ANOTHER EUROPEAN CLOUD.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 98, 27 April 1932, Page 6

ANOTHER EUROPEAN CLOUD.

' The Nazi success in the Prussian Diet elections is bound to have repercussions throughout Europe. The Nazi programme includes tariffs and immediate repudiation of all reparation payments, to be carried out apparently under some form of dictatorship. The great increase in the Nazi vote cannot fail to be disquieting to the, French. After the first ballot for the German Presidential election the "Temps," in its leader on the subject, said that it did not believe that. 11,000,000 Germans were really won over to the Nazi policy and to what Hitler calls his doctrine, but it was of the opinion that Hitler was supported by all the discontented and desperate people, of whom there were so many in Germany. Some of the French papers saw in the rise of Hitler a new reason for what they called a firm French policy towards Germany. Hitler makes his appeal to violent nationalism, hot-headed emotion, and in some cases to the recklessness of despair. There is no note of reason and patience. Hitler has no great political ideas, nor has he any programme worth speaking of. All he says is that present conditions are intolerable, and that if he takes the power into his hands things will be different. Hitler's great strength is the fact that he is the personification of German discontent. The youth of the nation for the most part sides with Hitler. His followers thirst for power and the opportunity for revenge. The effect of the Nazi victory on the Disarmament Conference and the ; forthcoming French elections —which were purposely postponed until it was seen what the Germans would do —will be in the direction of hardening French opinion against any leniency towards Germany. More than ever will the French demand security. The struggle for power in Germany between Hitler and the Eepublican forces is a fateful struggle that has considerable bearing oh the whole future of European civilisation.