With today's Issue another writer joins Castor and Pollux in the conduct of this column.
Rache had her day, Sunday; and yesterday while Der Marschall und Der Gefreite were wreathed in smiles and the granulation of a subservient Press, the remainder of a worried world hastened to assess the importance of a statistically perfect national revival. A great many have seen fit to rant in humanitarian terminology. The election, so goes the story, was a tragic farce, the picture of a people baring its neck to the heel of a despot. The claim is easily substantiated, but it is a close approach to stupidity to inveigh particularly upon a means when confronted by a commanding fait accompli. For, through one argument or another, Herr Hitler has crushed out party and state lines within Germany. He has, temporarily at least, a nation united behind him as its sole ruler. And if I read anything into Mr. Hitler's past, it primarily that Mr. Hitler has learned well the requisites of Dictatorship. The permanence of his power, as he well knows, will depend upon a quick consolidation of strength at home, and upon a decisive, jingo stand abroad.
* * *
What shape the first of these will assume is not difficult to divine. The Reichstag is to become constitutionally and distinctly a council incapable of anything save advice. It is conceivable that the body might vote itself to be separated into functional groups, of the "trade-profession" variety. Mr. Hitler, with his ear well-cocked to the earth, is to be sole ruler. This latter, of course, is true today. But it will be a happy premium against the future to have the Reichstag vote itself out of power.
* * *
All this, however, is the enchanting grist of your rampant liberal. It affords a convenient escape from the more confusing and more important problem which Sunday's election poses for the diplomats. Mr. Hitler has received a national mandate from over forty million Germans to pursue his policy of equality for Deutschland and Versailles be damned. It is true that his position is difficult, that he is forced into a stand which may easily lead to a war, and to a fatal war from the angle that Germany cannot afford war and could not, in all probability, find outside support. But it is obvious that he cannot now be deterred. His present position demands a period of loud shouting and of anxious waiting--awaiting a time when the powers will agree to ask him back to Geneva, with appropriate minor concessions. In effect this election is Germany's last call for a peaceful settlement. Pollux is inclined to be pessimistic about this matter, and to predict an "un-moneyed, simple conflict" comparable to the Thirty Years' War. I am inclined to agree.
Read more in News
Cowards Of Us All