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After long effort we finally succeeded in securing the cooperation of Yugoslavia by its adherence to the Tripartite Pact without having demanded anything whatsoever of the Yugoslav nation except that it take its part in the reconstruction of a new order in Europe.
At this point the criminal usurpers of the new Belgrade Government took the power of the State unto themselves, which is the result of being in the pay of Churchill and Britain. . . . Members and officers of the German Embassy, employes of our consulates in Yugoslavia, were daily subjected to the most humiliating attacks. The German schools, exactly as in Poland, were laid in ruins by bandits. Innumerable German nationals were kidnapped and attacked by Yugoslavs and some even were killed. In addition, Yugoslavia for weeks has planned a general mobilization of its Army in great secrecy. This is the answer to my eight-year-long effort to bring about closer cooperation and friendship with the Yugoslav people, a task that I have pursued most fastidiously. . . .
The fight on Greek soil is not a battle against the Greek people, but against that archenemy England. . . .
Soldiers of the Southeast Front: Now your zero hour has arrived.
Seasons in Reverse. Thus did Adolf Hitler apostrophize his beloved season, spring. His ambition, which he has often avowed, is to be an architect—not only of heroic buildings; but also of mankind in his image. And spring is his building season. "Just now," he said in a recent speech, "I am feeling particularly vigorous. Spring is coming."
Though not noisily sturdy like Mussolini, Hitler is a healthy man, who in ten years has changed physically less than most men between 42 and 52, and who has suffered no greater hurts than a finger broken in an automobile accident and a polyp removed from his larynx. The wig-like wad of hair which hangs across his forehead has no grey in it; nor has his curt mustache.
For Adolf Hitler is an ascetic. He never smokes, and says: "I like to have my enemies smoke as much as possible, but I do not like to have my friends smoke." He never drinks anything stronger than his private near-beer, 1.5% alcohol. He eats no meat. Sex has no place in his life. In springtime, with Germany at war, he gives up even his little pleasures:
He tells his long, slim chauffeur Kempka to put away his long, slim, black Mercédès-Benz touring car, in which he loves to ride by the day across the Fatherland. In its place appears the grim six-wheeled, field-grey car of war, also a Mercédès-Benz.
There are no more evenings now of dressing to the ears and listening for hours on end to the stupendous heroics of Richard Wagner; no more evenings lying on his army cot at home as his Siemens record-changer riffles through the ponderous Germanisms of his other favorite, Anton Bruckner.
No more evenings now of cinema in his living room, no more comedies, no more mystery films, no more grandiose biographies. Now the only movies are Wochenschauen—weekly newsreels—and the terrifying records of campaigns.