Cutting - Lady Drummond Hay reports from the Hindenburg (1936)

8th May 1936

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The 'Maiden Voyage' of the Hindenburg airship from Germany to the USA in May 1936. It wasn't actually the first commercial trans-Atlantic flight that the Hindenburg had made; it had been to South America earlier in the year. 

Lady Drummond Hay was a journalist for William Randolph Hearst's newspapers. She had covered the 1929 Graf Zeppelin Around the Globe flight sponsored by Hearst and a marvellous documentary film of the flight and her participation can be seen on good old YouTube. 

The 'Saint' author Leslie Charteris was among the many celebrities on the Hindenburg flight and a very entertaining fictional account of his fictional investigation into a fictional murder on board can be read in Max Allen Collin's book 'The Hindenburg Murder'. 

It was at Lakehurst almost a year to the day later that the Hindenburg crashed in flames on 6th May 1937 and in doing so ended the era of the great passenger airships.

For anyone interested in the so called 'Maiden Flight' I recommend this website.

Cutting - Hitler Dead (1945)

1st May 1945

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Adolph Hitler actually committed suicide in the Fuhrer Bunker in Berlin on 30th April 1945 along with Eva Braun, who he had married the previous day. Hitler's last Will and Testament surprisingly named Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz as the new Fuhrer. The expulsion of both Heinrich Himmler and Hermann Goering from the Nazi Party for 'betraying Germany' meant that the leaders of the Army and the SS were out of the running as Hitler's successor so the head of the Navy was next in line i.e. Doenitz. Goebbels was made Chancellor but he committed suicide on 1st May. 

On the 4th May Doenitz surrendered to Field Marshall Montgomery and after the War was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. He was released in 1956 and died in 1980.

Cutting - Hitler's Deputy escapes to Britain (1941)

13th May 1941

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Hess joined the Nazi on 1st July 1920, and was at Hitler's side in November 1923 for the Beer Hall Putsch, a failed attempt to seize control of the government of Bavaria. Whilst serving time in jail for this attempted coup, Hess helped Hitler write Mein Kampf. After the Nazis came to power in 1933, Hess was appointed Deputy Führer and received a post in Hitler's cabinet.

Having learnt to fly at the end of WWI he retained his interest and obtained his private pilot's licence in 1929. During the 1930’s he owned 3 aircraft and logged many hours flying time.

On 10 May 1941, Hess flew himself across the Channel to Scotland, claiming that he wanted to meet with the Duke of Hamilton and plot a peace treaty that would lead to the supremacy of Germany within Europe and leave the British Empire intact. He crash landed near Eaglesham and gave his name as Alfred Horn, a friend of the Duke. Hess was taken to hospital for injuries sustained during his landing, the Duke was informed of the prisoner and visited him. Hess revealed who he was and why he’d come to Scotland. The Duke, also a keen airman, flew himself to London and informed Winston Churchill.

Hess was imprisoned by the British authorities until the end of the war and sentenced to life imprisonment at the Nuremberg trials. He spent the rest of his time in Spandau Prison and apparently committed suicide at the age of 93 in 1987.

Random Cutting - Pro-Soviet letter by Sean O'Casey (1939)

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This letter by Irish dramatist Sean O'Casey was published in the Reynold's News dated the 1st October 1939. In August 1939 Stalin's Russia and Hitler's Germany had signed a non-aggression pact and had divided Poland into Soviet and German regions. The USSR would finally join the Allies against Germany in 1941. Sean O'Casey a life long Socialist seems, with hindsight, to have had a terribly naive view of life under Stalin, although it must be admitted that even those who knew what was going on in Russia turned a blind eye after 1941.

Hitler to Become War Minister (1938)

Daily Herald dated Friday February 4th 1938

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Adolf Hitler to replace Werner von Blomberg as commander of the German Army in a move to head off discontent in the German Military over Nazi policies.

Britain replies to Hitler's Peace Proposals (1939)

Daily Sketch dated Saturday October 7th 1939

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At this early stage of World War II, between invading Poland and while planning to invade France, Adolf Hitler made a speech in the Reichstag in which he condemned the War with Britain and France as a waste of life and that if those countries were willing to a mutual cease fire and if they would allow Hitler to continue with his policies in Poland, then the War could be over there and then. 

Prime Minister Chamberlain's speech in the House of Commons on the 12th October said, in part, “We must take it, then, that the proposals which the German Chancellor puts forward for the establishment of what he calls ‘the certainty of European security’ are to be based on recognition of his conquests and his right to do what he pleases with the conquered. It would be impossible for Great Britain to accept any such basis without forfeiting her honour and abandoning her claim that international disputes should be settled by discussion and not by force." And so the War continued.

What will Hitler Say? (1938)

The Children's Newspaper dated 19th February 1938

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Arthur Mee's Children's Newspaper not flinching from the serious subject of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany in 1938. The 2 high ranking military gentlemen mentioned, Blomberg and Fritsch, were actually accused of having a homosexual affair and, although proved innocent, were removed from power to be replaced by Hitler's own men.

The speech of Hitler's that is mentioned in the article was the one in which he warned that Germeny would "no longer tolerate the suppression of ten million Germans across its borders". This was a precursor to the invasion of Austria on March 12th 1938.

Even the article about cave-dwellers was triggered by a speech on the European situation by the Foreign Minister Anthony Eden.

Random Cutting - Naziland

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This pro-Nazi Germany article published in the bi-lingual Nueue Londoner Zeitung on 29th July 1933 was written by Geoffrey Harmsworth, the nephew of Lord Rothermere. Rothermere was the owner of the Daily Mail and notorious supporter of Mussolini, Adolf Hitler and, closer to home, Sir Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists.

Random Cutting - Eichmann trial (1961)

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Adolf Eichmann was one of the major organizers of the Holocaust. He oversaw the logistics of mass deportation of Jews to concentration camps in German-occupied Eastern Europe.

After the War, he fled to Argentina, where in 1960, he was captured by Israeli Mossad operatives and taken to Israel to face trial for war crimes. He was found guilty and executed by hanging in 1962.

Random Cutting - Germany in the Melting Pot (1934)

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This article from July 1934 was written as a reaction to the Night of the Long Knives purge of June 30th to July 2nd in which the Nazi SS murdered at least 85 of Hilter's political enemies including his old comrade Ernst Röhm the head of the SA, and imprisoned many more.

I wonder if this is the same Shaw Desmond who founded the International Institute for Psychical Research.

Random Ad - Visit the Rhineland (1937)

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The "A Nation at Work.. Dusseldorf" exhibition dates this advert to 1937, the year Buchenwald Concentration camp was opened for business. 

Come to Cologne 'The gateway to German Culture'. That is German culture as defined by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. After the book burnings of 1933 the SA also purged the art galleries of 'decadent' works and no Concert Hall owner in his right mind would put on a performance of any music with a Jewish taint.

Bad Kreuznach is renowned for its radium spa. Nothing like a dose of radiation to get the blood circulating.

Random Cutting - Germany's Commercial Airships (1934)

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This really must have looked like the future of air travel in the early 1930’s with the luxury of ocean liners and the speed of aeroplanes of the time.

The final paragraph of this cutting taken from the pro-European multi-lingual paper The European Herald critising Britain for not jumping in is prophetic but in the wrong way. With the fatal crash of the Hindenburg airship in 1937 putting an end to that future, it looks like Britain was right to ‘wait and see’. 

Labour’s Most Critical Week

The Pall Mall Gazette dated Monday February 21^st 1919

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The Pall Mall Gazette was founded as a pro-conservative evening paper in 1865 and lasted until it merged with the Evening Standard in 1923.

The War may be over but the Versailles Peace Treaty is still being forged, labour unrest in Britain increases and Germany is politically and economically unstable.

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(Cont’d from page 1)

All this talk of Germany paying for pensions etc was changed when the total amount of reparations was fixed in 1921 on the basis of the German capacity to pay, not on the basis of Allied claims. The debt was set at about £1billion and by 1931 they had repaid less that 20% when the debt was suspended indefinitely, although it was revived in 1953 and paid off in full by West Germany.

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Demobbed soldiers found a very different Britain to the one they left in 1914. High unemployment, a rising cost of living, strikes by newly organised unions and a severe shortage of houses were the order of the day.

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As George Clemenceau, the French Prime Minister and President of the Paris Peace Conference, was leaving his house the previous Thursday, a man fired several shots at his car. Clemenceau was hit once between the ribs, just missing his vital organs. His attacker, Emile Cottin, was seized by the crowd and nearly lynched. Clemenceau died in 1929 with the bullet still in him.

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The Pall Mall Gazette, being an evening paper, is commenting here on the news that Kurt Eisner the Socialist who had declared Bavaria an independent state, had been assassinated in Berlin earlier in the day. Immediately following The Great War Germany was in turmoil with various factions for or against the terms of the surrender and the occupation of the industrial Ruhr by the French. Bavaria was strongly anti-French and became the breeding ground for Nazism as the 1920’s progressed.

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The Late News tells us that Prince Leopold of Bavaria had been arrested on suspicion of being involved in the plot to murder Eisner. 

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No great mystery really – the retired actress Jessie Francis, wife of actor/manager Frederick Wright Sr. and mother of comedians Huntley and Fred Wright, died of a heart attack during or after a burglary. 

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The Melville Brothers (Walter and Frederick) owned and managed theatres, including the Lyceum in London, as well as writing and directing plays like this melodrama of German spies that ends with a British General shooting his traitorous wife, the Female Hun of the title.

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Special constables as we know them now date back to the First World War. The case of Herbert Stanton Moss can’t have helped the distrust the public had for the Specials as reflected in the lyrics of the popular 1919 song ‘My Old Man (Said Follow the Van)’ – ‘…you can’t trust a Special like an old-time copper…’

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There are no photos in the Pall Mall Gazette so this fashion drawing is a nice relief from the pages of text.

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With the benefit of hindsight, it is obvious that Prohibition in the USA between 1919 and 1933 did not work and even had a detrimental effect on society with the criminalisation of social drinking and the rise in organized crime to support the supply of alcoholic drinks. This article is referring not to the 18^th Amendment and the Volstead Act that brought in National Prohibition on January 1^st 1920, but to the temporary Wartime Prohibition Act that preceded it.

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I wonder if Lt.-Col PSC was at all mollified by the 1920 issue of the Bronze Oak Leaf to all service personnel mentioned in despatches. I doubt it.

U.S. Denounce Hitler's Invasion of Austria

Daily Sketch dated Friday March 18^th 1938

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Adolf Hitler was born in Austria but like many Austrians of the time regarded himself as German. When he came to power in 1933 he intended to make Austria a part of Germany once and for all, but Italy led by Benito Mussolini had vowed to defend Austria’s right to independence. By 1938 relations between Mussolini and Hitler had become so friendly that the Italian leader let it be known that he would no longer stand in the way of a German invasion. Hitler threatened the Austrian government with all out war if they didn’t capitulate and agree to Austria becoming part of Germany. The Austrian chancellor, Kurt Schuschnigg, and his entire government, except the one Nazi Party member, resigned. The remaining man, Arthur Seyss-Inquart as de-facto head of government, invited the German army to enter Vienna on March 15^th 1938.

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The bombing of Barcelona on the 16^th, 17^th and 18^th March 1938 followed France’s decision to re-open their border with Spain and allow supplies through to the Republicans fighting against General Franco. It was carried out by the Italian air force in planes disguised as Spanish. 

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Poland had taken over the Vilnius border region with Lithuania in 1920 and since then there had been no diplomatic relations between the two countries. With an eye on Germany expansion into Austria, Poland decided that it was a good time to have an ally on it’s northern border so issued this ultimatum to Lithuania. On March 19^th the Lithuanian government agreed to the demands. 

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The Australian aviator Harry Frank (the ‘E’ initial in the article is a mistake) Broadbent was trying to beat the record of Miss Jean Batten in a flight from England to Australia. A Qantas mail plane discovered him on Torren Island, fifty miles from Wangipo (wherever that is).

Broadbent went on to pilot flying-boats for Quantas and then for a small Southampton based airline serving Lisbon, Madeira and Las Palmas. In 1958 he was an instructor to a Portuguese airline and was forced into an emergency landing in the Atlantic, west of Portugal. The aircraft and occupants were never found.

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The use of the cat-o-nine-tails was officially abolished in UK prisons in 1967 although it hadn’t been used since 1962 and only rarely since 1948.

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Despite the Mayor's incredulity, Greta Garbo never married and according to some contemporary sources, such as writer Mercedes de Acosta, was of a sapphic bent.

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‘Her return to the screen’ refers to the break that Norma Shearer took after the death if her first husband Irving Thalberg. She retired from the business in 1942 and died in 1983.

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“Ouch!”

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‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first full-length animated feature from the Disney Studios, was released in the UK on March 12^th 1938.

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This is the committal hearing of the men arrested in this post.

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Hitler invades Austria? Spanish civil war? Don’t worry! The toffs are having a good time so all must right with the World. The only name I recognize is Cecil Beaton. I must move in the wrong circles.

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Any excuse to include an example of my favourite comic strip. Simple and elegantly drawn.

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One channel and 3 hours of TV a day for those few people who had sets. No fighting over the remote, then.

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This is the very same HMS Belfast that is now moored in the Thames by the Embankment and can be visited as part of the Imperial War Museum. Having been launched as shown above by Prime Minister Chamberlain’s wife on March 17^th 1938, she, the ship not Mrs C, was commissioned for service in August 1939 just in time for the War and was involved in the Artic Convoys and the sinking of the German battleship Scharnhorst.

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The Welshman Tommy Farr had won his first fight in 1926 at the age of 12 and fought his last in 1953. He’d beaten the American Max Baer in 1937 in England, but lost this fight at Madison Square Gardens.

Baer’s son Max Baer Jr. found fame on TV as Jethro Bodine in ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’. 

Japs Begin to Give up Arms

Sunday Pictorial dated Sunday August 19^th 1945

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On August 6th 1945 the USAAF dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima in Japan.  On August 9^th a second atomic bomb was dropped, this time on the city of Nagasaki. On the 15th Emperor Hirohito broadcast a radio message to his Empire announcing the surrender of Japan to the Allies, although the formal surrender wasn’t signed until September 2^nd.

Officially a state of war existed between the USA and Japan right up to April 1952.

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A 2 page spread proves that the War is over… for some. That’s Marlene Dietrich on the right doing her bit for peace.

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When Reinhard Heydrich was assassinated in Czechoslovakia in 1942 it was Karl Hermann Frank and Heydrich’s replacement Kurt Daluege that organized the total destruction of the village of Lidice and its people. Both Frank and Daluege were convicted of war crimes and sentenced to death by hanging.

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The civil war between Chiang Kai-Shek and the communists under Mao Tse-Tung went on until 1949 when Mao forced Kai-Shek and his people to evacuate from the mainland to the island of Taiwan.

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Since she (or he) was first sighted in 1871 the Loch Ness Monster has been a staple ‘light relief’ item for newspapers.

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Maria Anna Minges (sometimes written Marianne) was sentenced to death twice in 1949 by a French Military court, but was inexplicably given a free pardon in 1950.

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The War may have been won but the political battles between Labour and Conservative continued. Winston Churchill’s wartime National Government was replaced by Clem Attlee’s Labour Government in the General Election of July 1945.

“… too easy for too long for politicians to evade responsibility for their blunders..” Well I’m glad that sort of thing doesn’t happen these days!

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I wonder if little Colin Dexter is out there now still defying death. He’d be about 75.

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The demobilization of about 5 million men and women began in June 1945, the last wartime conscript being returned to civvy-street in 1949. No wonder there were strikes by disgruntled service men.

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A typical example of the perennial Sunday newspaper exposé of vice. All that is missing is the ‘I was invited up to her room but made my excuses and left’ line.

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The 18-month National Service imposed on most 18 year-old men lasted from the end of the War until 1960. 

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Footballers threatening to go on strike because some were being paid £8 a match and others only £4. Makes you wonder how Gareth Bale will survive on only £250,000 a week.