WILL HITLER SEIZE POWER?

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 179, 1 August 1932, Page 7

WILL HITLER SEIZE POWER?

POLLING DAY IN GERMANY MOST MOMENTOUS ELECTIONS SINCE THE WAR BLOODSHED IN CLASHES BETWEEN THE PARTIES [By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright] All signs, including the weather, indicate a record poll for the German elections. Clashes in many districts have resulted in eight killed, one being the pilot of an aeroplane which was distributing pamphlets. Numbers have been wounded and 25" have been arrested. Herr Hitler has concluded a flight round Germany. He addressed a torchlight meeting and was guarded by picked storm troops. A Cabinet manifesto appeals to everyone to vote because people need an unshackled government co-operating with a representative and willingly constitutional Reichstag. In Berlin disturbances have been numerous, but they have been soon checked, as the city is patrolled by police cars armed with machine guns. Every public building is strongly guarded. Two Reichsbannermen were killed and others injured in a collision between political opponents at Rosenberg. There are 27 parties in the electoral field, including freak organisations, votes for which will be wasted. The six vital parties are the Socialists, Nazis, Communists, Centrals, Nationals and People’s Party. The opinion is growing that the election will end in a stalemate. The latest estimate is that the Nazis will obtain 220 seats compared with 110 in the last Reichstag, the Nationalists 45 compared with 42, the other Right parties 25 compared with 106, the Socialists 140 compared with 136, the Centre 72 compared with 69, the State Party 10 compared with 16, and the Communists 72 compared with 78.

THE DICTATORSHIP DR. BRUENING’B WARNING Received J-ulv- 31, 7.16 p.m. •BERLIN, July 30. Dr. Bruening, • in a final election speech, declared that Herr von Papen-’s use of the dictatorship clause of the Constitution was a danger to the German people, who would not tolerate it for long. AMAZING SCENES ALL EYES AN NAZIS BERLIN, July. 29. With a frenzy hitherto unequalled the election campaign is closing amid amazing scenes. All eyes are- on the Nazis, whose headquarters at Munich are guarded by armed sentries, and are the focus of ceaseless activity. Police patrol the streets night and day, Cologne and the Rhineland, though outwardly calm, are excited beneath the surface. Alarmists declare that bloodshed is inevitable, but the general opinion is that a revolution is unlikely. There is a persistent rumour that if Herr Hitler is thwarted he will not hesitate to use his storm troops and attempt a coup d’etat and seize the reins of Government. The jews are intensely afraid of such developments, but Herr, von Papen has assured them that he has Herr Hitler’s promise to do nothing rash. General von Schleicher says that he will throw the whole force of the Reichswehr ruthlessly against disturbers of the peace. It is significant that President von Hendenburg has issued a decree enforcing a ten days’ political truce after Sunday, thus barring all political demonstrations. It is the general belief that no party wil’ gain an absolute majority. Herr von Papen. broadcasting to the American people, declared that the world did not realise that Germany had been in danger of civil war. Illegal Communist activities were largely responsible for the recent disorders, which no Government would tolerate. Order had been restored, and would not be disturbed. Cabinet did not support the Dictatorship. It’s real source was discontent at the Versailles Treaty. BROWN SHIRTS MOBILISING •what will hitler do? BERLIN, July 29. Germany is in a fever of excitement over what is described as the greatest fight for the fate of Germany since the revolution. Reports of the mobilisation of Hitler’s Brown Shirts in readiness for the seizure of power after the election is creating alarm. Couriers on motor-cycl°s are reported to be leaving the Munich headquarters, taking orders tn company, battalion, regimental and divisional commanders, ordering everyone to be on the alert on Sunday night. 1 'Storm troops” from Pomerania and other places have arrived in the neighbourhood of Berlin, having said farewell to their families, like soldiers mobilising. They are not aware why they have been summoned. They have been ordered to bring three days’ food and Nankets. TO THE RIGHT GERMANY OF TO-DAY The German elections held during the week-end were the most important in that country since the war. The outcome will determine the future policy of Europe in a score of fields. The Bruening Government, which foil two months ago, rested on supports that were negative rather than positive. It did have the positive support of von Hindenburg. But it was based in the Reichstag, on a coalition of parties of which the Social Democrats were the largest. Yet that party never shared in the Government; it agreed to approve Bruening’s policies, but not to co-operate. At the same time Herr Bruening had negative support from

the army, which also agreed not to oppose him. Hr lost that support anck faile.d to hold the army out of politics when the Minister of Defence, von , Gr.oener, was forced out. With these supports collapsing, Herr Bruening was left with nothing but his "Parliamen t»ry majority,” and that a hollow thing in the face of Hitler victories in local elections. As if to stem the tide towards Hitler, Bruening, in recent months, tried to steal parts of Hitler’s thunder. The very land-division scheme, at which von Hindenburg is said to have balked, is a part of Hitler’s "Siedlungs” movement —a plan to solve unemployment by setting the idle urban workers on the land. As the New York Times has pointed out, Hitler, in increasing his followers, has drawn heavily from the parties of the Centre and from the Communists, until to-day the power which ho has sought is not far from his hand. For the past year and more the most striking development in German politics has been the crumbling of the long list of parties which bridges the extremists of Communism on the Left and of National Socialism, Hitler’s party, on the Right. Hitler has laid the cause of all the ills of Germany at the door of France and the Treaty of Versailles. It is a popular appeal. The Military Taction Now as to that factor in German politics, playing mysteriously behind the scenes, the Reichswehr, the army and the old officers. In all summaries and surveys of political parties and class lines in Germany, the army is usually left out. There was a time when it dabbled deeply in politics, and there have been various scandals in the past associated with the so-called "Black Reichswehr” and with the political activities of militarists. The Reichswehr to-day has 100,000 soldiers, the limit set on it by the Treaty of Versailles. Yet almost as much money is spent on that small army to-day as was spent on the entire army of the Kaiser in 1913. Its general staff still reads like a list of the Kaiser’s generals, and many of the under officers are drawn from the old Imperial Army. In class interests these old officers (“old” ir the sense of having served in the war) are bound to the Conservative groups of Germany, to the large landowners, called in East Prussia the Junkers, and to the big industrialists. Whatever their political preferences and ambitions, they have been kept submerged in recent years by tho various Chancellors. No one has been more successful in keeping them so than Herr Bruening, helped by General von Grocner. Nationalist. Yet their political preferences, no matter how much the army may have been officially kept a group apart from politics, are, in the broad sense of tdie word, Nationalist. It is understandable why they shou.d hate the Versailles Treaty and fail to sympathise wiith any group that accepted it. By training, experience, and emotion, the army would tend to support any group that declared ‘ ‘ Germany must be freed from her chains!”

The policy of the Bruening Government was to keep the officers from adding their voices and the tremendous weight of their prestige to the Nationalist cause. “The army must serve the Government” was the motto. And army officers watched, in forced silence, the attempts of Bruening, hand in hand with voji Grocner, to check the rising Nationalist flood and to deny the realisation of what, in the minds of many of the officers, were the natural and rightful demands of Germany. Complicating the whole situation have been the "militias” which every 'urge political party has built up —the “Steel Helmets” of tho Hugenberg Nationalist group, the Reichsbanner of the Social Democrats, and the "Storm Divisions” of the Hitler party. The revelation of the army to these "informal troops” has always been difficult to ascertain. Many foreigners have held that the Reichswehr itself is merely an officer r >rps, a skeleton army which could expand in time of need by taking in one or more of these political "armies.” The refusal of Bruening to compromise with tho strong National policies of Hitler and Hugenberg had its effects on the army. The poltical slogans of Hitler were the very phrases