German police today continued their round-up of Czechs in Kladno, arresting more than 1,000 in a systematic series of house searches, mainly in the working class districts. This morning 2,000 German military police poured into the town. occupying the schools that the Reich Protector, Baron Constantin von Neurath, ordered closed yesterday as part of the punishment inflicted upon this district, resulting from the killing of a German police officer Wednesday night.
The Reich commissar governing the district in place of the dismissed officials today imposed a fine of 500,000 crowns, most of which will be paid by Jews and “Benes followers,” on the township: extended by twenty-four hours — until tomorrow night — the time limit allowed before severer measures will be introduced if the killer is not apprehended; increased the 30,000-crown reward by 70,000 crowns and threatened with shooting any one withholding information relevant to the crime.
A young woman of Czech nationality was reported to be in custody in connection with the killing, The Associated Press reported. The woman was said to be a nurse and was described as “a great patriot.”
The German police brought with them machine guns, tear gas and other weapons, as well as an ambulance to remove the body of the slain German police officer, Wilhelm Kriest. Throughout the day police patrols with fixed bayonets made house searches, reporting to the marketplace headquarters which, with its field kitchens, groups of officers and lines of armored cars, gave the impression of war conditions.
A reporter, driving around the suburbs, found himself in a nest of machine guns manned and aimed at a row of trim villas, looking pathetically innocent against a background of slag heaps and smokestacks. Occasionally a housewife would peep from behind drawn curtains or a bayonet would appear over a garden wall while the police were carrying out their systematic Inquiry. The Town Hall was guarded with submachine guns and the mayor’s office was occupied by a German commissar.
The German Evangelical Consistory has initiated proceedings against the Rev. Martin Niemöller, imprisoned head of the Confessional Church, which may result in his relegation to the status of itinerant preacher and the eviction from his Dahlem parish house of his wife and children.
Presumably acting on orders from Dr. Friedrich Werner of the Reich Church Chancellery, the consistory has directed a letter to the Rev. Herr Niemöller through the Gestapo, notifying him of a recent decree by Dr. Werner making it possible to place pastors “on the waiting list,” a euphemistic way of saying they are temporarily deprived of their pulpits and their emoluments, including salary and residence.
Since the Rev. Herr Niemöller’s wife and children during his imprisonment have continued to live in the Dahlem parish house, such action would be tantamount to their eviction. The Rev. Herr Niemöller, it was pointed out in the letter, has already spent two years in prisons and concentration camps and seems likely to spend further time there. This decree, it is stated, might therefore well be applied to him.
East Prussian Jews and thousands of others scattered throughout Germany who have been ordered to leave or go to concentration camps appealed to their leaders in Berlin tonight for help in finding homes outside this nation. The Jewish leaders, who have been working at top speed for months in efforts to get visas, said they were practically powerless to act except in a small number of instances.
Transports of Polish Jews, more than 10,000 of whom have received written notices to depart within time limits of from a few hours to four weeks, continued today to be organized by police. The most harried of the Polish Jews are those Poland says she will not accept because they have lived so long abroad. Some of these have been told they must get out of Germany or be interned. Poles with legal Polish passports are being taken to the frontier.
Included in the present new Nazi effort to get rid of the remaining Jews are those who were arrested last Fall and released on promises to emigrate. It has been impossible for many of them to get visas. Police are now telling them to speed up their efforts or else they will go back to concentration camps. East Prussian authorities have ordered all Jews, estimated at 11,000, to be out of that province by June 20. Four thousand Polish Jews in Leipzig have received notice to leave within one month.
In Munich, 600 Polish Jews received one-month notices and an unknown number were ordered out within a few hours. The reason for the different treatment was not known. Orders also were given to Polish Jews in Dresden, Breslau and Kassel, and other moves against Polish Jews were reported from Hanover, Kiel, Bremen, Nuremberg, Karlsruhe, Bamberg, Würzburg, Darmstadt and Cologne.
A wave of bombs exploded in twenty-seven mailboxes and two post offices around England. Thousands of letters were destroyed and several postal workers burned on their faces and hands tonight when terrorists struck at night mail services over a wide area in Great Britain. In London alone about twenty post boxes were bombed and set on fire. Similar outrages took place simultaneously around 8:30 PM in the cities of Manchester, Birmingham, Lincoln and Leicester. Letter sorters on the Birmingham-London express train had to hurl a blazing mailbag onto the track, while another bomb exploded in a mail car at Birmingham station. Six postmen were injured in London, six in Manchester, two in Leicester and one in Birmingham, making a total of fifteen. It was estimated that between twenty and thirty men were engaged in planting the bombs.
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and Foreign Secretary Viscount Halifax made statements to the British Parliament that Britain was willing to discuss Germany’s claims for economic “living room.” There was speculation that the British might be turning back to his policy of appeasement but official sources work which to deny any shift from what they called the new policy of “peace by resistance.”
The International Olympic Committee awarded the 1944 Winter Olympics to Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy and the 1944 Summer Olympics to London, United Kingdom.
The Swiss must agree to International Olympic Committee rules by noon tomorrow or lose their hosting opportunity for the 1940 Winter Games.
A Jewish young woman, who was reported to have been in Arab garb, was arrested this morning after she had put down a basket containing a time bomb set to explode at 11 AM among Arabs in front of the central prison in Jerusalem, where on Fridays many Arab women and children assemble for weekly visits to prisoners.
This was the first time incontrovertible evidence had been obtained to show the long-suspected Jewish origin of the bombing of Arab crowds. Simultaneous time bombs destroyed five electric supply transformers last night and darkened a third of Jerusalem. Eleven more rifles were voluntarily surrendered by Arabs today. Eight weapons were found in searches.
The British King places a wreath on the U.S. Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. With gracious gestures to the living great and reverent honors for the heroes of the past, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth ended their visit in the nation’s capital tonight and left for New York and the World’s Fair. On their last day in Washington, the King and Queen shook hands with most of the 531 men — and women — who write the country’s laws. Then with the royal standard and Old Glory flying fore and aft from the Presidential yacht, they sailed down the Potomac to the tomb of Washington at Mount Vernon.
There the King laid a wreath of white lilies mingled with iris at the grave of the founder of this country, bowed and backed away to drive to Arlington National Cemetery, where he laid wreaths at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and the Canadian Cross, stone reminders of the first war in which the United States, and the British Empire made common cause. Before departing for their visit to New York and their first view of the skyscrapers of today and the World of Tomorrow, the King and Queen hastened from the White House to the British Embassy to be hosts to the President and Mrs. Roosevelt at dinner.
Rising before 9 AM after their strenuous first day in the capital of a country which once was part of his forefathers’ domain, King George and his captivating Queen breakfasted at the White House and hurried off to the British Embassy to smile and greet 500 bowing subjects of the Crown and veterans of their country’s wars. In morning coat and striped trousers, but without the silk hat which is customarily worn with them, the King hastened with the Queen to the Capitol in cars escorted by motorcycle police and followed by a carload of Secret Service men suffering from royalty jitters.
Ten thousand persons, mostly women — wives of Cabinet officers, high government officials and newspaper correspondents — were seated in camp chairs on a reserved space in front of the East Portico where American Presidents traditionally take their oath of office. These privileged ones were scheduled to receive only a crumb from royalty’s table, for they had been promised merely a glimpse of the visiting sovereigns.
King George and Queen Elizabeth, however, decided to give them better than a fleet glimpse and, leaving their car, got out and strolled up and down the aisles of camp chairs so that all could see them. They were five minutes late in entering the rotunda for the Congressional reception. At the steps of the Capitol, the royal visitors were met by a silk-hatted committee in morning coats. The committee was headed by Senator Key Pittman, Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations. Escorted by the committee men, the King and Queen mounted the stairs, slowly preceded by two sergeants at arms who walked ahead with bowed heads and hats in hand. They were then received by both houses of Congress in the Rotunda.
The Royals leave Washington by train tonight from Union Station, bound for New York.
New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia signs a bill forbidding teachers from holding more than one job.
A U.S. court ruled in favor of Houghton Mifflin’s claim to the sole rights to publish Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” in the United States, barring Stackpole Sons from publishing any more copies of their competing unauthorized edition of the book.
Actress Katharine Hepburn awakens to find a burglar with her gems. She chases him out of the house
At Briggs Stadium, the Tigers pepper Buck Ross for 10 runs in 6+ innings as they beat the A’s, 14–4. Ross serves up a grand slam to Pete Fox in the 2nd and a 3-run homer to Hank Greenberg in the 6th.
Foreign Minister Eduardo Hay has made public a declaration that there was “utter lack of justification” for anti-United States manifestations following the death of Francisco Sarabia, the Mexican flier. The Federal Department of Press and Publicity stayed open three hours overtime last night to distribute Señor Hay’s 500-word statement. It followed the stoning of the American school and assignment of a police guard to the United States Embassy.
Señor Sarabia was killed on Wednesday when his plane plunged into the Potomac River at the start of a projected non-stop flight from Washington to his home in Mexico. Señor Hay’s statement said it was “stupid” to think that sabotage could have had anything to do with Señor Sarabia’s accident. The American people, he said, had demonstrated a “positive affection” for the flier and he had received the “full cooperation” of United States authorities.
In Nanking, poisoned wine at the Japanese Consulate causes two deaths. Eighteen others are sickened. Two Chinese cooks have disappeared.
Today’s Japanese raid on Chungking exacted a record light toll of casualties. Chungking residents had been warned more than an hour before the raid and had left the city or entered shelters. It is estimated that fewer than fifty were killed or injured in the attack by twenty-seven planes. The bombers dropped heavy explosives again into the heart of the walled city, enlarging the scars caused by previous raids. One bomb struck near the American Methodist Hospital, badly damaging the home of the Rev. W. A. McCurdy, American missionary.
Flying under overcast skies, the attackers came at dusk. The bombing was indiscriminate because, in the darkness and haze, Chungking was no more than a uniform dark patch of landscape from the height at which the bombers flew. Firemen fought several fires after the bombing, while rescue squads carried stretchers from one bombed district to another in the search for dead and injured.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 140.09 (+1.60).
Born:
Dick Vitale, basketball sportscaster (ESPN), in Passaic, New Jersey.
John Brown, NFL tackle (NFL Champions-Browns, 1964; Cleveland Browns, Pittsburgh Steelers), in Canden, New Jersey.
Julio Gotay, Puerto Rican MLB shortstop, second baseman, and third baseman (St. Louis Cardinals, Pittsburgh Pirates, California Angels, Houston Astros), in Fajardo, Puerto Rico (d. 2008).
Doug Clemens, MLB outfielder and pinch hitter (St. Louis Cardinals, Chicago Cubs, Philadelphia Phillies), in Leesport, Pennsylvania.
David Hobbs, British racing driver, born in Royal Leamington Spa, England, United Kingdom.
Charles Webb, American writer (“The Graduate”), born in San Francisco, California (d. 2020)
Ileana Cotrubaș, opera soprano, in Galați, Rumania.
Died:
Owen Moore, 52, Irish actor (She Done Him Wrong, “A Star Is Born”), from a heart attack.
Naval Construction:
The Royal Navy Hunt-class (Type I) escort destroyer HMS Cattistock (L 35) is laid down by Yarrow Shipbuilders Ltd. (Scotstoun, Scotland).
The Royal Navy Hunt-class (Type I) escort destroyer HMS Hambledon (L 37) is laid down by Swan Hunter and Wigham Richardson Ltd. (Wallsend-on-Tyne, U.K.).
The Royal Navy Vosper 70 foot-type motor torpedo boat HMS MTB 22 is commissioned. Her first commanding officer is Lieutenant Antony Bartholomew Cole, RN.
History Diaries 