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"There is not one person in all Germany," he cried, "from whom even one fingernail has been chopped. It is true that some Storm Troopers have terribly beaten up this one or that one, but you must remember the terrible bitterness that has prevailed among men who have been persecuted for ten years. . . . Travelers from elsewhere coming here this summer will enjoy the fullest freedom and witness a nation proud of its resurrection."
A more sensible move was to rush correspondents to the city prison where Police Chief Rudolph Diehls showed them various Communist leaders that had been reported beaten to death, executed or exiled at different times in the past week. In the first cell sat Ernst Thalmann, Communist candidate for President in last year's election (TIME, April 18, 1932). Like a guide, in the zoo the Police Chief orated:
"You will observe that Thalmann looks physically fit. That he is not spiritually comfortable need not surprise you. . . . He further complains that he does not like the reading matter supplied to him."
Herr Thalmann smiled and held up a copy of Jolly Tales from Swabia.
In a nearby cage was Editor Werner Hirsch of the Communist Rote Fahne (daily).
"Have you anything to complain about?" he was asked.
"Nothing except that the evening papers yesterday claimed that I denied having-seen anybody badly handled. On the contrary I saw people with bloody eyes and other injuries delivered here from Nazi barracks. . . ."
To New York went a flood of denials of terrorist acts from German sources, many of them Jewish. Secretary of State Cordell Hull studied reports from U. S. consuls and the embassy in Berlin, and announced:
"Mistreatment" of Jews in Germany may be considered virtually terminated."
World Reaction-But it was too late. In the U. S. some 300 cities held protest meetings, the most important of which, in New York, was attended by almost everyone from Rabbi Stephen S. Wise to Bishop Manning and Alfred E. Smith. Rabbis throughout the country announced a day of fasting and prayer. Wholesalers cancelled-thousands of dollars worth of orders. The Europa announced that at least 25 steamship cancellations were due to Nazi terrorism. Other German lines admitted as many but claimed that the banking moratorium-had had more than a little to do with it. French & British importers and steamship agents rubbed their hands.
In Britain, too, mass meetings were called. Shopkeepers placed posters in their windows: BOYCOTT GERMAN GOODS! The Archbishop of Liverpool asked British Catholics to come to the aid of the Jews. In Lambeth Palace the Archbishop of Canterbury pondered over what step the Church of England should take.
In Paris a committee of Jewish aid was formed under former Premier Painleve, assisted by Baron Edmond de Rothschild and the chief Rabbi of France, Rev. Israel Levi.
*The team of Wedgwood & Churchill was also effective last week in scoring Ramsay MacDonald's tour of Europe in behalf of peace and the Mussolini Four-Power Pact (TIME. March 27). Said Winston Churchill: "We have got our modern Don Quixote home again, with Sancho Panza at his tail, bearing with them these somewhat dubious trophies which they have collected amidst the nervous tittering of Europe."