Wednesday, August 13, 1930

Warsaw: The semi-official newspaper Gazeta Polska reacts to German Minister of Occupied Territories Gottfried Treviranus’ speech on Sunday, which criticized Germany’s post-war border with Poland.  The newspaper says the German government must be held “absolutely responsible” for its minister’s remarks.  Meanwhile Treviranus gives another speech in Germany in which he says he did not intend to imply that the German-Polish border should be revised.

Nuremberg, Germany: 70 people are injured in riots between communists and nazis.  The brawlers use beer steins and chairs as projectiles until the fire department breaks it up with fire hoses.  Police arrest several for carrying weapons. 

Monday, August 11, 1930

Berlin:  The country continues observing the 11^th anniversary of the Weimar Republic, with a fete at the Reichstag in which Joseph Wirth, former Chancellor, hails democracy as the only feasible option for Germany, and urges young people to avoid extremism.  President Paul von Hindenburg also speaks, noting that the economic depression is “the foremost internal problem confronting us.”

Elsewhere a band of nazis attempts to break up a parade by carrying flags of the republic as a disguise to wedge themselves into the parade.  They then raise a war cry and start pushing others to the side.  But the marchers push back, and eventually the nazis are marginalized.

Paris:  France announces that it will conduct military maneuvers in the Alps along the Italian border later this month, involving 50,000 troops from all branches of the military.  It will be the largest training exercise by French troops since the World War.

Istanbul:  Police arrest 34 on charges of plotting communist agitation.  Police discover subversive literature in raids on the communists’ houses.

Sunday, August 10, 1930

Berlin: Police arrest 400 nazis who are driving around in trucks ripping down German flags on the 11^th anniversary of the founding of the Weimar Republic.  Meanwhile, elsewhere in the city, Gottfried Treviranus, Minister of Occupied Regions, gives a speech which many fear will inflame Poland.  He says Germans are “grieved from the bottom of their hearts for the cut up Vistula regions, this unhealed wound in the eastern flank of Germany.”  He additionally urged his audience to remember “the iniquitous pressure put upon [U.S.] President Wilson to make him agree to the unnatural amputation of East Prussia.”  He calls Germany’s eastern border “an unjust frontier under foreign sovereignty.”  Treviranus has recently joined with Kuno von Westarp and other mavericks from the nationalist party to form a new People’s Conservative Party for the upcoming elections, and his speech was a campaign speech.

Saturday, August 9, 1930

Berlin:  More bad economic news, not just in Germany but throughout Europe.  Germany announces that its unemployment has hit 2.75 million – nearly 327,000 in Berlin alone.  Nearly 6 million are unemployed throughout Europe, including 450,000 in Austria, 400,000 in Hungary and more than 322,000 in Italy.  “In Great Britain, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Italy and France, workers dependent upon private charity or public dole now exceed the population of any European capital except London,” says one report. 

Friday, August 8, 1930

Melbourne:  More bad economic news -- unemployment in Australia is nearing 10%. 

Berlin:  Still more bad economic news -- public debt in Germany, which includes the national government as well as states and municipalities, has increased 40% from 1928 levels, largely due to payouts by governments to the unemployed.

Thursday, August 7, 1930

Berlin:  The attempt at forming a centrist coalition political party (see Aug. 4) fails.  The newly formed “State” party refuses to give up its identity and join the People’s party, and so the plan collapses.  This is expected to help the cause of extreme parties such as communists and nazis.

London:  Meanwhile, nationalists in Germany get a political gift from an unexpected source, when the British Electric and Allied Manufacturers’ Association asserts that the worst of the economic depression in Great Britain is yet to come, and that war reparation payments by Great Britain to the U.S. are a big part of the problem.  German nationalists seize upon this as proof that their opposition to the reparations payments of the Young Plan is well-founded.

Bucharest:  More anti-Semitic violence flares.  Nationalist students board a Bucharest-to-Czernowitz train at a stopover and attack Jewish passengers with cudgels. 

Wednesday, August 6, 1930

United States:  Adding to the economic misery of the Depression, drought is now ravaging key food-growing regions of the country.  Crop losses are said to top $1 billion, and prices for food are soaring. 

London:  More bad economic news -- unemployment passes 2 million as of July 28.  That’s up more than 133 percent from 857,338 a year ago, and the first time since January 1922 that unemployment has exceeded 2 million.  At 2,001,467, it’s the highest unemployment figure for Great Britain since June 1921.

Tuesday, August 5, 1930

Havana:  Following the arrest of 70 people yesterday, charged with plotting a communist revolt in the country, 21 are indicted on charges.

Monday, August 4, 1930

Berlin:  Another attempt is made to form a strong centrist political coalition around which the middle class can rally, when four parties agree to hold a meeting on Thursday to discuss the possibility.  Erich Koch, former Democratic leader, now part of the Constitutional party, is one of the leaders.  The politicians’ sense of urgency is growing as they concede that the communists and nazis will probably gain Reichstag seats in the upcoming election.  Observers are predicting 60 seats for the communists, 50 for the nazis, and 40 for Alfred Hugenberg’s nationalists.  The prospect of trying to govern with such a contentious Reichstag concerns many.

Meanwhile, Chancellor Heinrich Bruening holds his roundtable with seven of Germany’s business and industry leaders, where they reportedly discuss ideas for providing work to the nation’s unemployed (in addition to discussing ways to reduce prices, as reported earlier).  Whatever they discuss, they keep it to themselves and issue no statements afterward.

 

Odessa, Ukraine:  Reports filtering out of this city past soviet censors say a revolt against soviet rule has been crushed, with soldiers firing on a crowd of workers who had barricaded themselves into defensive positions.  Two hundred people are killed.

 

Havana:  The government holds 70 people on charges of plotting to lead a communist revolt in Cuba.  Chinese and Spanish ethnics are said to be leading the plot, and Havana’s Chinatown is reportedly the nexus of the planning.

Sunday, August 3, 1930

Berlin:  Communists ignore the government’s ban on firearms at political gatherings and attack a group of nazis with pistols, wounding two. 

Saturday, August 2, 1930

Berlin:  Chancellor Heinrich Bruening, governing without a parliament, announces plans to call together a “round table” of Germany’s business and industry leaders to discuss solutions to Germany’s financial crisis, including ways to reduce prices. 

Friday, August 1, 1930

Moscow:  Communists around the world, especially in Europe, observe “Anti-War Day” on the 16^th anniversary of Russia’s mobilization for the World War.  The observations are mostly quiet.  Here, the occasion is commemorated with the presentation of 52 warplanes to the Soviet Volunteer Society for Aerial and Chemical Defense – “to frustrate the war aims of imperialistic countries.”  Parades are held in Russia’s larger cities, with marchers wearing gas masks.

Elsewhere:

In Paris, 2,000 gendarmes and Republican Guards are posted at strategic points throughout the city, Prime Minister Andre Tardieu bans parades for the day, and police make 200 preventive arrests of communist leaders before the day arrives, including Florimond Bonte, Managing Editor of the Humanite communist newspaper.

 

In Berlin, an estimated 60,000 communists gather at the Lustgarten, but the day passes mostly without incident.

In New York there is violence, as an orderly gathering of 5,000 communists in Union Square ends in a brief brawl with police.  One policeman is hit by a brick and beaten with a lead pipe.  Two are arrested.

 

Geneva:  Reports are coming in from the Zermatt region of Switzerland that over the past month, 300-400 anti-fascists, both men and women, have fled there seeking refuge from persecution at the hands of the fascist government of Italy. 

Thursday, July 31, 1930

Berlin:  The government’s new taxes on alcohol aren’t working.  New data show that Germans, faced with the higher taxes, are simply abstaining, leading to a 40% decline in alcohol tax revenues for the government, when it was budgeting a US$90 million increase.  Worse, news reports confirm that the German government’s outlays for the unemployed would make the nation the equivalent of the largest employer in the world – indeed, in world history – if the monthly checks were for wages.  Unemployment is predicted to rise as high as 5 million over the winter if nothing is done to turn the tide. 

Paris:  Some 2,000 troops are on duty throughout the city to guard against communist violence expected on “International Anti-War Day” tomorrow, ordered by Moscow to be celebrated worldwide on the anniversary of Imperial Russia’s mobilization for the World War. 

Wednesday, July 30, 1930

New York:  The attorney for the company that publishes the Revolutionary Age, a communist newspaper, admits in court that the goal of his client (the newspaper) is to overthrow the U.S. government.  His client is not “foolish enough to believe the overthrow could be brought about except by force,” the attorney says.  But he says such an overthrow is impossible at this time, and therefore the U.S. Post Office should not interfere with distribution of the newspaper.  The U.S. prosecuting attorney says: “The Revolutionary Age is the organ of a party which advocates revolution.  Maybe its backers believe they are not strong enough here and now, but the fact remains that as soon as revolution is a practicable possibility, they will be for it.”

Tuesday, July 29, 1930

Bucharest:  Authorities claim that 72 people have been found to have connections with both communism and the recent outbreak of anti-Semitic violence, including one city’s police chief and three postal clerks.  This would appear to confirm the government’s contention that communists are behind at least some of the anti-Semitism.

London:  More bad economic news -- the Ministry of Labor announces that unemployment in Great Britain is approaching 2 million, an increase of more than 850,000 in just one year.