REICHSTAG OPENS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 220, 31 August 1932, Page 7

REICHSTAG OPENS

“MAD CLARA’S" ADDRESS GOVERNMENT DENOUNCED. HOUSE LISTENS WITH FRIGID SILENCE. (United Press Association—By CableCopyright.) (Received 31, 12.20 p.m.) Berlin, Aug. 30. 'I would like to demand the impeachment of President von Hindenburg, but it would be useless, because it would be like sending the devil to his grandmother,” said Frau Clara Zetkm in her opening address in the Reichstag. Frau Zetkin was so feeble that she had to be carried to the Speaker's chair by two women Communists. As she mounted the rostrum Communists greeted her with shouts of “Red Front!” clenching their fists in the Communist salute.

Two hundred and thirty Nazis ignored the demonstration, as Herr Hitler had ordered that they must set an example of discipline and give the Chancellor no excuse for enforcing the President’s dissolution decree.

Frau Zetkin spoke for 45 minutes slowly and with difficulty, frequently pausing to wipe the perspiration from her forehead. She denounced the Government as the tool of capitalists, demanded its overthrow and its impeachment for violating the constitution. She hoped to live to open the German Soviet Congress.

The House listened with frigid silence and then elected as Speaker the Nazi, Herman Foertng, aged 39, a dashing aviator in the war. He commended Richthofen’s Squadron in 1918 and also was Hitler’s right-hand man m the Munich “putsch” of 1923, when he was wounded and fled abroad.

When the result of the election was known the Nazis rose in a body shouting: “Awake Germany! Hail Hitler!” As Frau Zetkin totteringly descended the steps Communists cried; “Hail Moscow!”.

The Reichstag adjourned to allow the Speaker and Deputy-Speaker to interview President von Hindenburg. The newspaper, “Vorwerts,” has been suppressed for three days for describing the Government’s economic programme as “a programme of constitution breakers.” Emergency decrees dealing with the economic programme are being issued next week. President von Hindenburg signed the document with blank dates, empowering Herr von Papen to dissolve the Reichstag if it demands the annulment of the old or new emergency decrees or attempts to counteract his or the Government’s domestic policy. PRUSSIAN DIET SNUBBED. Berlin, August 30. Herr von Papen’s acting Prussian Government severely snubbed the Prussian' Diet by instructing all Prussian officials not to enter the chamber, cloak rooms or lobbies unless specially authorised. Herr Branch, Deputy Commissioner of Prussia, and other leading Ministers, have declined to appear in the Diet, intimating that President von Hindenburg appointed them, and that therefore they are not responsible to the Diet.