Wednesday, June 25, 1930

Tokyo:  The All-Japan Students Association holds a protest meeting against the London Naval Treaty at the Kanda Theater.  Police break up the meeting halfway through.

Wednesday, June 11, 1930

Berlin:  As Chancellor Heinrich Bruening’s cabinet continues to debate solutions to Germany’s financial condition, the number of unemployed needing public relief grows.  New government reports put the total unemployed at 2.6 million, of which nearly 1.9 million need government assistance.

Tokyo:  Kato Hiroharu, Chief of Naval Staff and recently appointed member of the Supreme War Council, makes good on his threat from May, and resigns in protest over the London Naval Treaty.  

Tuesday, June 10, 1930

Tokyo:  Two more high level naval officials resign in protest over the London Naval Treaty: Admiral Yamanashi Katsunoshin, Vice Minister of the Navy, and Nobumasa Suyetsugu, Assistant Chief of General Staff.  

Friday, June 6, 1930

Berlin: Chancellor Heinrich Bruening’s plan for saving Germany’s finances by taxing workers’ salaries, corporate directors’ fees and bachelors, runs into immediate trouble.  Several political parties publicly oppose it.  They and their allied press outlets predict not only that the measure will fail to pass the Reichstag, but that Bruening’s cabinet will fall over it.  Meanwhile, the Prussian Trade Minister’s monthly report on economic conditions in that state (which makes up nearly 60% of Germany) describes “almost universal depression.”

 

Tokyo:  Government officials are said to be apprehensive about developments in Tsinan in the Chinese civil war: 2,000 Japanese students are trapped there as fighting approaches.  Tsinan was the scene of a brutal attack in 1928, when southern rebels overrunning the city killed 30 Japanese nationals. 

Gomel, Ukraine:  Kulaks (rich peasants) outraged at continued soviet collectivization of their farms, set fire to the two largest collective farms in the district.  Sheds containing agricultural equipment and machinery are destroyed, leaving the collectives without the means to produce food.  

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.  

Saturday, May 31, 1930

Lung Ching-Tsun (Jilin City), Manchuria:  Bands of Korean communists launch coordinated attacks on Japanese facilities here, in Yenki, and at other towns in this district on the border with Korea.  The communists burn and bomb Japanese consulates, utilities and schools, but the only casualty is an injured police officer.  Japanese consular police and Chinese troops band together to drive the attackers away.

 

Berlin:  Joseph Goebbels, nazi member of the Reichstag, is fined the equivalent of US$200 instead of getting the nine-month prison term requested by state prosecuting attorneys, for insulting President Paul von Hindenburg in an article he published in December in a nazi newspaper.  The article, titled “Is President von Hindenburg Still Alive?” excoriated Hindenburg for his “friendship with Jewish and Marxist advisors.” 

Meanwhile, more bad economic news: Paul Moldenhauer, Minister of Finance, reports to the Reichstag that government revenues are still falling, but spending is not, resulting in a projected annual deficit of US$180 million.  

Thursday, May 29, 1930

Tokyo:  Admiral Takarabe Takeshi, Minister of the Navy, holds a closed-door all-day meeting with the naval members of Japan’s Supreme Military Council to explain his position in agreeing to the London Naval Treaty.  Reports of the meeting’s outcome are conflicting.

Monday, May 26, 1930: German Skirmish at the Polish Border, and Lawsuit to Stop Frick's 'Prayers of Hate'

Neuhoefen, Germany / Opalenie, Poland:  German and Polish border guards exchange gunfire in a brief skirmish that reportedly leaves one Polish soldier dead and a German officer wounded.  Each side claims the other started it: Germany says Polish shell casings were found on its side of the border; Poland says German blood was found on its side of the border.  Both sides promise an investigation.

Berlin:  The German government files a lawsuit against Wilhelm Frick, the nazi Minister of Education in the state of Thuringia, to stop the “prayers of hate” he has introduced into schools there.  From a legal standpoint, the question is whether the federal government can interfere in the state’s authority over its schools.  The hate prayers are one of several anti-semitic activities nazi leaders in Thuringia have introduced.

Tokyo:  Kato Hiroharu, Chief of Naval Staff, threatens to resign in protest over Japan’s approval of the London Naval Treaty. 

London:  More bad economic news: the opposition party predicts unemployment will reach 2 million by winter.

Monday, May 19, 1930

Tokyo:  Admiral Takarabe Takeshi, Minister of the Navy, is given a dagger with the recommendation that he use it to commit suicide to expiate the “crime” of his agreeing to the London Naval Treaty.  He doesn’t.  In fact, he publicly refuses today an earlier demand that he resign over the treaty.  Meanwhile, a naval officer does commit suicide to express his bitterness and despondency over the treaty.  Lt. Commander Eiji Jusakari, attached to the naval general staff, slashes his abdomen with a sword while on a train from Kobe to Tokyo.  He dies in a hospital where he is taken en route.

Paris:  An all-but-forgotten German-French committee discussing the return of the Rhineland to German control announces success: they have reached full agreement on withdrawing the last occupying French troops by June 30.  Separately, French officials burn US$37 billion worth of German bonds in a symbolic gesture illustrating the liquidation of all past reparation efforts, in view of the superseding Young Plan.

London:  The worldwide economic depression worsens: officials announce British unemployment has reached 2.5 million.  Just last week it was being announced at 1.7 million.

Monday, May 12, 1930

Vienna:  Prince Oscar von Hohenzollern, son of the former Kaiser of Germany, visits Austria’s nationalist Heimwehr paramilitary with 30 members of Germany’s Stahlhelm (also a nationalist paramilitary), of which Prince Oscar is a member.  The timing couldn’t be worse for Austrian Chancellor Johan Schober, trying to disarm such groups as he promised the League of Nations.  In the face of Schober’s intentions, the Heimwehr has announced it intends to hold parades every Sunday through the summer.

Tokyo:  Japan confirms it is sending 25 (not 30) military officers as trainers for China’s nationalist government military.  Chinese communists accuse Japan of meddling in China’s internal affairs.  Meanwhile, a group of reserve naval officers calls on Naval Minister Takarabe Takeshi to resign for the “unpardonable” act of agreeing to the London Naval Treaty.

Saturday, May 10, 1930

Tokyo:  Japan and China reportedly reach an agreement whereby 30 Japanese military officers will serve as instructors and organizers for the nationalist government’s forces in their civil war with communist rebels.  This comes as something of a surprise; many Chinese still bitterly resent the Japanese military for the Jinan Incident of May 1928, in which Japanese forces clashed with nationalist government troops on Chinese soil, causing thousands of casualties.

Monday, May 5, 1930

Tokyo:  Shinya Uchida, former Vice Minister of the Navy and a bitter opponent of the London Naval Treaty, sends a letter to the War Minister, Gen. Issei Ugaki, trying to get him involved in opposing it too. 

Madrid:  More violence by university students, this time leaving two dead, which prompts Prime Minister Damaso Berenguer to issue a statement saying his government will tolerate no more demonstrations.  Both of the dead are workers, killed by gunfire.  40 are injured, many by thrown rocks.  

Friday, May 2, 1930

Prague:  Communists and socialists in parliament come to blows for the second day in a row during debate of routine business.

Berlin:  The cabinet of Chancellor Heinrich Bruening announces its budget for the fiscal year, which amounts to US$84 million more than last year, which already carried a US$75 million deficit.  The cabinet’s opponents are increasing their complaints that the government must get its financial house in order.

Tokyo: Rumors swirl that Kanja Kato, Navy Chief of Staff, will resign in protest of Japan’s acceptance of the London Naval Treaty. 

Harbin, Manchuria:  A mob of Chinese and Korean “radicals” attacks the Japanese consulate here.  Police arrest 32. 

Thursday, May 1, 1930: May Day Passes with Relative Calm

May Day passes relatively calmly in most of the world.  Customarily a major event for labor and communists, the day passes with less unrest than many authorities and police had feared.  Berlin is the exception: riots and shooting mar the occasion, with one killed and 200 arrested.  In Paris, police arrest more than 3,200 demonstrators or potential troublemakers, raiding meetings of communist and labor groups to stop problems before they start, and there isn’t even much work stoppage.  Factories are running at 80%, and utilities are normal.

In New York, 1/3 of the city’s police force – 5,000 men – are on duty.  More than 100,000 people participate in two demonstrations – one pro-American, the other pro-Soviet, but both are relatively peaceful.  50 are arrested for disorderly conduct, mostly keeping kids out of school to participate in the demonstrations.  10,000 war veterans also demonstrate against communism.

Moscow, of course, sees its usual parades and demonstrations.  People carry signs and banners ridiculing religion, British imperialism in India, and the League of Nations.  Loudspeakers are set up over the Shrine of the Iberian Virgin at the entrance to Red Square, and blare revolutionary speeches all day.

Madrid:  A crowd of 10,000 cheers a speech by Miguel Unamuno, one of Spain’s leading philosophers, who ardently advocates a republic.  At one point the crowd begins shouting, “Death to the king!”  Police charge with swords drawn, injuring 50.  Nevertheless, Premier Gen. Damaso Berenguer says he doesn’t take the “shouting of students” too seriously, and says the monarchy will remain, but elections will be held.

Warsaw:  Communists and the unemployed clash with police using guns and rocks, injuring six.  Two are arrested. 

Tokyo:  In a press interview, Shoza Yabuki, Vice Minister of the Navy, appeals to “everyone who believes in party government” to support Japan’s approval of the London Naval Treaty. 

London:  The worldwide economic depression deepens: Margaret Bondfield, Minister of Labor, tells the House of Commons that unemployment has increased more than 500,000 in a year.

Friday, 25 April 1930: Opposition to London Naval Treaty Rises in Japan

Tokyo: 

Opposition to Japan’s approval of the London Naval Treaty arises quickly.  Inukai Tsuyoshi, President of the Seiyukai opposition political party, attacks the treaty in the diet, claiming that because it was signed by a civilian government representative, it violates the Japanese constitution, which stipulates that the military be free from civilian control.  Foreign Minister Kijuro Shidehara, reviewing the treaty in the Diet, repeatedly has to refute the accusation that the Japanese delegation was forced to sign. 

Inukai Tsuyoshi

Paris:  Prime Minister Andre Tardieu proposes severe measures to prevent communist demonstrations on May Day, May 1. 

Halle, Germany:  A clash between nazis and communists after a nazi meeting results in injuries to 19 nazis. 

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. 

Tuesday, 1 April 1930: Japan Announces it will Accept the Two-Thirds Ratio

Tokyo: 

The government of Prime Minister Osachi Hamaguchi announces that it will accept the terms of the London Naval Treaty being proposed by the United States and Great Britain, and instructs its delegates to the London Naval Conference to sign it.  This will preserve the requirement that Japan have a smaller ratio of capital ships compared to the U.S. and U.K. – a sore point among Japanese military leaders (although the ratio does improve).  The last treaty (with the 60% ratio) created a sharp rift in the Japanese navy between pro-treaty factions and nationalist admirals who wanted full parity with the other powers.  Many in Japan – in the military, the government and the public – view the reduced ratio as a national insult. 

Berlin: 

President Paul von Hindenburg gives Heinrich Bruening, his candidate to become chancellor of a new government, permission to dissolve the Reichstag and run the country under Article 48 -- the “emergency provision” -- of the German constitution, if the Reichstag doesn’t give Bruening a vote of confidence.  Armed with this, Bruening gives a curt speech in the Reichstag, telling the delegates the country needs work, not words, and action, not argument, if Germany is to dig through its financial issues.  Nonetheless, his speech is interrupted often by jeering from the communist delegates.

Elsewhere:

London:  More evidence of the Depression: the government announces that its plans to help the nation’s unemployed will cost the equivalent of US$350 million.

Washington:  More bad economic news:  William Green, President of the American Federation of Labor, testifies before Congress that 3.7 million are out of work. 

China:  Civil war resumes in China’s northern territories.  It has been brewing for weeks.  The governor of Shansi province has allied himself with a general who was a leader in Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist army until he led a rebellion against Chiang late last year.  The two have moved their forces into Kaifeng, capital of Honan province, and into northern Shantung province, in a bid to challenge Chiang.  So far they are unopposed by government troops in the area – many of which have reportedly joined their rebellion. 

Thursday, 27 March 1930: German Chancellor Hermann Mueller's Government Falls

Berlin:  

The “Grand Coalition” government of Chancellor Hermann Mueller falls.  Having held together long enough to see the Young Plan through, against growing financial pressure, it falls apart now over a disagreement about funding unemployment insurance.  Two of the political parties that make up Mueller’s government, the German People’s Party and the Social Democrats –Mueller’s own party – cannot agree on the matter, and the Social Democrats announce they are withdrawing. 

 The Social Democrats, representing primarily socialists, want to see unemployment insurance funded to the fullest extent possible, despite the cry from many in the populace for relief from taxes.  The German People’s Party, representing primarily industrialists, want to see the cost of funding the unemployment insurance reduced.  Mueller and many of the socialists were prepared to negotiate a compromise, but Rudolf Wissell, Social Democrat Minister of Labor, wouldn’t budge and led the withdrawal.  Mueller tendered his resignation to President Paul von Hindenburg shortly thereafter.

Unemployment benefits are costing Germany $300-400 million annually. 

Mueller’s cabinet has governed since June 1928.  Early speculation centers on Heinrich Bruening, a centrist, as a replacement.  Mueller himself has recommended him. 

The Mueller cabinet 

Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1980-129-18A / Ruge, Willi / CC-BY-SA

Used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license

Elsewhere:

England:  More evidence of the worldwide economic depression: a new survey shows that 100,000 mill workers are unemployed in Lancashire.  Sources call it the worst economic depression in that part of the country since the 1860s.

 Tokyo:  The government still hasn’t replied to a U.S.-backed proposal from the London Naval Conference that Japan accept a 66-2/3 ratio of capital ships compared to the U.S. and Great Britain (which is less than the 70% Japan sought).  Sources say opposition to the reduced ratio from within the naval general staff is so fierce, the government is fearful of precipitating a crisis if it moves too quickly.  

Sunday, 16 March 1930

Tokyo:  

Press reports state that the “two-thirds” ratio of capital ships proposed for Japan at the London Naval Conference is causing a rift between military and civilian government leaders in Japan.  Naval officers are displeased with the “second-class citizen” status the ratio would give Japan.

Vienna:  

The government announces that the Austrian national anthem has been changed (for the fourth time since the World War).  The new anthem will be Deutschland, Deutschland-Uber Alles (Germany, Germany Above All) which is also Germany’s national anthem.  This was also Austria’s national anthem before the war (though with different words).  The socialist mayor of Vienna, Karl Seitz, dislikes the anthem so much he refuses to stand or remove his hat when it is played.

England:  

In response to a call from Cosmo Gordon Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury, Anglicans throughout the country hold special prayer services on behalf of persecuted Christians in Russia.  Indeed, Christians as well as Jews around the world are supposed to be holding similar prayer services .  Rev. A.F.W. Ingram, Bishop of London, says, “to think that all those bishops have been butchered [in Russia], all those priests murdered!”

New York:  

Police are busy guarding special prayer meetings in area churches, called on behalf of persecuted Christians in Russia, as well as guarding 12,000 people attending a communist anti-religion rally at Bronx Coliseum.  At the communist rally, the crowd boos religion, calls for an end to class war, and pillories everyone from New York Police Chief Grover Whalen to Italian Dictator Benito Mussolini to the Pope.  The meeting is guarded by 450 police with riot gear, machine guns and paddy wagons, but it is peaceful.

Paris:  

Miguel Primo de Rivera, who until six weeks ago was dictator of Spain, dies unexpectedly in his hotel room here.  Cause of death is said to be an embolism, a complication of his diabetes.

Thursday, 13 February 1930: Soviet Press Fires Back at Churches

Libya:  

Italian air strafing and bombing of fleeing Libyan resistance fighters, and their civilian family members, continues along the Libya-Algeria border. 

Moscow:  

The Soviet press fires back at Russia’s religious critics around the world.  Pravda, the official communist newspaper, says of the Pope’s recent criticisms of Russia’s persecution of religion: “His appeal is really a call to the nations to sever relations with the Soviet Union, for the soviet never will allow foreigners to interfere in their religious policy.  So far, all evil yelping against the soviets lacked only the Holy Father’s sweet voice.  This representative of God on earth hitherto preferred to hold his peace; he thought the weakening Orthodox Church would clear the way for Rome.  Only now, when he has become convinced that the working class in Russia intends to wipe out all superstitions without distinction of creed, has his Holiness decided to take up the defense of persecuted religion.  This head of the Catholic Church certainly is less interested in the problems of the Orthodox Church, Judaism, or even Catholicism than the worldly goods it may involve.  This means indifference to the progress of our industrialization, to collectivization of our agriculture, which spoil the beauty sleep of the western birds of prey.  Like every other financier and exploiter of labor, the Pope is an enemy of the working class.  That is why he appeals to all countries to make religious freedom a condition of recognizing the soviets.” 

The Komsomolskal Pravda, newspaper of the Young Communists’ League, publishes a cartoon of a bloated Pope holding a swastika with a small cross nailed upon it. 

London:  

Religious persecution in soviet Russia dominates discussion in the House of Commons.  Foreign Secretary Arthur Henderson, answering questions from legislators, says “Reports as regards the religious situation in Russia are receiving serious consideration of his majesty’s government.  The house may rest assured that his majesty’s government will use its influence in support of the cause of religious liberty and freedom of religious practices.”  British Ambassador to Moscow, Sir Esmond Ovey, is ordered to investigate reports of religious persecution in Russia, and the House of Lords passes a resolution denouncing Russia for its anti-religious activity.  Joseph Hertz, Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom, joins his voice with those of the Catholic and Anglican churches in protest of Soviet religious persecution. 

Meanwhile, at the naval conference, reliable reports surface that Japan has agreed to a 66-2/3 ratio of cruisers compared to the United States and Great Britain.  This would represent an increase from Japan’s current 60% ratio, but less than the 70% Japan came into the conference seeking.  “Japan attaches special importance to eight-inch gun cruisers, and desires to maintain here a minimum strength sufficient for national defense, taking into consideration the strengths held by the other powers,” says Raijiro Wakatsuki, of Japan’s delegation, in an official statement before the conference.  But he makes no mention of the 70% ratio, which observers thought he would.  Thus the belief that Japan has agreed to yield on its stated demands.  “This certainly leaves the door wide open for future discussion and is not in any sense the ultimatum which might be apprehended in some quarters,” says an unofficial spokesman for the U.S. delegation. 

Yet Japan is unwilling to make such an explicit statement officially, in part because Japanese elections are coming up next Tuesday, and the delegation is concerned that the present government would be perceived as having backed down in London.

Elsewhere:  

Paris:  Russia claims French police have arrested the Second Secretary of the Soviet Embassy in the case of the disappearance of Alexander Koutiepoff.  Paris police deny the charge. 

Offenbach, Germany:  Communists and nazis clash in a street battle.

Berlin:  More impact from the global economic depression: The government decides to appropriate no funds for completion of a second Deutschland-class heavy cruiser, sometimes called a “pocket battleship,” which would be one of six Germany is allowed under the Treaty of Versailles.  An estimated $14 million is needed to complete it.

 

Spain: The depression also adds to the new government’s difficulties in getting established after the resignation of dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera.  Parades and demonstrations by the unemployed have left Madrid and Barcelona under heavy police presence.

Italy:  Still more impact from the global economic depression: unemployment is reported over 462,000.