"Fine People"

In a voice tense with suppressed fury, Chancellor Franz von Papen broadcast over the government radio last week a declaration that his dictatorial and aristocratic Cabinet "corresponds to the will of the people," despite the Reichstag's vote of nonconfidence in the Cabinet 513 to 32* (TIME, Sept. 19).

Warming to his broadcast, the Chancellor cried: "When you gentlemen of the Nazis [Hitler Party] begin your class warfare against the fine people, against the Barons, and when you think success at the elections will follow such tactics, I am afraid you are in for a bitter disappointment. . . .

"The government of the Reich is of the opinion that the system of formal democracy has broken down and is incapable of resurrection!"

Herr von Papen then served notice that his Cabinet proposes to revise the German constitution. Berlin rumor said that the word "republic" will be omitted. Conceivably the von Papen Cabinet, acting by presidential decree, could so alter the fundamental law of Germany as to prevent the Hitlerites, who won 14,000,000 votes in the last Reichstag election (TIME, Aug. 8), from scoring further gains. Said Satevepost correspondent Isaac Marcos-son, returning from Germany last week: "Chancellor von Papen will disenfranchise 50% of Adolf Hitler's followers if he raises the voting age, as he may, to 25 years" [from 20].

Out-Hitlering Hitler. Since President von Hindenburg continued to back Chancellor von Papen to the limit last week, Germany's largest parties (Fascist & Socialist) were faced with the alternative of attempting a coup d'etat or filing weak protests.

Fascist Speaker Wilhelm Goring of the Reichstag sued Chancellor von Papen, branding as libelous the Chancellor's assertion that the Speaker acted unconstitutionally in permitting the Reichstag to vote censure after the Chancellor had flourished a presidential decree dissolving the Reichstag. This famed decree, when scrutinized last week, proved to be in the Chancellor's handwriting except for the signature of Paul von Hindenburg. It was dated at Neudeck, the President's country estate, but von Papen had scratched out "Neudeck" and written in "Berlin," evidently feeling that he thus made the decree more legal.

When a Berlin newspaper printed the opinion of a leading Bavarian professor of constitutional law that the Chancellor's actions were unconstitutional, the paper was suspended.

Meanwhile the Reichstag's Supervisory Committee, which continues to exist after a Reichstag has been dissolved, exercised its specific constitutional right to summon the Chancellor and his Ministers for examination. They simply did not come. Phlegmatic Germans let the matter rest there. Adolf Hitler quit Berlin for his Munich headquarters. There were no riots. Calmly, majestically President von Hindenburg proceeded to out-Hitler Hitler by issuing yet another drastic decree.

"Coarse Duck." French observers roundly declared that what the German President did was to pass from infraction of the Treaty of Versailles to actual violation.

As everyone knows the Treaty limits Germany to 100,000 troops. What are troops? The President decreed that 20 training camps shall be opened at which young German males of every kind (except Communists) will be drilled by ex-officers of the German Army, commanded by lean, grim, hard-bitten General Edwin von Stuelpnagel, retired.

Officially the 20 camps will be known as Germany's "National Curatory for the Promotion of Physical Fitness." To avoid too flagrant violation of the Treaty of Versailles, they will function not under the Defense (War) Ministry but under the Ministry of Interior. It received a preliminary grant of 1,500,000 marks ($357,000) last week, promptly began the work of putting an expected 300,000 youths into "simple uniforms of coarse duck."

Patriotic German journalists stressed "the absence of sport in the English or American sense" at the National Curatory, wrote that General von Stuelpnagel will instruct his youths in "military sports," such as throwing dummy hand grenades, drilling with wooden rifles.* In Berlin next day Socialist Reichstag Deputies voted "denunciation of the Cabinet's militaristic policy" and the Government was also censured by the Executive Board of Socialist Trade Unions, largest body of organized German labor.

Third Pocket Battleship. In a modest bid for sea power last week, the von Papen Cabinet let contracts for construction of a third German "pocket battle ship," estimated to cost about $20,000,000.

Simultaneously the Geneva Disarmament Conference received formal notice that Germany will attend no more of its sessions until the Great Powers agree either: 1) that each must disarm down to battle parity with Germany; or 2) that Germany may re-arm up to battle parity with the strongest Great Power (see p. 13).

Diplomatic Shakeup. Finally last week the German Diplomatic Service received such a shakeup at the hands of Foreign Minister Baron von Neurath as it has not had since the Revolution of 1918. Diplomats of Republican leanings were shifted from major to minor posts or retired. Momentarily the axe was expected to fall on Ambassador to the U. S. von Prittwitz und Gaffron, a stanch Republican. Typical of the shakeup was the promotion of Ulrich von Hassell, reactionary son-in-law of the late Admiral von Tirpitz, from Minister at Belgrade to Ambassador at Rome.

Ambassador at Rome before the shake-up was Dr. Carl von Schubert, onetime closest associate of Germany's late, great "Peace Man" Dr. Gustav Stresemann. Dr. von Schubert was retired. Queerest appointment was that of a minor Foreign Office official, Dr. Roland Koester, to succeed Ambassador Leopold von Hoesch in Paris. Dr. von Hoesch, "suspected of being too compliant toward the French," was shifted to London. Dr. Koester is priceless. His hobby is taking watches apart, repairing, reassembling, regulating them. Whenever a Foreign Office functionary's watch goes wrong Dr. Koster fixes it.

Significance. Obviously the von Papen Cabinet's moves last week were those of an uneasy but resolute group of men, scrambling by fair means or otherwise to fortify their power. Perhaps the Government's "military sport camps" will entice young voters away from the "private armies" already maintained by Germany's Fascists, Socialists and Steel Helmets. Perhaps Germans will obey for a while longer the absolute will of Paul von Hindenburg who celebrates his 85th birthday next fortnight. Commented Karl H. von Wiegand, No. 1 German Hearstman: "There is one man in Germany who, like Gandhi, wants nothing for himself but everything for his country: Hindenburg!"

Landing in Manhattan last week, former German Foreign Minister Dr. Julius Curtius revealed that the by no means doddering old President recently said to him: "I deeply desire to visit the Rocky Mountains and shoot grizzly bears."

*Commented New York Herald Tribune's John Elliott, least excitable of U. S. correspondents in Berlin: The vote "was probably the most overwhelming defeat any government has sustained in the history of parliamentary institutions. . . . Probably not since Louis XVIII and his court were brought back to Paris in the fourgons [supply wagons] of the Allied armies in 1815 has a regime existed in any major European country so cordially detested by the mass of the people it claims to rule as the clique of generals, Junkers [landed proprietors] and aristocratic clubmen governing the Reich today."

*Article 177 of the Treaty of Versailles reads: " [In Germany] educational establishments, the universities, societies of discharged soldiers, shooting or touring clubs, and, generally speaking, associations of every description, whatever be the age of their members, must not occupy themselves with any military matters. In particular they will be forbidden to instruct or exercise their members, or to allow them to be instructed or exercised, in the profession or use of arms. These societies, associations, educational establishments, and universities must have no connection with the Ministries of War or any other military authority."

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