POWER POLITICS: Whither Germany, Where Italy?

Such is the awesome reputation of Adolf Hitler that last week, notwithstanding the terrible fact that the Führer was in the midst of the world’s greatest and perhaps most decisive battle (see p. 23), the world wondered where he would strike next. Two nations trembled most fearfully.

Swiss Blitz? The Swiss had good reason to believe the next blow was soon coming their way. The Army passed from partial to full mobilization, 600,000 troops. Many Swiss mechanized units which had been massed on the frontiers were moved to central Switzerland to attack any large Nazi sky units which might land. With every Swiss male between 20 and 60 mobilized, the Government gave rifles and 40 cartridges each to striplings, oldsters and women, with instructions to shoot the ‘chuters. Hastily Swiss banks and insurance companies dumped the last of their securities into fleets of trucks which raced for the French border. Already safe in the

U. S. was over $125,000,000 in Swiss gold, more than $1,115,000,000 in Swiss-owned U. S. securities.

Heavy German motorized divisions and artillery meanwhile rolled into position on the Rhine facing Switzerland, but big guns of the French Maginot Line opened up with a terrific shelling of communication lines which Nazis would use to attack the Swiss. On Lake Constance, in full view of Swiss watchers on the farther shore, German troops practiced pontoon and rubber-boat warfare daily.

In Geneva the League of Nations began preparing to evacuate, first to the French spa of Vichy, then if necessary to the European Clipper terminus, Lisbon. Bustling but dignified League Secretary General Joseph Avenol, a Frenchman, had already sent the League’s more important documents ahead to France. “We are so disappointed that Denmark, Norway, Holland and Belgium failed to appeal to the League,” commented a typical Secretariat bigwig. “The practical results might not have been great, but the appeals would at any rate have been on the League’s records.”

Slavs Next? The Yugoslavs were just as sure they were marked for early Nazification. It took three days last week for a great German force to move through Dresden, reputedly on the way to take up positions in the Reich’s Slovak Protectorate from which to invade Hungary or Rumania. Other German forces massed to threaten Yugoslavia, and in the big hotels of Vienna anyone who dropped into conversation with a German officer was confidently assured, “We don’t know at just what moment but we are going to march.”

In Berlin the personal newsorgan of the Führer screamed that German schoolboys in Yugoslavia were being foully picked upon. All over the Balkans last week little nations quaked at what the Axis might do and the Slavic Balkans were drawn to hope that Russia might provide a counterweight. But assurance of Russian aid to Yugoslavia which would have no easy time getting there was still more hope than holler.

Frenzied Fascists. Meantime, the measure of Hitler’s successes in northern France could be taken from Italian press and polemics. More & more heat was turned on to produce a far from spontaneous war fever.

Celebrating the first year of the Axis military agreement, Fascist organs not only hailed the Allies as “two empires that are destined to crash shortly,” but as “our common enemy. ”

Il Duce savagely splashed out in his personal organ Il Popolo d’Italia last week a key editorial which seemed to threaten not only antiFascists but even Fascist Party card holders with no stomach for war: “Fascist Italy must arrive at its great predestined goal. . . The Italian people must now or never achieve their Mediterranean destiny. Now or never. He who has any expostulations to offer, whether he has a Fascist card or not, is a traitor and will be treated as such.” Finally-Son-in Law Ciano, Italy’s “Little Casino,” sounded off in Milan for “Big Casino.” Italy, said he, “cannot and never has been able to remain outside the vicissitudes of European life” and, “if and when” Il Duce gives the “order that he will give,” then “Milan will rise to her feet and again take her place in the vanguard, proving as always that she is spiritually and militarily ready. . . . Nothing can be decided until Rome has said her word.”