Thursday, June 26, 1930: French Troops Evacuate The Palatinate

Speyer, Germany:  French troops depart The Palatinate, a region of about 2,100 square miles in southwestern Germany that has been occupied since the World War.  Residents celebrate by removing French-language street signs.  By prior agreement, all French troops will be out of the Rhineland by June 30.

Moscow:  The communist party’s annual convention opens at the Moscow Grand Opera House with speeches urging communists in the United States to agitate for revolution.

Washington:  Secretary of Commerce Robert P. Lamont releases census figures which indicate unemployment is just under 2.3 million, better than widely thought.  William Green, President of the American Federation of Labor, says unemployment is 3.6 million.

Berlin:  Herman Dietrich is appointed Finance Minister to replace Paul Moldenhauer, who resigned June 18.  Moldenhauer’s financial reform proposals proved unpopular.  Dietrich was Minister of Economics in Chancellor Heinrich Bruening’s cabinet.  Political observers say Dietrich’s appointment is Bruening’s last chance to save his government.

Budapest:  A group of 30 communists attacks the Polish Embassy with stones, smashing windows and shouting, “Down with Polish dictatorship!”  This after Poland executed a group of communists at Lwow (Lviv).  Police disperse the mob and arrest some.

Monday, June 23, 1930

Budapest:  A mass trial of more than 100 communists begins.  They are charged with revolutionary conspiracy against the state.

Wednesday, 2 April 1930

Tokyo:  Admiral Kato Kanji, Chief of the Naval General Staff, lodges an official protest against Japan’s approval of the London Naval Treaty with Emperor Hirohito.

Budapest:  58 people are arrested as a result of a riot of the unemployed.

Istanbul:  Turkish police announce they have uncovered a spy plot infiltrating both military and government circles, and thought to be soviet in origin. 

Hamburg:  A powerful bomb explodes in a crowded department store, blowing out windows and crumbling walls.  No information yet on who did it or why. 

Monday, 20 January 1930: Second Reparations Conference Ends

The Hague:  

The Second Reparations Conference ends, with all 18 officially represented debtor and creditor nations signing the agreement enacting the Young Plan as the new World War debt reparation payment framework.  A flurry of late-night, last-minute wrangling produced agreements satisfactory enough to Italy and Hungary that they, too, agreed to sign.  The agreement calls for Hungary to pay its creditors 13.5 million gold crowns per year from 1942 to 1966, and Austria to pay 1 million gold crowns per year over the same period. 

Only Czechoslovakia, despite signing, refuses to renounce its rights under the Treaty of Versailles.  No sooner than Belgian Prime Minister Henri Jaspar, who is presiding over the meeting, has read the preamble to the agreement, than the head of the Czech delegation asks for the floor.

“My country much regrets to introduce reservations into these agreements, but inasmuch as the Eastern European accord which has been reached is of such a nature that in the arbitration of our disputes with Germany, if the verdict is pronounced in favor of the Czechoslovakians, they would receive nothing, while if the verdict favors Germany we would have to pay, you can easily understand that in signing these accords, Czechoslovakia cannot consent to renouncing her rights under the Treaty of Versailles.”

This brings a sharp rebuke from Philip Snowden, Great Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, one of such vehemence that observers say it surpasses anything from the contentious August 1929 meetings of the same conference.  Nevertheless, by the end, Snowden is saying “the nations gathered around the conference table by their act of signature are no longer enemies and allies, but from now on must be friends.”

Of course, there’s a reason why some of the powers represented are so eager to finish up business: they and much of the world – despite the seriousness of purpose of The Hague conference – are more interested in the other conference that’s about to start in London.

To view a photo of the closing conference

Murzuk, Libya:  

Italian forces under Duke Delle Puglie, backed by a handful of warplanes, battle Libyan resistance fighters here, finally taking the town after fighting that kills 50 and wounds 24.  Twelve more are taken prisoner.  Italy has 18 native soldiers (fighting for Italy) wounded. 

Moscow:  

The Bezbosnik (Godless) newspaper publishes a report which says that Russia will soon issue a decree authorizing soviet officials to expel all foreign missionaries and clergy from the country.  The decree will supplement an earlier one which already prohibited any new missionaries from entering Russia, and also prohibits foreign religious organizations from sending money, literature or other forms of aid to people of faith in the country.  The decree will apply to Christians, Jews and Muslims.  

Thursday, 16 January 1930

The Hague:  At the Second Reparations Conference, after all this time focused on Germany’s war debt payments, issues now arise between Hungary and the nations with which it has debt arrangements. 

Berlin:  The Prussian Ministry of the Interior bans all outdoor public gatherings and demonstrations in response to the communist violence yesterday.  The only public gatherings permitted will be funerals, weddings and other church processions.  The police are given broad powers to crack down on anyone found violating the new edict.  

Sunday, 5 January 1930

The Hague: 

At the Second Reparations Conference, the second topic to cause a stir (after France’s insistence on the right to invade Germany as collateral for war debts) is the separate payment deal struck by the U.S. and Germany (see Dec. 28, 1929).  The U.S. deal is very different from what France has in mind: it doesn’t call for any invasions of Germany.  But the U.S. places no other collateral on Germany either – an idea the European allies worry is too lenient, and that Germany may request from them too.  France in particular worries what will happen if an extreme nationalist government should take power in Germany. 

Meanwhile Hungary announces that it will not pay more than 10 million gold francs annually, up until 1943, due to losses of land and goods after the World War.  Hungary says it lost 72% of its territory after the war, and that state property worth 3.5 billion gold francs went to Romania, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, and 2.6 billion gold francs worth of property were taken by the Romanian army when it occupied Hungary after the war.  Italy reportedly supports Hungary on this.  

Thursday, 14 November 1929

Prague:  

Foreign Minister Edvard Benes rejects a demand from Hungary that a strip of Czechoslovakia containing 650,000 ethnic Hungarians be given to Hungary.  Such enclaves -- ethnically linked to one country but politically trapped inside another -- are not uncommon after the Allies drew new borders on the map of Europe to carve up the old Austria-Hungary Empire after the World War. 

In response to Hungary’s demand, Benes says that, instead, closer economic ties will make the border between Czechoslovakia and Hungary seem “practically invisible.”

 China:  Severe fighting in the civil war is reported at Tengfeng.

Wednesday, 23 October 1929: New York Stock Market Drops 6.3%

New York:  

THE STOCK MARKET crashES – THE Nyse DROPS 6.3% in THE second-largest TRADING day on record.  Over 6.3 million shares trade.  The loss is valued at $3-4 billion.  The market opens well after yesterday's uptick, with several bellwether stocks recording gains.  Then mid-afternoon, a wave of selling hits automotive equipment and radio stocks.  As the afternoon grinds on and the selling shows no sign of abating, traders and investors -- already nervous after the general market downturn of late -- lose their nerve and start dumping other stocks -- everything -- for whatever they can get, sometimes even below price.  In the final hour, the market completely collapses, in what one article calls "a new and wholly unexpected avalanche of selling."  About $50 million in value is melting away per minute at the end.  At one point, a clutch of banking executives are reported to be conferring on the front steps of the New York Stock Exchange on ways to support the market.  But it remains to be seen if they can do anything about it

Elsewhere: 

Budapest:  Prime Minister Istvan Bethlen de Bethlen, speaking to Parliament, announces that from now on, anti-semitic disturbances in Hungary's schools and universities will be met with a strong police response. Police will even enter classrooms where disturbances are taking place if necessary.  Bethlen's statement is in response to a spate of anti-Jewish unrest around the country of late.

China:  Nationalist government forces capture the town of Yencheng in Honan province.  The opposing forces are reported to number 300,000.

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.”