Foreign News: National Socialists

The threatening storm which has hovered over Germany since the dissolution of the Reichstag last month (TIME, July 28 et seq.) gathered impetus and loosed itself in three cities last week.

At Nuremberg, Communists and Fascists (National Socialist Workers party) met for a debate which terminated in a free-for-all. Spectators amused themselves by pitching beer mugs and stones into the throng, injuring 70 contestants, among them three Fascist aldermen. Police charged and dispersed the rioters with truncheons and fire hose.

Thus violent already, the electioneering campaigns are expected to be increasingly vigorous as general election day (Sept. 14) draws nearer. Divided against themselves, German votes are now being sought by seven major parties, none of which can hope for a landslide in its direction. The parties: Social Democrats, Nationalists, Catholic Centrists, Communists, German People’s Party, the new Staatspartei, and the up-and-coming National Socialist Workers party. Seeking the element which precipitated last week’s turbulence, observers unanimously pointed to the Fascists and their demagog—oratorical, Jew-baiting, terrorist Adolf Hitler.

In 1920 Demagog Hitler and General Erich von Ludendorff gathered the nucleus of the present German Fascist party, attempted a revolution in 1923 which they hoped would make them Germany’s dictators but which unhappily only brought them to trial for treason. Ludendorff was released, retired to obscurity and the private worship of Norse war gods (TIME, June 16). Hitler, sentenced to five years of military imprisonment, was released at the end of eight months, so completely destitue of a following did he seem.

Personally attractive for his 41 years, virile, an orator comparable to Kerensky, Trotzky or Mussolini, Demagog Hitler soon reclaimed his old position. To his cause have flocked many an adoring Jungfraulein and hot-blooded youngster. The latter he has organized into clean-up gangs called “storm squads,” comparable to the Communist “Red Front Squads.” So closely do the Fascist tenets resemble those of Communism that many of his disciples are onetime Communists, grown weary of their cabal’s inactivity.

The platform on which the National Socialists hope to seat themselves in the Reichstag next month is, basically, built on these planks: 1) annulment of the Versailles and St. Germain treaties, 2) abandonment of reparations payments, 3) dissolution of the Reichswehr (volunteer army) and organization of a strong conscripted German army, 4) restoration of all colonies, 5) socialization of all basic industry, 6) disfranchisement of all Jews, 7) expulsion of all non-Germans who have immigrated since Aug. 2, 1914 If such an extraordinary program should win the Fascists a large block of seats in the Reichstag old President Paul von Hindenburg would have an extremely ticklish time organizing his government. To gain Hitler’s support, Chancellor Heinrich Briining would doubtless be forced to turn over the minister of interior to a Fascist, placing police power in Demagog Hitler’s hands just as it now is in Thu-ringia. That, believe lovers of Democracy, would ring the knell of the Republic.