MILITARY DISPLAY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 April 1939, Page 6

MILITARY DISPLAY

BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS IN BERLIN HITLER WATCHES MARCH PAST. NEW AND POWERFUL GUN. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Received This Day, 11.30 a.m.) BERLIN. April 20. Hundreds of thousands of people, equipped with blankets ' and food, flocked after midnight to vantage points to witness the city’s greatest parade of 55,000 troops. An additional 50.000 troops lined the. route. Twenty thousand official guests, accommodated at stands at the saluting base, were forced to sit for seven hours without smoking, in deference to Herr Hitler’s non-smoking. Every flag in the city was hung out, the British Embassy, in the Wilhelmstrasse, being the only bare facade. Herr Hitler rose at 6 a.m., when he was 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. Herr Hitler at nine a.m, received diplomats and German leaders and received from Herr Foerster, Nazi leader in Danzig, the freedom of that city.

Wearing a Storm Tropper’s uniform, Herr Hitler drove up the troop-lined Eastway Highway, followed, not by the usual squad of Black Guards, but by Field-Marshal Goering and thp the chiefs of the Army, Navy and Air Force. For four hours he stood at the saluting base, while every branch of the armed forces goose-stepped past. 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, believed to be. the largest in the world. They are of at least 5.4 inches calibre. KING’S CONGRATULATIONS. (Received This Day, 11.30 a.m.) ' LONDON, April '2O. The King telegraphed congratulations to Herr Hitler bn his birthday.