Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 8, 1934. HINDENURG'S TEXT

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 33, 8 August 1934, Page 8

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 8, 1934. HINDENURG'S TEXT

As was to be expected, the funeral of Field-Marshalyon Hindenburg has been so magnificently staged as to reflect great credit on the Ministry of Enlightenment and Propaganda, or whatever other authority had charge of the arrangements. The veiling of the garish decorations of the Kroll Opera House with crepe and evergreens and pure white lilies, and the transformation of its interior into the semblance of a cathedral; the bust of the dead man flanked by two fourfoot candles and laurel trees, and with a huge swastika flag hung behind it; the long journey, of the . cortege through the night between lines of Storm Troopers holding flaming torches and of villagers who had stayed up everywhere to see the procession pass; the arrival just \as the dawn was breaking at Tannenberg, where at the ■ beginning of! "the War Hindenburg— or possibly Ludendorff, his chief of staff, or Hoffmann or Francois—had won the great victory which smashed the armies of Rennenkampf, and relieved East Prussia from the terror of invasion; the eighteen special trains for the funeral party and the complete goods train for carrying the wreaths—these are some of the salient items in the excellent reports with which Berlin has supplied us. ! At the timei of writing two items of the first importance are not available. Herr Hitler delivered a funeral oration in the transformed Opera House, and another at the graveside. As his courage and his nerve .and his eloquence have never yet been found lacking on any of these great occasions, there is no reason to apprehenda failure ■, on what were perhaps the greatest of them all. It is possible that there was not very much to report in the Berlin speech, as he was reserving himself for the later and more important opportunity, and that the report "of the speech at Tannenberg is on its way. All that has so far reached us regarding the oratory on either occasion is that at Tannenberg "the Reichswehr Protestant chaplain's address was from a text chosen by Field-Marshal yon Hindenburg, Revelation, ii, 10." The choice was certainly remarkable, but, if it was that of Hindenburg himself, it would not be fair to blame either Dr. Goebbels's department or the chaplain. The text is as follows:—

Fear none of. thoso things which thou shalt suffer: behold, tho devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and. yo shall have tribulation ten days: bo Ihou faithful imto death, and I will givo theo a crown of life. •

It wouhJ be interesting to know whether tho choice of, this text was a recent one, but, whatever the date, it can only have been made under the apprehension of very grave trouble ahead, and at any time since the socalled revolt on June 30 the fears of the aged President may well hay been very acute. It was indeed a very unhappy selection in more senses than one. Its dominant notes are fear and tribulation. Grievous as the nation's sufferings have been, especially during the last few months of a regime which opened on g note of triumph, it is warned] that there are worse sufferings to' follow. "Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer" and "ye shall have tribulation t^n days." The reminder of the sufferings and the tribulations that arc still \in stove for ihe German people would not

make for cheerfulness or strength at any time, and in their present slute of depression and doubt is likely to produce a. much deeper effect than the assurance that those who arc faithful unto death will be rewarded with a crown of life. But the central, words of the text are likely to receive an interpretation throughout Germany which Hihdcnburg had not conlemplalcd:

Behold, the devil shall cast .some of you into prison, that ye may bo tried.

What a text for a sermon on Sunday next these words would provide for any of those German ministers still holding out against the complete Nazification of their Church who (had the courage, or, as we should rather say, the foolhardiness, to use it! There can, indeed, be no call upon any preacher to risk his life in such an enterprise, tut it might possibly be safe for him to get the words j before his congregation and to let jthem preach their own sermon. The Apostle's > warning to the Church of Smyrna has been abundantly realised in Germany, as any German reader of the words, "behold,'the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried," would see for himself. The devil of Hitlerism has cast hundreds and thousands of innocent victims into prison or into "concentration camps"-—an alias which deceives nobody—and there has treated, and is still treating, many of jthem with a brutality which would make death a more merciful punishment. Sometimes they are actually encouraged or driven to commit suicide; sometimes suicide is alleged because it sounds belter than murder. All these infamies are being perpetrated against decent citizens who have been guilty of no offence, legal or moral, but have been taken'into ''protective custody" to facilitate the work of persecution. There are'even: some cases v , in which men are being detained in this fashion after 'they have been tried and acquitted by a German Court. The most notorious of these cases is that of . Torgler, the Communist leader, who was acquitted in December of complicity in the burning of the Reichstag, but is- still in prjson. Infamy has been carried a step further in Torgler's case, by a change in the law which has been made during his imprisonment. Now criminal tribunals liave been established >~ on which Nazi political prejudice' will have a determining voice, and we have been told that the Communist leader is io be tried again, by one of these.' There is another text in the Apocalypse, which offers more comfort than Hindenburg's choice. The growing wrath of the Nazi devil may be "because he'knowelh that he has but a short time."