presence of three Sumner Welles.
 
 As you can imagine from these surroundings, the
conversation did not attain any degree of informality.
I am not certain as to how the Chancellor received
others, but I should say it had been planned to hold
these proceedings on a strictly formal basis.
 
 The Chancellor began by saying that he was very
glad to meet me, as he thought it peculiarly happy
that a man who already knew Germany had been sent here,
a man who already spoke his language and could under-
stand his people.  He then paid me some compliments
on my knowledge of German, of which he had not yet 
heard me speak more than a sentence.
 
 I replied, in equally complimentary phrases, that
it was a moment of great interest to me to meet a man 
who had pulled his people from moral and economic 
despair into the state of pride and evident prosperity 
which they now enjoyed.  Hitler said that it was true 
that when the Nationalist Socialist Party had come in
the people were ina state of despair.  Everything had
broken down through the reparations, debts, trade
barriers, and finally the world financial havoc.
Unemployment was of staggering proportions.  The