New Gauleiters

That morning it was quite late before Franz started for school. When he got there he was surprised to see the elders of his Alsatian village gathered in the classroom. M. Hamel, teacher for 40 years, was in his Sunday green frock coat. "My children," he said, "this is the last day I shall teach you. The order has come from Berlin that henceforth in the schools of Alsace and Lorraine all instructions shall be in the German tongue only."

Then M. Hamel spoke of the strength, the clarity, the beauty of the French language. The church clock struck twelve and a trumpet blast announced the return of the conquering Prussian troops from drill. M. Hamel could speak no more. He went to the blackboard and wrote in his largest hand: "VIVE LA FRANCE!" The last class was ended.

Alphonse Daudet was describing how Alsace-Lorraine was ceded to Germany in 1871. But his story might have been re-enacted last week in dozens of villages as Anschluss experts went to work on conquered Luxembourg, Alsace and Lorraine.

Luxembourg Unvarnished. Into tiny Luxembourg, whose Bourbon ruler Grand Duchess Charlotte was a refugee in Lisbon, goose-stepped squads of strapping, green-uniformed German police armed with heavy pistols and long daggers. On Place Guillaume (now Wilhelm-Platz) they lined up for instructions from Hitler's new Civil Commissioner, Gustav Simon, a two-fisted Nazi pressure-man who won his spurs fighting the League of Nations in the Saar and became Gauleiter of the Coblenz-Trier district.

Commissioner Simon slapped down orders that left no doubt regarding the future status of the Grand Duchy. Henceforth German would be the language of the administration, of schools, of newspapers. Mayors of towns and villages would take their orders from him or his agents. Within a few weeks, predicted Commissioner Simon, the "artificially applied exterior French varnish" will have disappeared from Luxembourg.

Alsace Restored. For Alsace Hitler had another Putsch & purge expert, Gauleiter and Provincial Governor Robert Heinrich Wagner of Baden. Dishonorably discharged from the German Army for his part in the Beerhall Putsch of 1923, he became a full-time Rhineland agitator and Gau-heeler for Hitler.

Last week, moving into Strasbourg with a crew of experienced pacifiers, he immediately set the machinery of re-Germanization in motion. German became the official language, German postage stamps were introduced, a customs union with the Reich was established, the picturesque Esplanade in Metz became Platz des Fuehrers, Mulhouse's Neuquartierplatz became Reichsmarschal Goering-Platz, posters went up depicting a gentle Nazi caressing a forsaken Alsatian child.

Commissioner Wagner pledged the "resolute liquidation" of "racial and national" aliens in Alsace. Biggest job facing the pacifiers was to repopulate empty Strasbourg, nine-tenths of whose 200,000 inhabitants had still not returned. The French part of the refugee population, it was announced, would not be permitted to re-enter Alsace.

Lorraine. Both Luxembourg and Alsace were setups compared with the job of introducing the new order to the stubborn Frenchmen of devastated Lorraine. For this reason Hitler entrusted the task to his foremost Anschluss professional, Gauleiter Josef Buerckel who not only engineered the Anschluss of the Saar, but also originated the Nazi annexation formula so successfully employed in Austria. A hefty, beetle-browed Rhinelander dubbed the "Red Gauleiter'' because he has constantly stressed Socialism more than Nationalism, Buerckel informed sullen Lorraine peasants last week that the "Fuehrer principle" had been introduced along with a "new order which is to shape and lead the people of Lorraine, who for years did not know where they belonged."

Gift to Vienna. To replace Gauleiter Buerckel in Vienna, where a section of the famed Ringstrasse was last week renamed "Josef Buerckel Ring," Hitler selected a particularly luscious cherry from his political pie--poetic, youth-loving Baldur von Schirach, who last September publicly begged his Fuehrer's permission to leave his job as Reich Youth Leader to help blitzkrieg France, returned last month with an Iron Cross and lieutenancy.

British Broadcasting Corp. told Germans last week: "This news [Schirach's appointment] is a blow to all Austrians because they are not usually accustomed to meeting people of his sexual inclinations. . . ." Actually buxom Baldur is a family man with several children.

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