The Wanganui Chronicle MONDAY, JULY 2, 1934. STEEL HELMETS AND BROWN SHIRTS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 154, 2 July 1934, Page 6

The Wanganui Chronicle MONDAY, JULY 2, 1934. STEEL HELMETS AND BROWN SHIRTS

JERK VON PA PEN has been made aware of the widespread reactions of his rec lit speech, when he said that great men were not made by jr \ wanda, and that the German Government ought to be strymg enough to withstand criticism. The outside world has immediately noticed this element of challenge: and it sees behind von Papen the ancient hand of von Hindenburg. It is said that von Papen is neither brave nor clove)’, and that he would not have made the speech unless Presidon Hindenburg had told him to. Why, then, was the speech made? Despite the reassurances of von Papen that Hitler is riding safely in the saddle, the speech itself indicates that he is doing nothing of the sort. The events subsequent to the speech go to prove that, the rift is wide; wider, indeed, than even the speech would indicate. If there were no rift there would be no need for the suspension of the Steel Helmets and the arrest of nonXazi associates of von Papen. If tlie sacret police are operating in Germany, as the most recent reports indicate, then the trend of events there is following the well-defined revolutionary path. The establishment of the ‘‘People’s Tribunals” to conform to the passions of the moment, is the great step in the abandonment of law. The use of the secret police is but the completion of that abandonment. If this reading be correct, then the situation seems to be that the Steel Helmets and the Brown Shirts arc lining up againts each other. The movement would appear lo be developing into a covert civil war. Two factors, therefore, become vital in this situation: One, the attitude of the Reichswehr, as the professional army is called: ami two, the attitude of the youth of Germany. Writing in the year 1931, Eugen Diesel, in his studied assessment of Post-war Germany, wrote thus of the Reichswehr-“It seems that Germany's diminutive army is sufficient to defend her constitution. Though it is a small body, it is a model of efficiency and devotion to duty. It stands rather apart from the rest of the. nation and all the political strife, seeking in vain to find any real national consciousness there. To some of the parties the army has something Sphinx-like about it, for they cannot get rid of the feeling that some day this picked body of men will play a more important part than they do at present.” The army in the changes since 1931 was not called on lo prove that it was sufficient to "defend her constitution”; but is the day soon to arrive when this “picked body of men will play a more important part!" Of the New Youth of Geiinauy. Diesel wrote: “The New Youth possesses no values, no generally accepted criteria. Except for parly politics, it has no outlet for its pugnacious or romantic instincts. It lives amid the universal condition of suspense, without form or rhythm except of the technical mechanical type, without any hand to guide it from youth to age along the natural paths of human destiny. . . Those who are to-day between thirty and forty still look upon themselves as part of the youth of the nation, as ‘was youth.’ It is their tragedy that they are wedged in between the ordinary professional and business men, who are a generation older than themselves. and the newer youth, who know nothing of the war and have a totally different, half-American attitude towards life. It .sometimes seems as though our present age was a mixture of these two extremes rather than a product of the war years, and it may be that a generation will arise to which 1914, and what the men of that time went through, are of no further significance. Tim two main factors, therefore, are enigmas; the attitude of the Reichswehr and the trend of German youth under abnormal conditions. The movement in Germany is like the flow of her rivers, namely, in many directions. The Rhine only affects part of Germany; will the influences of Herr Hitler drain but part of the national movement? The German scene is bewildering to the observer, discordant, dark, secretive, with open and subtle tyrannies stalking the land. *■“Germany and the Germans,” by Eugen Diesel (Macmillan’s).