"We Are Humane"

At 4 o'clock one afternoon last week a large crowd gathered on Berlin's Unter den Linden, in front of the U. S. S. R. Embassy, to watch big limousines pull up and discharge swankily dressed passengers. Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and 30 of his Foreign Office assistants, wearing the new Nazi diplomatic uniform, were among the first arrivals. The Finnish and Turkish diplomatic staffs arrived in top hats and cutaways, followed soon by similarly dressed Belgian, Dutch, Italian, Scandinavian, U. S. envoys. Big German bankers, industrialists, Cinemactors Emil Jannings and Leni Riefenstahl trooped in. Editors and foreign correspondents presented their invitations.

Before long seven of Adolf Hitler's Cabinet members had arrived. Just out of an all-day conference with the Fuehrer were Commander in Chief of the German Army General Walther von Brauchitsch; Commander of the Navy Grand Admiral Erich Raeder; Colonel General Wilhelm Keitel, chief of the German Armed Forces, and, most important of all, Air Minister Hermann Goering. He sported a row of shining medals on his resplendent braided uniform, and was flanked by his trusted adjutant general of fliers and ja-man, Major General Karl Bodenschatz.

Inside the Embassy, recently accredited Soviet Ambassador Alexander A. Shkvartsev, onetime textile engineer and said to have been former private secretary of Premier-Foreign Commissar Viacheslav Molotov, was host at as brilliant a reception as ever celebrated on foreign soil an anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, until very recently a black day on the Nazi calendar. Although the U. S. S. R. has never rated as a gourmet's paradise, diplomats the world over long ago learned to expect at Soviet Embassy parties as tasty spreads as ever graced a Tsar's table. In hungry Germany the Embassy's guests were not disappointed this time.

Three long tables were piled high with goodies calculated to water many a Nazi mouth: caviar, turkey, sausages, cream puffs, cakes, vodka, Rhine wine, punch, liqueurs, beer. Biggest culinary drawing card: real coffee pouring out of steaming samovars. Most of the guests talked a lot more about eating than about the war, official Hitler Photographer Heinrich Hoffmann describing, between mouthfuls, the gustatory delights of his favorite culinary combination -- boiled potatoes and dry champagne.

Besides sampling generously the whipped cream, cake and beer, and holding a prolonged conference with His Excellency the Ambassador (the Italian Ambassador was the party's wallflower), Field Marshal Goering allowed himself to be cornered by foreign newsmen and interviewed on the U. S. embargo repeal. While Ja-man Bodenschatz chimed in with Nazi amens to his chief's words, the correspondents put these questions and Goering gave these answers:

Q. Was Air Minister Goering not fearful that the embargo repeal would enable the U. S. to supply the Allies with so many planes that Germany would be swamped?

A. (waving a big cigar in his hand): If we were only that strong, we would be very weak indeed. I am very serious about that.

Bodenschatz: Ja, very serious.

Q. What about the 8,000 U. S. planes supposed to be built and delivered to the Allies?

A. In the first place, it is impossible to build that many planes within a short time. In the second place, they are not over here yet.

Bodenschatz: Jawohl, and if there is anybody who has experience in building planes within a short time, it is Germany.

Q. How is the general situation?

A. It is exceedingly favorable for us. The mere fact that I am standing today in perfectly good humor tells you more than anything else could. And if in 1933 anybody should have predicted that such a situation could arise in war against England and France, everybody would have called him crazy.

Bodenschatz: Ja, and we intend to win.

Marshal Goering: Of course we shall win.

Q. Why do German aviators not carry the war to Britain itself?

A. We are humane. (Laughter) You should not laugh. I am serious. I really am.

Q. Will you remain humane?

A. That depends on the others. And that is no joke either.

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