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A member of the family of the great Prince Potemkin, adviser to and lover of Catherine the Great, in Tsarist days Vice Commissar Potemkin was a professor of mathematics, later went into the diplomatic service. As Ambassador to Italy he became known for his knowledge of Roman antiquities and in France he helped negotiate the French-Soviet mutual aid pact. He is tall, distinguished in appearance, a good linguist. Colonel Beck welcomed the Vice Commissar, and Comrade Potemkin, according to the Warsaw press, picked up from Colonel Beck enlightening details on a deal which Herr Hitler had tried to make some weeks ago with the Poles. The Führer, it was said, had promised Poland a cut in a Nazi dismemberment of the Soviet Union. Although no written agreement resulted from the Potemkin visit, Polish-Russian affairs were left friendlier than they had been in many a year. With the breakdown of a Polish-German commercial agreement expected, Polish-Soviet trade will probably grow. While Poles were still suspicious of aid from Red Russia, a few German bombs falling on Warsaw could reasonably be expected to make them change their minds and welcome all the guns and warplanes they could get, from anywhere they could get them.
> Meanwhile, in the game of preparation for conquest that Füiihrer Hitler was playing in & near Danzig, the Poles showed themselves as tough as the Nazis. Before the Führer grabs new lands and riches his lieutenants generally stage numerous frontier "incidents" which are supposed to show that the Führer's patience is being taxed by cruel treatment of his people in the territory he has his eye on. The Poles played the same game. When the German press described a "mass flight" of Germans from Polish "terrorism," Poles charged that hundreds of their citizens were being driven daily from Silesia and East Prussia.
> The Nazis redoubled their attempt to weaken the Polish customs control of the Danzig-East Prussian frontier. Nazis had already tried ordering German merchants to refuse to sell foodstuffs to Polish officials. A more direct method was tried last week: a Polish customs officer's house was bombed, a Polish stationmaster was attacked by "unknown assailants."
> Warsaw and the rest of Poland solemnly commemorated the fourth anniversary of the death of Marshal Josef Pilsudski, Polish hero and dictator, but not Danzig. There the Nazi Senate prohibited any ceremonies on the ground that in the present tension they could not guarantee order. Polish retort was that since the Germans could not keep order, the Polish Army should move in and do it. When a Polish bookshop proprietor displayed the old Marshal's picture his windows were smashed. Nazi police conveniently arrived too late to arrest the vandals.
More alarming than any other incident was the arrival in Danzig of the same husky young Germans who "toured" Czecho-Slovakia and Memel just before Adolf Hitler moved in. Estimates of Danzig's "tourists" last week ranged from 1,000 to 30,000. Some of them wore Storm Troopers' uniforms. Danzigers who have been serving in the German Army also turned up back in Danzig, having received "furloughs." Danzig police leaves were canceled.