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Above the Führer flew 162 warplanes in formation. Before him passed in review for four hours the flower of his Army, some 40,000 men in full fighting regalia. With them passed the grimmest, most impressive war machines that Nazi Germany could muster—tanks, artillery, armored cars. Interested foreign military attaches saw little new equipment, but the representatives of small, trembling States could scarcely fail to be impressed.
Changes. Not all of Adolf Hitler's birthdays since he came to power have been celebrated thus. In 1933, only three months after he first became Chancellor, the public birthday celebration was confined to the wearing of edelweiss, the Führer's favorite flower. The first birthday parade was held in 1935, but it was small compared to those yet to come and to that held last week.
In six years of power Herr Hitler has probably changed less physically than do most men from 44 to 50. The lines in his face are only slightly deeper. He has added some 25 pounds to his weight and four inches to his girth, but that is much less than some of his lieutenants have gained. The early Hitler accent was typical of the Austrian civil service class into which he was born. Educated Austrians declare it had a Czech flavor. Now he has a more cultivated speech. The voice is noticeably coarser and Herr Hitler, despite the assurances of six attending physicians, is still worried about cancer of the throat.
Fuhrer Hitler has never been much of a reader, but he has a passion for the cinema. He sometimes has three or four full-length pictures run off for him at one sitting, knows the cast of every German movie comedy. (Another memory feat: ability to give by heart names and descriptions of all U. S., British warships.) Favorite cinema repeaters now are the U. S. films Lives of a Bengal Lancer, Viva Villa! He likes variety shows and his old preference for Wagnerian operas seems to have given way to light operas such as The Merry Widow.
Funny Man? Even more significant are the changes in his psychological climate. The well-known Hitler craving for solitude has developed even more, but with it has come a greater fondness for entertaining. Never has he been host to as many guests as during this year. Youngest of the three big European dictators (Mussolini is 55, Stalin about 60), he works the least of any of them. He rarely bothers with details, has no capacity for long, tedious hours at his desk, is able to delegate power to trusted subordinates.
Probably few national leaders have been so misunderstood and so tragically underestimated. The French regarded the man who was to relegate them to a second-rate continental power as a funny man with a Charlie Chaplin mustache. They soon learned better. Others thought the Führer often acted from vanity, wrath and petulance, whereas nothing has become more evident than that he has followed a straight line of policy. He has long been pictured as emotionally unbalanced, but probably few men in public life have their emotions so completely under control. The man who in six short years has redrawn the map of Europe, overturned the old standards of political behavior and made the world listen to his every word, can turn his emotions on and off at will.