Bludgeons & Cookies

Some orations are of definite greatness, and the speech of Adolf Hitler to the German Reichstag last week was in that class. It has always been Herr Hitler's technique, ever since his Nazi Party set out to thrash every other German party, to employ both the heavy Teuton bludgeon and the sweet Teuton sugar-cookie. By being intermittently sweet to the people he intermittently slugged, the Realmleader has made himself what he is today. Last week he asked Germans to vote overwhelmingly once more, on March 29, that they are satisfied.

Der Fuehrer's slugging last week consisted of a body blow to the already groggy Treaty of Versailles and a below-the-belt punch at the Locarno Pact, which was not in any sense imposed on Germany by the victorious Allies but freely entered into by the Fatherland in 1925.

Magical Wilson. "Men of the German Reichstag," cried Realmleader Hitler, "when in the grey November days of 1918 the curtain was lowered on the bloody tragedy of the Great War ... the views of the President of the United States had reached the ear of the world ... in Fourteen Points! "No people succumbed more completely to the magic power of this fantasy than the Germans. ... We had been dragged into the War, for whose outbreak we were exactly as guiltless, or as guilty, as other peoples. . . . That peace which was intended to be the final stone laid on the cover of the Tomb of War developed into dragons' seed for new struggles!"

Supernatural Imagination. This prelude was in the style of a Wagnerian soliloquy. The next evil undoer of righteous Germany to be taken up was Bolshevism, by which, roared Siegfried Hitler, "the world of supernatural imagination is torn apart, a God is dethroned, Religion and Church are rooted out--thus laying waste the world beyond. . . . Imperial and kingly domains fall and eradicate themselves--even from memory! . . . Democracies are relinquished. . . . Terrors of unemployment . . . terrors of hunger. . . . Astounded peoples see that the God of War has not abandoned His armament but, on the contrary, strides over the earth more heavily armed than ever!"

And who, with German goose-steppers again on the march last week, was to blame for this striding God of War?

"We are not to blame!" cried Orator Hitler. "It was not in our power ... to give ideas to the World, let alone prescribe laws. That was done by the mighty rulers of the World. . . . [That] took its birth from the fatal [Versailles] Treaty ... an historical example of how War ought not to be ended!"

"Spirit of revenge. . . . Spirit of secrecy!" screamed the Orator, his passion rising. "Spirit of hatred! . . . Lack of sense began to triumph."

World Revolution. The vocal eruption continued with a sweep, a majesty and a power which disposed entirely of the persistent stories that Realmleader Hitler thinks he is dying of cancer of the throat and has to be careful of his brawling voice. The Realmleader daringly went on to tell Germans (millions of whom would willingly fight tomorrow to conquer the so-called "Polish Corridor") that for the present he is unalterably against attacking the Poles and is even ready to sign with the Lithuanians a pact agreeing for the present not to try to "reconquer" Memel. Down his countrymen's throats Herr Hitler rammed this unpalatable reference to Poland: "I should like to have the German people understand the inner motives underlying Nazi foreign policy. It is very painful, for example, that the approach of 33,000,000 people [Poles] to the sea leads over territory ["The Polish Corridor"] formerly belonging to Germany. But to want to deny so large a State an approach to the sea is senseless, because it is impossible!"

A bonfire were Orator Hitler's words as he rushed roaring on: "I refused and I refuse co-operation not with Russia but with Bolshevism-- which has claimed the mastery of the world ! . . . I will not have the gruesome Communist International dictatorship of hate descend upon the German people. ... I cannot prevent other States from going the way they think they can go, or at least, must go, but I will prevent the German people from also going the way of destruction! . . . World Revolution . . . this destructive Asiatic world conception strikes at all hitherto recognized values!"

France to Perdition? After this booming buildup, which had consumed some 7,000 words of his 10,000-word speech, the Great Orator reached his central and audacious theme. He fervently informed the German Reichstag that the new "united front" of Socialist & Communist parties today in Europe, especially in France, has created a situation in which Paris may presently find itself with a Soviet Government meshing with that of Moscow and geared for World Revolution. "It is certain," thundered the Realmleader, "that this new Bolshevik State [France] would become a section of the Bolshevik International!"

For proof that France is slipping into such "perdition," Orator Hitler cited as a "fathomless tragedy," the recent ratification by the French Chamber of Deputies of the Franco-Soviet Military Treaty of Mutual Assistance (TIME, March 9). He flung at the Reichstag the declarations of Edouard Herriot and other French Radical Socialists that 17,500,000 soldiers of the Soviets with "the largest tank equipment" and "the largest air force in the world" are to be interlocked with the forces of France by the new treaty--not yet ratified by the French Senate.

Having thus conjured up the horrid vision of uncounted millions of Bolshevik Frenchmen and Bolshevik Russians leagued suddenly against the German Nazis, Realmleader Hitler with pistol-shot rapidity spat out what he was doing about all this. At that very moment last week German troops on his orders were dashing into the Demilitarized Rhineland. He ignored the illegality of this deed under the Treaty of Versailles and maintained that the Franco-Soviet Treaty had voided the Locarno Pact, hitherto the main bulwark of peace in Western Europe.

Honor, Faith, God. These tremendous, slugging blows by Adolf Hitler were of a complicated nature, but with them he also provided sugar-cookies for the slugged. These he announced as German offers: 1) to make several kinds of peace pacts with virtually all European States, including an air pact in which England might join; 2) to establish with France and Belgium wholly new demilitarized zones; 3) even to lead Germany back into the League of Nations. At the bottom of this cookie jar was a conditional jagged stone in the shape of intimations that the Great Powers would now be willing to take up the question of restoring to Germany her lost colonies, but the Great Orator's speech subsided with such soft organ notes as these:

"After three years I believe I can now regard the struggle for German equality as over. . . . We have no territorial demands to make in Europe. . . . Numerous cares have weighed me down and uncounted sleepless nights. ... I never felt myself as Dictator of my people but only and always as its Leader. ... I have therefore decided to dissolve the German Reichstag so that the German people by their ballots may now pass judgment on my leadership and on that of my associates.

"Germany has regained her honor," concluded Adolf Hitler. ''Germany has refound her faith, conquered the greatest economic distress and finally inaugurated a new cultural advance! This I believe I am entitled to state before my conscience and my God."

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