HITLER IS AGAIN FORCED TO MODIFY HIS PROGRAMME.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19258, 20 December 1930, Page 8

HITLER IS AGAIN FORCED TO MODIFY HIS PROGRAMME.

To-Day’s Signed Article

Specially Written for the “Star” By Emile Lengyel.

Adolf Hitler, whose party came into a measure of power in the Reichstag on an uncompromising platform of pan-German-ism, anti-Semitism and advocacy of a sternly disciplined Fascist governmental machine, has already begun to modify his proposals under the stress of his responsibility to 6,000,000 voters. Herr Hitler has decided to permit the Reichstag to continue in existence ~ ln . a . me rely advisory capacity, true—but rocky-browed party discipline will not at once call for the obliteration of every trace of democracy from German politics. In addition the Fascists have disclaimed responsibility for the recent anti-Semitic riots, blaming, naturally, the Communists. Observers are not surprised that Herr Hitler’s programme, now that he represents a respectable fraction of the German electorate, is less categorical and less fantastic than it was when he repre- % n J ed rJ? e t rel y some beer-hall mobs, or when he represented merely , r lur lec ’ l ? ho 't e faciht y IT I changing programmes may be judged by the fact that he entered Fascism from Communism 9

gINCE I FIRST SAW HIM seven years ago, in the Buergerbraeu of Munich, ne has grown in earnestness and intensity, then he made the impression of a petit bourgeois parading as a man of iron, a Punch and Judy show hero with a diminutive big stick. During those seven years Hitler has learned to have an unbounded belief in his power of persuasion and in the capacity of the masses to obey commands. He ejaculates ms sentences in a staccato, military manner. His gestures emphasise an inner compulSl ° n - a^ things he says seem less absurd because they are wrapped up in his fanatical belief. He was born forty-one years ago in Braunau, Upper Austria. . The mother of this apostle of Germanic superiority was a Bohemian. His father was an Austrian customs official. After a not very brilliant scholastic career the future war lord of the German National Socialists was apprenticed to a house painter and for a few years he whitewashed flats and buildings. For an ambitious young man there was not much future in splashing himself all over with whitewash, and so young Hitler, in search of fame and fortune, became a filing and mailing clerk in an industrial establishment. Hitler Against His Comrades. When the war broke out Hitler joined the Bavarian Army and distinguished himself in the modest way of an average soldier. A few months after the termination of the war Bavaria went Bolshevist and Hitler went with it. The Communist regime was 6hort-lived and its end found Hitler in the ranks of the most violent anti-reds. He was exhorting the habitues of the Munich beer halls to punish the miscreants, by which he meant his former comrades, and to good example he presently took the lead of a punitive detachment which struck terror into the hearts of those who had not been converted from Bolshevism to extreme reaction. Militarists from all over Germany now crowded into Bavaria, where the Republic existed only in name, where the Wittelsbachs were the real rulers and Ludendorff was the national idol. This was the heyday of counter-revolutionary terror. The gaols were overcrowded with suspected Radicals. The day for a daring man had come and Hitler, since his visionary days, was obsessed with a sense of power which filled him with wonder at his own greatness. In November, 1923, he staged the famous “ beerhall putsch,” which was to make him supreme ruler of Bavaria. From Munich it was his intention to march on Berlin, to depose the Republican administration and to establish a military dictatorship. A Rival. There was, however, a slight mistake in Hitler’s calculation. He thought he was the only man in who liked power and forgot to take care of the Bavarian Prime Minister, Herr Kahr, himself an arch-reac-tionary. The Hitlerites thought at first that Kahr was in league with them, but learned to their cost that the Prime Minister had his own schemes which could not be brought into harmony with theirs. In the streets of Munich the Hitlerites were fallen upon and disarmed, after the loss of a few score of lives. Hitler was marched off to gaol, sentenced to five years and set at liberty after a few months. An adept in dramatic stage effects, Hitler used his short stay in prison to further his

political schemes. He put around his head the halo of martyrdom and while the other leaders of the beerhall revolution, headed by Ludendorf, dropped out of political existence amid the laughter of an amused world, the erstwhile Austrian house painter became the head of the German National Socialist Party, popularly known as the Nazis. The party was Fascistic, stood for racial purity and the supremacy of the A.ryan stock. It advocated the deportation of all aliens, by whom it meant all those were not full-blooded Germans. Obviously, Hitler the Austrian was exempted from the operation of this law. His Influence. What has been Hitler’s influence on Germany in palpable legislative measures? His partisans have been for some time in the cabinet of the Free State of Thuringia and it must be said to their credit that as officeholders they have been much meeker than they had been as platform orators. At the recent election to the Landtag of the state of Saxony the Nazis trebled the number of their seats. It was not without difficulty that Hitler achieved his present place of prominence. His party was outlawed as one advocating violence and the overthrow of democratic government. His faithful were forbidden to wear military uniforms. The Prussian Government went even further in prohibiting its employees from belonging to the National Socialist Party. On more than one occasion the Supreme Court of the Reich upheld . the contention that the National Socialists stood outside the pale of protection which the Constitution provides for law-abiding citizens. Policy of Catastrophe. One of Hitler’s lieutenants summarised their aim in a concise manner when he said: "We are pursuing a policy of catastrophes.” A series of catastrophes was to inaugurate the Nationalist dictatorship. In order to hasten the advent of the “day" they decided to enter Parliament, but mere* ly for the purpose of disrupting it. The legislative methods of the party have always been in the service of this “ Katastrophenpolitik.” “ Political parties are gaining votes not only on their own merits,” a German statesman remarked the other day, “ But on the demerits of their opponents.” The vote of confidence Hitler scored on September 14 was principally a vote of lack of confidence against Hugenberg’s Nationalist Party, against the government of the Reich and against the economic conditions of the world. The Nazis proposed the expropriation of all banking capital, because it was tainted with non-Germanic hands. The responsibility which Hitler’s parliamentary victory involves may be an excellent means of taming this wild man of the beer-hall putsch. He will now speak for more than 6,000,000 Germans. By accepting the mandate from his countrymen he may realise that his party was not sent into the Reichstag to make trouble there but to put his shoulder to the wheels and help Germany out of the rut. The dismal failure of the Kapp putsch and of the beerhall revolution will serve as a warning to him that Germany has some practice in thwarting the designs of would-be Mussolinis. (Anglo-American N.S.—Copyright.)