Elections were held in Memel in which the Nazi Party received an overwhelming 90 percent of the vote. Nazis win a clear victory in Memel, Lithuania’s elections for new Diet members.
Fears that a serious crisis is boiling up in Europe and will explode in February were expressed in London tonight. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain is expected to make an important announcement on Great Britain’s foreign policy in a speech before the Foreign Press association in London Tuesday. British political circles are reconciled to the prospect of Reichsführer Hitler grabbing Memel when he pleases without intervention from the four guarantors of the Memel statute — Britain, France, Italy, and Japan. Government advisers are more concerned in trying to figure out the sequence of the successive Nazi coups.
Winston Churchill, veteran Conservative statesman and former first lord of the admiralty, voiced general fears that Hitler is preparing a big push to the east in Europe while his Berlin-Rome axis partner, Premier Mussolini, is stirring up trouble in the Mediterranean. Churchill, addressing a league of nations union meeting at Chingford, Essex, said: “Since Munich and the destruction of Czecho-Slovakia, Hitler has had so many choices that his trouble is which to take first — whether it would be Memel or Danzig, whether he will stir up the Polish Ukrainians against Poland or the Transylvania population against Rumania. No one can tell, but everything points to an early resumption of Nazi aggression and no concerted resistance is being made against it.” Should Germany annex Memel, it is conceded here that the existence of Danzig as a free state and port guaranteed by the league also virtually would be ended.
British government circles, however, are chiefly interested as to when Hitler intends to tighten the screws on Poland for concessions in the Polish corridor. Some diplomatic observers believe Germany will seek to expand and consolidate her ascendancy over the Danubian and Balkan areas, without further delay. German army chiefs, according to reports reaching London, have been warned by Berlin to stand by to support some fresh diplomatic action in February. Chamberlain, in defining British policy before the foreign press correspondents, is expected to take a firm stand. While reiterating his ambition for a general European settlement and an era of political and economic understanding, the prime minister, it is indicated, will warn Hitler and Mussolini that Britain has made a contribution to peace and now awaits reciprocal gestures from them.
“Ruthenia owes her freedom to the Reich and it will eternally be grateful,” Father Augustav Volosin, premier of Ruthenia, said today. His words were interpreted as an indication of how German influence is increasing there, strategically and economically. A similar situation already exists in Slovakia, where the autonomous government is inaugurating an anti-Semitic policy along German lines and is pressing the central government to adopt a similar policy.
In controlling these two provinces, Ruthenia and Slovakia, Germany practically controls the entire country of Czecho-Slovakia. Even should Prague hesitate to yield to German economic or ideological pressure, the Slovaks and Ruthenians probably would even threaten secession to Germany to force it to yield. Translations of articles appearing in the official National Socialist (Nazi) Voelkischer Beobachter attacking Poland for its alleged violation of the Munich spirit in forcing Czecho-Slovakia to cede purely Slovak areas and Hungary and for its alleged oppression of Slovaks, Ruthenians, and Czechs before the world war, are being distributed.
Virginio Gayda, who often speaks Premier Mussolini’s mind, today warned France that in failing to consider Italy’s claims on Tunisia, Djibouti, and the Suez Canal she was committing “guilty and fateful errors.” Besides agitation over Tunisia, France’s North African protectorate, and Djibouti, French Somaliland terminal of the railroad to Addis Ababa, Italian clamor has been raised for a share in control of the Suez Canal. Gayda accused France of diplomatic errors such as “carried the drama of Prague to its final epilogue” — the Munich accord and dismemberment of Czecho-Slovakia.
Twenty-four Austrian Catholic priests were arrested in the Linz region today charged with “agitating from the pulpit against the Nazi regime.” Nineteen of them were detained in prison while five were sent to the Dachau concentration camp.
Secret police in Vienna today began censorship of Roman Catholic sermons, preventing Jakob Weinbacher, secretary to Cardinal Innitzer, from speaking in St. Stephen’s Cathedral.
Yugoslav elections reaffirm Premier Stoyadinovitch’s party with a small majority, although the government claims no returns are received from Croatia and Dalmatia. Violent clashes and several deaths occur at polling places, and charges of fraud are raised.
A bill asking for Ukrainian autonomy is rejected by the Polish Parliament.
Spanish government dispatches today reported increasing activities of rebel patrols in the Segre sector and predicted a new rebel campaign was imminent. Generalissimo Francisco Franco’s field commanders, they said, apparently were testing government strength through skirmishes along the eastern front. Government military observers made plain, however, that they could not forecast when, where or toward what objective the new drive might be expected. Barcelona reports said the rebels were completing “partial reorganization” of their field forces. This, with recent reports of Italian troop movements near the French frontier. strengthened the belief that Franco soon would launch a new offensive.
Based on research gathered near the North Pole, Soviet scientists claim that the global climate is slowly warming.
Christain Lous Lange, the Norwegian pacifist awarded the 1921 Nobel Peace Prize and former premier of Sweden, dies at age 69.
Sir Edwin Lutyens was elected President of the Royal Academy of Arts.
Land mines and snipers take more lives in Palestine.
Cardinal George Mundelein of Chicago, in a radio address, says that Father Coughlin does not speak for the Catholic Church. Cardinal Mundelein, archbishop of Chicago, issued a strong rebuke to Father Charles E. Coughlin of Detroit, whose radio broadcasts on Jews and communism have provoked widespread controversy. “As an American citizen, Father Coughlin has the right to express his personal views on current events, but he is not authorized to speak for the Catholic church nor does he represent the doctrine or sentiments of the church,” said a statement of the cardinal read over a coast-to-coast network of the National Broadcasting Company.
The Giants get slugger Zeke Bonura from Washington for $20,000 and 2 minor league players. Bonura has averaged 110 RBIs a year over the past five years.
The New York Giants defeated the Green Bay Packers 23-17 in the NFL Championship Game at the Polo Grounds in New York City. The game saw a record title game attendance of 48,120. The Giants took a first quarter 9—0 lead on a field goal and a touchdown run by Tuffy Leemans. Arnie Herber threw a 40-yard scoring pass to Carl Mulleneaux to make it 9—7. The two teams traded another touchdown each before the end of the half. After trailing by two points at halftime, Green Bay took a 17—16 lead in the third quarter with a short field goal, but New York responded with a touchdown on a 23-yard pass from Ed Danowski to Hank Soar, and held on through a scoreless fourth quarter to win.
Wang Ching-wei, leader of the Kuomintang, says that the Nine-Powers Treaty is not obsolete simply because Japan violated it.
Chinese guerilla forces report inflicting thousands of casualties on Japanese soldiers in Shansi province. Guerrilla forces of China’s famed Eighth Route (Communist) Army were reported today to have killed 6,000 Japanese in a major setback to the invaders’ long-heralded mopping up campaign in Shansi province. In addition, neutral reports said large supplies of arms and ammunition were seized by the Chinese carrying on ceaseless hit and run attacks against Japanese attempting to gain complete control of the northwestern province. These reports said the Japanese launched a successful offensive against Wutaishan, the Eighth army’s fortified base at the foot of Wutai Mountain, but were forced to withdraw in the face of the day and night harassing activities of the guerrillas.
The Chinese were reported to be in control of the area surrounding Wutaishan where Japanese outposts and supply lines were being subjected to relentless guerrilla forays. Other guerrilla successes were recited by the Chinese Fourth route army in Anhwei, Chekiang and Kiangsu provinces. Shanghai and Nanking, two of the main Japanese captured cities, are located in the latter province. Chinese military leaders who organized the guerrilla warfare in the three provinces said that since these forces took the field, they had lost only one major battle out of fifty engagements. The leaders, who told of the Chinese successes in a Shanghai tea house interview, produced photographs of Japanese prisoners as proof of their claims. They made the hazardous journey through Japanese lines to Shanghai to obtain badly needed medical supplies for Chinese wounded, of which they admitted there was a large number.
America’s Ambassador to China meets with General Chiang Kai-shek, who asks for economic support. Otherwise, Chiang says, the United States will lose its Far East investments to Japan, and China will seek help from the Soviet Union.
Born:
Fred Cox, NFL kicker (NFL Championship, Vikings, 1969; Pro Bowl 1970; Minnesota Vikings), in Monongahela, Pennsylvania (d. 2019).
Died:
Christian Lous Lange, 69, Norwegian pacifist and internationalist (Nobel Peace Prize 1921), historian, teacher and political scientist.
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