Photo taken from the Saturday, March 18, 1939 Times-Mirror Above, a decidedly anti-Nazi political cartoon, the piece was published just days after Germany took control over Czechoslovakia.

Over two years before Germany would declare war on the United States, the front page of the Saturday, March 18, 1939 edition of the Warren Times-Mirror was decidedly Anti-German and, more specifically, Anti-Nazi.

Someone – and I don’t know who but thank you to whoever it was – dropped a couple of old editions of the Times-Mirror off at the office and I couldn’t help myself.

Just as it is today, the Times-Mirror was published six days a week sans Sunday.

Cost was $6 annually or $.15 cents a week by carrier as well as $6 annually in the mail to any US state, “Porto Rico, Mexico, Panama Canal Zone and the Philippine Islands.” Internationally? You betcha… $6 annually.

The lead story concerned German expansion in eastern Europe and gives a clear indication that concern was rising in American about Hitler’s aggression.

Just three days earlier, the Third Reich had consolidated its group over Czechoslovakia and were applying economic pressure (which was ultimately successful) to get Romania in line with the Nazis.

“Rumania, confronted with Germany’s new eastward thrust and comprehensive Nazi economic proposals, is giving urgent consideration to her dangerous position,” the Times-Mirror reported via the Associated Press. Germany is negotiating for more of Rumania’s trade…. Germany’s eastward (thrust) brought her closer to this country’s rich oil resources and wealth of other products.”

From a diplomatic perspective, French and German officials argued back and forth in separate stories about the German claim of Czechoslovakia.

“With Adolf Hitler on his way home from Vienna and the pace of his drang nack osten – march to the east – quickening at the threshold of Rumania oil and wheat fields, Berlin officialdom stood its ground and declared that erasure of the Czecho-Slovak republic was ‘done legally,'” an AP report explained.

“Nazi spokesmen in Berlin branded as ‘arrant nonsense’ foreign reports that Hitler had put Hungary and Rumania next on his list for subjugation on his match to the east.”

French officials – Robert Coulondre, French ambassador to Berlin – presented “a note to Berlin declaring that France did not recognize German occupation of Czecho-Slovakia as legitimate.”

An additional report notes that the “British cabinet met in an extraordinary session late today to study organizing the European balance of power against Adolf Hitler’s new imperialism. The cabinet considered a new ‘stand firm’ policy in the light of Germany’s absorption of Czecho-Slovakia, with the danger of a Nazi thrust at Rumania believed to be the chief subject of discussion.”

A local editorial entitled “Hitler’s Next Move” gave additional thoughts on the fomenting situation – calling Hitler a “opportunist of the first order” and sought to guess where he might strike next.

“An alternative is that Hitler will continue the spade work that is rapidly taking him to the border of the Russian Ukraine which he covets,” the opinion piece concluded. “Der Fuhrer, being a bit of a will-o’-the-wisp, admittedly might unexpectedly pop up on his western frontier” to threaten France “for the return of war colonies. He is going to do that sooner or later. Or he might decide to push the territorial claims of his ally, Signor Mussolini, against France.”