GERMANS REJOICE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 93, 21 April 1939, Page 9

GERMANS REJOICE

HITLER'S BIRTHDAY

GREAT PARADE

AN ARMS SURPRISE

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.)

(Received April 21, 1 p.m.) BERLIN, April 20.

Hundreds of thousands of people equipped with blankets and food flocked after midnight to vantage points in order to witness the. city's greatest parade of 55,000 troops on the occasion of Herr Hitler's birthday. An additional 50,000 men lined the route, and 20,000 official guests who were accommodated in stands at the saluting base .were forced to sit for seven hours without smoking, in deference to the fact that Herr Hitler is a non-smoker.

Every flag in the city was hung out, and the British Embassy in the Wilhelmstrasse was the only bare facade.

Herr Hitler rose at 6 a.m., when he ; iff serenaded by Black Guards, who carried in masses of flowers from children at the gates.

Almost every room in the Chancellery is packed with presents, which are arriving in lorry loads. At 9 a.m. Herr Hitler received diplomats and German leaders. He received from Herr Foerster, Nazi leader in Danzig, the feedom of Danzig.

Wearing the uniform of the Storm Troopers, Herr Hitler drove up the new east-to-west highway, which was lined with troops, followed not by the usual squad of Black Guards but by Field Marshal Goering and the chiefs of the army, the navy, and the air force. For four hours he stood at the saluting base while every branch of the armed forces goose-stepped past him. Two hundred of the heaviest tanks rumbled a noisy climax.

Herr Hitler sprang a surprise for foreign observers by including in the parade six new anti-aircraft guns which are believed to be the largest in the world, being at least of 5.4 in calibre.

Britain and France were not represented among the official delegations from the many countries, but Lord Brocket and Major-General J. F. C. Fuller were the private guests of the Fuhrer.