RESPONSIBILITY

Evening Post, Volume XCIX, Issue 9, 10 January 1920, Page 6

RESPONSIBILITY

THE GERMAN WAR

INQUIRY

BETHMANN'S DEFENCE

SKILFUL AND DICTATORIAL.

For three mornings Dr. BethmannHollweg has been under cross-examina-tion by the National Assembly Committee of Inquiry, writes the Berlin correspondent of the Daily Telegraph. What has been. dragged out • of him has not added much to our knowledge of things, but the difficulty with which it has been elicited has thrown some fresh light on persons. The mentality of the fifth Chancellor has gained at the expense of his character. It is ho longer so easy to regard him as a man of comparatively simple psychology and straightforwardneßs of action. The address he has shown in parrying awkward questions, bis ingenuity in drawing red herrings across the trail, the promptness with which he has taken advantage of opportunities presented to him of pleading his own personal cause, and the histrionic tricks by which he has sought to appeal to the nationalistic sentiments, both of his immediate audience and of the great public outside the Reichstag walls, have transformed the proceedings into a psychological drama of absorbing interest.

Routine or rotation has given the chair to the Conservative Judge, Fritz Wermuth. Externally, and on the positive side, he is a respectable figure, and would preside with decorum over the proceedings of a parish council or a provincial bench of magistrates. In what he. says he evidently strives after impartiality. But when once the business of the day has got going he leaves it to itseli, and the result is endless digressions and inexhaustible irrelevancies, which may be very entertaining, but do not forward the purpose of the inquiry. During the hearing of Count Bernstorff the actual direction of the investigation was usurped by Professor Bonn, head of the Munich Commercial University. His nominal function was that of "expert," but, by shrewd and diplomatic interventions, he managed to keep the evidence more or less on a straight line. Unfortunately, when his control is most wanted he is no longer here, but in England.

Among the actual members of the committee Herr Sinzheimer, the Majorit/ Socialist and member for Hesse-Nas-sau, shows the greatest keenness to establish the truth. He is a 'Jewish lawyer from Fra/nkfurt, with a sharp-cut face and a high-pitched and rather wheezy voice, which somehow reminds one of a rusty gimlet. He gets there, but not without a certain strain and difficulty, and there is a probing quality about the tone' of his questions which obviously irritates the witnesses. Dr. Oscar ' Cohn, the Independent Socialist, who was one of the first members of the Reichstag to make a bold and open stand against his country's policy and practices, is a less frequent questioner, but not less effective. He, too, is a lawyer and a Jew, but in other respects he is the exact antithesis of Sinzheimer, as he has a deep, soft, melodious voice, with a very earnest ring about it, and apapproaches the witnesses with a subdued deliberation which could give offence to no one. The only other members of the Commission who take any active part in the proceedings are two Democrats, Georg Gothein and Walter Schuecking. The former is a mining engineer, well known as a- writer on economic subjects, and the latter is a professor of law at JlaTburg University, a pacifist of long standing, and he helped to draw up the German memorandum on the origins of the war which was submitted to the Peace Conference at Versailles.

OLD REGIME ATMOSPHERE.

Before one has watched the Commission at work very long it becomes clear that its members have not yet fully assimilated themselves to the new conditions in Germany. The ex-Ministers whom it is their duty to examine are still for them creatures of a higher sphere, who are to be treated with the deference due to such. The questions are always addressed to the "Herr Reichskanzler" or to "Your Excellency," and the whole atmosphere is very much that of the old Reichstag, with the Deputies from the Government parties obviously submitting their wishes to the chosen of the Kaiser.

Herr Bethmann-Hollweg showed surprising promptness in taking the measure of the men with whom he Had to deal. On the first day of his evidence he was humble, apologetic, and almost lachrymose, but on his second appearance he altered his tactics entirely, and assumed the offensive. Feeling his way gradually at first, and finding that his digresions and encroachments on the prerogatives of the Chair passed unheeded, he gradually became more and more aggressive-and boisterous. With, a defiant and even menacing demeanour, he stormed at the Commission with the full strength of his gruff and powerful voice till one might almost have thought that he had in his pocket an Imperial decree of dissolution with which he could at any moment have sent the whole pack flying. In the old Reichatag there was never any debate between the Ministerial Chairs and the body of the House. The Chancellor made his speech, and disdained to reply to criticisms. Thus Bethmann-Hollweg had never been seen before in his present role. His huge, ungainly figure is also evidently much more at its ease in a chair than it ever was on its legs. ■ In the Reichstag his whole bearing wns exceedingly awkward and angulai, and his gesture convulsive and aimless. But the support of a chair gives freedom to his arms. He emphasises his already stentorian words by chopping the table in front of him with the side of his hand, slapping it with his palm, or thumping it with his clenched fist. Sometimes he thrusts out his" two arms parallel to one another as if he were about to dive bodily into the midst of t"ne Commission. At other times he waves them wildly in the air, bellowing at the top of his voice. Then he will suddenly lapse into softer tones, meditatively scratching the back of his head or wearily shading his eyes with his hand.

OARTOBICAL TRICKS.

These oratorical tricks are obviously part of a carefully-thought-out game to browbeat and hocus tho Commission. And they have been justified by their success. He has not merely transformed what- should have been his evidence into special pleading on his own behalf, but vhe has managed to-establish considerable control over the entire course of the proceedings. Not one single question has be answered with a plain Yes or No. Not one. Every answer is a speech, either to draw off attention from the subject, of the question, to show how uniquely difficult and complicated was the situation with which he had to deal, to shift responsibility on to other shoulders, or to appeal to the nationalistic passions of his auditors by dwellhig on the popular German grievances'against the Entente. Not once has the deferential chairman intervened to check these excursions and irrelevances. When Bcthmann-Hollweg has the word he is permitted to sa-y exactiv what he likes, how ho likes, and as lone as he likes. He is even allowed to give the Commission instructions as to the nature of its functions, and the mannar in which they should ho carried out, The result is that much time is spent,

iJid very little tangible result attained. The ex-Foreign Secretary Zimmerman is not so adroit as his former chief, and has much more cause to be. His bluster is less artistic, and is utterly inadequate to cover up the clumsy bungling of which he already stands convicted. When asked' to explain why he telegraphed to Count Bernstorff that the Imperial Govrnmenti would prefer President "Wilson's peace move to its own, and then only a few days later he told both the Main Committee of the Reichstag and the editors of the chief Berlin papers, who had been specially pledged to secrecy, that the German action had been taken in order to anticipate and prevent that of the American President, he could 1 only stammer out something about "tactical manoeuvres." That is only one of several glaring contradictions and inconsistencies which have been brought home to Zimmerman, and now his answers seem to be regarded as a comic relief to the proceedings.