TIRED OLD WARRIOR

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 53, Issue 255, 9 August 1933, Page 8

TIRED OLD WARRIOR

HINDENBURG’S EVENTIDE. MERELY HITLER’S “YES MAN.” A dreamy-eyed youth moves languid lingers over the .keyboard of a piano. Perspiring waiters with beer-laden trays move surefooted among the crowded tables, and the smoke-filled air is cut by the laughter and conveisation of a hundred men jammed into a room 40ft. square. It is one of the popular nightly meeting places of the young Nazis says the Berlin correspondent of the “Daily Express.” Piero they talk freely for they are among friends and here, too, writers gather to sit and listen without talking freely, for at best they are only among acquaintances. One sits and listens. “A funny thing happened at the Reich’s Praesidentcn Palais to-day,” a voice is heard. “A man came to see von Hindenburg, He waited in the outer office for hours and then, being hungry, took a package from his pocket. He unwrapped it and began munchihg a huge sandwich. just a Music Hall Jest. “The paper from the package the man carelessly tossed on a table. A horrified attendant hurriedly snatched fhe paper and put it out of sight. ‘You should not leave any paper around here,’ ho admonished the terrified visitor. ‘The old man might sign it!’ ” A roar of laughter greets the story. It is repeated from table to table. The next day one hears it in the lobby of a hotel. The day after that it is all over Berlin. Perhaps next week it will be told in the music halls. Laughter always greets it. It explains the present standing of Paul von Hindenbuig President of Germany. The rest of the world thinks of von Hindenburg as a grand old man towering colossus-like over Germany, a symbol of the majesty and solidarity of Ins country. A true patriot, a granite-like figure overshadowing the chameleonmhided politicians of Europe, he stands for the old order of safety and security. This is Hindenburg to the world. In Berlin? In Berlin Hindenburg is merely a tired old man living in the memories of a glorious past, a pathetic figure standing alone and listening to the faint strains of the martial music of a parade which lias long since passed. Nominally he is President, of Germany, vested with many widespread powers. , Nominally ho can declare martial law and summarily remove unifit, office holders. Actually Berlin doubts if he has power to do anything but si"n papers and review military parades. He is merely Hitler’s “Yes man.” Twilight of Great Career. Hindenburg spends the twilight of his career acting as the greatest “Yes man” in history, and living in the memory of the days when his name was worshipped in Germany as the victor of the battles of the Masurian Lakes, the man who saved Eiast Prussia from the Russians and the man who waged a great war against hopeless odds, lie is eighty-five, and the, years have been hard years which, arc now crushing lus mind and body under the cumulative weight. Always a man of action, Hindenburg now finds himself a mere spectator watching the greatest show in the world, but unable to participate in it. All his life the roar of the crowd has come to his ears as a pleasant cacophony, a worshipping chorus. Now the spotlight his shifted to those younger men who occupy the stage and the acclamations of the crowd are tor Hitler and Goering and Goebbels. Von Hindenburg still looks imposing in photographs, but his is only a Don Quixote jousting with broken lances at windmills which he cannot even see. He looks military and erect in his pictures, hut he is under the constant care of physicians who refuse to allow him to exercise either body or mind. At present he is resting among the roses in his Neudeck garden and Berlin whispers that lie may never return.