PRUSSIAN DICTATORSHIP

Taranaki Daily News, 27 October 1932, Page 5

PRUSSIAN DICTATORSHIP

DECREE UPHELD BY COURT.

-MINISTERS’ RIGHTS REMAIN.

By Telegraph—Pr«* Assn.—Copyright. Leipzig, Oct. 25. The Supreme Court has upheld President Hindenburg’s decree of July appointing Herr Von Papen Prussian Commissioner, but disallowing the deprivation of deposed ministers’ rights to represent Prussia in the Council of the Reich or in the Prussian Diet. The judgment has created, theoretically, greater chaos, leading to many complications. Whereas the Reich endeavoured 'vigorously to abolish the Reich in Prussia, the dualism of the judgment legalises the foundations of three distinct governments side by side.

A state of emergency was proclaimed in Berlin and the Brandenburg police was under military command on July 20, when Herr von Papen, the Chancellor, was State Commissioner for Prussia with practically dictatorial powers. He informed the Prussian Ministers that under the prevailing conditions they had failed to guarantee law and order, and therefore he had been appointed Commissioner until the new Prussian Diet had agreed to elect its own Prime Minister. The decision implied acceptance of Herr Hitler’s argument that Socialist rule was unable to ptevent disorders in Prussia.

The proclamation of the dictatorship was the greatest coup since the republic was declared in 1919 and was regarded as the death blow to a democratic regime.