History Diaries

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Rebel air raiders attacked a passenger train in government Spain today. They killed eight persons and wounded fifty, including nineteen women and children. Several rebel planes attacked the train, which was running between Jaén and Alcaudete in southern Spain. Swooping down upon it near the Martos station, they machine gunned it. Some terrified passengers leaped from the windows and fled into the fields, only to be pursued by the raiders, reports said.

Richard Austen Butler, undersecretary of state for foreign affairs, announced today in the House of Commons that Great Britain had demanded the immediate release of two Greek freighters seized by the Spanish rebels. The ships were carrying cargoes of wheat purchased in Rumania by the British government. They were seized last week.

Belgium withdraws from the Nonintervention Committee, and recognizes General Franco’s government as legitimate.

French troops are called out to stand ready near ports and large cities.

A nation-wide order forbidding Jews to appear on the streets was issued today by Heinrich Himmler, chief of all German police forces. The order provides that Jews in Germany must stay at home next Saturday from 12 o’clock noon until 8 o’clock in the evening. That is the “day of national solidarity” when Nazi chiefs make street collections for the winter relief fund. It was explained the order was issued because “Jews have no share in the solidarity of the German nation.” It was believed that this decree is the forerunner of other decrees banning Jews from certain districts in German cities. Thus, Nazi circles have proposed that Jews should be forbidden to enter the Unter den Linden and other fashionable streets in Berlin.

An effort is being made by Nazi insurance companies to compel foreign insurance companies to repay part of the losses they suffered through the burning, wrecking and looting of Jewish synagogues, stores and homes in the anti-Jewish violence November 10. The German government ruled that Jews must pay the damages and finance the repairs themselves. Furthermore, the government decided that the money the insurance companies owed the Jews must be paid to the government to apply on the $400,000,000 fine imposed on Jews for the slaying of a German diplomat in Paris by a Jew. A number of German companies had reinsured the claims of their Jewish clients with foreign firms. Now they are trying to collect from American, British, and Swiss firms the sums they must pay to the Reich.

The Reichsmusikkammer ordered that the Badenweiler Marsch only be performed in the presence of the Führer.

Nazi Germany forbade Jews from keeping carrier pigeons.

Following the pogrom in the night of 9 November 1938, Jewish doctor Albert Salomon was arrested on 10 November in his apartment at Wieland Strasse 15 and taken to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. As his wife Paula Salomon-Lindberg later recalled, she set about obtaining release papers for him with the help of friends and acquaintances. On 29 November 1938 Albert Salomon was released from Sachsenhausen and returned, emaciated, to Berlin. The family decided to leave Germany as soon as possible. In January 1939 his daughter (from a previous marriage) Charlotte Salomon travelled to her grandparents in the South of France; Albert and Paula Salomon fled with forged documents to Amsterdam on 15 March 1939. Evading imminent arrest, they left all their property behind in their apartment, and it was seized by the authorities. As German medical qualifications were not recognized in Holland, Albert Salomon learned the Dutch language and restudied medicine in Amsterdam. In May 1943 Albert and Paula Salomon were arrested in Amsterdam and deported to Westerbork transit camp. Here they both worked as auxiliary helpers in the camp’s infirmary barracks. They managed to escape the camp in November 1943 under the pretext of having to fetch medical equipment from Amsterdam. They survived the war in hiding in southern Holland. When they returned to Amsterdam they were told of Charlotte’s death in Auschwitz.

Synagogues and Jewish-owned factories are set afire and 101 suspected fascists are arrested in Cluj, Romania.

The aunt and uncle of Herschel Grynszpan are sentenced to four months in prison and fined 100 francs for sheltering the 17- year-old after he was denied residency in France. No interpreter was available for their trial.

Mayor Oud of Rotterdam forbids soccer match between Netherlands and Germany.

An explosion near Donegal kills two members of the Irish Republican Army; more explosives are found nearby.

One of the Halifax Slasher’s “victims”, Percy Waddington, confessed to faking the attack on himself.

In Umm Azzinatt, a battle between Arabs and British troops kills 43 Arabs and two British soldiers.

Nearly 100 members of the Republican National Committee in their annual meeting today celebrated the party’s remarkable gains in the congressional and state elections this month. They forecast the party program in the next congress which they believe will lead to the complete return of the G.O.P. to power in 1940. The general opinion was that President Roosevelt will be the Democratic nominee for a third term and that the issue will be the radicalism, extravagance, and other excesses of the New Deal.

The names of possible Republican candidates for President heard most frequently mentioned were District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey of New York, Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg of Michigan, Governor Elect Arthur H. James of Pennsylvania, and Senator Elect Robert A. Taft and Governor Elect John W. Bricker of Ohio. “I don’t know whom we will nominate for President,” said Col. R. B. Creager, veteran Texas committeeman, but it does look as if we knew the person we will have to oppose. “Mr. Roosevelt mentions Mr. Hopkins in order to have him knocked down. Mr. Wallace (Henry A., secretary of agriculture), beaten in his own farm belt, is out of the picture. Ickes (Harold L., secretary of the interior), was never in it, and neither was Jackson (Robert H., solicitor general). So there’s just no one else for Mr. Roosevelt to run, except himself. He will reluctantly sacrifice himself to running again. But he will find the country won’t stand for it.”

Pennsylvania Governor George H. Earle tonight was whitewashed of graft and corruption charges by a special legislative committee named for that purpose last spring. He still has to face a grand jury investigation that he has tried to prevent for months. The five Democratic members of the special committee reported to the assembly they found no evidence to support primary campaign charges against Earle and thirteen of his associated state officials and party leaders. Two Republican members of the committee said the investigation was a farce. Charges against Earle and his associates were made last spring in the primary campaign when Earle and Mayor S. Davis Wilson of Philadelphia were rival candidates for the Democratic nomination for United States senator. Earle won and was defeated in the November election by Senator James J. Davis.

A jury in federal court in New York tonight found Johanna (Jenni) Hofmann and Otto Hermann Voss guilty of espionage in a case in which the United States government charged that Nazi Germany plotted to steal this nation’s vital military and commercial secrets. When the jurors reported they were unable to agree on a verdict in the case of the third defendant, Erich Glaser, Judge John C. Knox ordered them locked up for the night. They will resume their deliberations in the morning. Miss Hofmann, who is 26 years old, is a red-haired former employee on the steamship Europa. Voss, 38 years old, was an airplane mechanic of the Seversky plant at Farmingdale, New York. Glaser, who is 28, was formerly a United States army air corps private at Mitchel field.

Miss Hofmann wept as she was being led from the courtroom back to her cell. Her attorney, George V. Dix, said lack of money would prevent an appeal. “If Hitler would send us funds,” he said, “certainly we would appeal. The Germans threw her down.” The convicted defendants face prison terms of twenty years each. The case against three defendants was completed and submitted to the jury late this afternoon. The jurors — two women and ten men — went to dinner before beginning deliberations. Because of the charges made in the indictments the guilty verdict in the case of the two defendants would indicate the jury believed that the German government was engaged in a scheme against this country.

A 74-point program of cooperation with other countries in the Americas is made public by the President, and will be presented to Congress.

The United States will cut its tariff on sugar from Cuba, and Cuba likewise cuts tariffs on certain U.S. food imports.

Harvard University announces 20 new scholarships of $500 each for refugee students from Germany.

Mexico refuses entry to 14 Jews and returns them to Germany, without letting them disembark.

Germany demands the arrest of Mexico’s top labor organizer, because he made disparaging comments about Adolf Hitler.

The Japanese army and navy told foreign powers tonight that the Yangtze River, China’s greatest trade route, would remain closed to neutral ship-ping until China has been conquered. A spokesman said later that the announcement was issued without orders from Tokyo. Rear Admiral Naokuni Nomura, Japanese naval attaché, said the policy represented the stand of the army and navy officers directly concerned in Yangtze operations. Nomura asserted that foreign firms and individuals were furnishing arms and ammunition to guerrillas in Japanese occupied areas. He declined to specify nationalities or otherwise elaborate on the assertion.

The joint army-navy communique Indicated that protests of foreign powers, principally the United States. Great Britain, and France, against the closing of the river more than a year ago would be unavailing. The three nations made such a protest on November 7. It had been reported that the three neutral powers were about to raise the question again when the communiqué was issued. Objections to the closing of the Yangtze have been based partly on charges that Japanese commercial shipping has been following the military invasion, now more than 600 miles upriver from Shanghai. The communique was sent to American, British, French, and Italian naval commanders in China waters by Admiral Koshiro Oikawa, commander of Japanese naval forces.

The Chinese reported military successes north and south of Hankow, the great Yangtze port which fell to the Japanese on October 26. To the south, the Chinese counter-offensive along the Canton-Hankow Railway was reported to have reached within seven miles of Yochow. The Japanese have been pushing southward from Yochow toward Changsha, capital of Hunan province. The two cities are about eighty miles apart. The Chinese also reported the recapture of Loshan and Kwangshan, about 120 miles north of Hankow, forcing the Japanese to fall back to Sinyang on the Peking-Hankow Railway to reorganize before pushing on in their southern Honan province campaign.

Yentsing, north of the Yellow River in northern Honan, also was reported to have been taken from the Japanese, who had held it for six months. The Japanese also were forced to withdraw from Hofei, in central Anhwei province. In South China, the Japanese were reported to have lost Tsungfa, about thirty miles northeast of Canton. Fighting was in progress near Samshui, west of the metropolis which capitulated to the Japanese October 21. Eleven Chinese were killed on the British side of the Hong Kong border while fleeing Japanese troops. Heavier British border guards were established.

Following British protests, Japan apologizes for border incursions near Hong Kong, and moves operations from the area.

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 147.07 (+0.93).

Born:

Ross Porter, American sportscaster (Los Angeles Dodgers), in Shawnee, Oklahoma.

Died:

Branislaw Tarashkyevich, 46, Belarusian politician and linguist (killed in the Great Purge).

Naval Construction:

The Royal Navy Dragonfly-class river gunboat HMS Locust (T 28) is laid down by Yarrow Shipbuilders Ltd. (Scotstoun, Scotland).

The Nihon Kaigun (Imperial Japanese Navy) escort ship Shimushu (占守), lead ship of her class of 4, is laid down by Mitsui Engineering and Shipbuilding, Tamano, Japan.

The Nihon Kaigun (Imperial Japanese Navy) Kagerō-class destroyer Oyashio (親潮, “Father Current”) is launched by the Maizuru Naval Arsenal, Maizuru, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan.

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