Kiss, Kick & Wheedle

Ensconced among the motto-stitched cushions of his rustic snuggery at Berchtesgaden, Adolf Hitler, ever since the close of the Olympic Games, has been receiving numbers of mysterious visitors. To judge from the opulence of their sharp-nosed Mercedes limousines, most of them were bigwigs of the Nazi Reich who are privileged to come & go without a word of their movements in the German Press. Last week everything was ready for Hitler & Co. to execute one of the complicated kiss-kick-and-wheedle Nazi plays which European statesmen find so difficult to deal with.

In Berlin one morning last week, brisk and rich little French Ambassador Andre Franc,ois-Poncet was invited to the Wilhelmstrasse, cordially received by large and wealthy German Foreign Minister Baron Constantin von Neurath, and handed a most welcome communication. This was Germany's formal adherence to the embargo prohibiting arms shipments to Spain (TIME, Aug. 17) which was originally proposed by the new French Cabinet of Socialist Premier Leon Blum, promptly accepted by Britain and belatedly agreed to fortnight ago by Italy. After a beaming exchange of compliments, the French Ambassador hurried off to flash the good news to his Government. Paris afternoon papers were the most friendly to Germany in months. In effect a kiss of diplomatic accord had been given by Aryan Hitler to Jew Blum, and that was news at which every lover of Peace rejoiced.

Evening editions of German papers brought the blow: Adolf Hitler had decreed that the term of conscripts in the German Army should be upped from one year to two, thus enlarging it from 600,000 to 800,000 at minimum estimate, and making every Frenchman gulp with alarm. It appeared to all European military experts that the German infantry machine was being put on a footing more powerful than the French for the first time since 1914. Amid the yelps of every Paris paper appeared such cold, professional judgments as this from General Auguste Edouard Hirschauer: "It is my opinion that bringing the conscription period up to two years enables Germany to begin a war without prior mobilization."

It was impossible for French Cabinet Ministers to vent their feelings publicly but M. Jean Fabry, recently War Minister, cried: "This super-armament of Germany means that we must totally reorganize our national defenses!" In fear of a Nazi onslaught, even the French Communists, traditional opponents of long-term conscription, urged that French youths be compelled to serve with the colors for three years.

In Berlin meanwhile officials close to Der Fuehrer were suavely reminding foreign diplomats that last month Joseph Stalin enlarged the Red Army from 1,300,000 to 1,600,000 men by lowering the age at which Soviet citizens are subject to compulsory military training from 21 to 19, thus adding two age classes to the Soviet Army machine. The corps diplomatique in Berlin was also asked to remember that last year the French conscript term was doubled from one year to two and that in fact two years is now the rule in most countries adjoining the Fatherland. To put things thus quietly and sensibly to the German people is not emotional Herr Hitler's way. His high-pressure Ministry of Propaganda & Public Enlightenment was turned on full blast last week to announce such absurdities as that Russia's army had been increased to 9,000,000 men. In a Goebbels frenzy the Nazi Press screamed with page-wide headlines that "under the curse of the Marxist terror Spain is today being converted into a desert!" and that Stalin's hordes are thirsting to make Germany a barren waste. Neutral correspondents noted that while joy was the German reaction last year when the Treaty of Versailles was torn up and the Fatherland given a one-year conscript Army (TIME, June 3, 1935), the two-year decree of last week sobered German faces as the people wondered if this latest move meant that their Realmleader has decided to lead them to war.

Kiss in the morning, kick in the afternoon, and the very next morning a gleaming German airliner alighted in Paris with the so-called "Economic Dictator" of the Reich, famed Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, Minister of Economics and Reichsbank President, in his most honeyed and wheedling mood. Dr. Schacht can be one of the sharpest, most cutting and ruthless men in Europe, but he was all smiles as he stepped from what might just as well have been a Nazi bomber and said with irony: "Well, well, Messieurs! I have come from Berlin in only five hours. You see we are very near each other after all!"

What followed put a terrific strain on the Popular Front coalition which supports the Blum Cabinet. Scarcely could French Communists believe their ears when they heard that Premier Blum, not only a Jew but also a Socialist, had greeted with every mark of courteous amity the first German Cabinet minister to go to Paris since the Nazis came to power in Berlin. As for Dr. Schacht, he seemed to have permission from Realmleader Hitler to forget for the duration of his Paris visit everything Germans have been told to remember about Jews and Marxists. After lunching at the Bank of France with the Premier, Finance Minis ter Vincent Auriol and other French Cabinet members, Dr. Schacht purred: "Both in general and in technical discussions, I got the impression of having to deal with intelligent and capable men of good faith. I am eminently satisfied! How could one help being satisfied when one has just talked with a man like Blum? I am very happy with the results of my trip."

There was no announcement of what these results were but there were suggestive leaks: 1) Dr. Schacht was said to have carried a personal message from Chancellor Hitler bidding Premier Blum not to consider the enlarged German Army as directed against France and wheedling for a weakening of Franco-Soviet ties. 2) In the air was a German offer of non-aggression against France for 25 years if France would agree not to interfere while the Nazis wade into Russia and smash the Bolsheviks. 3) As usual Dr. Schacht talked about "aligning" the currencies of the world in a stabilization agreement and about improving Franco-German trade through perfected clearing agreements. A net impression prevailed that the most important and possibly the only concrete result of Dr. Schacht's flying visit--nominally a mere return call upon new Governor Labeyrie of the Bank of France who recently called on him in Berlin--was to "break the ice" between Paris and Berlin, two regimes which have seldom had quite so little in common as they have today.

To bull-throated French Communist Party Leader Maurice Thorez the whole incident surpassed the powers of invective speech. He sat down and wrote a half-moaning, half-scorching letter to Premier Blum protesting that Governor Labeyrie's first visit was to Berlin "instead of London," protesting last week's Bank of France luncheon to Dr. Schacht, protesting Adolf Hitler's conscript decree, and winding up with a protest that Premier Blum & Cabinet were last week not attending radical French manifestations in favor of the Spanish radicals of the Madrid Cabinet.

Paying no attention, Premier Blum sent French police out to smash and break up private French organizations which had been collecting funds for the Madrid radicals. This should have roused Comrade Thorez to apoplectic rage, but instead the Paris Communist daily Humanite suddenly stopped printing appeals to French Reds to send money to Spanish Reds. A permissible inference was that the Moscow Comintern, paymaster and tune-caller of the French Communists, took with exceeding seriousness the possibility that Blum and Hitler might have a brain-wave and agree to regard each other as less of a menace than Stalin and what he stands for. Best way to put the best face on Communism and avoid any such brain-wave seemed to be for Communists to lie low.

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