Von Papen Draws Tears

The President of the Assembly of the League of Nations. Dr. Eduard Benes, perpetual Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia, took in his stride last week the fact that Austrian police had just confiscated an edition of his personal newsorgan, the Prager Presse.

Dr. Benes enjoys the particular friendship of new British Foreign Minister Sir Samuel Hoare and his newsorgan picked up in London a story peculiarly embarrassing to Austria's extremely pious Chancellor Dr. Kurt Schuschnigg who simply could not let Austrians read it lest he become a national laughing stock.

The story: Socialite Lieut.-Colonel Franz von Papen, onetime German Chancellor and now Minister to Austria, recently prepared a list of Austrian Nazis "who would be acceptable to Realmleader Hitler as the Cabinet of Austria." Such an act was irregular in the extreme, since Nazis and their movement are outlawed in Austria. But von Papen had his orders from Berlin and Adolf Hitler is Austrian-born. Armed with this list, top-hatted, tail-coated Diplomat von Papen arrived at Austria's famed Ballhaus ("White House"), heavy with historic memories of Metternich and the Congress of Vienna. Very small in the big rooms looked Dr. Schuschnigg. With brutal directness the German Minister said that he "advised" the Schuschnigg Cabinet to resign and appoint as their successors the Nazi Cabinet slate approved by Herr Hitler. At this, so ran the story Dr. Benes' personal news-organ had from London, the Austrian Chancellor burst into tears, sobbing hysterically as the German Minister impatiently stalked out.

Since Dr. Schuschnigg has been kept in power solely by the support of Italy, France and Britain, the story seemed plausible to such Austrians as managed to read it before police snatched all copies of Dr. Benes' paper off Vienna newsstands. For nearly three years Austrian statesmen have been so sure that Austrians would go Nazi if permitted to vote that the Austrian Government has suppressed all democratic suffrage, constituted what pious Chancellor Schuschnigg likes to think of as a Christian Dictatorship.

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