Molotov meets with von der Schulenberg in Moscow and expresses great interest in Hitler’s proposals. Von der Schulenberg in turn is surprised and pleased at the Russian’s moderate conditions.
The Axis warns that Danzig issues must be resolved promptly. A showdown is foreseen. “Danzig must return to the Reich before the anniversary of the battle of Tannenberg on August 27,” staunch Nazis declared today. These spokesmen, though not outstanding leaders, are usually reliable because they hold key positions in the Nazi party machinery, enabling them to echo statements of their leaders. These subleaders voiced a firm conviction that Danzig will be reunited more closely with Germany than it is now before the end of the month.
“The Führer plans to go to Tannenberg for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the battle,” they said. “It is unthinkable and intolerable for us to have him proceed to this old battlefield by the sea route. Only if Danzig and the northern part of the Polish corridor again are under our control can he travel directly to the battlefield and address the hundreds of thousands who will assemble there.”
The Russians were defeated at Tannenberg by Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg August 27, 1914. The number of theories and inside reports of what Adolf Hitler plans to do, as advanced by Nazis, are increasing as the apparently crucial days are nearing. Persons who returned from the Italian-German conference at Salzburg said high officials asserted that Hitler will be satisfied with resuming full control of Danzig without touching the question of the Polish corridor at the moment.
“It will be sufficient if we take Danzig now,” they said. “This will mean such a tremendous increase in prestige that all resistance against German leadership in the southeastern countries of Europe and against active economic cooperation with Germany in Moscow will be wiped out automatically. When Germany then steps forward to take the territories still remaining in Poland’s hands which Germany claims as her own, nobody will oppose her. German supremacy on the European continent will be incontestable.”
In an interview given tonight to the Norwegian newspaper Tidens Tegn, Representative Hamilton Fish of New York, who arrived here today aboard an official German airplane following a meeting with Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop at Salzburg, Germany, expressed. grave fears for European peace.
“I have discussed the European situation with Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet of France and Foreign Secretary Viscount Halifax of Britain, and on Monday I had a conference with Herr von Ribbentrop. I had intended to discuss the refugee question with him, but I took M. Bonnet’s advice not to mention it. The European situation. is so tense that this might irritate Germany. Our conference lasted for an hour. I mentioned that I intended to propose relaxation of the tension through an armistice before war, but Herr von Ribbentrop was skeptical. We spoke about fateful problema,” Mr. Fish continued, “but I am not able to give further information, as we had a very open conversation.”
Mr. Fish described his impressions as “very depressing.”
Ambassador Von Dirksen’s leave in Berlin is uninterrupted. Although he wishes to see Ribbentrop, the Foreign Minister will not see him. Von Dirksen discovers that Italian Ambassador in Berlin, Bernardo Attolico, believes Hitler is about to go to war with Poland, ignoring Britain’s conciliatory attitude. Von Dirksen is convinced Attolico is wrong.
U-boat commander Karl Dönitz received a coded instruction for his forces to put out to sea at once. Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, chief of the Kriegsmarine, directs his staff to send a war alert to Kommodore Karl Donitz, commander of the German submarine force. The message states that all senior submarine staff officers and U-boat commanders are to report for a “reunion” on August 19 at Donitz’s headquarters on the submarine tender Hecht, moored at a naval pier in Kiel.
Advance mobilization orders are sent to the German railways, and plans are made to move Army headquarters to Zossen, east of Berlin. The navy reports that the pocket battleships Graf Spee and Deutschland and twenty-one submarines are ready to sail for their stations in the Atlantic.
The annual Nuremberg Party Rally, which Hitler proclaimed on April 1 as the “Party Rally of Peace” and which is scheduled to begin the first week in September, is secretly cancelled.
Germany closes its border that faces the Polish frontier.
Thirteen Nazi Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 87B-1 Stuka dive bombers crash into the ground during a disastrous practice-demonstration at Neuhammer-am-Queis, Silesia, Germany (now Świętoszów, Poland). A dive-bombing demonstration was being put on for senior Luftwaffe commanders. I./ St.G.76 commanded by Captain Walter Sigel was assigned the task. The demonstration was to be carried out by the twenty-six Stukas of the Gruppe just after daybreak.
A weather reconnaissance of the target, a forested area near Neuhammer, was carried out and the pilot reported to Captain Sigel that there was broken cloud over the objective between 6,000 and 2,500 feet, but the visibility below the cloud base was good. Unfortunately however, the cloud layer turned into a bank of early morning fog extending to the ground in the half hour or so that it took the Gruppe to fly to the target, and Sigel could not be informed by those on the ground as he did not have radio communications with them.
The 26 dive bombers commenced their attack at 12,000 feet and soon plunged into the murk. Alarmed by the prolonged dive without cloud break Captain Sigel was shocked to suddenly see tree tops appearing in the mist in front of him. Shouting a warning to his pilots over the R/T he began a desperate pull out from his 70-degree dive. He escaped a crash narrowly but 13 of his Stukas did not and ploughed into the ground, killing their 26 pilots and gunners.
German State Secretary Baron Ernst von Weizsäcker warns Sir Neville Henderson, the British Ambassador in Berlin, that the situation is extremely serious. Weizsäcker says any German diplomatic initiative is unthinkable in view of Beck’s speech declaring that Poland was prepared to talk, only if Germany would first accept Poland’s terms. In view of that, the ultimatum to the Danzig Senate, and the comminatory note to Germany of August 10, no further talks are possible.
Churchill begins a tour of the Maginot Line, France’s main land defensive barrier against Germany.
After another day of rumors from Berlin and Rome of an impending “peace move” by the Axis powers London continued to suspect that further appeasement on last year’s model was desired in the totalitarian, capitals instead of a genuine freely negotiated settlement.
Britain girds for a violent crisis. The spasm of “peace talk” produced by the visit of Dr. Karl J. Burckhardt, League of Nations High Commissioner for Danzig, to Chancellor Hitler does not impress responsible circles in London. Berlin asserts that London lacks the hardness of will to halt a totalitarian expansion.
Rumania will not cede land. King Carol says he would rather risk world war than yield. “Our frontiers, traced with blood, cannot be altered without risking a world cataclysm,” said King Carol significantly at Constanta today on the occasion of the Navy Day celebrations there.
The Norwegian cargo ship Strindheim struck a mine and sank in the North Sea off the mouth of the River Tyne with the loss of nine crew.
The British motor yacht Trade Wind collided with Lapwing ( United Kingdom) in the River Thames opposite the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, and sank.
The Dies Committee resumes its activities. Hearings are to continue delving into Communist and fascist activities. Foreign propaganda, designed to involve the United States in a European war, will be investigated by the house committee on un-American activities, which will resume hearings tomorrow. This announcement was made today by Chairman Martin Dies (D-Texas) upon his return after recuperating at home from an appendectomy. “One side in Europe wants our active participation,” Dies said. “or, failing that, our sympathetic help. The other side wants us to remain neutral. There is a well organized plan to influence public opinion to involve us in war, either actively or financially.”
On the basis of his own research, the committee chairman asserted, England and France appear to be propagandizing with the hope of obtaining American military or financial support in case they go to war, while the Rome-Berlin axis nations are active in propaganda with the objective of keeping us neutral. Representative Dies expressed the opinion that at least 80 percent of the American people want to stay entirely aloof from any foreign wars. His committee was recreated and provided with new funds at the recent session of congress after a year’s work for the previous congress. It held some hearings this spring, but has been in recess while Dies recuperated from his illness. However, his investigators continued digging up new material.
Dies said the committee will delve into Fascist and Nazi activities in the United States and then continue its inquiry into communism here. The war propaganda study will come later, he said. During its inquiry into communist activities, the chairman related, the committee will go to the west coast, as the former committee planned but never was able to do. A charge that the administration is seeking to sabotage the investigation has come from a committee member, Representative J. Parnell Thomas (R-New Jersey). He said he had heard reports that certain committee members, whom he did not name, had recently discussed discontinuing the committee’s hearing.
U.S. President Roosevelt suggests changing the Thanksgiving celebration date. A sarcastic senator says he would rather have him abolish winter. A possibility that there might be two Thanksgiving Days this year loomed yesterday as Governors, business men and football coaches reacted with astonishment, approval and consternation to President Roosevelt’s intention to proclaim Thanksgiving Day a week earlier this year.
The U.S. Navy cruiser USS Tuscaloosa, with President Roosevelt aboard, weighed anchor late today in Halifax Harbor and sailed up the coast on an overnight run to Sydney, Nova Scotia, on Cape Breton Island.
Federal officers today took over investigation of the wreck of the streamline train, “City of San Francisco,” and direction of the search for the maniac who, trainmen say, deliberately derailed the train, killing twenty-three people and injuring 109.
With 831 delegates from all parts of the State representing 1,000,000 organized workers, the seventy-sixth annual convention of the New York State Federation of Labor opened at the Hotel Commodore yesterday, and from the outset struck a militant and aggressive note on problems vital to labor and the nation.
The Department of the Interior advises Washington to develop Alaska. The territory can furnish products currently imported from Europe and Asia. Richer rewards than those offered pioneers in the settlement of the West exist in Alaska, according to a survey of its potentialities made public today by Secretary Ickes.
New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia asks for equality for African-American doctors, saying germs don’t follow Jim Crow laws.
The MGM musical “The Wizard of Oz,” American musical fantasy film adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s book, premieres at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, Hollywood; directed by Victor Fleming and King Vidor with cast featuring Judy Garland (Dorothy), Ray Bolger (Scarecrow), Jack Haley (Tin Man), Bert Lahr (Cowardly Lion), Frank Morgan (Wizard), Billie Burke (Glinda), and Margaret Hamilton (Wicked Witch); songs by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg.
The Philadelphia A’s hold the Boston Red Sox to four hits, and win, 3–0. Lynn Nelson hurls the shutout win.
Buck Newsom throws a three-hitter as the Detroit Tigers pound the Cleveland Indians, 12–3.
Left Gomez also hurls a three-hitter, and the New York Yankees edge the Washington Senators, 3–2.
The St. Louis Cardinals defeat the Chicago Cubs, 7–6, in ten innings.
The Cincinnati Reds edge the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6–5, to sweep the series.
Luke Hamlin wins his 14th game of the year as the Broooklyn Dodgers beat the New York Giants, 8–5.
Panama and the United States celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Panama Canal. The first ship to travel the waterway repeats its passage. Panama observed a holiday in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the opening of the Panama Canal. The SS Ancon, the first commercial vessel to go through the canal in 1914, repeated its historic voyage as 820 passengers cheered and an army band played.
José Félix Estigarribia became President of Paraguay.
Indian troops arrived in Egypt to strengthen British forces there.
The July Japanese offensive in southeast Shansi has degenerated into a desperate effort by isolated Japanese garrisons to stave off annihilation, a Chinese military spokesman said at today’s weekly press conference. The spokesman asserted that the main units of Japanese troops which drove into southeast Shansi early in July are now effectively cut off from outside communications. The main routes back to Japanese bases everywhere are severed, he declared. Chinese troops were steadily closing in on the Japanese concentrations, the spokesman added. In an effort to re-establish connections the isolated Japanese sent in a column to the Peiping-Hankow railway in southeast Shansi, he stated, but he asserted that the column was checked.
The United States blames the Japanese in a slapping case of an American widow by a sentry, calling the incident an affront. The United States Consulate was reported to have sent to Washington today a full report on the slapping of a 59-year-old American widow by a Japanese sentry, after the consulate had found a Japanese explanation unsatisfactory.
Tokyo drafts a plan for its Axis policy. Germany is said to want Japan to commit to military action. Japan is content for now to bide her time and await events.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 141.29 (+1.11).
Born:
(Herman) Onno Ruding, Dutch politician (CDA) (Financial Minister, 1982-89), and businessman (Director of Amrobank, 1971-77), in Breda, Netherlands.
Herman van Keeken, Dutch singer (“Daddy Don’t Run So Fast”), in Hilversum, Netherlands (d. 1995).
Norma Waterson, British folk music revivalist, and singer-songwriter, in Hull, East Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom (d. 2022).
Naval Construction:
The Royal Navy Tree-class minesweeping trawler HMS Bay (T 77) is laid down by Cochrane & Sons Shipbuilders Ltd. (Selby, U.K.); completed by Amos & Smith.
The Royal Navy Tree-class minesweeping trawler HMS Juniper (T 123) is laid down by Ferguson Bros. Ltd. (Port Glasgow, Scotland).
Shimushu-class Kaibokan (escort ship) HIJMS Ishigaki (石垣) is laid down by Mitsui Engineering and Shipbuilding, Tamano, Japan.
The Kriegsmarine (German Navy) Type VIIB U-boat U-54 is launched by F. Krupp Germaniawerft AG, Kiel (werk 589).
The U.S. Navy Sargo-class submarine USS Seawolf (SS-197) is launched by the Portsmouth Navy Yard (Kittery, Maine, U.S.A.).
The Svenska Marinen (Royal Swedish Navy) Göteborg-class destroyer HSwMS Malmö (J7) is commissioned.
The U.S. Navy Benham-class destroyer USS Sterett (DD-407) is commissioned. Her first commander is Lieutenant Commander Atherton Macondray, USN.
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