GERMANY: Old Paul & young Adolf

Rheumy old Paul von Hindenburg moves slowly but with exceeding thoroughness. Last week he did what the head of almost any other state would have done months ago. He had a personal interview with the Leader of the Opposition. All the years that the Austrian-born opportunist Adolf Hitler has been gaining political power in Germany, President von Hindenburg had never even seen him. Last week Hitler was summoned to the Presidential Palace on the Wilhelmstrasse. Tactfully changing his brown shirt for a long dark overcoat and a derby hat. Fascist Adolf arrived, his smudge of a mustache twitching like a rabbit’s nose with excitement. For once untroubled by the police. Hitlerites gathered in the street, shouting “Heil! Heil! Germany Awake!” as their leader appeared. No sooner had Herr Hitler disappeared through the doors than Dr. Josef Goebbels. who had nothing whatever to do with the interview beyond the fact that he is one of the leaders of the Hitlerites in the Reichstag (when the Reichstag is sitting) drove up & down the street in an open car bowing right and left to the crowds.

Not exactly pleasant for Chancellor Heinrich Bruning, protege of von Hindenburg, was this conference of Old Paul and Young Adolf. After all the Imperial German flag, still used by the Hitlerites, is the flag under which Fieldmarshal von Hindenburg fought. National Socialist votes helped to elect him President; and handsome Adolf stands today for Nationalism. Was a new protege Chancellor in the making? Was Hindenburg becoming convinced that Hitler as Chancellor would stop playing wild man, settle down and rule well?

Certainly Protege Chancellor Bruning had troubles enough last week. Mounting opposition from moderate Reichstag Deputies (tired of his Dictatorship) had to be crushed. Ruthlessly the Chancellor cut out of his Cabinet several old friends, notably moderate Foreign Minister Dr. Julius Curtius whose portfolio Dr. Bruning took himself, then revamped his whole Cabinet on strictly dictatorial lines. Martinet General Wilhelm Groener he retained as Minister of War, gave him also the Ministry of Interior, thus concentrating in one man complete control of the Army and of all German municipal police. The new cabinet:

Chancellor and Foreign Minister—Heinrich Bruning

Minister of War and Minister of Interior—General Wilhelm Groener

Finance—Hermann Dietrich

Food & Agriculture—Martin Schiele

Posts & Telegraphs—George Schatzel

Transportation—Gottfried Treviranus

Justice—Curt Joël

National Opposition. With the Reichstag about to convene this week, Fascist Hitler, fresh from his conference with President von Hindenburg. set out by motor for a monster Brown Shirt rally at Bad Harzburg. With him in his thundering Mercedes-Benz bounced Dr. Alfred Hugenberg, “Hearst of Germany.” “the little man in blue” who leads a right faction of 41 Reichstag Deputies. Herr Hitler leads 107. Also represented at Bad Harzburg, where Hitler drums rumbled and Hitler songs rang through the leafy forest, was the Peasant’s League of 19 Deputies. After Divine guidance had been invoked by a Lutheran pastor and a Catholic priest, the assembled factions pledged to stand together in the Reichstag as “The National Opposition.”

Eight months ago Hitler Deputies marched out of the Reichstag in protest at the Brüning Dictatorship (TIME, Feb. 23), have stayed out ever since. Last week Handsome Adolf, wearing like a halo what Germans called the “Hindenburg stamp,” seemed ready to play the Reichstag game again according to the rules. Sensation of the meeting was a speech by politically ambitious ex-Governor of the Reichsbank Dr. Hjalmar Schacht who roared: “Our financial position always was far more unfavorable than the public was told, and it is so today!!”

Charging that both Reichsbank Governor Hans Luther and Finance Minister Dietrich are deceiving the World with what amounts to false balance sheets, Dr. Schacht called for a return to the spirit of Friederich the Great: “Nothing is needed but character, self-confidence and trust in God!”

Next day numerous Berlin editors clamored for Dr. Schacht’s arrest “for high treason to the Reich.” Finance Minister Dietrich denounced the Schacht speech as “intolerable and untrue from A to Z.” True or false, it increased the chance that Chancellor Brüning’s Cabinet might fall when the Reichstag opened. Berlin betting odds were even.