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Nuremberg. Precariously clinging to the neck of the dragon he has created, little Adolf Hitler saw the world more unified against Germany than at any time since 1918, and preparing to do something about it. It was time for Hitlerism to pull its horns in once more, and that Hand- some Adolf proceeded to do with superlative skill. In medieval Nuremberg, home of Die Meistersinger and Albrecht Durer, scene of the first public Nazi review, yet another huge Nazi fiesta was under way. Bands blew their lungs out, flags fluttered from every housefront, tens of thousands of Nazis tramped their feet sore. Innsbruck's Franz Hofer was carried to the reviewing stand on a stretcher and fireworks were set off with such complete disregard of the consequences that 50 people were rushed to hospitals, hundreds fainted.
Two speeches had to be made, one to keep Nazi enthusiasm at the correct state of effervescence, another to pacify foreign opinion. To serve the first, Handsome Adolf made use of his old punching bag, Jewry, not so stupid a move in view of the active anti-Semitism in Austria, Czecho- slovakia, Poland, as it seemed to Britain and the U. S.
"If the great German historian Mommsen characterized Jewry as a ferment of decomposition in the life of nations," tie proclaimed, "then decomposition in Germany is far advanced. ... If, therefore, National Socialism with ferocious determination fought against the stealthy collapse of the Occident, it did so in recognition of the not yet destroyed values innate in civilized nations."
Next came the military retreat, couched in these shrewd words:
"The world should not see in our gathering here an expression of a wish to acquire new laurels on the battlefield. The German people are conscious of the fact that no war could come which could ever give us more honor than we acquired in the last one. For it was greater honor to hold off, bravely, courageously, valiantly, a superior force for four and one-half years, than it was an honor for 20 nations to conquer one nation.
"We do not need to rehabilitate the honor of our people on the battlefield. There nobody has taken it from us. Only one disgrace has befallen us. It was not in the West, not in the East, but back home. This disgrace [boring from within by Jews and Communists] we have made good again."