HITLER’S ENEMIES

Northern Advocate, 31 December 1934, Page 2

HITLER’S ENEMIES

THE NAZI DIFFERENCES. OLD POLICIES CONTINUE. Hen' Adolf Hitler, after a year and a half as Chancellor, has been confronted with one of the primary facts that faces every dictator, comments the “'Christian Science Monitor.” ‘•Dictatorship,” says an Italian diplomatist. "is a blanket of political uniformity, but it cannot at once alter fundamental divisions that have previously expressed themselves in political, economic, and social differences. ’ Such divisions, which Bismarck dared nof crush when he forged the “First Reich,” form the background for the “Second Revolution” in, the “Third Reich,” which Hitler has so drastically suppressed.

When Bismarck in 1871 welded the Germans into a single unit, he recognised the cultural, religious, and economic differences then existing in the various separate kingdoms and principalities. Even under Kaiser Wilhelm 11, States had their own armies, postal systems, and railroads. Protestants in Prussia, Roman Catholics in Bavaria, landed proprietors in the North, small farmers in the South, traders in the Hansa cities, industrialists in the Ruhr —these formed a highly varied realm. These elements Herr Hitler has compressed into a single political party> now virtually identical with the State itself.

With the Republic which followed the World War, the Socialists held the largest share of power, but as many as thirty to forty political parties not only complicated the elections, but weakened the Parliamentary machine. Herr Hitler offered dictatorship as an escape from this political ineptitude. The country, smarting under injustices of the peace treaties, riven by economic difficulty, fell into hostile camps: the “Red Front” Communist army, which was banned; “Steel Helmet,” war veterans’ association of monarchist and aristocratic leaning; “Reichbanner, ’ the Socialist private army; Storm Troops, originally organised by Hitler to protect the party speakers at political meetings, which grew into the Brown Shirt force. The Third Reich. The theory of the totalitarian State has room for but one party and one instrument of enforcing its will. During Hitler’s first year in power, political unification—“gleichschaltung”— became a major preoccupation, sweeping aside State governments, banning all other parties, ousting or imprisoning political opponents, and attempting a measure of control of religion. The opposition crystallised slowly in these major divisions: 1. The Conservatives.—Aristocrats oi the old regime, industrialists and landed proprietors, sought to save a crumbling political house by placing Hitler in a Chancellery which they intended to control. But the Chancellor, despite his coalition partners, embarked upon an unexpectedly extreme path. Many of them, like General Kurt von Schleicher, were believed ready to seek a restoration of the monarchy. Others, like Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen, have sought to work with Hitler to force him to modify his course. 2. The Roman Catholics. —The National Socialists’ differences with the Roman Catholics began in party campaigns where the Hitlerites criticised the part which the priests' played in politics. A concordat negotiated with the Holy See, which implies removal of priests from political activity, has not yet been ratified by the German Government. A major issue is the desire of both the Roman Catholic Church and the National Socialist Party to control education of the youth. The Roman Catholics also take vigorous issue with what they call the Nordic paganism of the new Germany. Church and State. 3. The Evangelical Church. —A section of National Socialist opinion organised in church affairs as the “German Christians” would not only incorporate doctrines of the Nordic race in religious teaching but would make the church subservient to the Stale. An important section of Evangelical pastors have organised against this move and are resisting as well the Government’s effort to “unify" the admittedly cumbersome divisions of the old Protestant Church through decrees issued by a Reichs Bishop who was given virtually commissarial powers by HenHitler. ' 4. The Left Wing.—Radical elements within the National Socialist Party became discontented because Herr Hitler did not allow rein for many of the more extreme measures discussed in the heat of political campaigning. Such men as Captain Ernst Roehm, creator of the Storm Troops, became focal points of this element, which demanded not only Socialistic schemes where Herr Hiller was proceeding slowly in} the face of grave economic problems, but also demanded a clean' sweep of remaining opposition.

Talk of a “Second* Revolution" had for months been heard on the part, of radical elements within the National Socialist Party. Repeated warnings had been issued by Chancellor Hitler in an effort to maintain discipline. The problem was complicated by the fact that, with their own organisations suppressed. Communists and Socialists “changed 1 faith,” entered the Brown Army, and attempted to foment reaction from within.

Following his traditional “ruthless offensive.” Herr Hitler has apparently halted the Left Wing extremism and moved against other opposition as well. Conservatives, however, who are “with

the National Socialists but not of them" appear to have won a victory of some proportions, for Herr Hitler lias prevented the radical Brown Shirts from completely liquidating the once-Na-tionalist Steel Helmet organisation, which thus retains something of its old identity, although under strict Government control.