JaJaJaJaJaJaJaJaJa: Nein!

On Sunday the German people confirmed and ratified Adolf Hitler's seizure of the powers of Paul von Hindenburg by 38,362,760 votes of Ja to 4,294,654 votes of Nein, a clear majority of nine to one.

Even correspondents hostile to Nazidom admitted that the actual polling was fairly conducted, with scrupulous respect for secrecy of the ballot.

Eminent Germans and their efforts in the closing days of the plebiscite campaign to express how they feel about "My Leader":

Ex-Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm: Strangers cannot understand the debt of gratitude the German nation has contracted toward Adolf Hitler. ... He has inculcated by the force of his magnetism an historical evolution of the German nation.

Reichsbank President Schacht: Chancellor Hitler understands economic and financial problems through that great unpretentiousness and simplicity which always astonishes us and which conquers all theoretical objections. . . . Chancellor Hitler has rejected all theories of devaluation or inflation.

General Kurt Daleuge: The World is hostile to Germany only because it is jealous of the German people for possessing Adolf Hitler. General Hermann Wilhelm Goring, Premier of Prussia (after wrecking his sports car last week and going to a hospital, as did the fraulein with him): In the higher sense of true Prussianism there is no more genuine Prussian than our Reichsfuhrer [Realmleader], Adolf Hitler [who is Austrian by birth]. . . . The Prussian idea of the state and its eternal ethics has been spread by him throughout all Germany. . . . Hindenburg was the incarnation of the highest ideals. In Hitler we see their complete fulfillment.

Colonel Oscar von Hindenburg: My late departed father always recognized Adolf Hitler as his immediate successor. . . . Thus there comes to you, O German people, from the Field Marshal's tower in the Tannenberg Monument [tomb of von Hindenburg] this call: "Rally around and stand united behind Germany's Leader! Let all the world know that an indissoluble tie firmly unites the German people!"

President von Hindenburg (in a document which Colonel von Hindenburg produced last week as his father's political last will and testament): My Chancellor, Adolf Hitler, and his movement have taken a decisive stride of historical importance toward a great goal of leading the German people to inner unity regardless of differences of rank and class. I know much yet remains to be done, and from the bottom of my heart I wish that the act of National Regeneration and Unification may be followed by an act of Reconciliation to embrace the whole German Fatherland.

Utopia Before Ballots. Reconciliation, keynote of the Hindenburg testament, was raised by Adolf Hitler as his standard and slogan last week, and few cared less than he that the Paris Press was screaming "Forgery!," charging Colonel Oscar von Hindenburg with prostituting his heritage. To Oberammergau went Adolf Hitler and sat through the Passion Play in a cheap seat. This non-sectarian gesture to German Christians he enhanced by ordering relaxed a few days later the ban on church discussion (TIME, July 23). Promptly Protestant pastors stopped their active struggle against Nazi Reichsbischof Ludwig Mueller, announced "our attitude is one of watchful waiting."

Meanwhile in newsorgans throughout the Fatherland, the Government blazoned lavish promises that this winter "18,000,000 needy persons"--more than a quarter of the entire population of Germany--will receive bounteous State aid. "The energy of the Leader," declared the official com- munique, "makes certain that this Utopia shall become an actuality."

Simultaneously all over Germany thousands of men were walking out of the State's jails and Nazi prison camps, set free by the amnesty Leader Hitler proclaimed (TIME, Aug. 20) after he seized the Presidential powers and made himself Realmleader. In a smashing drive for Reconciliation last week Minister of Propaganda Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels plastered the nation with such poster-slogans as Only The Wicked Cannot Bring Themselves To Love Adolf Hitler.

Hilarious Hamburgers. "Every German can hear the Leader, thanks to radio, and every German must!" commanded Dr. Goebbels who opened Berlin's Radio Exposition last week with this ecstatic prophecy, "Some day the radio will be the spiritual daily bread of the whole people!"

To Dr. Goebbels' great regret there were only 5,360,000 radios in Germany last week, but his Ministry of Propaganda & Public Enlightenment put on a "share your radio" drive with such vehemence that 30,000,000 Germans were estimated to be listening in when Adolf Hitler arrived to deliver his only official speech of the plebiscite campaign in Hamburg, the German city worst hit by Depression.

As My Leader's plane swooped down, escorted by two big transport ships, the battleship Schleswig-Holstein in Hamburg harbor blazed away not with the salute to a Chancellor (19 guns) but with the salute to a President (21 guns). Motoring into Hamburg, Nazi Adolf Hitler rode past the home of Communist Ernst Thaelmann, the eminent Red to whom Germans once gave nearly 5,000,000 votes for President and who is now in jail. While a solid mob of screaming Nazi hero-worshippers packed Adolf Hitler Square, the Leader's car crawled through to Hamburg Rathaus. After signing his name in Hamburg's Golden Book, the Chancellor strode to the Kaiser Hall to the strains of a stirring march from Tannliduser and was presented to the Senators of Hamburg. That evening, after inspecting Hamburg's hard-hit waterfront, the Leader returned to the great Council Hall of the Rathaus and was presented to his audience by the Nazi Governor of the no-longer Free City. Cried Governor Karl Kaufmann by way of introduction: "Here is Victory!"

Even Paris agreed that it was a great Hitler speech. Orator Hitler played adroitly on the theme that revolution had been expected to break out in Germany upon the death of Hindenburg and that he had averted this catastrophe by prompt assumption of the President's powers.

With candor, real or assumed, Hitler said of Hindenburg: "After many battles he finally granted me his gracious friendship and thus founded a relationship which made me happy and was of the greatest help to the nation."

Most moving to My Leader's Hamburg hearers was a half hour passage in the 90-minute speech in which he told the story of his life from housepainter to statesman, traced the growth of his faith that somehow Socialism must be fused with Nationalism to produce a German synthesis of effort for the glory of the Fatherland.

On the subject of critics of this Nazi ideal the Leader vigorously digressed: "In my eyes criticism has no vital function! The world can live without critics but not without workers. I protest against the idea that there can be a profession consisting of telling men who already are working and carrying responsibility how their work can be done better."

To churchmen, Catholic Hitler spoke in a Nazi idiom not all of them understand. "The National Socialist State professes positive Christianity!"* He cried. "I will make an honest effort to protect the two great Christian confessions. ... It is further my intention to preserve the great cultural values inspired by our people in the past, including the prehistoric period."

In an outline of policy the Leader employed utmost skill in stressing "Peace," but made clear that his Nazi pacifism is based on confidence that Germany will get what she wants from the Great Powers without having to fight for it.

Turning to internal affairs, Orator Hitler shouted that there will be no "second"' or radical Nazi revolution. "The German revolution," he roared, "is concluded!" But to radical Nazis who may have plotted in the Roehm Mutiny or may still be involved in other Nazi conspiracies he gave this pledge: "I will not proceed on the principle of causing misled little fellows to be shot. ... I will throw the ringleaders to the ground!

"I have not asked for this plebiscite for my own sake!" The Leader cried in his final prolix but passionate appeal. "I need no vote of confidence to strengthen or maintain my position. But the German people need a Chancellor who is set before the world as the bearer of their confidence !"

So terrific were the cheers of Hamburgers outside the Rathaus that, after his speech, Realmleader Hitler rushed onto a balcony in a high state of nervous exaltation. "People of Hamburg!" he cried. "This has certainly been a great day in your lives but for me it is even greater. I came to fill you with confidence but you have given me confidence!"

Results Analyzed. Though all observers agreed that Hamburg had given Hitler one of the major ovations of his life, Hamburg voted less than 4 to i for Hitler, lowest majority of any great city in the Reich. Berlin also was far below the national average, voted 5 to 1. Leader Hitler made his best showing in the rural regions of East Prussia, Pomerania and Franconia.

Close scrutiny of returns in the cities confirmed the fact of Hitler's magic in appealing to the rabble. In Catholic and aristocratic sections the vote fell off, but the worst local setback to Hitler was a victory of only 823 to 350, reported locally just outside Berlin. Five die-hard Berlin Reds wrote across their ballots THAeLMANN!

Leader Hitler scored a victory of 88.1% last week on the supremely personal issue of confirming him in the power of a Bismarck and a Kaiser and a Hindenburg rolled into one. This issue could scarcely be compared with that of last November when Chancellor Hitler won by 93.4% the approval of Germans for his policy of withdrawing from the Disarmament Conference and the League of Nations (TIME, Nov. 20). Nonetheless, anyone was privileged to say last week, and some did, that "opposition to Hitler has doubled"--i. e., the "noes" had risen from 4.9% to 9.9% in nine months. In Italy, where the envelope in which plebiscite ballots are cast is so thin that it reveals how each man votes, Il Duce won his last plebiscite by 98%.

*His Holiness Pope Pius XI recently observed that the Nazi term ''positive Christianity is absolutely devoid of sense," but what Nazis mean was well and loudly voiced last week by Press Agent August Hoppe of the Hitler Youth.

"German youth! Throw from you the last remnants of your Christian education, which destroys the character of Nordic man. Hurl from you the Jewish-Christian ideas of sinfulness, pity and love for your enemies.

"Carry before you the conquering symbol of the swastika. We must be hard if we would conquer. A curse upon sympathy and mercy! Praised be that which makes us hard and cold, so that we may unmoved see the destruction of the evil sons of sound fathers.

"Youths, do you not feel the spirit of your fathers that aroused them to fight against that foreign doctrine--Christianity? Does not your heart burn to renew this struggle? Seize the weapon of your fathers and conquer with the sword the spirit of your future."

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