Germany to the Rescue

When Alfonso XIII was King of Spain his summer capital was Santander, an old fishing port that had become Spain's most fashionable resort, with broad, shaded streets and quiet parks and a fresh, clean smell that blew in from the Bay of Biscay. Spain's best bulls and matadores appeared in Santander when the King was there; on hot summer afternoons Alfonso, no aficionado, used to go to the bullfights because it was expected of him, watching with that indifference to pain which is a part of the heritage of all Spaniards. Last week Alfonso was dying in exquisite pain from angina pectoris in Rome, and Santander was swept by a disaster as great as the Civil War brought to any Spanish city.

Across Portugal and northwestern Spain blew a violent hurricane. In Lisbon's harbor it smashed ships, fishing vessels and a British flying boat, sank a Portuguese warship. Near Zumaya it blew a train off a trestle. In the harbor of Santander an oil tanker exploded, pitched against a dock; fire spread from the dock to the city. Fanned by the wind, the flames cut a swath across Santander, destroyed the custom house, the Bank of Spain in the heart of the city, the 13th Century Gothic cathedral and hundreds of houses. Before the fire was put out 30,000 people were homeless and an epidemic threatened.

Martial law was declared in Santander and Spanish relief agencies said they had the situation in hand. Foreign diplomats contributed to the relief fund. Italian Ambassador Francesco Lequio gave 10,000 pesetas in the name of Benito Mussolini, "always a friend of Spain." U. S. Ambassador Alexander W. Weddell's wife gave 10,000 pesetas, Rumania's onetime King Carol 3,000, German Ambassador Dr. Eberhard von Stohrer a "generous contribution." British Ambassador Sir Samuel Hoare announced that two ships laden with grain for Britain would be diverted to Santander. Everybody wanted to do something neighborly for politically strategic Spain.

Dr. von Stohrer had an even better idea, which came to him from Berlin. He called on Foreign Minister Ramon Serrano Suner and offered the services of German Army units stationed in occupied France. Don Ramon accepted gratefully. German officers hurried to Santander by train and a motorized column rumbled across the bridge at Hendaye. With the column were 500 technicians, engineering and hospital equipment, enough field kitchens to feed 30,000 persons.

London and Washington promptly got the wind up, fearing a double cross by Generalissimo Francisco Franco, who had tacitly promised his country's neutrality in exchange for food. The Generalissimo himself was worried, none too sure at what point the German benefactors would stop. He called a meeting of his Cabinet to consider his Foreign Minister's impetuous step. Since there are already some 55,000 German "technicians" in Spain, last week's mercy invasion was not in itself anything to get excited about. It was probably a German effort to store up some good will against the time when it will be needed to close Gibraltar.

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