THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1934 THE NAZI ANNIVERSARY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21716, 3 February 1934, Page 10

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1934 THE NAZI ANNIVERSARY

There has been a year of the Nazi regime in Germany. It has been a remarkable year. No other in the history of the nation has equalled it in venturesome, critical action. A very different Germany looks out upon the world, and is looked at by the world, than existed, twelve months ago. How far it is a better Germany, and how far a worse, cannot be said with exactness, even by its present rulers. To all outward seeming, it is both better and worse, and according to particular directions of study it presents material for diverse judgments. Two fields offer opportunity for investigation—the political and the economic. They are rather confusingly related. That arises from the methods characteristic of most nations to-day, for all have tried by direct political means to overcome economic trouble. In countries such as Italy, where already political control was absolute, the economic blizzard was calmly faced by a leadership brooking no murmur of criticism. Turkey was as conveniently prepared by the establishment of absolutism. At the other extreme was Spain, so loosely ruled that economic stress brought a chance of reckless overthrow of political authority, and the chance was recklessly used. Midway between these extremes were the countries with workable parliamentary institutions. Germany was found among them. They reacted differently. Some, as did France, were content to struggle on with the same political machinery. Others adjusted the machinery by simplifying its action, cutting out party counterpoises and installing National Governments; of such, Britain gave outstanding evidence of faith in a moderate method. The United States, using the peculiarities of an unusual constitution, handed power at length to the executive part, calling a halt in ordinary legislative process; this went far toward creating a dictatorship while leaving the parliamentary system intact in the background. Germany's adventure in politics stands by itself—like Italy's in producing a dictator supreme above representative institutions, like America's in retaining some semblance of decentralised rule, but in reality seeking to set up a regime as unchallengeable as the Caesars' if not as ruthless as Nero's. Ostensibly modelled on Italian Fascism, this regime has surpassed Mussolini's in furious dominance. The economic outcome of so bold a national experiment—for its initiation. by ordinary means makes the whole nation party to the venture — cannot yet be described with certainty. Germany is no worse off financially; indeed, a measure of commercial stability" has been perceptibly achieved. Whether this will increase depends partly upon domestic satisfaction with the new political regime, and that satisfaction, however great to-day, is by no means secure. Yet to the credit of the Nazi dispensation must be reckoned a determination to be done with the weak "playing at shop" that went on under Chancellor after Chancellor. For good or ill, Hitler has a programme of national recovery; eccentric as it is in some ways, it has the merit of definiteness. Interest in, the total experiment, however, centres in the political means by which Hitler is enforcing economic alteration. The Na.zi ideal is so markedly political that this aspect obtrudes itself at every turn. Its propounder makes it supreme. He is out to create a revived national consciousness of prowess, and this seems to matter more to him than any economic gain to be immediately won. By his onslaught on non-Aryans and his vendetta against Communists he is obviously bending the nation to his will, but some institutions, notably the Church, are refractory, and it is unthinkable to all trained in democratic principles that he can rob individuals of rights and liberties, as he is doing, without either killing the spirit of citizenship or provoking a counter-revolution. Kicking the Weimar Constitution out of doors, he has turned Germany ba,ck to medieval ways of governance without the paternal kindliness that sometimes redeemed them. It will be a weak Germany, however strong for a time in the mass, that survives the experiment at the cost of individual initiative. Intimate observers are convinced that the sense of nationhood on Aryan lines that Hitler is inculcating has made no real, deep progress. He has a long way to go. The 300 independent States of eighteenthcentury Germany are far from united yet. They merged their purpose® in the crisis of the World War and they may do this again under a common leadership in the Reich now, but they may break asunder just as readily should this experiment fail. Force alone, even amid a people drilled to march to orders, cannot accomplish organic union. And the Nazi regime, according to its most sympathetic judges, is not really accomplishing this, whatever appearances may tell. Fear of concentration camps and worse may silence objections without removing them, and they are not yet altogether silenced. From time to time they are raised against the type of man,

far from excellent in mental and moral qualities, chosen for local enforcing of the regime. These have put party interests and party instructions above national welfare broadly conceived. But this is the Nazi way, and it may prove ere long the way to failure. Hitler's choice of immediate associates has been similarly careful of unquestioning loyalty to his dictates rather than high capacity for the tasks of statesmanship. Doubtless he has a purpose in this: a dictator does not usually surround himself with men of mettle. But it requires no genius of prophecy to perceive the ultimate result, when time removes the absolute ruler and resentment at robbery of rights gets its opportunity. This is the Achilles' heel of absolutism, and Germany is not likely to escape the vengeance it invites. A year of such rule, and a year of some protests against it, is not enough to foretell established success.