Prancing up to the Free City of Danzig* last week, the whole gaudy galaxy of Adolf Hitler's be-uniformed henchmen— Goring, Hess, Goebbels, Streicher, Biirckel ct al.—had the time of their strenuous lives. In three short years local Danzig Nazis have whipped up the quaint, long-slumbering Free City into a frenzied "Little Teutonia." Last week came the crux of a Danzig election deliberately forced by Nazis. They already had a working majority in the Danzig Diet but needed a two-thirds majority to scrap Danzig's democratic Constitution, crush rival parties and subjugate the Jews.
How topsy-turvy Danzig politics have become appeared when Dr. Hermann Rauschning, the Danziger who headed the local Hitler ticket two years ago and won a working majority, abruptly declared that his eyes have now been opened to the real designs of Nazidom upon the ancient Free City and last week appealed to Danzigers to vote anti-Nazi.
It was Dr. Rauschning who as "Premier" of Danzig healed the long feud with Poland in 1933, thus setting an example which led to the ten-year pact in which Realmleader Hitler agreed not to invade the Polish Corridor adjoining Danzig. Last week Danzig Nazi gangsters hounded and harried candidates of other parties so mercilessly that Danzig Socialists and members of Danzig Catholic Center Party had to hold their political rallies just outside the Free City on Polish soil. Irish Sean Lester, the resident High Commissioner of the League of Nations in Danzig, tried to uphold the right of free speech last week but was met with guffaws by new Danzig Nazi Premier Dr. Arthur Greiser.
"Unless you mend your ways, Mr. Lester," contemptuously chortled Dr. Greiser, "you may have to get out of Danzig, just as the League's meddling Commissioner in Saarbrucken had to get out of the Saar!"
"My Son Fought, Too!" Among Nazi election posters in Danzig were: "Back to Germany!"; "The Saar is free—now it's Danzig's turn!"; "This election serves the same purpose as the Saar Plebiscite!"; and "German is Danzig!"
Privately, prominent Danzig Nazis were ready to admit that the Polish Army would click into action if Adolf Hitler dared as much as even to reach for Danzig. They thought the Realmleader would not dare reach, just yet. However, the Nazi electioneering corps from Berlin last week surpassed all records in spouting at Danzig gems of German thought.
"Heil Goring!" roared 10,000 Danzigers as Germany's beefy, bull-necked "General of the Flyers" arrived in the brand new uniform he designed and created after adding that title to his collection of high offices (TIME, March 25).
"I only hope the French realize how much Germany would prefer the outstretched hand of friendship to the clenched fist!" cried General Goring, Premier of Prussia etc., etc. "Germany has no need to occupy Danzig by force, because natural laws impose themselves. . . . We are ready to cooperate for a world peace which respects Germany's honor and freedom. . . . Remember the Saar!"