Sunday, June 1, 1930

Halle, Germany:  In a speech here, nationalist politician Alfred Hugenberg proposes a “reparations duty” – a tariff on all goods and raw products imported into Germany – to extract from the rest of the world funds for Germany to pay its war debts under the Young Plan.  “Whoever utilizes central Europe, its market, traffic system and culture, must help us bear the burden which the rest of the world imposed.”  Hugenberg further suggests that this duty would be the first step in an economic fusion of central Europe centered around Germany, as opposed to France’s plan for a “United States of Europe.”

Dunkelstein, Austria:  Socialists and Heimwehr fascists clash in a street battle, throwing stones and firing shots.  Injuries are described as “numerous,” including gunshot wounds.

Manchuria:  Japanese consular police and Chinese troops mobilize in the Kurin province in anticipation of further outbreaks of violence by Korean communists.

Philadelphia:  More bad economic news -- new data indicate unemployment here is 40 percent higher than same time last year.  

Thursday, 3 April 1930

Berlin: 

Heinrich Bruening’s new cabinet wins its first vote of confidence from the Reichstag, with the deciding votes ironically being cast by the party of nationalist leader Alfred Hugenberg.  The vote is 252-187, with socialists, communists and nazis voting against.  Hugenberg had threatened to defeat the new government, but after Bruening outlines his cabinet’s agriculture policies, which are under the care of Martin Schiele from Hugenberg’s National People’s Party, Hugenberg evidently changes his mind, and his party votes in favor of Bruening.  Hugenberg still says his party may desert the government and bring about its downfall, however, at any time it feels so inclined.

Moscow: 

Rabbi Lazarev, Chief Rabbi of Leningrad, and 15 others, are sentenced to 10 years in a concentration camp for alleged anti-soviet activity. 

London: 

At the London Naval Conference, the delegates from the United States, Great Britain and Japan officially agree to a three-way naval treaty which is intended to reduce the navies of all three, with the U.S. and British delegations accepting certain reservations from Japan.  U.S. Senator David A. Reed, a U.S. delegate who did most of the negotiating with Japan, says, “I cannot impress on you too strongly the fine spirit with which the Japanese and British have met us.  There was no disposition to quibble on the part of any one of the three delegations.  All three delegations have been frank and fair.  I cannot imagine a more pleasant negotiation than this has been.  The result is not a victory for anyone, but an honorable and reasonable settlement between the three powers.” 

Sunday, 30 March 1930

Germany:

Berlin:  Alfred Hugenburg, nationalist political leader, is protesting loudly about the new government of Heinrich Breuning.  He claims Breuning’s cabinet is illegitimate, and that the Reichstag must be dissolved and new elections held.  So far, President Paul von Hindenburg is ignoring him. 

Leipzig:  The government enters a charge of high treason against Wilhelm Frick, nazi Minister of the Interior of Thuringia, on charges that he is seeking to reorganize the police in that state (over which his post has authority) along nazi lines of thought.  The public prosecutor will begin an investigation into the charge. 

Tuesday, 11 February 1930

Berlin:  The Reichstag debate on the Young Plan grows rowdy when Alfred Hugenberg, the nationalist politician who spearheaded the Liberty Law campaign opposing the plan, proclaims vociferously that it will bring about Germany’s ruin.

 

London:  At the naval conference, France and Japan oppose the call by the U.S. and Great Britain for abolition of submarines.  France says lesser naval powers cannot do without the submarine, noting that subs are no different from other warships as instruments of death.  Japan says the submarine has legitimate military uses for defense, reconnaissance and in warding enemies out of national waters.  But both nations say they support limitations on submarine warfare.  Japan is “emphatically opposed to unlimited submarine warfare as witnessed during the World War.”

Paris:  An anti-communist crowd marches on the Soviet Embassy in protest of the recent disappearance and alleged abduction of former White Russian General Alexander Koutiepoff.  Police break up the marchers before they reach the embassy.

Cleveland, USA:  More effects of the global economic depression: a crowd of 3,000 unemployed people storms city hall and clashes with police, demanding food and jobs, shouting “work and wages, or we’ll fight.”  There are conflicting reports of who starts the actual fighting, however.  Reporters say members of the crowd begin shouting, “The police are clubbing us” before any clubbing has in fact begun, and that this cry was in reality a signal for the rest of the crowd to try to break through the police line.  It is only then that the police begin the clubbing.  In any event, at one point as many as 30 rioters and six police are lying on the city hall steps, being trampled by the rest. 

Rome:  Still more effects of the global economic depression: two of Italy’s four largest banks -- Credito Italiano and Banca Nazionale di Credito -- merge after suffering huge losses. 

Monday, 23 December 1929

Berlin:  

Dr. Paul Moldenhauer is appointed Minister of Finance to replace Dr. Rudolf Hilferding.  Moldenhauer was previously Minister of Economics.  Robert Schmidt will replace him in that post. 

Molenhauer’s appointment pleases industrialists and bankers.  He is a member of the people’s party (as is Foreign Minister Julius Curtius), a party friendly to business interests, and is expected to make changes to his predecessor’s policies that these interests will find more favorable.  This also restores the people’s party to four seats in Chancellor Hermann Mueller’s cabinet.

Meanwhile, Alfred Hugenberg, nationalist political leader who lost the Liberty Law vote, reportedly is planning to appeal the law’s defeat to the German courts and to ask President Paul von Hindenburg to proclaim the measure law.  He claims that only a majority of those who actually voted on Sunday was required for the Liberty Law to pass – not a majority of registered voters.  It’s a grasp at straws.  Neither the court nor Hindenburg is expected to give his argument any merit. 

Brussels:  

A young man, variously said to be an anarchist or a communist, is arrested on charges of plotting to bomb a train carrying the king and queen of Belgium.  The royals’ daughter, Princess Marie Jose, plans to marry Crown Prince Umberto of Italy in January.  The bomb plot was in protest of Italy’s fascist government.  A newspaper article in Brussels says the Belgian Prime Minister, Justice Minister and Defense Minister had all recently received threats as well that they would be killed unless they stopped the wedding.

 

Manchuria: 

Japanese reports say that ethnic Mongolians in the Barga district of western Manchuria are considering forming a new nation -- with Soviet Russian encouragement and under Russian influence – from territory that Russia invaded last month. 

Wednesday, 4 December 1929

Washington:  

Secretary of State Henry Stimson denounces Russia’s statement from yesterday that the United States’ urging Russia to settle the Manchuria dispute was “unfriendly.”  Stimson says rather the U.S. action was prompted by the seriousness with which the United States views the Kellogg-Briand Pact.  Stimson reiterates a belief that public opinion can be used as a tool for enforcing peace, and for encouraging compliance with the Kellogg-Briand Pact by the nations who signed it. 

Moscow:  

Yet Russia keeps up the war of words.  Maxim Litninoff, Acting Commissar of Foreign Affairs, advises “protectors of the Kellogg pact” to keep their attentions focused on their own parts of the world.  “The Soviet Union, unlike other countries, rejected extraterritorial rights and privileges in China, and it would seem strange why, under this circumstance, the Nanking and Mukden governments took the path of violence with provocations toward soviet Russia.  This is explained by the simple fact that the start and further encouragement of actions of the Nanking government originated from the imperialistic camp.” 

Elsewhere: 

Shanghai:  Meanwhile the national government of China also issues a reply to the communiqué it, like Russia, received from the United States and other world powers, urging it to settle the Manchuria conflict peacefully.  The reply promises that, “apart from measures of self-protection and defense of territorial sovereignty against external invasions, China would observe her obligations under the pact.”

China:  The troop rebellions in the civil war grow more serious.  Reports say the number of mutinous troops in Pukow is 15,000, and they’ve headed north after looting the city.  Meanwhile, communist rebels have reportedly killed 100 people and looted the city of Kanchow (Ganzhou), in southern China.

Berlin:  The fallout from Alfred Hugenberg’s Liberty Law initiative continues: 8 more German Nationalist People’s Party delegates in the Reichstag resign, including the party chairman, joining the six who resigned yesterday in protest of Hugenberg’s leadership.  Ten more are expected to follow soon.  

Tuesday, 3 December 1929

Berlin:  

The political fallout begins for nationalist political leader Alfred Hugenberg over his failed Liberty Law* initiative.  Six Reichstag delegates from his German National People’s Party resign from the party in protest over Hugenberg’s leadership, which has been driving the party increasingly nationalist.  This follows the split already evident last week, when some of his own party’s members voted against his proposed Liberty Law.  But Hugenberg is also being excoriated from the even more radically nationalist Adolf Hitler, leader of the national socialists.  

Russia: 

Nikolsk-Ussurlisky: Russian and Manchurian officials sign an agreement formally ending fighting in the Russian invasion of Manchuria.  According to dispatches, joint control of the Chinese Eastern Railway will be reinstated.  It’s still not clear what role the national government of China has in this agreement, if any, nor what recognition it will give the agreement, if any . . . nor that it even matters, given the central government’s tenuous-at-best rule in Manchuria. 

Moscow:  Meanwhile, the soviet government informs the French government (which is acting as the mediator between the United States and Soviet Union, since the two countries have no diplomatic relations) that it considers “unfriendly” the recent U.S. advice that Russia keep in mind the Kellogg-Briand Pact which it signed, and settle the Manchuria dispute peacefully.

 

“The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, from the first day of its existence, has pursued a policy of peace, and unlike other powers has never resorted to military action except as a necessary step for defense, due to direct attack on the union or armed intervention in its internal affairs.  The Soviet Union has consistently pursued this policy and intends to pursue it independently of the Paris pact for abolition of war.”  The response goes on to outline Russia’s case that it was China’s policy over the Chinese Eastern Railway that started the conflict.    

“The climax of this policy was the seizure of the Chinese Eastern Railway without any warning or preliminary presentation of any claims, in violation of existing agreements regarding the joint administration of the railway.  The soviet government believes that if action such as that of the Nanking government were taken toward the United States, Great Britain or France, it would be considered by their governments sufficient cause for putting into force reservations they made when signing the pact.  [. . .]  The Nanking government not only resorted to illegal seizure of the Chinese Eastern Railway, but mobilized along the soviet Manchurian railway an army, various sections of which, together with counter revolutionary Russian bands included therein, made systematic attacks on the U.S.S.R., crossing the frontier and firing on units of the Red Army and frontier villages, robbing and violating a peaceful population, causing thereby losses of lives and property.  Despite frequent warnings through the German government, these attacks did not cease but rather increased and compelled the soviet far-eastern army, in the interests of defense, protection of the frontier and the peaceful population, to take counter measures.  Thus the actions of the Red Army had due considerations of self-defense and were in no wise violations of any obligations of the Paris pact.

“That cannot be said of armed forces in Chinese territory and Chinese ports of those powers who have applied Tuesday to the Soviet Union with identical declarations.  The soviet government states that the government of the United States has addressed its declaration at a moment when the soviet and Mukden governments already had agreed to several conditions and were proceeding with direct negotiations which would make possible prompt settlement of the conflict between the Soviet Union and China.  In view of this fact, the above declaration cannot but be considered unjustifiable pressure on the negotiations, and cannot therefore be taken as a friendly act.  In conclusion, the soviet government cannot forbear expressing amazement that the government of the United States, which by its own will has no official relations with the soviet, deems it possible to apply to it with advice and counsel.” 

China:  

New fighting erupts in the civil war.  Communist rebels are reportedly advancing on Canton, on the southern coast, and two divisions of nationalist government troops mutiny at Pukow, across the river from the capital of Nanking, after refusing orders to deploy to Canton. 

Friday, 22 November 1929

Manchuria:  

The Russian invasion continues.  The Tass news agency in Russia reports that more than 3,000 Chinese/Manchurian soldiers have been captured.  Refugees fleeing the fighting to Hailar say 1,000 Chinese/Manchurian troops and civilians taking cover from Russian bombing in a coal mine, were killed. 

Elsewhere:

Vienna:  The socialist newspaper Arbeiter Zeitung publishes copies of plans by the nationalist Heimwehr paramilitary to attack and capture Innsbruck, capitol of the Austrian province of Tyrol.  The plans called for using poison gas, mortars and machine guns. 

Warsaw:  Police raid 42 apartments and find enormous quantities of communist literature and money.  Fifty communists are arrested on suspicion of intent to destabilize the government. 

Cassel, Germany:  Nationalist political leader Alfred Hugenberg, in a speech, says his proposal to reject the Young Plan is the only way to stop the spread of communism across the world.  He says his aims in opposing the Young Plan are to free Germany from bondage to foreign nations, and that this can be achieved without bloodshed if only all Germans will stand together.  

Saturday, 2 November 1929: Germany's Liberty Law Campaign Pulls a Surprise

Germany:  

Electorate surprise -- the Liberty Law* plebiscite passes the 10% mark needed to force it to the Reichstag.  Newspapers have been assuring readers for the last three days that the proposal wouldn’t pass.  But after the final votes are counted, the measure has squeaked by, reportedly by the razor-thin margin of 10.08%. 

The Reichstag is of course expected to reject the measure, which would call for Germany to abandon its debt reparation payments from the World War altogether.  But even if it does, German law still requires the measure be submitted to a public vote after that.  All of which means weeks’ more publicity for the nationalists, cranked out by the press controlled by Alfred Hugenberg, whose political coalition proposed the Liberty Law.  “The first battle is won,” says the nationalist newspaper Kreuzzeltung.  

The government is reportedly frustrated over the whole affair, including having to foot the bill for a nationwide referendum, probably early next year.  The government announces that it will heavily penalize any of its own officials who were found to have signed the Liberty Law petition.  The nationalists, meanwhile, claim the national government is trying to stifle freedom of expression over the measure. 

Reports from the countryside, especially places like Pomerania and East Prussia, hold that “junkers” – the old Prussian aristocracy, many of whom own vast estates with lots of workers – bullied their farm tenants into voting for the Liberty Law.  Sure enough, favorable votes in those places ran as high as 33% (Pomerania) and 25% (East Prussia). 

“Enemies abroad will be made aware that in Germany strong forces are alive which refuse to bend their backs under the yoke,” says Kreuzzeltung.

Manchuria:  

Civilians fleeing the Russian military actions at Fukdin report some 2,000 Soviet troops are involved, backed by warplanes.  They say Fukdin has been captured by the soviets, but that civilians are not being harmed.

Rome:  

Italy and France begin a round of preliminary discussions in advance of the London Naval Conference due to start early next year.  As the two perceived “great powers” on the Mediterranean, the nations’ naval rivalry is as intense as their political rivalry on the continent.  News reports state that Italian naval officers are already claiming that Italy’s navy must increase three-fold to give it parity with France and adequately protects its lengthy coastline.  France, on the other hand, is expected to counter that her far-flung empire demands a navy larger than any other country on the continent.  

Elsewhere: 

Russia:  The soviet government sentences more of its citizens to die.  This time 14 people get the sentence, most of them kulaks, but two priests and one a church warden.  The priests were sentenced for inciting others to set fire to a cooperative farm near Pekoff, Russia. 

China:  In the civil war, Shanghai has reportedly been put under martial law, and fighting has reportedly spread into Manchuria, where the Soviet offensive against Fukdin continues as well.  Heaving fighting continues in the Honan province as well. 

*See definitions page.

Wednesday, 9 October 1929: Prussia Declares Stahlhelm Illegal

Berlin: 

The government of Prussia, the state that makes up some 60 percent of Germany, bans the Stahlhelm (“Steel Helmets”), a nationalist paramilitary organization, in two provinces, on grounds that it is effectively an army.  The move is in response to the Stahlhelm’s support of the the Liberty Law campaign.

For months, a coalition of groups called the Reich Committee for the German People’s Petition has been campaigning, sometimes violently, for the Liberty Law, which opposes the Young Plan, would discontinue war debt payments altogether, and even prosecute government officials who support the Young Plan. The coalition was the brainchild of Alfred Hugenberg, a nationalist press baron who owns multiple newspapers, and is made up of many groups, including the German National People’s Party, a nationalist political party of which Hugenberg is head, and the radical, fascist, fringe National Socialist German Worker’s Party (nazis).  The coalition was formed to drum up support for a national plebiscite on the Liberty Law, to be conducted in October.  Under German law adopted after the World War, if 10 percent of voters nationwide sign a petition in favor of a proposed law, the Reichstag has to take up the measure. Hugenberg’s plebiscite is intended to gather the necessary signatures to force the Liberty Law to the Reichstag.

Also part of the coalition is the Stahlhelm, the largest of the many paramilitary organizations that operate in Germany, boasting some half a million members.  President Paul von Hindenburg is its honorary president.  The Stahlhelm is heavily comprised of former soldiers, and serves as an unofficial army reserve of sorts, after the standing German army was required to shrink under the Treaty of Versailles.  It was pro-nationalist from its beginning, and often serves as a kind of armed wing of Hugenberg’s political party.

Prussia’s Minister of the Interior issues his ruling in reprisal for the Stahlhelm’s sometimes heavy-handed activities in support of the Liberty Law, including violence.  The minister is a socialist, and much of Prussia is socialist-leaning.  Prussia issues a handbill as well, stating:  “The German government as well as an overwhelming majority in the German nation, realizes that the improvement in Germany’s international position cannot be forced by any German law, but is only obtainable step by step through constant efforts and negotiations with other powers.”  

Stahlhelm with old imperial flag

Moscow:  

Pravda, newspaper of the communist party, launches a new occasional feature titled, “To Know Our Enemies in Order to Hate them.”  It’s a review of capitalist countries, with the United States winning the honor of being evaluated first.  “Millions of European proletarians who sought freedom and happiness on American farms are disillusions after paying a bitter price.  Farmers are being reduced to beggars.  Taxes aggregate 30 percent of the value of farm production, while from four to five million workers are permanently unemployed.  Workers do not get vacations.  They are given no means to support themselves properly, and are likely one morning to find their jobs gone when they return to work.  Millionaires’ daughters order colored limousines to match every new gown.”

“Hence we must imbue communists with a real hatred for capitalists so that communists will fight harder.  Those American communists who refuse to believe in the inherent rottenness of American capitalism are being expelled.  Business is their god, money their king and commerce their ruler; but, as churches and thrones were crushed, so this American paradise will be crushed.”

Harbin, Manchuria:  

The U.S. consulate here receives a report from Leonard Lilliestrom, U.S. Vice Consul, confirming reports of atrocities by Red Army soldiers against White Russians in Hailar and Manzhouli.  Among the gruesome details: soviet cavalry has surrounded villages and forced males over 10 to the edge of town where they are mowed down with machine gun fire.  An estimated 150 White Russians have been killed by the soviets.

Elsewhere: 

Jaryczowo, Poland:  Anti-semitic unrest among ethnic Ukrainians flares into violence and death.  Last night a mob of Ukrainians attacked a synagogue during evening prayers, resulting in four Ukrainians killed and 11 Jews and 5 Ukrainians injured as the Jews fought back with candlesticks and furniture.  Today a large Ukranian mob attacks Jewish merchants, wounding 7, vowing revenge for the deaths of their kin.  Police are out in force, as both groups are heavily armed.

Hungary:  Jewish students are beaten in schools after distributing handbills.  Schools in Hungary have been known to ban Jewish students from classes with Hungarians, and Jews who protest this can face mistreatment.  

Rome: The fascist government bans certain editions of Jack London novels, branding them “anti-fascist.”