five stadia and four halls--a place for everything--when they get through building in 1943. Not yet completed are the Exhibition Hall, the Kultur Hall, the Nazi Congress Hall, the March Field where an army corps will be able to maneuver, or the New Stadium for party sports. But Nazis do pretty well with what is already up.

Most of the visitors are sheltered in camps pitched within a ten-mile radius, the fun-spot being the semipermanent Kraft durch Freude (Strength through Joy) camp midway between the old town and the party grounds. Every night up to 100,000 Nazis who are to perform before the Fuhrer on the morrow are bedded in barracks at the Party Camp adjoining the broad Lake Dutzend and buildings. Pending the completion of super-colossal March Field, Adolf Hitler this week had to be content with the Zeppelin Meadow, holding 100,000 spectators. And pending the completion of the Nazi Congress Hall, world's largest (40,000 seats). Orator Hitler was to speak to 10,000 sitters and 20,000 standees in Luitpold Hall. Also on schedule was the annual early morning service for the Party dead in the Luitpold Arena, a Youth Rally in the Old Stadium. A Labor Service drill of 45,000. a search-lit demonstration of 110,000 political leaders and all-day war games would wear down the grass of the Zeppelin Meadow. Hitler writes but a henchman reads the Fuhrer's annual opening Proclamation at Nuernberg. Millions of Europeans hoped he would end the suspense over Czechoslovakia one way or the other by revealing his intentions in this proclamation. But Der Fuhrer had a whole week of speech-making to his Nazis before him. and the Proclamation only heightened the world's suspense by saying, with reference to Germany's self-sufficiency, "the idea of a blockade of Germany already may be abandoned as a totally ineffectual weapon.''

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