Hitler Stopped?

No sooner had 19,359,642 German ballots re-elected President von Hindenburg for a second seven-year term last week than audacious Adolf Hitler (who had won 13,417,460 votes) began talking of "My victory!"

Haranguing his brown-breasted Fascists from his "Brown House" in Munich, fiery Herr Hitler exhorted them to win the Prussian Diet election April 24, bade them remember that in national German elections the Fascist vote has climbed in round numbers thus:

Reichstag Election (1928): 800,000 votes.

" "(1930): 6,400,000

Presidential " (March 1932): 11,000,000

" " (last week): 13,000,000

Thus the brown tide is steadily rising, checked only by a coalition of all other German parties except the Nationalists and Communists. This major fact--the rising Fascist tide--President von Hindenburg's tremendous personal victory tended to obscure last week. In the 1930 Reichstag Election, Herr Hitler's "Joke Party" rose from ninth to second parliamentary rank (TIME, Sept. 12, 1930). On the basis of last week's presidential returns the Fascist Party is now first in Germany. It cannot, of course, assume first rank in parliament until there is another Reichstag Election--which President von Hindenburg and Chancellor Heinrich Bruning will do their utmost to put off until the latest possible date (1934) thus retaining their quasi-dictatorial rule in Germany.

Who's for Hindenburg? In 1925 Paul von Hindenburg was elected President largely by citizens who voted last week for Herr Hitler: reactionaries. Der Feldmarschall was re-elected last week by Socialists, Catholics and other centrists who bitterly opposed him seven years ago. They considered him then a reactionary stalking horse for the return of Kaiser Wilhelm or for the setting up of an absolute Dictatorship.

Last week the Catholics who have barred Herr Hitler (still a Catholic in his own eyes), the Socialists (who used to quarrel with the Catholics) and the other centre parties were united under what amounted to nothing more nor less than the banner of PRUDENCE--symbolized by HINDENBURG. If he lives out his second term he will have lived to the prodigious age of 91.

Punctured Napoleon-- Even German Reds are prudent. Last month, in the first presidential election (won by nobody since nobody obtained an absolute majority), 4,982,939 Communists turned out and voted for their "Red Napoleon," leather-lunged Comrade Ernst Thalmann (TIME, March 21). Last week, since everyone knew that Comrade Thalmann had not the ghost of a chance, more than a million German Reds prudently wasted no time in voting, left their Red Napoleon punctured flat and with only 3,706,388 ballots.

Significance. Thoughtful Germans focused their attention not on the presidential poll last week but on the Diet elections April 24 in Prussia. Hamburg, Bavaria, Wurttemberg and Anhalt. In these elections the parties which grouped themselves last week behind the personality of Hindenburg will be fighting their own battles.

In Prussia, keystone of the German Federation, power has been held since 1925 by Socialist Premier Dr. Otto Braun whose support today is based on a Socialist-Centre coalition in the Prussian Diet elected in 1928 (when the world had not heard of Adolf Hitler). In the Diet sit only six Fascists, the "Joke Bloc" elected in 1928. If on April 24 Prussia should go proportionately as Brown as the rest of Germany has gone, there would be elected 120 Fascist Deputies--thus making Adolf Hitler leader of the majority party in Prussia which comprises 60% of Germany.

In his "Brown House" last week the Fascist leader predicted the election of only 150 Prussian Fascist Deputies, and other German estimates of course were lower. In Prussia there are potent Socialist and proletarian bulwarks, still seemingly strong enough to "Stop Hitler!"

The new Fascist slogan, used last week: BREAD AND FREEDOM!

The "secret" politically whispered against Herr Hitler last week: his father's name was SCHueCKLGRUBER.--

*To obtain an inheritance, conditional on his taking the dead man's name:

1) Herr Schuecklgruber legally changed his name to "Hitler."

2) Herr von Beneckendorff (ancestor of the German President) changed his name in 1789 by Royal consent to "von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg." Strictly speaking the President's name is Paul von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg.

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