POMP AND SPLENDOUR

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 48, 26 February 1934, Page 10

POMP AND SPLENDOUR

CELEBRATION IN GERMANY

MILITARY ASPECT

Dnlted Prew Association—By Electilo Tele.

craph—Copyright.

(Received .February 26, 2 p.m.)

BERLIN, February 25,

Coinciding with the fourteenth anniversary of the foundation ■of the Nazi Party, tho National ■ Heroes' Memorial Day for the honouring .of Germany's two million war : dead • was marked by scenesof pre-war splendour. Crowds watched seventy .thousand .troops, of overy variety of .uniform? marching. all day long from Unter den Linden to, the Lustgarten, where they took tho oath of allegiance to Herr Hitler. Their example was followed on a wireless signal from Munich by, hundreds of thousands at Nazi parades in every other town' and village in. Germany. The memorial ceremony, strongly militaristic in character, began at the Opera House at noon in the presence of President ..Hindenburg,' Herr Hitler, members of the Cabinet, and leading dignitaries. "

The stage curtain parted to. the strains of Beethoven's "Coriolanus" Overture, showing, three huge silver wreaths on a black < velvet screen, tho middle one resting on the Imperial tricolour surmounted by an Iron Cross, flanked with- Swastika- flags, before which, stood the Reichswohr's colour guard upholding the . banner of the Prussian Guards,'. while General yon. Blomberg reaffirmed ' Germany's innocence of causing the -war. • Herr Hitler called for three- cheers for Germany and President Hindenburg. The National Anthem, '/Horstwessel," followed, after which President Hindenburg wreathed the adjacent war memorial and took the salute of the goosestepping Reichswehr with bayonets fixed. General.Goering,- uniformed as a Police General, rovicwed' his own Green Police. '■••'.•