NATIONAL AFFAIRS

The President Preface of War

The telephone in Franklin Roosevelt's bedroom at the White House rang at 2:50 a. m. on the first day of September. It was a ghastly hour, but operators knew they must ring. Ambassador Bill Bullitt was calling from Paris. He told Mr. Roosevelt that World War II had begun. Adolf Hitler's bombing planes were dropping death all over Poland.

That day Franklin Roosevelt's press conference was a grave business. One question was uppermost in all mind's. Correspondent Phelps Adams of the New York Sun uttered it: "Mr. President, can we stay out of it?" Franklin Roosevelt sat in silent concentration, eyes down, for many long seconds. Then, with utmost solemnity, he replied: "I not only sincerely hope so, but I believe we can."

No person in the room doubted Franklin Roosevelt's sincerity, but neither was anyone in the slightest doubt as to where lay the sympathy, the potent human partisanship, of this President of the United States. He was against Germany, against the aggressor, against totalitarianism, against Adolf Hitler the dictator and Adolf Hitler the man perhaps mad.

POLISH THEATRE Grey Friday

World War II began last week at 5:20 a. m. (Polish time) Friday, September 1, when a German bombing plane dropped a projectile on Puck, fishing village and air base in the armpit of the Hel Peninsula. At 5:45 a. m. the German training ship Schleswig-Holstein lying off Danzig fired what was believed to be the first shell: a direct hit on the Polish underground ammunition dump at Westerplatte. It was a grey day, with gentle rain.

In the War's first five days, hundreds of Nazi bombing planes dumped ton after ton of explosive on every city of any importance the length & breadth of Poland. They aimed at air bases, fortifications, bridges, railroad lines and stations, but in the process they killed upward of 1,500 noncombatants. The Nazi ships were mostly big Heinkels, unaccompanied by pursuit escorts. Germany admitted losing 21 planes to Polish counterattack by pursuits and antiaircraft.

The broad outlines of Germany's assault began to take shape. Recapture of what was Germany in 1914 was the first objective: Danzig, the Corridor, and a hump of Upper Silesia. It is believed that Adolf Hitler, if allowed to take this much, might have checked his juggernaut at these lines. When Britain & France insisted that he withdraw entirely from Polish soil, he determined on the complete subjugation of Poland.

GERMANY Hitler's Decision

All week sombre-faced Germans filed past the huge new building that Adolf Hitler built as a symbol of Germany's might. It was a housepainter's dream of a Reichschancellery, nearly a quarter-mile long, with marble chambers and vast, tapestry-hung halls and an immense study in which a man might feel alone with his destiny. For the seven most momentous days of Europe's modern history Adolf Hitler did not leave this building.

Alone in spirit, the man whose word meant peace or war pondered his decision. He slept little, ate little, spoke little. He rose promptly at seven o'clock each morning, put on his brown uniform, breakfasted on fruit, zwieback and a glass of milk. Throughout the day he conferred endlessly, stopping for 20-minute meals of vegetables, bread-&-butter and his special 1% beer. For half an hour in the morning, and again in the afternoon, he strolled through the Chancellery gardens, usually with Goring, Hess or von Ribbentrop. Until far into the night he talked with these confidants, leaving them for bed at four or five in the morning. Whenever a decision was needed, he went off to brood alone.

Thursday night the strange man whom no one understood sat alone in his study, a portrait of Bismarck looking down at him from the opposite wall. Outside, his lieutenants waited. Berlin grew sleepy, went to bed. Before the Chancellery two stiff sentries stood mute. The night wore on; milk wagons began to rattle through the streets. Through the long French windows leading from the study into the Chancellery garden blew an early morning breeze. Adolf Hitler picked up a pen. At 5:11 o'clock in the morning of Sept. 1 Germany was at war.

Slaves

The platform of the railroad station of Lublin, in German Poland, teemed. On it stood a forlorn, broken spirited crowd of Jews who moved only when shoved. They were utterly destitute. All they had for baggage was here a knapsack, there a handbag, sometimes just a cloth bundle. Gradually the Jews were herded from the station and put to work twelve hours a day.

Lublin was recently chosen by Adolf Hitler as the site of his long-planned Jew-sump. By next April 1, according to a German government decree, 650,000 Jews must be evacuated to Lublin or other "reservations" like it. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.