VON HINDENBURG.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXIV, Issue 3151, 8 May 1930, Page 3

VON HINDENBURG.

HIS REPUTATION. NOTHING BUT WAR LEGEND? Field-Marshal fon Hindenburg, every inch a soldier and a Monarchist, is tho supreme paradox of modern Germany. For a lifetime he served with unswerving devotion three idols—Kaiser, duty and Fatherland. He lived to urge the Kaiser to abdicate, and to become President of a Republic. The bitter attack by Ludendorff is only one sign of the chagrin of former Monarchist supporters who have been unable to make "Old Hindenburg" dance to a tune of their piping, says a writer in an overseas journal.

The personality of Von Hindenburg, gruff, old-fashioned militarist, has imposed itself on the post-war world like a colossal figure of Old Germany. A mere war legend, as Ludendorff terms it, could scarcely have survived the test of his political office. Nobody has ever imagined him a brilliant statesman, he has shown no powers of oratory. Yet his iiopularity is greater than it was even during the war, when millions of loyal Germans paid their money to hammer iron into his wooden statue. Even his enemies realise that Germany possesses no leader who could fill his place. Out of the shadow of the two war legends, England's and Germany's., emerges a singularly human figure to solve this riddle of power . SNUBBING THE KAISER,The old Boer warrior, with rifle and Bible, is perhaps the nearest in other nations to the Hindenburg type. A militarist of simple faith in God, Fatherladn and Emperor, the old FieldMarshal has served his narrow ideals with an honesty which compels admiration even from his enemies. As a courtier Hindenburg fell under a cloud because he gave his frank opinion of the Kaiser's cavalry strategy in manoeuvres. "It was very pretty, Your Majesty," was his reply to the Kaiser's request for a compliment. "But if this had been a real war, we would have gone in behind your men, and those who were not slaughtered would have been driven into the Baltic if they could run so far." At the time he was head of the Fourth Army Corps, a soldier of the type dismisesd by conventional official minds in normal times as a crank, and in times of stress revealed as genius. He had fought in the war between Prussia and Denmark, and in the Franco-Prussian war.

For years he had bored the War Department with plans for defending the Masurian Lakes. His idea was that the enemy should be driven into the marshes to drown, and he could not sit in a cafe without using his beer for a practical illustration of his favourite strategy . When he heard that the Reichstag was considering a scheme" for draining the marshes, he descended like a whirlwind on Deputies and party leaders. When all else failed he took his plea to the Kaiser, and there he prevailed. THE GALL TO ARMS. The marshes were saved, and "Old Hindenburg" went on with his studies. At manoeuvres every year he punctiliously drove the ''enemy" into the swamps. He was known irreverently as "General Mud." When the war came Hindenburg was in retirement and almost forgotten; his offer of service was overlooked. "Then suddenly," he himself has said, "there came a telegram informing me that the Emperor commissioned me to command the Eastern Army. 1 really only had time to buy some woollen underclothing and brush up my old uniform." All the world knows how he followed his old plans, and drove the Russians into the marshes to save Berlin. It was the one great indisputable German triumph in the first six months of war. THE HINDENOBURG STATUE. The German public adored him for it, and the oolosasl wooden statue into which they paid to drive nails brought huge contributions to patriotic funds. To Von Hindenburg this popularity brought, among other more pleasing tokens, an immense number of letters suggesting remedies for gallstones, a complaint which was rumoured to vex his days.

"These gallstones," he lamented bitterly, "are the plague of my existence. And I've never suffered from them in all my days." It was chiefly Von Hindenburg who, when the war ended, put duty to the Fatheriand in place of his love for the Kaiser, and urged abdication for the sake of better terms for the country. But it was also Von Hindenburg who offered himself to the Allies as a scapegoat for hiß Emperor in case they decided on punishment.

The Presidency was offered to the old soldier because he, respected by Socialists and Monarchists alike, was the one leader in Germany who could draw all sections together to rebuild the Fatherland. He accepted because, of his three idols, duty was his ruling passion. A Monarchist in every fibre of his heart, he undertook his duties as a necessary bitterness in a world where nearly all he cared for had been broken. Quite simply, too, he felt the office of President to be a "come down" from the glory of soldiering. With sublime unconsciousness that he is betraying how little the dignity means to him, he is fond of genially reproving those who address him as Field Marshal: "No more 'General.' my firend, no more 'Field Marshal,' no more 'Excellency,' but just Herr Reich-President now." Monarchists had gerat hopes that with him in power plans to restore tho former regime were assured. In nothing has the simple hone"sty of # "Old Hindenburg'' been clearer than in his uncompromising attitude to those hopes. Having taken sworn allegiance to the Republic, he will'defend, with the last drop of blood in his worn old "heart, a form of government utterly abhorrent to his own sympathies. With his leonine head and his oaklike figure, the President of Germany is largely a figurehead, but surely one of the most remarkable figureheads In modern politics.