Hilter in Italy, Goebbels in Poland, and “Putzy” Hanfstaengl on his way to the United States. Handsome Adolf is visiting the Duce whose friendship he had alienated by his attempt at the forcible Nazification of Austria. Perhaps the Duce will tell him once more what he had suggested before—that the Nazi policy of religious and racial persecution is a serious blunder for which Germany must pay dearly. Perhaps Hitler is in Venice to give new assurances to Premier Mussolini that he will cease all efforts to bring about the Anschluss with Austria. Hitlerite Germany has isolated itself in Europe. She has lost most of her sympathizers and friends. She is economically and financially on the very brink of disaster. She pleads poverty, blaming the boycott, but she still has plenty of money for propaganda and agitation in foreign lands. She also has plenty of funds for rearmament, for war preparations.
It may be, however, that the meeting of Mussolini and his wretched imitator Hitler is for the purpose of holding a little Armament Conference. 1935 has been styled in the Balkans as the Mussolini year, as the year when Mussolini will be prepared for war. When Hitler defied Mussolini by attempting to force Austria into the Nazi fold, the Mussolini scheme suffered a setback. The dictators were in disagreement, and the war menace became less acute.
Hitler, seeing his own impending doom, is apparently trying to win back the favor of his strongest protector whom he endeavored to imitate without success. He is undoubtedly prepared now to make all sorts of concessions and compromises, to save himself.
The visit of Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Propaganda and Enlightenment, in Poland is also an attempt to mend the Nazi fences. The chief Nazi propagandist delivered a lecture in Warsaw, lauding the theories of Nazism and justifying anti-Jewish persecution in Germany. His assurance that German Nazism is not an export article is reminescent of the Italian Fascist assurances that Fascism was not intended for export purposes. Propagandist Goebbels, a member of the Hitler Cabinet, came to lecture in Poland on Nazism, and the Nazifled Poles who had
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.