New Reichstag

The German Communists have only one good man and that is a woman: Clara Zetkin.

--Lenin.

One summer day in 1925 dexterous Dr. Serge Voronoff had on his operating table a frail, weazened wisp of a woman. She was only 68 but German Reds hailed her as "The Grandmother of our Revolution!'' Years of bitter struggle had aged Frau Clara Zetkin before her time. She needed "rejuvenation." Dr. Voronoff did his best, grafted in bits of ovarian tissue, pronounced his operation "successful."

Early last week Grandmother Zetkin, now 75, lay sick abed in Moscow, her "second home," for she is a duly elected Communist Deputy in the German Reichstag. Came an ambulance. Frau Zetkin was carried to a Soviet wagon lit bound for Berlin. Day & night tough-muscled young Reds stood guard in the train lest German Fascists break in. Grandmother Zetkin was going to the German capital to open the newly elected Reichstag (TIME, Aug. 8).

"Anyone Older?" Smudge-mustached Adolf Hitler, nervous lest some Fascist hoodlum disgrace the Party by buffeting a grandmother, barked stern orders. There would be a properly blatant Fascist demonstration outside the Reichstag, but inside let no Fascist Deputy touch one grey hair of Clara Zetkin's head.

Next afternoon at 3 p.m. while Fascists yelled their war cries in front of the Reichstag, Grandmother Zetkin was carried in the back door on a stretcher, lifted to her feet. Leaning on a heavy cane, she advanced, flanked on either side by a big-hipped Amazonian Red. Pain and fatigue made perspiration pour down the sunken cheeks of Clara Zetkin but her old eyes flashed. "I shall do my duty in strict accordance with the rules of antiquated parliamentarianism," she gasped, "because it is my duty to the German proletariat."

The two Red Amazons half carried Grandmother Zetkin up the stairs of the Reichstag's Tribune. Communist Deputies cheered her. Others sat in stony silence, some Fascists pretending to read newspapers. Only Dr. Hugenberg's Royalist Deputies, who call themselves Nationalists, stayed away from the curious, historic show.

Grandmother Zetkin mopped her brow, wiped her slightly drooling lips (a gesture she frequently repeated) and took big gulps of water. She seemed barely able to lift and ring the Speaker's bell.

"It is a rule of this house," quavered Clara Zetkin, "that its oldest member shall preside at the opening of a new session. I was born July 5, 1857. Is there anyone older?"

Dead silence.

"Then I call this session to order!" cried Grandmother Zetkin, and summoning all her strength, she began a speech that was to last 45 minutes. At times her voice almost died away. Several times the Amazons begged Grandmother to spare herself, but she quelled them with a muttered "Nein! Nein! I will speak on!" It was, as Clara Zetkin well knew, her last grand chance to tongue-lash her ancient enemy Paul von Hindenburg, 84 and unrejuvenated.

"Impeach Hindenburg!" Probably in 1914-15 der feldmarschall had no time to notice that he, his Kaiser and the General Staff were being attacked every day by one Clara Zetkin, editor of a Socialist sheet (she did not join the Communist Party until 1919) which demanded "Proletarian Peace."* Without troubling der feldmarschall, policemen arrested Frau Zetkin in 1915 and kept her under indictment, though she was finally released. Last week she tongue-lashed thus: "Without consult ing the Reichstag, political power in Ger many has for the moment been grasped by a Presidential Cabinet which is the servant of trust and monopoly capital and of the agrarians and whose motive force is represented by Reichswehr Generals."

This statement of course is factual, but Grandmother Zetkin went on: "I demand the impeachment of President von Hindenburg for violation of the German Constitution! . . . Despite its all-powerful character, the [von Papen] Cabinet has failed miserably to solve domestic and foreign problems. . . . The best means to overcome the economic crisis is proletarian revolution! ... I open this Reichstag in fulfillment of my duty as senior member. I hope to live to see the day when, as senior member, I can open the first workers' and peasants' congress of Soviet Germany."

Most correspondents reported that "only Communists" cheered Grandmother Zetkin, but New York Evening Post's Albion Ross cabled:

"When the [Zetkin] speech was over the galleries burst into wild applause that was not a political demonstration but a tribute to the purely physical courage of the old revolutionary."

Only Work Done by the new Chamber last week was to organize itself for business. This job, which usually takes days of wrangling, was put through in five hours. The Reichstag:

P: Elected as permanent Speaker paunchy, polite Fascist Hermann Wilhelm Goering, "the diplomat of his party." Though there are only 230 Fascist Deputies, Col. Goering was elected by a vote of 367 to 216. Famed during the War as a Commander of the late Baron von Richthofen's Flying Squadron, Speaker Goering mounted the tribune with militant jerkiness, replied with a Fascist salute to the salutes of Fascist Deputies who bounded from their chairs shouting, "Hail Hitler!"

The two Red Amazons, leading Grandmother Zetkin down to her Deputy's seat, shook their fists at the Fascists who mockingly chirped one line from a German popular song: "It happens only once!"

P: Elected for the first time in the history of the German Republic a set of Reichstag vice-speakers (three) among whom there is no Socialist.

For twelve years, from 1920 until last week, the Reichstag's Speaker has always been Socialist Paul Lobe (except for a few months in 1924). Thus the Fascists visibly replaced the socialists as Germany's dominant party.

P: Was rebuffed by President von Hindenburg when its new Speaker asked by telegram for an immediate interview with des Reichspraesident at his country estate in Neudeck, east Prussia, 260 miles from Berlin. The President, frankly playing the Dictator, wired back that he would grant audience to Fascist Speaker Goering "next week" in Berlin.

Meanwhile Chancellor von Papen had been with the President at Neudeck. The Chancellor, repudiated by his own Catholic Party, rules Germany by the graces of Paul von Hindenburg. Returning to Berlin ahead of the President, Franz von Papen announced the boldest possible "internal reform": partition of the Free State of Prussia, which embraces approximately two-thirds of Germany, into small administrative areas.

*Emphatically not a feminist, Frau Zetkin never tires of telling women that "Feminism is all wrong! It is not for women to unite against men. It is for men and women of the proletariat to unite against the men and women who oppress the working class!"

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