Sheep from the Sky (Click Magazine, 1938)One of the weirdest inventions found in the annals of Italian military history was reserved for sheep. The funny pictures attached herein were snapped during the Italian adventures in Ethiopia, when sheep parachuting from the sky was not thought of as anything unusual and the story goes that the far-flung Italian infantry simply could not bare to have the standard pre-packaged processed food that most armies have to suffer and so an accommodating military air-dropped do-it-tour-self Ossobuco kits. Fresh Meat Delivery System for Italian Troops (Click Magazine, 1938)This is a highly amusing collection of photos depicting the seldom remembered "Para-Sheep" of the Italian Army during their adventures in Ethiopia. It would seem that Italian grunts simply would not stomach canned food the way other infantrymen were able to do at the time and so it was decided that sheep would be individually rigged with parachutes and tossed out of planes, where they would be butchered and cooked by the Mussolini's finest. The accompanying paragraph explains that even a bull had been air-dropped for the same purpose.
Take a look. ''Fashion is Spinach'' (Focus Magazine, 1938)Fashion philosophizer and designer Elizabeth Hawes (1903 – 1971) recognized the sham that is fashion - in the attached photo-essay she writes plainly on the matter.
The book is available at Amazon.com:
Fashion is Spinach
Hollywood's Enigma (Photoplay Magazine, 1938)Although this article was written at a time when the television screen was a mere eight by eleven inches square, culture critic Gilbert Seldes addressed the question as to whether or not movies and radio will be voted off the island in favor of the television broadcasting industry.
The Duchess and her New Life (Liberty Magazine, 1938)The first indication for the Windsors that the life of an abdicator is a tough one came on their wedding day, when none of their friends or family stood in attendance. All the yes-men and royal hangers-on who they believed so loyal, were nowhere in sight. In this article, journalist Adela Rogers St. John (1894 - 1988) looks at the tasks before the newly minted Duchess of Windsor. Seeing that the former king had been snubbed at his own wedding, the most burdensome cross that the Duchess bore was seeing to it that this man never be placed in a position that made him appear as a fool. More Peer Adoration for Walt Disney (Stage Magazine, 1938)The attached article was first seen during a time when a "Palm Award", granted by the editors of "Stage Magazine", was a reliable form of social currency and would actually serve the highly favored recipients in such a grand manner as to allow them brief respites at dining tables found at swank watering holes as New York's Twenty-One Club and El Morocco.
Today, a "Palm Award", plus four dollars, will get you a medium-sized cappuccino at Starbucks. Walt Disney was awarded a "Palm" in 1938 for his achievement in producing "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". The First Congresswomen
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1938)This column recalls the earliest women to serve in the House and Senate (although the tenure of Senator Rebecca Latimer Felton was oddly excluded):
"In 1916, the first Congresswoman was elected. She was Miss Jeannette Rankin (1880 - 1973), a Republican from Montana. On her first day in the House, war was declared; she voted against it. The next Congress had no women." Their Freaky Religion (Literary Digest, 1938)"Last spring the Third Reich recognized a third official state religion: a neo-pagan cult based on Thor, Wotan, Siegfried and the old Nordic gods. It was especially favored by ultranazis and by Hitler's black-shirted bodyguards, the Schutzstaffel or S.S. corps. The other two official German religions are Catholic and Protestant Evangelical, whose proponents today are deadlocked in combat with the up and coming neopagans."
The Hollywood Anti-Nazi League (Click Magazine, 1938)The Los Angeles of the late Thirties was plagued by a small coterie of Nazis; they were not terribly visible, but they were around, nonetheless. From time-to-time real Fascists from Europe would blow into town and they would be met by such groups as the Jewish Labor Committee, the United Anti-Nazi Conference and the Los Angeles Jewish Community Relations Committee. This article concerns another organization that worked shoulder to shoulder with these groups, but with a little more style: the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League. The League was 5,000 strong (likely an exaggeration) and within its ranks were Hollywood notables such as Herbert Biberman, Robert Rossen, Francis Edward Faragoh, Ring Lardner, Jr. and Dalton Trumbo. A Screenwriter's Progress (Ken Magazine, 1938)Yardley, a cartoonist from KEN MAGAZINE, made this four panel yuk-yuk about Depression era screenwriters and the shoe being on the other foot. Truth be told, the story it tells is as fitting in our own time as it was in the Thirties. Nicely rendered, too. Click here to read about feminine conversations overheard in the best New York ladies rooms of 1937. Remembering Alma Gluck (Stage Magazine, 1938)Marking the occasion of the untimely death of American soprano Alma Gluck (born Reba Feinsohn; 1884 - 1938), music critic Samuel Chotzinoff wrote this essay in which he recalled witnessing the first meeting between Gluck and her (second) husband Efrem Zimbalist, Sr. (1890 - 1985) at the absolute height of her fame in 1911. The remembrance continues as Chotzinoff labels that era as being the 'golden age of vocalists' and recalls many of the finest qualities of her talent. He was Too Tough on Businesses (Collier's Magazine, 1938)President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was well-known for cracking wise about the members of the American business community, such as stock brokers, "speculators", company functionaries and the leading corporate executives during the Great Depression - believing that there actually could be an economy worth saving if they didn't exist. Throughout the Thirties the New Deal launched numerous tax laws and assorted other pieces of legislation that served only to stymy competition, raise prices and slow all economic growth. The editors of Collier's Magazine published this spirited and rational defense of corporate America in 1938 and it is attached herein:
"American business, whatever its limitations, has produced a better living for more people than any other system of production... The American big-business system has fed people better and more generously. It has provided more convenient and more wholesome shelter. It has distributed vastly more of the mechanical aids to civilized living."
Click here to read about FDR's tax plan from 1935.
The Maginot Line Will Save Us (Literary Digest, 1938)"The Maginot Line will permit calm French mobilization, experts say, in the event of a crisis. It may be noted, from a study of these forts on a map, that the chief point of concentration is approximately opposite the reoccupied Rhine zone. The Paris newspaper, Le Soir, says that no army can break down the Maginot Line."
Click here to read an article about French confidence in the Maginot Line.
Click here to read about the German concept of Blitzkrieg.
A Veteran Against War (Rob Wagner's Script Magazine, 1938)Writer Paul Gerard Smith (1894 – 1968) was a U.S. Marine in World War I and in 1938, when he saw that another war with Germany was simmering on the the front burner he put a Fresh ribbon of ink in the typewriter and wrote this editorial which he titled, An Open Letter to Boys of Military Age. His column is a cautionary tale advising the young men of his day to make their decisions thoughtfully before committing themselves to such a dangerous undertaking as war. Smith advised youth to examine the causes for the war, verify whose commercial interests will be served in victory and only if -
"you find that America and the future of America is threatened - then go and kick Hell of the enemy, and God be with you."
Click here to read an article about the German veterans of W.W. I.
CLICK HERE... to read one man's account of his struggle with shell shock...
Threat of Nationalizing (Liberty Magazine, 1938)In the winter of 1938, when one of FDR's anointed Brain Trusters made an off-the-cuff remark that the Federal Government would "take over industry" if the economy did not turn around, it must have alarmed many of the industry captains and sent the stock market through the floor. It also moved the eccentric Bernarr MacFadden (1868 – 1955) to put a fresh ribbon in his typewriter and have at it:
"The present administration has made a ghastly failure of the business management of this government. It has increased the national indebtedness at the rate of five to ten million dollars every day. It has added more than twenty thousand million dollars to our national debt, and it probably has twenty million or more of our citizens on the dole, or in charity jobs, which is the dole in another form." Sing Sing Prison: Home of the Bad New Yorkers (Click Magazine, 1938)Sing Sing Prison was where the vulgar New Yorkers of the criminal variety spent much of their time: "Murderers and felons, rogues and embezzlers, an average of 2750 of them inhabit Sing Sing Prison at Ossining, N.Y. on the bank of the Hudson River. Theirs is a world apart. A world of gray stone walls and steel bars. When the gates clang shut behind them they enter upon a life scientifically regulated by Warden Lewis E. Lawes (1883 – 1947)...CLICK MAGAZINE takes you inside the grim walls and shows you what happens to the convicted criminal from the day he is committed to Sing Sing Prison until the day he leaves as a free man."
This is a photo-essay that is made up of twenty-five black and white pictures. Read about the religious make up of Sing Sing Prison in the Thirties. Nanking Ravaged (Ken Magazine, 1938)"The occupation of Nanking by the Japanese army in December, 1937, resulted in the greatest authenticated massacre in modern history." "Fifty thousand blood-crazed beasts in Japanese uniforms roamed China's fallen capital for four weeks in a mad Saturnalia of butchery, rape and pillage without parallel in modern history. That story, suppressed by the Japanese military who chased news correspondents and foreign officials out of Nanking, is told for the first time by one of the few Americans who remained, a 'go-between' for the U.S. Government with 20 years of service in China. He saw roped bundles of humanity saturated with gasoline and ignited for a Nipponese holiday." Leon Trotsky Speaks About FDR and the Great Depression (Rob Wagner's Script Magazine, 1938)Two and a half years were left on the clock for the exiled Leon Trotsky (né Lev Davidovich Bronstein: 1879 – 1940) until he would have to keep his rendezvous with an icepick in Mexico - and while living it up on this borrowed time he granted an interview to this one correspondent from a Beverly Hills literary magazine in which he ranted on in that highly-dated and terribly awkward Bolsheviki language about President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his social programs.
Click here to read an article about the NKVD agent who murdered Trotsky. Collier's (Scribner's Magazine, 1938)From Scribner's on-going series from 1938, "Magazines That Sell" came this brief history of the crowd-pleasing weekly, Collier's (1888 - 1957). Only Über-Blondes Need Apply...(Ken Magazine, 1938)This article covers a weird Nazi scheme to create the future rulers of the Reich. It is such a bizarre plan and it seemed to us that if it weren't true, we would have had to rely on Robert Ludlum to dream it up for us: "The idea took root in the fertile brain of Minister of Propaganda, Dr. Joseph Goebbels, also known as the 'Limping Devil'...'Heroes are both born and trained', is the Nazi slogan. The future leaders are taken under the government's wings at the age of ten.'" -and over a period of about twelve years they would have been dragged around from one Harry Potter-style-castle to another being schooled in Nazi dogma and all other assorted Nordic pagan weirdness and then, after having jumped through a number of additional Teutonic hoops, they would be posted in top government positions.
A fascinating look into the queer thinking of the Nazi hierarchy.
A second article about the Adolf Hitler Schools can be read here
CLICK HERE to read about the beautiful "Blonde Battalions" who spied for the Nazis...
Elmer Wheeler, Word Chemist (Literary Digest, 1938)"For ten years it has been Elmer Wheeler's profession to find out for his clients what words, spoken across the counter, will sell merchandise. It is shrewd psychology applied to a neglected link in the chain of business...":
"Don't ask if, ask which. Don't ever give the customer the choice between something and nothing."
Wheeler knows he alone is not the gate keeper of successful sales pitches - he recalled seeing a blindman with a sign reading, "It's spring, and I am blind". • Watch A Film Clip About The Amazing Elmer Wheeler • ''Americans All'' (Pathfinder Magazine, 1938)In an effort to keep the writers and actors of the Works Progress Administration busy, FDR's Department of the Interior produced a 26-part radio program intended "to prove that America could never have become so great without the contributions" of all the various hyphenated groups that make up the country. On Sunday afternoon throughout much of 1938, Americans could gather around their radios, if they had them, and hear their "identity groups" being praised by the Government: African-Americans tuned in on December 18th; the WASP show was on December fourth.
Nose-Bobbing (Click Magazine, 1938)In the parlance of today it is politely called Rhinoplasty but back in the day, the verb "bob" was in use - which meant "to cut short" and no matter what you call the procedure, you'll see that the gent pictured in this photo-essay needed a nose-job PRONTO! Cartoonist ''Wally'' Remembers (Click Magazine, 1938)If there was any mascot who best represented the staff of the old Stars and Stripes, it would have been their primary cartoonist (even though he was a Marine), Abian Wallgren (1892 - 1948) - who went by the name, "Wally". Looking back 20 years, Wally remembers how he got started as a cartoonist and what Armistice Day was like at the paper's office.
The German Peace Delegation Crosses the Lines (American Legion Monthly, 1938)During the pre-dawn hours of November 7, 1918 the German peace delegation crossed through to the American sector at a battle-scared Argonne village named Cunel. A former private in the U.S. Fifth Infantry Division, Amico J. Barone, recalled that night and wrote this essay in 1938. The Consequences of the Munich Agreement (Pathfinder Magazine, 1938)"When England and France yielded to Germany in the Munich Agreement of last September, a significant change took place. The balance of power in Europe shifted from the democracies to the dictatorships... [and] the United States had to stop thinking of England and France as America's 'first line of defense' in the time of a European war." Beauticians Without Borders (Click Magazine, 1938)This is the story of the Jacob A. Riis Settlement beauty clinic which was funded by a well-heeled New Yorker in order that the impoverished women from the down-trodden quarters of New York might come to know all the relaxation that comes with electrolysis and eyebrow-plucking (sadly, anal bleaching was not offered at the time). Hitler Slams Goering for his Girth (Ken Magazine, 1938)Having been encouraged by Goebels to show more than a little excitement about meeting Adolf Hitler, the German screen actress Renate Müller (1906 - 1937) recalled that during their time alone, the Führer slandered Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering for his gluttonous appearance... The entire story is told in a longer article about Hitler's wish for a wife. Movie Exhibitors vs Movie Producers (Ken Magazine, 1938)A 1938 magazine article pertains to a brawl that once existed between movie exhibitors and movie producers involving the Hollywood practice known as "block-booking", which required theater owners to commit to movies they have never seen. The article refers to how Hollywood employed their biggest stars to fight legislation in Washington designed to overturn this scheme.
The bill was defeated.
Click here to read about Marilyn Monroe and watch a terrific documentary about her life.
More about the American film business in the 1940s can be read here...
A German Dissident Recalls His Incarceration (Ken Magazine, 1938)Locked-up for having run an underground newspaper in the Third Reich, this is the harrowing story one dissident's experiences in the Nazi concentration camps: "What a relief it would be to take that uniformed scoundrel by the throat, throw him on the floor, pay him back for his beating, yell 'You dog! You swine!'"
•Read about the American reporter who became a Nazi...• A Saboteur in the Royal Flying Corps (Rob Wagner's Script, 1938)The American writer Willis Gordon Brown recalled his days as a fighter pilot with the R.F.C. and the curious series of crashes that lead to the discovery of a German saboteur within their midst. "To the Germans this man was a highly respected hero giving his life for the fatherland; to us he became a rat of the lowest order." Leftist Cartoonist Art Young (Direction Magazine, 1938)Artist Gilbert Wilson conducted this interview with American socialist cartoonist Art Young (1866 – 1943) which appeared in DIRECTION MAGAZINE during the summer of 1938. In the fullness of time, Art Young has come to be recognized as something of a demi-god in the American poison pen pantheon of graphic satirists and no study of Twentieth Century political cartoons is complete without him:
"Art Young has never adopted the policy of tearing into his foe (which is capitalism) with tooth and claw. It simply isn't his way. He just isn't capable of hating anyone or anything badly enough to get that angry."
"Isn't it rather the duty of a good radical, as Lenin said, 'patiently to explain'?"
In 1887 the NEW YORK TIMES reviewed the first english edition of Das Kapital by Karl Marx, click here to read it...
Mussolini and the Italian Expatriots (Ken Magazine, 1938)"In September, 1936, when the League of Nations refused to expel the African empire from its membership, Il Duce kept Italian representatives away from League halls. They have never set foot in them since. Last spring British envoys led a successful boycott against diplomatic attendance at a first anniversary celebration of Italy's conquest. Ill Duce countered with a peeve so wrathful that Italian newspapers made no mention of Great Britain for two whole days." The Great Depression in the South (Pathfinder Magazine, 1938)In the Summer of 1938 the New Deal administration turned its attention to the Southern States in an effort to solve the poverty that had long afflicted the region and was especially keen during the Great Depression:
"The War Between the States freed the slaves, but it did not free the South. Old plantations were broken up. Pressed to meet mortgages, farmers leased part of their farms to tenants. Cheap [African-American] labor remained and children were pressed into service on the Southern fields. Cotton and low labor costs stayed in the South."
Read about FDR's African-American advisers here...
Life in Sunny, Fascist Italy (Ken Magazine, 1938)"In Italy, every other man is wearing a uniform or just stepped out of one. Every other wife is about to become a mother again. Every boy is lugging a wooden gun and playing at soldier. So it sees to the eye, and amazingly, so it actually is. War, babies, self-sufficiency, poverty, persecution complexes, chest beating, magnetic pride and the most parrotty people in the world. This is the land determined to out-Caesar the greatest Roman of them all. The Italian's thoughts, eyes, ears, destiny, morals, spaghetti, pocketbook and trigger finger are controlled completely by the whim of one man. And the Italians love him."
Click here to read about life in Hitler's Germany during the same period...
Marijuana in the Thirties (Literary Digest, 1938)During the closing days of 1937, Clarence Beck, Attorney General for the State of Kansas made a radio address on the Mutual Broadcasting System concerning the growing popularity of Marijuana:
"It Is estimated the Narcotic Bureau of the New York Police Department in 1936 alone destroyed almost 40,000 pounds of marijuana plants, found growing within the city limits. Because of its rapidly increasing use, Marijuana demands a price as high as $60 a pound." (continued)
The 1938 Spies (Pathfinder Magazine, 1938)"Suddenly last June, a Federal grand jury in New York City hoisted the curtain on 'America's most significant spy prosecution since the [First] World War' by indicting 18 persons for participating in a conspiracy to steal U.S. defense secrets for Germany. Subsequently, only four of the 18 could be found for trial. The others, including two high officials of the German War Ministry, were safe in - or had escaped to - the Fatherland." Where is King George of Serbia? (Ken Magazine, 1938)"Younger brother Alexander hated dashing, erratic Crown Prince George (1887 - 1972), darling of the Serbian people, so he framed him as a loony, got him exiled, and in due course became King instead. George made the mistake of writing an insulting letter and going back home on the heels of it. Now, in a remote Yugoslavian villa, surrounded by trees, hedges, and mustachioed detectives, the Serbian Bad Boy lives in solitary confinement, doing mathematical problems to keep from getting bored." A 1938 article which gave a brief account of the incarcerated Crown Prince George of Serbia. As the above makes clear, he was judged insane and locked up between the years 1925 through 1939. He was set free by the Nazis during their brief occupation of that country. Click here to read about the 1922 discovery of King Tut's tomb. There was Illegal Immigration from Mexico Back Then, Too (Ken Magazine, 1938)This 1938 magazine article can be filed in the "the more things change, the more they stay the same folder". It lists all the assorted means by which Mexicans have attempted to illegally cross over the Southern border, whether to smuggle others, import illegal drugs or for their own gratification.
Marijuana was becoming a problem in 1938, too. Read about it here.
Click here to read about the U.S. Border Patrol.
Sweet Words for Maestro Toscanini (Stage Magazine, 1938)Arturo Toscanini
(1867 – 1957) is believed to have been the greatest conductor of the Twentieth Century. He was bestowed with a 'Palm Award' by the well-meaning swells at the now defunct "Stage Magazine" during the summer of 1938. This article appeared during a time when a "Palm Award", granted by such a crew was a reliable form of social currency and would actually serve the highly favored recipients in such a grand manner as to allow them brief respites at dining tables found at such watering holes as New York's Stork Club. Nowadays, one "Palm Award" and one dollar and fifty cents will afford you a ride on the Los Angeles City subway system (one way).
The attached article explains why Maestro Toscanini had met all requirements for this award.
*Watch an Arturo Toscanini Film Clip* Eyes on Chiang Kai-Shek (Ken Magazine, 1938)"Before the war was hours old, Chiang's most secret plans were known to the Japs. Again and again Jap actions showed foreknowledge of Chiang's movements and stratagems, as discussed and decided with his most trusted leaders. This explains many mysterious incidents, and makes China's apparent 'spy complex' fully understandable."
The Imperial Wizard (Ken Magazine, 1938)"Fat, shrewd-smiling, garrulous "Old Doc Evans" (Hiram Evans, 1881 – 1966) is still Emperor and Imperial Wizard, but he's now apparently only fronting for a Big Boss who has some sensational new plans which have already begun to click. Once again the Klan is holding hands with politicians all over the country, but the hand-holding is being done under the table. The big drive begins in May" The Passive Resistance of the Native Population (Literary Digest, 1938)"Recently former Viceroy Graziani cabled Mussolini that 'my surveys demonstrate that tranquility is absolute. The native population is with Italy.' But a writer in the Tribuna of Rome admitted that 'nobody must delude himself with the idea that the former Shoan-Galla ruling caste have resigned themselves to the loss of their privileges and have welcomed our Italian Empire.'" Germany's Lost African Colonies (Ken Magazine, 1938)One thing about Adolf Hitler: he had a real bee in his bonnet when it came to the colonies that Imperial Germany had lost as a result of article 119 of the Versailles Treaty: "Germany renounces in favor of the principal Allied and Associated Powers all her rights and titles over her overseas possessions." Attached, you will find a nifty cartoon depicting a terribly upset Hitler as he contemplated the map of Africa and all the colonies he was having to do without - all rendered in that glorious 1930s manner. Click here to read more about the African colonies lost to Germany as a result of the Versailles Treaty. The Pandemic of 1918 (Scribner's Magazine, 1938)"The Spanish Influenza (February 1918 - April 1920) struck hard in the U.S. Army camps. Every fourth man came down with the flu, every twenty-fourth man caught pneumonia, every sixth man died." By the time the virus ran its course in the United States 675,000 Americans would succumb (although this article estimated the loss at 500,000). FDR on Wage Reduction (Literary Digest, 1938)"I am opposed to wage reductions" - a statement made by President Roosevelt at a February press conference in 1938, compelled both economists and industrialists to ejaculate numerous multisyllabic words on the matter. In light of the fact that magazine editors are wage earners, the majority of selected quotes side with FDR.
Click here to read about the end of the Great Depression...
KRISTALLNACHT (Pathfinder Magazine, 1938)Herschel Grynszpan (1921 - ?) was a Polish-Jewish refugee born in Germany who, on his own volition, shot and killed a German diplomat in Paris in 1938. This murder prompted the Nazis to terrorize the Jewish population throughout Germany and Austria the very next day (November 8) in an event that was called Kristallnacht. This article covers the murder and the senseless horror that followed; attention was also paid to the reactions from various capital cities.
"In Vienna, Storm Troopers fired 18 synagogues, shot a Polish Jew in his bed, invaded homes and threw the furniture out the windows. Ten thousand Jews were arrested, at least 60 attempted suicide. Restaurants and grocery stores refused to sell to Jewas." British Fascists (Ken Magazine, 1938)This article is about the founder of the British Union of Fascists, Oswald Mosley (1896 – 1980). The article outlines much of his life and political career up to the year 1938, with heavy emphasis concerning some of the least admirable aspects of his character
"His father's comment sums Mosely up admirably:
'He has never done an honest days work in his life.'"
Click here to read about the origins of Fascist thought...
''Class Magazines'' (Scribner's Magazine, 1938)This article looks at the rise of Vanity Fair, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and House & Garden - recognizing them as highly unique publications for their time. Special attention is paid to publisher Condé Nast and his meteoric rise during the early 20th Century.
"The class magazines exude an aura of wealth and their circulations, therefore, are limited. They cater to the fit though few and they do this with slick paper, excellent illustrations and a sycophantic reverence for Society - at thirty-five to fifty cents a copy."
Click here to read about Fortune Magazine... The French-German Non-Aggression Agreement (Current History, 1938)Attached is a translation of the text of the Franco-German declaration signed in Paris on December 6, 1938.
Click here to read about the Hitler-Stalin Non-Aggression Pact.
Kaiser Wilhelm's Thoughts On Hitler (Ken Magazine, 1938)For the sixth time in his life, Ken Magazine's far-flung correspondent, W. Burkhardt, found himself cast in the roll as guest of the deposed king of Germany, Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859 - 1941). After exchanging pleasantries, their conversation turned to weightier topics, such as contemporary German politics and it was at that time that Ken's man in Doorn recognized his moment:
"Suddenly, sensing a chance I may never have again, I pose the question":
"And yourself, Sire, what do you think of him?"
"Nichts!"
Click here to read about the fall of Paris...
*Watch Some Clips from 1939 German Television* Beauty in the Congo (Click Magazine, 1938)Fashions these days are simply fraught with influences from the developing world such as tattoos and piercings and there is no reason to suspect that fashion's dictators might one day soon decide that the elegant life is best lived with a cone-shaped head. The attached fashion article is illustrated with three pictures of the mode-conscious Manbetu tribe of Northeaster Africa who live life large as the "African Longheads".
Fashion Designers Colide wth Hollywood Designers... (Click Magazine, 1938)This is an historic article that introduced the fashion era that we still reside in today.
The attached article from 1938 heralded a new day in the fashion industry where fashion magazines would no longer be relied upon to set the trends in clothing; henceforth, that roll would largely be played by movie actresses in far-off Hollywood:
"The greatest fashion influence in America, stylists sadly lament, is the much-photographed, much-glamorized and much-imitated Movie Queen. What she wears is news, eagerly copied, by girls all over the country who want to look like Joan Crawford and Myrna Loy." The primary bone of contention that the East Coast fashionistas found most objectionable was the fact that movie stars are Californians, and Californians will always prefer comfort over glamor.
Irving Berlin (Stage Magazine, 1938)Here is an article that discusses the surprising relevance that the music of Irving Berlin (1888 – 1989) was playing in the American music world of the 1930s.
Click here to read about Irving Berlin's theatrical production during W.W. I...
Hollywood's Case Against Monogamy (Photoplay Magazine, 1938)Technologies change, power changes, tastes change, but if anything has remained a constant in the West coast film colony it has been the fickle romantic tastes of all the various performers, directors and producers who toil in the vineyards of Hollywood. An old salt once remarked that if a Hollywood marriage lasts longer than milk it can be judged a success; with this old saw in mind, a wise anthropologist sat down, put pen to paper and seriously attempted to understand mating habits of Hollywood, California.
American Nazis (Click Magazine, 1938)As you can see by glancing at some of the other articles on this page, the Italians and Germans were not the only nations to cultivate a taste for fascism; a franchise office was opened in the United States in the mid-Thirties. This article is essentially a photo-essay consisting of twenty-six images and a brief explanation regarding the American Nazi movement that once existed in New Jersey:
"The pictures on these pages were not made in Germany. They may look like accurate shots of a foreign political movement, which they are, but they were made right here in these United States. Almost coincidentally with Hitler's assumption of power in the Reich, our free democracy began to feel the long paw of Nazi propaganda..."
Read about the American reporter who became a Nazi...
Click here to read about an admired American hero who was also attracted to fascist theology.
••Watch a Quick Film Clip About the Pre-War Gertman-American Bund•• The Oscars: Hollywoods Self-Adoration Fest (Stage Magazine, 1938)A tongue-in-cheek magazine article from 1938 about The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and their annual gala devoted to over-confidence, The Oscars. Written eleven years after the very first Academy Award ceremony, and published in a magazine that catered to New York theater lovers, the article was penned by an unidentified correspondent who was not very impressed by the whole affair but managed to present a thorough history of the award nonetheless.
Director Frank Capra was awarded his third trophy at the 1938 Oscars... The Nazi Hollywood (Ken Magazine, 1938)Written by a fellow who in later years would write a good deal about propaganda films, this article is amusing for the way it reported the total lack of humor and curiosity that Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels (1897 – 1945) brought to the subject of film production; how they totally killed the existing German film industry and made film criticism illegal.
Read an article about the banning of all foreign artists in Hitler's Germany...
''Lynching No. 3'' (Pathfinder Magazine, 1938)A dreary news story relaying the violent end that came to one R.C. Williams of Ruston, Louisiana. Scandal (Pathfinder Magazine, 1938)"The New Deal's Works Progress Administration, with its millions of employees and billions of dollars in relief funds, has long been recognized as a potential cesspool of graft where the unscrupulous are concerned. Last week, in the fierce heat of the 1938 campaign's closing days, the stench of scandal began to penetrate the WPA administrations of two states..." The Merger of Austria With Germany (Ken Magazine, 1938)Here is an article about Austria's Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg (1897 - 1977) and how the merger of Austria and Nazi Germany came about in 1838:
"Behind the scenes that hard day at Berchtesgaden, revealing what Hitler said to Kurt Schuschnigg and what the Austrian public never knew about the German plot to stage in Vienna a counterpart of the Reichstag fire, as a pretext for invasion. Schuschnigg spoiled that pretext, only to furnish another one himself. Uncovering the plot in the hope of averting invasion he merely brought it on."
• The 1938 Merger of Austria With Germany Recalled by an Eyewitness • Benny Goodman, The King of Swing, on Park Avenue (Stage Magazine, 1938)To mark the momentous occasion of Benny Goodman and his Band performing for the 'corsage clique' on Park Avenue in 1938, 'the King of Swing' wrote this short essay concerning all his good work and the enjoyment that it brought to the Jitterbuggers of the world:
"Swing is violent, at least so they tell me. But I'm willing to bet that Society is going to toss aside its toppers and tippers and really cut loose. They'll all come slumming and stay for dancing."
*Watch Benny Goodman Swing It in this Short Clip* Censors of the Japanese War Machine (Ken Magazine, 1938)"The Japanese censorship boards have drafted regulations for the press in territory under their control, and unsuccessful attempts were made to control news dispatches in Shanghai's foreign-owned newspapers. In Peiping, Tientsin, Tsingtao and other cities where the Japanese are in complete control, foreign editors are having their troubles, as evidenced by the 'secret' instructions to the press issued by the Special Military Missions to China, with Headquarters in Peiping... Under the heading 'Important Standards for Press Censorship' come the following regulations..."
-what follows is an enormous laundry list of "DONT'S" issued to the officers of the foreign press stationed in Japanese-occupied China. Government Funding for the Arts Praised (Direction Magazine, 1938)An editorial by the artist Philip Evergood (1901 - 1973) who believed that the Federal Arts Project of the Thirties had not simply made the lives of artists a little better but has also created a far better society: "The Federal Arts Project has pointed the way to an American Culture. It has set a weight in motion, it has let loose a force that has affected hundreds of thousands of lives. It has made murals depicting the history of our country and the lives of our people have been placed on the walls of our schools, hospitals, libraries and public buildings making them of greater beauty and of greater community interest - monuments and small sculpture have been added in equal numbers, easel paintings and prints now hang in thousands on the walls of public buildings..." Evergood likened this government funding to the Renaissance, when the church served as the artist's patron and culture flourished. Click here if you would like to read a 1939 article about the closing of the Federal arts funding program.
Click here to read a 1942 article by Rockwell Kent on the proper roll of American artists during wartime. Hitler Goes Wife Shopping (Ken Magazine, 1938)An illustrated five page article that will key you in on all the actresses, nieces, Mifords and assorted divas courted by "handsome Adolf" throughout the Twenties and Thirties. It was said that the dictators co-tyrants wished deeply that he would marry if only "to end his moods of melancholy, storms of anger, alternate depression and driving energy, hoping it will make Hitler more human."
Click here to read about the "magic" Hitler had with German women... Heinrich Himmler (Collier's Magazine, 1938)A 1938 article covering the ascent of Reichfurhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler (1900 - 1945):
"Himmler has dossiers on every man of substance in Germany. Nazi party functionary, business leader, churchman, diplomat, army officer or statesman; all are nicely indexed for the day when their case histories might be needed in a hurry. Because in Germany, everyone is suspect. Some Nazis will even tell you that Himmler has a dossier on himself."
Click here to read an eyewitness account of the suicide of Himmler.
Click here to read about the dating history of Adolf Hitler.
''I Am Not A Dictator'' (Liberty Magazine, 1938)In 1938, Fulton Oursler (1893 - 1952), editor of Liberty, crossed the Atlantic Ocean in order to ask Benito Mussolini why he invaded Ethiopia and to get his thoughts as to whether there would be peace in Europe. We can't say that Il Duce gave very thorough answers to those questions, but Oursler did find out what was eating Mussolini:
"Why is it that the people of the United States are so against Fascism? What is the matter with them? Why is the whole press so bitter against Fascism? Can you answer me that?"
Government Subsidized Art (Direction Magazine, 1938)This 1938 editorial by the artist Philip Evergood (1901 - 1973) stated that the Federal Arts Project of the Thirties had not simply made the lives of artists a little better, but had also created a far better society:
"The Federal Arts Project has pointed the way to an American Culture. It has set a weight in motion, it has let loose a force that has affected hundreds of thousands of lives. It has made murals depicting the history of our country and the lives of our people have been placed on the walls of our schools, hospitals, libraries and public buildings making them of greater beauty and of greater community interest - monuments and small sculpture have been added in equal numbers, easel paintings and prints now hang in thousands on the walls of public buildings..." Evergood likened this government funding to the Renaissance, when the church served as the artist's patron and culture flourished.
In 1941, the WPA was given the task of instilling patriotism in the new immigrants - click here to read about it.
Click here to read about the end of the Great Depression...
Labor Abuses in the South (Focus Magazine, 1938)Many of the back-handed dealings that would be addressed in John Steinbeck's 1939 novel, The Grapes of Wrath are illustrated in the attached photo-essay titled, "Slavery in America". This article is about the cruel world of the Deep South that existed in the Twenties and Thirties. It was an agrarian fiefdom where generations of White planters and factory owners practiced the most un-American system of exploitation and feudalism that developed and was perpetuated from the chaos wrought by the Civil War and Reconstruction. It was a nasty place where the working people of both races labored under conditions of peonage and bone-crushing poverty with no hope in sight.
Click here to read more about the American South during the Great Depression.
The 'Okies' and the Dust Bowl (Ken Magazine, 1938)"The other half of California's 200,000 migratory workers are farmers who trekked from the dust bowl area; they found work on farms, but not farming; it's seasonal piecework, like in a mill. Each Oklahoma nomad dreams of a cottage and a cow, but he's just sitting on a barbed wire fence. With the publicity over, the government has forgotten the dust bowl refugees. At Depression depth, a man might make $8 a week; now, $5 is lucky. They are the bitterest folk in America; blood may flow..."
Click here if you would like to read a 1940 article about the the finest movie to ever document the flight of the Okies: "The Grapes of Wrath". Life in Hitlerland (Ken Magazine, 1938)"It's a prison or a concentration camp if they catch you tuned in on a forbidden radio program in Hitlerland. And they will take your driver's license away if even once you are overheard making a careless or joking remark that could be interpreted as 'out of sympathy with the spirit of the new state'. So even in the apparently private little world bounded by the turning wheels of your own closed car, you must think long and hard like a badgered witness under cross-examination, before you dare open your mouth..."
Click here to read what life was like in Mussolini's Italy in 1938...
Television: God's Gift to Hollywood (Rob Wagner's Script, 1938)"Young mother Hollywood has had another baby... a child some day destined to take its place in the playpen and howl the living pants off the rest of the brood - movies, radio, music, big theater, little theater, dance and festival. How soon television becomes the fair-haired boy of the village depends upon a number of manufacturing and economic factors..."
Read another article about this Westward expansion...
Social Issues in Movies (Stage Magazine, 1938)Aren't you tired of Hollywood's socio-political rantings? •Nuclear power................They're against it ("The China Syndrome").
•Antisemitism...................They're against it ("Gentleman's Agreement").
•Alcoholism......................They're against it ("Lost Weekend").
•Racial segregation...........They're against it, but in 1915 they were for it ("Birth of a Nation"). One glance at this 1939 article and you'll be able to blame it all on the poet Archibald McLeish (1892 – 1982) who clearly advocated for political posturing in American movies. No doubt, McLeish must have been very happy when Warner Brothers released Confessions of a Nazi Spy in April of 1939; it was the first Hollywood film to take a swipe at the Nazi war machine.
Wrong Turn at Gallipoli (Ken Magazine, 1938)This is an opinion piece written at a time when the world stood at the doorstep of World War II. The writer went to some length to outline the fatal error made just one generation earlier and how the sins were to be paid for by their sons and daughters: "The world of today, an upheaval of antagonisms heading toward destructive war, was not inevitable. Russia need not have fallen to the Bolshevists, Germany to the Nazis, Italy to the Fascists. The United States need not have entered the Great War. Two million men slain in battle need not have died. These consequences resulted from a decision of a few men during the World War."
He argued that the Dardanelles Campaign is where the whole war went sideways.
Click here to read what the Kaiser thought of Adolf Hitler. She Fought in the Trenches (Liberty Magazine, 1938)"Well, Monsieur, did I ever tell you about the time I was a Doughboy in the Great war?"
This is the story of Marie Marvingt (1875 – 1963), an amazing French woman who did indeed serve in the forward trenches disguised as a man during the Summer of 1917. An Interview with Leon Trotsky (Rob Wagner's Script Magazine, 1938)This magazine interview with Leon Trotsky (né Lev Davidovich Bronstein: 1879 – 1940) was conducted by Gladys Lloyd Robinson: Beverly Hills doyenne, matron of the arts and wife of actor Edgar G. Robinson - in the parlance of the dearly departed Soviet Union, she was what would have been labeled a "useful idiot". Easily impressed by the goings-on at the "worker's paradise", she avoided such uncomfortable topics as the Soviet famine, the class privileges extended to Party Members or his own war on private property, but regardless of that, and much to her credit, she was able to get the most famous of Soviet refugees to speak about the 1938 world stage while conducting this interview.
Click here to read an article about the NKVD agent who murdered Trotsky.
Read an article explaining how the Soviets used early radio...
Wanderers No More (Pathfinder Magazine, 1938)Here is a pretty middle-of-the-road type of article that explains the creation of British Palestine, the Jewish migration and the Arab unrest:
"Writing in his History of Zionism, Nahum Sokalow looked in to the future: 'The Jews have grown tired of their roll as the homeless Chosen People and would prefer to be a self-supporting small nation with a quiet spot of earth for themselves...'. The spot for which the Jews had yearned proved to be about as quiet as a live volcano."
His Female Chief-of-Staff (Literary Digest, 1938)Missy Le Hand (1896 – 1944) was a pretty big deal in the life of President Franklin Roosevelt. FDR had many secretaries, but only one was a woman (and she was the first woman to ever serve in this capacity to a U.S. president). When the Germans attacked Poland, the State Department called her first, knowing full well that she was the only one in the White House with the permission to wake him up. Although this article lists many of the personal tasks she was charged with, it should be known that Missy Le Hand was the target of many Washington influence-peddlers. • Watch A Short News Clip About Missy Le Hand • Hollywood Stylists vs the Fashion Industry (Click Magazine, 1938)The attached article from 1938 heralded a new day in the fashion industry where fashion magazines would no longer be relied upon to set the trends in clothing; henceforth, that roll would only be played by movie actresses in far-off Hollywood. It was Hollywood movie stars who introduced sunglasses to the world of fashion... The Making of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Photoplay Magazine, 1938)The attached article is essentially a behind the scenes look at the making of Walt Disney's 1938 triumph Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs:
• "He employed 569 people who worked all day and frequently all night to finish it."
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"The film took three and half years to make and cost $1,500,000.00".
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"He concocted 1500 different paints to give it unmatched color."
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"He spent $70,000.00 developing a brand new camera to give it depth."
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"He threw away four times the drawings he made and the film he shot."
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"He made over 2,000,000 separate drawings..."
Although Disney's wife, Lilian, was said to have remarked, "No one's ever gonna pay a dime to see a dwarf picture" - the movie generated more box office receipts than any other film in 1938. The First Ten Years of Passenger Air Travel (Click Magazine, 1938)In the wake of numerous air disasters involving the nascent passenger airlines, this article was produced to show readers that with each crash, steps were taken to make each flight safer. In 1938, the Federl Government stepped in and established the Civil Aeronautics Authority. The Red Caps (Ken Magazine, 1938)The history of the African American baggage handlers called Red Caps is a sad story in American social history. The Red Caps had been around since the 1890s and they were assigned the task of carrying luggage to and from trains and taxis; this article points out that in the Thirties, one of every three of them had a college degree:
"Red Caps did not go to college to learn how to be Red Caps. Their problem is a racial one. To the white, a job toting luggage is a poor way to eke out an existence. To the black, red capping is one of the 'big' fields open. The white man who works as a porter can do nothing else, as a rule; the Negro almost invariably can do something else but can't get it to do."
Dorie Miller was an African-American hero during the Second World War, click here if you would like to read about him.
Mussolini - Irked By The Marx Brothers (Pathfinder Magazine, 1938) Fortune (Scribner's Magazine, 1938)"Fortune is the world's outstanding exponent of plush journalism. Its editors, long accustomed to prodigal expenditures, proudly talk of doing things 'in the Fortune manner'. The Fortune manner may mean spending $12,000 on research for a single story. It means commissioning oil paintings of industrial tycoons for the sole purpose of reproduction in Fortune. It mean de luxe color gravure and high-priced writers..." A Foreigner's View of 1930s America (Focus Magazine, 1938)In his effort serve his editors at Focus Magazine and alert their curious readers just how Europeans saw the American culture, German photographer Bernd Lohse (1911 - 1995) traveled throughout the country taking snap-shots of everything that charmed and repulsed him - take a look for yourself. The Wages and Hours Bill (Pathfinder Magazine, 1937, 1938)This article recorded portions of the battle on Capitol Hill that were waged between the Spring and Winter of 1937 when Congress was crafting legislation that would establish a minimum wage law for the nation's employees as well as a maximum amount of working hours they would be expected to toil before additional payments would be required. This legislation would also see to it that children were removed from the American labor force. The subject at hand is the Black-Connery Bill and it passed into law as the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Gloom in Germany (Ken Magazine, 1938)"But today there is no laughter in Germany. There are only smiles of disdain, contempt, conceit and strain. There is no humility, no pity, not much mercy. There is an odd sort of honor, an amazing egotism. But there is no will power nor need there be in a nation that knows but one man's will."
CLICK HERE to read an article from 1923 about the abitious Adolf Hitler.
Japan On The March (Pathfinder Magazine, 1938)"To the colossal giant that is China, furious little Japan delivered a one-two punch last week. Small divisions of the Emperor's troops first took Canton and then Hankow. So easily did both fall that Britons in Hong Kong declared darkly:'It looks like dirty work.'"
Re-Touching the Pictures of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor
(Ken Magazine, 1938)Perhaps, one day in that perfect world we seem to be rushing to, all cameras will automatically delete our blemishes, correct our tailoring flaws and add muscle tone as needed to each imperfect image; but until that time, we, like the Duke of Windsor and all manner of other celebrity, must rely on the charitable instincts of the "fourth estate". This article pertains to bad pictures of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and the courtesy that was, for the most part, extended to them to make them appear just a little bit more "glam" than they otherwise appeared. The article is illustrated with one bad photograph and one "retouched" (Photoshopped) image of the couple, so that we might all know what the editors were up against: "Immediately after their marriage Edward and Wally posed for the newsreels. When their pictures were flashed on American screens, Wally was seen to have a large mole on the left side of her face and the Duke stood revealed with a much-wrinkled and worried countenance..." Where the Stars Shopped... (Photoplay Magazine, 1938) The N.K.V.D. and the Purges Pathfinder Magazine, 1938)"Congratulations were in order in Soviet Russia last week. The occasion was the 20th anniversary of the famed N.K.V.D., secret police, and celebration of that organization's success in 'rooting out the enemies of the people'"
The Japanese Homefront (Ken Magazine, 1938)This 1938 article concerned the gas rationing and and other assorted inconveniences that the Japanese population had to suffer during the Sino-Japanese conflict. The reporter was surprised to discover that the general citizenry was kept in a reasonable state of ignorance as to their military's intentions in China:
Some attention is paid to the sacrifices made by the Japanese industrial classes, such as the Yasuda, Iwasaki, and Mitsui families. •Recently Discovered Color Footage of the Japanese Army in China• Hitler's Sister Tells Her Story (Ken Magazine, 1938)"For twenty years Paula Hitler lived in a Vienna garret, never hearing from [her] lost brothers, Gustav and Adolf... When Adolf Hitler became Chancellor, he at last wrote to [her]. Paula, embittered by his long desertion and the loss of her youth, declared that he was no longer her brother. She gave out an interview revealing that their father was an illegitimate child. The Fuehrer's emissaries told her to keep quiet, she refused. But finally when Hitler came as ruler to Vienna, there was a reconciliation, and family Anschluss."
Click here to read about the fall of Paris...
••Watch this Brief Paula Hitler Interview from 1958•• Clare Boothe: The Woman Behind ''The Women'' (Stage Magazine, 1938)The following STAGE MAGAZINE article by American playwright Clare Boothe (Clare Boothe Luce 1903 – 1987) appeared in print shortly after the successful opening of her play, "The Women": "Of course, writing plays wasn't exactly a flash of genius. I mean I am shewed in spots...But inspiration or calculation, it was frightfully lucky that I hit on writing plays, wasn't it? And it was so wonderfully fortunate that quite a lot of people that I'd met socially on Park Avenue, at very exclusive parties, people like cowboys, cooks, manicurists, nurses, hat-check girls, fitters, exchorines, declasses countesses, Westport intellectuals, Hollywood producers Southern girls and radical columnists, gave me such lovely material to write about." Click here to read about feminine conversations overheard in the best New York nightclubs of 1937.
The Bauhaus Exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art (Art Digest, 1938)To mark the opening of the Museum of Modern Art's 1938 exhibition, "Bauhaus 1919 - 1928", the over-paid editors at Art Digest published this single page review for it's American readers explaining what the art school was, why it closed and what was in the mind of the school's founder, Walter Gropius (1883 – 1969): "The Bauhaus program proceeded to teach students manual dexterity, in all the crafts, to investigate the laws of the physical world, to plumb the spiritual world, and to master the machine. Out of the Bauhaus came the first experiments in tubular furniture, in modern typography, in modern lighting, and many significant developments in architecture, photography, abstract art, textile and other crafts."
Click here to read unfavorable criticism about the Bauhaus exhibit.
How the Academy Award Got Nicknamed 'Oscar' (Stage Magazine, 1938)If you've been wondering how the Academy Awards came to be known more popularly as "Oscar" and you think that the answer simply has to be bathed in an endless amount of "Hollywood Glamour", involving a boat-load beautifully tailored, charming and overly talented matinee idols, you'd better hit the 'ol back browser button now. ''Steel Ring Around Mussolini'' (Ken Magazine, 1938)"One thousand men are charged with the personal responsibility of seeing that Il Duce doesn't meet with an untimely death. Their frenzied precautions make him the best protected of all contemporary dictators - a protection which is sorely needed. Sixteen years after the victorious March on Rome a special tribunal dealing with the 'enemies of fascism' is still working along at exceptionally high pressure."
Click here to read about Mussolini's departure from the League of Nations. Bad Press Day for Eleanor Roosevelt (Ken Magazine, 1938)During a 1936 visit to a research facility devoted to finding a cure for children's lung ailments, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was remembered by a reporter for having blurted out a highly insensitive question: "What is the use of saving babies, if they can't earn a decent living when they grow up?" With two years to think about her impulsive inquiry, the reporter responded with outrage in formulating an answer. Edith Head on Paris Frocks (Photoplay Magazine, 1938)A telegraph from Hollywood costume designer Edith Head (1897 – 1981) to the editorial offices of Photoplay Magazine listing various highlights of the 1938 Paris fashion scene. Not surprisingly, it reads like a telegram:
"Paris says:
• Long waistlines, short flared skirts, fitted bodices, tweeds combines with velvet, warm colors...
• Hair up in pompadours piles of curls and fringe bangs.
• Braid and embroidery galore lace and ribbon trimmings loads of jewelry mostly massive.
• Skirts here short and not too many pleats more slim skirts with slight flare."
The great Hollywood modiste wrote in this odd, Tarzan-English for half a page, but by the end one is able to envision the feminine Paris of the late Thirties.
from Amazon: Edith Head: The Fifty-Year Career of Hollywood's Greatest Costume Designer . Click here to read about physical perfection during the Golden Age of Hollywood.
The Cult of the Hitler Personality (Ken Magazine, 1938)"Someone asks why Hitler doesn't take a wife, as that sort of subject would be bound to come up. The German girl is incredibly shocked": "I shudder to think of any woman thinking of herself as a physical being worthy of being with the Fuhrer. It is sacrilegious to mention it!".
Read about Hitler's expert on sex and racial purity...
The Invention of Nylon (Pathfinder Magazine, 1938)"Last week, two of the nation's leading manufacturers of synthetic textiles were taking important steps to woo the feminine heart from silk to synthetic hosiery. The E.I. Dupont de Nemours & Company announced that it had laid plans for construction of a new $7,000,000 plant near Seaford, Delaware, for manufacture of a new synthetic yarn called 'Nylon,' which, used in hosiery, was expected to compete successfully with all types of silk stockings." The Fascists in French Morocco (Current History, 1938)This article is essentially an indictment of French General Charles Nogues (1876 - 1971), once the reigning governor-general of French Morocco - who was accused of beating the rush and selling-out early to the fascists before France had even collapsed:
More primary source articles about W.W. II France can be read here...
The Parchuting Sheep of the Italian Army (Click Magazine, 1938)This is a highly amusing collection of photos depicting the seldom remembered "Para-Sheep" of the Italian Army during their adventures in Ethiopia. It would seem that Italian grunts simply would not stomach canned food the way other infantrymen were able to do and so it was decided that sheep would be individually rigged with parachutes and tossed out of planes, where they would be butchered and cooked by the Mussolini's men below. The accompanying paragraph explains that even a bull had been air-dropped from the same purpose.
Take a look.
Trainable Extras Were Vital (Click Magazine, 1938) Cardinal Innitzer Stands Up (Pathfinder Magazine, 1938)With the 1938 merging of Austria with Hitler's Germany came the Nazi coercion of Austrian Christianity. One of the first clerics to rebel against their repression was Cardinal Theodor Innitzer (1875 - 1955) of Vienna who made clear his outrage in a series of open letters criticizing the various Nazi restrictions involving marriage and the removal of nuns and priests from various schools and hospitals. | 
