All over the Fatherland solemn little groups of school children paced the streets importantly one day last week, chanting at grown ups "Ja, ja ja! Vote Ja! Ja, ja, ja! Vote Ja!"
Blind men ran their fingers over a Nazi hump-&-bump manifesto in Braille which keynoted "Vote Ja!"
Gaudy prostitutes from Berlin's West End hotels and night clubs, who are rarely seen on the streets by daylight, piled out of bed and trudged sleepily to the polls, minced home again wearing little buttons with the legend "Ja."
Nazi war veterans in wheel chairs displayed the challenging placard: "German, hast thou voted Ja? If not, our sacrifice was in vain!"
In remote seaports Germans piled aboard steamers to register with the captains their "Ja."
In Berlin nearly every kiosk blossomed with a poster of Der Marschall und der Gefreite. Onetime Gefreite (lance-corporal) Adolf Hitler was shown in Nazi uniform, Feldmarschall von Hindenburg in the sack suit of a President. Together they appealed to all Germany in giant capitals to KAMPFEN MIT UNS FUR FRIEDEN UND GLEICHBERECHTIGUNG! ("Battle with us for peace and equality!"). The great plebiscite decreed by Chancellor Hitler to vindicate his withdrawal of Germany from the Disarmament Conference and resignation from the League of Nations (TIME, Oct. 23 et seq.) was on. Adolf Hitler, born an Austrian, was about to make good his audacious boast when summoned before the German Supreme Court three years ago (TIME, Oct. 6, 1930). Asked by the Court, "Are you plotting a revolution?", he snarled, "Nein!" we are merely planning an intellectual eruption of the German people by peaceful means. . . . Within three years 35,000,000 of the 40,000,000 German voters will support us. . . . Heads will roll in the sand!"
Last spring in the last election more than 20,000,000 Germans voted against Hitlerism, though Adolf Hitler was then Chancellor and had put on a terrific campaign (TIME, March 13). To make sure of a real "intellectual eruption" last week —an utter blasting of Nazidom's foes—the Chancellor and his chief henchmen have been shouting themselves hoarse for weeks, roaring up and down Germany in Herr Hitler's big private plane, often piloted by the bullnecked, hot-eyed No. 2 Nazi, General Hermann Wilhelm Goring, Premier of Prussia and a War ace (see cut). To ensure victory other steps were also taken—or at least a great many Germans seemed to think so.*
Nazi wrath knew no bounds when His Eminence Michael Cardinal von Faulhaber, Archbishop of Munich, exhorted German Catholics last week to vote "according to your conscience." Nazis stormed that the Cardinal should have said "Vote Ja!" In a speech of passionate denunciation General Goring spoke of "black moles" (priests) as little better than "Red rats" (Socialists)—despite the fact that Chancellor Hitler is nominally a Catholic.