HITLER, A NEW PHASE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 198, 22 August 1932, Page 6

HITLER, A NEW PHASE.

CIVIL WAR OR COALITION?

(By W. R. KINGSTON.)

When President Hindenburg on August 13 refused to appoint Hitler as Chancellor of Germany he placed Herr Adolph Hitler, leader of the Nazis, in the most awkward predicament of his career. To secure power now the Nazis must do either one or other of two equally unpalatable courses, either go into a coalition with one of their enemies, or wrest power by force—i.e., civil war. Up till the refusal Hitler had always at least the possible chance of dominating Germany by more ordinary methods. Had. his party secured just a few more seast at the elections recently held he would have had a majority in the Legislature and he might have been Chancellor with the Nazis as the Government. Narrowly defeated there, he turned to the President with the demand that, as the Nazis were "by far the largest single party, the Cabinet of dictators should be chosen from them, in place of Herr von Papen, whose Centre party is comparatively small. But Hindenburg would have none of it.

There are sufficiently strong dangers in adopting either policy (the odium of forcing civil war, or of going into a coalition with the Socialists) to deter even a leader stronger than Hitler. But if he does neither, and merely sits still hoping, like the immortal Mr. Micawber, for something to turn up, he runs the danger of losing his following, and with that gone losing his chance of ever leading Germany. The reason is that Hitlerism is an emotional movement. The million members include not only the young and the idealists, but the old, the disgruntled, the embittered poor and the unemployed, all temporarily welded together by the personality of the leader, and the dramatic presentation of the appeal of "Germany Awake." Hitler has no great programme and no new ideas. All he says is that present conditions are intolerable, and when he gets in things will be a great deal better. How, is rather vague. But if his matter is unimpressive, his manner of presentation is without equal in the realm of what the Americans call "ballyhoo." Massed meetings, torchlight processions, games, brass bands, national conventions, intensive meetings and parades, are all used to stir to fever heat enthusiasm for the Nazi cause. The membership is so mixed that lie must-keep- doing something spectacular to hold them. If he halts now his following will begin to drift away like snow'before the rising sun, some to the Communists, but mostly to the slough of indifference they usually inhabit. /

The possibility of a "Putsch," or sudden seizure of power and of the reigns of Government (what the French call a coup d'etat), is not to be ignored, but the difficulties in his way are enormous. The situation in Germany to-day '■ is scarcely at all analogous to that of Italy, before Mussolini led his Fascists on their victorious "march on Rome," or to that of Russia before the Bolsheviks seized control in 1917, because neither the Fascists nor the Bolshevists had highly organised opposition to contend with. In both 'cases they achieved success largely because they were the only highly organised parties in a time of chaos. Hitler, however, is faced with a rival organisation created specially to prevent him seizing power, the Reichsbanner, or Iron Front (against Hitler), and, in addition, is matched by the equally highly organised Communist party. Further than that even, at the first sign of a rising, President Hindenburg would order out the relatively small but most efficient German peace time army, the Reichswehr, which has already been used in civil disturbances to put down "Red" risings in various parts of the country —in Saxony and the Ruhr, for example. Only last week Hindenburg warned Hitler that he would not hesitate to call out the army. There remains only the hope of a coalition. But Hitler is faced with the delicate task not only of swallowing his vitriolic words of a few weeks ago, but of choosing the party to whom he will make advances. Obviously not to the Communists, and, after all the rabid denunciations of Socialists, scarcely to the Social Democrat party. There remain only the Centre parties, largely Catholic, whoise leaders are Dr. Bruening, the ex-Chancellor, and Herr von Papen, the present dictator—,the very men he has been condemning and opposing, and because of this opposition has gained his prenent position. Yet a coalition of some sort seems to be Hitler's only future. But whatever he does or does not do, his actions during the next few days and weeks are fraught with tremendous significance not only to Germany but to the whole European political system.