862.00/3594
The Ambassador in Germany (Dodd) to the Secretary of State
[Received April 22.]
Subject: Election Results.
Sir: In reference to the Embassy’s despatch No. 2733 dated March 30, 1936,6 concerning the subject noted above, I have the honor to report that the election having been duly declared as valid, the ballots have been destroyed and a total of 740 members now comprise the new Reichstag. As the old Reichstag had a membership of 661, a gain of 79 members is shown, and a total vote of approximately 44,400,000 is indicated on the basis of one electoral mandate for each 60,000 votes.
Special interest may be attached to some of the names on the new list, and the idea has been conceived, not without considerable foundation, that in the selection of the members the Party has had an eye towards the creation of a body which would represent not only Germany but “Great Germany,” comprising “one hundred million souls of which only sixty-seven millions are living within the borders of the Reich.” As evidence of this new element in the character of the assembly, the name of Dr. Heinrich Class, head of the Pan-Germanic League, is suggested. This League, founded in 1891, carried on as its program in foreign countries “the German national activities in all countries where members of our people were forced to struggle to maintain their German character” and they preconceived as their goal the reunion of all the Germans of the world.
In further support of the idea, the names of five irredentist renegades, three Austrians and two Sudeten Germans, may be pointed out on the list.
[Here follow short biographical sketches of the irredentists.]
Respectfully yours,
- Not printed.↩