Blow for Blow

After guiding the U. S. Embassy in Berlin forcefully through a period too hot for an Ambassador,* urbane Charge d'Affaires George Gordon summed up his impression of the German people and their leaders: "Ever since they lost the War on the field of battle they have been trying to cry their way to Victory. Whatever happens they are the injured party. It often works." Last week this judgment of experience was again confirmed when howls of German grief went up at the release in London by Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald of a mild White Paper in which the United States, the Soviet Union, the Japanese Empire and the German Reich were cited as engaged in strengthening their armed forces. The conclusion drawn by His Majesty's Government was that Britain must proceed to strengthen hers. Neither U. S. citizens, Russians nor Japanese howled.

Since Germany is the only land from which the British public have even the remotest fear of immediate attack, the White Paper referred to Deutschland at some length: "The British Government have noted and welcomed the declarations of leaders in Germany that they desire peace. We cannot, however, fail to recognize that not only their forces, but the spirit in which the population, especially the youth, of their, country are being organized lend color to and substantiate the general feeling which has already been incontestably generated. . . . [German] rearmament, if continued at the present rate, unabated and uncontrolled, will aggravate the existing anxieties of Germany's neighbors and may consequently produce a situation where peace will be in peril."

"Slight Cold." No sooner was a summary of this White Paper prepared for the Realmleader by Germans able to read English than Herr Hitler in high state of excitement called for Dr. Alfred Rosenberg, not his physician but the editor of his personal newsorgan, Der Volklscher Beobachter ("The People's Observer").

Studying the White Paper they decided that some kind of English insult was evidently being offered to Germany prior to the arrival in Berlin of British Foreign Secretary Sir John Simon at the Realm-leader's pressing invitation (TIME, March 11). Nazi honor, they saw, must be satisfied by offering insult for insult. Soon an urgent cable informed Sir John Simon that his visit must be canceled "due to a slight cold with great hoarseness" contracted by Der Reichsfuehrer. The German cancellation carried no expression of regret, no invitation for a later date. To rub in this diplomatic insult Adolf Hitler, who last month opened Berlin's Motor Show (TIME, Feb. 25), revisited its twelve acres of booths last week, talked loudly if hoarsely with his entourage and neither coughed nor sneezed. At the Foreign Office correspondents were told, "The White Paper was a blow to us, and we have given the British blow for blow!" In Der Volklscher Beobachter, Dr. Rosenberg took the line that Herr Hitler had put something over on His Majesty's Government.

English Mirth. Specialists at putting Europe's upstarts neatly in their places are the unruffled, uninsultable civil servants of the British Foreign Office. They knew exactly how to cure Herr Hitler's cold, and it never occurred to them to return crude blow for blow. In the House of Commons a quiet remark by Sir John Simon that Hitler was "suffering from the cold he caught in the Saar," evoked hearty English mirth, painful when reported to inferiority-complexed Nazis. Next Sir John let it be known that Etonianly elegant Lord Privy Seal Anthony Eden would pass Berlin by en route to confer with the Government of Poland and the Government of Russia.

Germany's worst enemies could ask no more than that Captain Anthony Eden, who prefers to be called Mr. Eden, should detach Poles from their ten-year pact with Germany (TIME, Feb. 18 ), or give aid and comfort to Nazidom's avowed and bitter foe, the Soviet Union.

In Berlin Adolf Hitler's cold began to look like no stroke of genius at all. Soon German Foreign Minister Baron Constantin von Neurath was explaining to British Ambassador Sir Eric Phipps that in ten days Adolf Hitler would be delighted to receive Sir John Simon, would surely have no cold. As an odd Hitler gesture of appeasement, the Realmleader promised to prepare for Sir John's visit by the ritual of several days of meditation among the Bavarian Alps "breathing their pure, inspiring German air."

In London meanwhile the House of Commons opened full dress debate on the White Paper.

*Approached by Jewish contributors to his campaign fund who aspired to be made diplomats, President Roosevelt neatly disposed of several by offering them the Berlin Embassy, later discovered that no rich U. S. citizen would take it, finally had to appeal to the self-sacrificing patriotism of a poor pedagog, Ambassador Professor Dodd to whom Berlin is today an interesting purgatory (TIME, June 19, 1933).

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