The farce of the German elections is over, and Handsome Adolf is still doing business at the same stand, smiling benevolently at the bourgeoisie who have handed him his carte blanche with so little fuss. Strangely enough the French seem quite surprised at the outcome. This attitude is certainly naive, for despite all their pious and doubtless sincere God-forbids, they have been instrumental in putting Comrade Hitler in his seat of power.

Since the days of the Armistice the French have employed a consistently anti-German policy with all the suavity and relentless hatred of the best characters of Mr. Sax Rohmer's thrillers. In the Treaty of Versailles the forces of the Tri-color marched rough-shod over the prostrate enemy, saddling her with fascinating but utterly fantastic reparations, sinking her fleet and permanently crippling her army, and stripping her of her colonies. Not content with that, an army of occupation was placed in the Ruhr to force the payment of the national debt. As late as 1931 the old spirit flared up again with the smashing of the tentative German-Austrian trade and customs-union. All during these years the screws have been put on German industry and finance, and pressure enthusiastically applied, attempting to gouge out every possible penning due France, while she herself has coolly repudiated her own debt. Her press has maintained the same hostile, inflammatory tone of the 1870's. Very naturally, the effect of this attitude and the forms of action it has taken, has been to strengthen the extreme nationalist party on the one hand, and the extreme radical party on the other. Resentment against France has given the Nazis their strong card; and the desperate economic condition of the country, in large part brought on and prolonged by Versailles and succeeding treaties of extraction, has fostered the growth of the Communist party. The rise of these Marxists in turn has handed the Nazis their other ace: the role of defenders of the State against the terrors of Bolshevism. And the coming of these two wings, Fascist and Communist, has squeezed out the intermediary and moderate factions in the German political alignment.

This, then, is what the French have done for Adolf. Blinded by fear and the insane desire for revenge to the inevitable consequences of their actions, they have driven Germany to a more or less reluctant Fascism. They have failed to grasp the rather elementary truth that beating a man's head against the wall does not always result in peaceful submission. Having humiliated and impoverished Germany they are now "surprised" that a nationalistic, reactionary party has come to the fore!