NAZI ETIQUETTE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 57, Issue 245, 28 July 1937, Page 10

NAZI ETIQUETTE

SHOCK FOR AMBASSADOR Sir Neville Henderson, the new British Ambassador to Berlin, replacing Sir Eric Phipps, who ha 9 been transferred to Paris, arrived in Berlin recently to take up his duties. He was met at the Ffied-richstrasse Railway Station by Baron von BuelowScliwante, Chief of Proctocol in the Foreign Office, who welcomed him to Germany, and ho then proceeded to the Embassy, says the “New York Times.”

All this is customary. However, Baron von Buelow-Schwante, the official • who is responsible for seeing that the proper thing is done correctly in official matters, appeared at the railway station not in the customary top hat and morning coat of diplomacy but in the full uniform of an Obergruppenfuehrer, which rank he holds in the Storm Troops, the Nazi Party’s private army. This is unusual, and it might be said unpreeented. There has been nothing quite like it since Sir John Simon, then British Foreign Secretary arriving for his famous Beilin conference in 1934 to ascertain Germany's intentions in a peaceful world, was met at the Tempelhof Flying Field by German re-annament personified in the form of a full company of the Hitler bodyguard with steel helmets a.nd fixed bayonets.

The uniform of his civilian welcome.!* was evidently a shock to 'Sir Neville, who came from Buenos Aires, where he had not encountered such things. However, lie met the case with diplomatic nonchalance.

Durng a smiling inspection that began at the shining' spurs, continued over the brown high field boots, took in the heavy mustard-coloured overcoat and Sam Browne belt with dagger of honour at the hip, and ended at the postman’s peaked cap in red and black, he exchanged facile compliments with his welcomer and proceeded on his way.

There is some speculation over the incident. Does it portray the coming Nazification of the Foreign Office? Or was it a defiant reassertion of the characteristics of the' new Third Reich in rejoinder to the titters in the British Press that greeted the Nazi salute given by Joachim von Ribbentrop, the German Ambassador to London, to the King of England at his levee? But there is no official answer.