LATENT GIVIL WAR.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 15874, 13 July 1922, Page 3

LATENT GIVIL WAR.

POLITICAL MURDERS IN GERMANY

RESTORATION OF MONARCHY AIMED AT.

IKlec. Tel Copyright-United Press Assn (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.) (Received July 13, 9.50 a.m.) LONDON, July 12.

The. Manchester Guardian's Berlin correspondent states that at least three hundred men and women, including Licbknecht, Erzbergcr, and Rathenau, have been murdered for political reasons in Germany during the past three years. All were • either Liberals or Socialists, and all the murderers reactionaries or Monarchists.' A "few act's'of "violence committed against Monarchists had been punished with excessive severity. It is not possible to make an estimate of the forces engaged in latent civil war between tho Republican and Monarchist movements. ... 'The counter-revolution, militarist reaction and Monarchist movements are practically identical, as the overthrow of the Republic and restoration of the monarchy will bo the first step towards a Germany sufficiently militarised to wa«e a war of revenge agaiiist tho Entente or France. The whole of German organised Labor is Republican, and a general strike its only weapon, which is probably sufficient to destroy any attempt to overthrow the Government, but it is a defensive weapon and, practically helpless against the preparations for overthrow and against the Monarchist agitation. All the landed gentry and bigger farmers are Monarchists. Probably a majority of the middle class are Monarchist. The Officers in the Reichswehr are nearly all Monarchists. Tho rank and file of 100,000 would probably follow tho officers in a civil war The'security police, 100,000, are semimilitary forces, with Monarchist officers. The " strongholds of the Monarchist movement are Pomerania, East Prussia, and Bavaria. Secret military organisations all over the country are tho backbone of an active Monarchist movement. Tho most powerful is the Organisation Consul, whereof 100 members have been arrested. It is a secret society, with hidden depots of arms and ammunition, spies, and agents. . Gun t her, who organised Rathcnan's murder, is a member. It was mainly his indiscretions in boasting that revealed the conspiracy.^ Sections of reactionaries are fighting to restore the partially-lost privilege of their class and to re-establish Germany's military predomination in Europe. They are largely actuated by racial hatred of all foreigners, particularly French and Poles, and most of all dews. There are educated Germans who seriously main-, tain Christ was a German. Universities are notoriously retrograde politically. The vast majority of the professors are extreme reactionaries. Students have played a sinister part in every putsch, and have been guilty of most of the political murders committed in Germany.