Eliza Bruning

Chancellor Heinrich Bruning, that German Eliza who for the past 18 months has been leaping from one crisis to the next, landed on another ice floe last week and was saved for another half year from the bloodhounds of disaster.

Chancellor Bruning operates his Dictatorship under the cloak of Constitutional Government by the device of having the Reichstag meet every six months or so, rush through a vote of confidence, then immediately adjourn, leaving Herr Bruning to rule by decree. Last week the Reichstag met to pass on Dictator Bruning's latest "Emergency Cabinet." Fortnight ago his chances of survival seemed slender. Adolf Hitler's prestige was rising, he had been received by President von Hindenburg, and moderate Deputies longed for their lost authority, but when voting time came the threatening moderates (who complain of the Dictatorship) lost heart. Rather than turn the country over to the Hitlerites, they voted for Chancellor Bruning.

A motion of nonconfidence was defeated 294 to 270. Hitler Deputies, livid with disgust, rushed from the chamber vowing (as they did last February) never to return.

In Berlin Communists and Hitlerites scuffled in the streets. Thirty people were arrested. Five Communists and one police-man were pinked. In Brunswick, 75,000 Hitlerites assembled to receive new swastica standards from their chief. Intoxicated by blaring bands, shouting orators, and the roar of airplane motors the young Brownshirts got completely out of hand, staged an impromptu raid of the Communist workmen's quarters of the city. Street barricades were thrown up, pistols cracked, brickbats hurtled through the air. At least 15 men were gravely wounded. One Col. Hoffmann, former commandant of the fortress of Ingolstadt, was expected to die. Brunswick police, hopelessly outnumbered, telephoned frantically for tanks and armored cars.

Leader Hitler remained calm. Presenting standards to his followers he had said: "These will be the last new flags before the Nazis gain power in Germany. If the members of the present government want to maintain law and order, they must yield their place to those who alone have the will and ability to do so." Followers of Fascist Adolf announced that he was about to leave Germany for a tour of Italy, France, Britain.

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