Evening Post. FRIDAY, JULY 22, 1932.

Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 19, 22 July 1932, Page 6

Evening Post. FRIDAY, JULY 22, 1932.

A MASTER HAND

Germany, which recent reports showed to be hovering on the brink, now* appears to have fallen right in, and whether she will sink .or swim may possibly be'kriown to those who have precipitated the crisis, but for the outsider is certainly far beyond the range of even a plausible conjecture. The dictatorship which has been proclaimed in Prussia is safely described as "the greatest co»p since the Republic was declared in 1919," and may well be "regarded as a, deathblow to democratic regime." That for the present it is a "knock-out" blow for democratic government in the most powerful of the German States, the one whose supremacy was such under the Imperial regime that its King was "ex officio" the Kaiser of all the Germans, and which still includes the capital city, is, of course, beyond question. Under the title of "State Commissioner of- Prussia," Dr, yon Papen, the Chancellor, whom, with no pretence of popular authority behind him, President yon Hindenburg called to'office after his quarrel with Dr. BrUening at the end of May, has now ben. invested with practically dictatorial powers over that State. His first official act in his new role was to flehcl for the Prussian Ministers and inform them

that the prevailing conditions had failed to guarantee law and order, and therefore he had been .appointed Commissioner until the new Prussian Diet could agree to elect Its own Prime Minister. ■ '

The matter had been so well arranged that when the most pugnacious of them, Herr Severing,"who had had the audacity to declare that the Papen Government must be driven from office, returned he found that the tables had been effectively turned. A hundred soldiers were in possession of the office-with orders to use force if necessary. At the same time infantry and machine-guns were guarding the German Chancellery close by. The hint was too broad for even Prussia's warlike Minister of the Interior, to whose Department the 5(0,000 State police belonged, to ignore. He did not stay to be arrested, but went. His colleagues did the same, and that was the end, for the. time being, of democratic government in Prussia. Not so much as a Napoleonic whiff of grapeshot had been needed. General yon Schleicher had aeetf to that Though even a year ago hardly known in Germany outside of professional circles, and twoinonths ago quite unknown to the world; this remarkable man when' he became Minister of Defence in the Junker Cabinet was recognised as its most powerful member and was even described as "a man of greater public. interest in Germany than President yon Hindenburg or Adolf Hitler." Though he appears to share the desire of the Junkers to .restore the monarchy by bringing back the Hohenzollerns, a greater contrast to. the Junker temper and manners than General yon Schleicher could hardly be imagined. .According to the "Neve Freie Presse," as quoted by the '.'literary Digest":— ,

His comprehension of the ' workings of a Parliamentary machine is no less anuudng than his insight into the operations of a military cabinet and a General Staff. He is equally at home in the camp, on the field of battle, in the forum, and on- the street. He might be called, with, justice, a political general in the ideal sense. No one has ever seen General yon Sehleicher in public without a smile on his face. . .

General yon Schleicher has tho sense of humour in a unique degree. Schleicher charms. .. . ,-.'

A Junker that charms is a paradox indeed, and it may be that this Austrian paper's character sketch owes something to the idealising im- - agination of an admirer. But that General yon Schleicher is a Prussia? soldier with manners and tact and a deep and astute politician is beyond dispute, and his reputation for getting things done is abundantly confirmed by the facts reported yes- i terday.- ■' Simultaneously with the proclamation of a dictatorship over | the whole of Prussia, a state of mili-, tary emergency was declared in the I capital city and the province of Brandenburg~the -two central units of the Prussian-Administration, and the military autocrat who is to exercise all the powers of the civil Government thus superseded and many others that Germ-.ny has probably i never thought of since the Kaiser fell is General yon Schleicher. Some of the special powers conferred upon him were mentioned yesterday. j

He may order house-to-house searches and confiscations and forbid any kind of demonstration and establish extraordinary Courts, empowered to impose the death penalty for armed resistance to the military or police or for treason.

The first of the acts of the new regime in Prussia—the dismissal of the ' State Ministry—is expressly assigned to Schleicher, and we may safely assume that every step in the whole procedure was of his planning.

The coup d'etat came, says our report, with dramatic suddenness and astonishing success. A single day restored Junker rule over two-thirds of ■ Germany, where the Junkers now- occupy every key Governmental position in token of which machine guns aro lining j the Wilhelmstrasse and other official | centres of the capital.

Deplore it as we may, candour cannot refuse to recognise in the secrecy,

the swiftness, the precision, and the ease with which this extraordinary transformation scene was enacted the work of a master hand. The consummate efficiency even encourages the hope that, whether the ultimate outcome be despotism or democracy, the end may be reached without the interregnun of chaos and bloodshed which has often seemed inevitable.

For the Hitlerites, whom General yon Schleicher was credited with the intention of outmanoeuvring, and whom, in the spirited action that his Government took after the fighting at Altona, it was apparently prepared to defy, the result is an unmistakable triumph. To the Government's threat to deal summarily with the Nazis if they carried arms, Herr Hitler, as reported on Wednesday, replied that he would arm them

unless the Govornine'nt proclaims a state of emergency and enables tho appointment of Generals commanding various' Army Corps as 'Federal Commissioners with complete power to put the police under j the control" of the army,' thus placing Germany under a military dictatorship. .

This is exactly what the Government has done for the State that represents about two-thirds of Germany, and in his broadcast message Dr. yon Papen justifies its action on the ground that the Prussian Government was under Communist influence, and that the Communists were aligned in a united front with the Prussian authorities against Hitlerism. He also says that he has po designs on Prussian sovereignty, and that the Reichstag elections will be held on the due date. But it is a queer sort of sovereignty that ranains to Prussia, and a queer sort of freedom and independence that Socialists and other opponents of his Government will enjoy on the 3lst. . .'■:■..' ■■■ > ../