Foreign correspondents who visited the polling places found some irregularities—especially, open instead of secret voting—and there was no doubt that some Germans feared (with justification, as we have seen) that a Nein vote might be discovered by the Gestapo. Dr. Hugo Eckener told this writer that on his new Zeppelin Hindenburg, which Goebbels had ordered to cruise over German cities as a publicity stunt, the Ja vote, which was announced by the Propaganda Minister as forty-two, outnumbered the total number of persons aboard by two.
