PRUSSIA SUBJUGATED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21540, 11 July 1933, Page 8

PRUSSIA SUBJUGATED

Dealing so drastically with Prussia, the Nazi Government of Germany makes its most impressive display of supremacy. For Prussia is the largest and most populous State in the. Reich. It occupies almost tho whole of northern Germany and has long been dominant in influence. To many in its proud territory there must bo a poignant sting in Gocring's words, in explanation of the loss of the vote and the imposition of Nazi autocracy. "You may call it a dictatorship, but it is really tho principle of leadership." Leadership I That word, so used, speaks to Prussians of a departed glory. Their boast has for generations been that Prussia was Germany's leader—foremost in fight and pre-eminent in politics. And now this henchman of Hitler, carrying out tho behests of his master, tells them thero is only one authority, exercised from above downward, and only one rcsponsi bility, that of doing as they are told. Last year tho German Chancellor, von Papen, suddenly imposed upon Prussia a similar dictatorship, in a desperate attempt to reduce to subjection the strongly democratic tendency appearing in its politics. Ho placed tho State under virtually martial law, appointing General von Schleicher, then head of the German armed police, as its military ruler. Then there was considerable apprehension of cither a Nazi or Communist rising; now tho Nazis arc in unchallenged power ovar all. That condition of political servitude did not last long. This appears to have come to stay. So the finishing touch is given to a revolution that, under the thin guise of law, does violence to tho most sacred of Germany's political traditions.