GERMANY: Little Man, Big Doings

Once a year quaint medieval Nürnberg finds its population tripled by the marching, seething squash of Adolf Hitler’s Party Congress. Last week on Adolf Hitler Platz as 800,000 pairs of German boots came pounding in, one canny shopkeeper was swamped with business beneath his sign “Are your feet tired? Try our special powder.”

This excited no more comment than the selling of rosaries opposite St. Peter’s. Tired feet are part of the Nazi saga of sacrifice. In Nürnberg all neutral observers noted last week the air of respect and reverence for the Realmleader. At this third Congress since he came to power he seemed to take on a dignity bordering on the religious, enhanced by solemn German chanting in his honor.

“If we have not time to pray,” intoned the leader of a typical choral group. The mass response rolled back like thunder: “God will nevertheless understand us, for whoever consecrates his life to his nation will be honored by a blessed stand next to the Lord!”

“I Exalt Women!” Fifty thousand German women and girls marshaled by hard-bosomed Gertrude Scholtzklink, No. 1 female Nazi, hailed Herr Hitler with bursts of wild, ecstatic cheering which kept up for the whole 45 minutes that he addressed them in his happiest mood.

“There are some things only a man can do!” cried this Apotheosis of the Little Man. “I exalt women as the stablest element in our Reich because woman judges with her heart, not with her head! . . . I would not be here now had not women supported me from the very beginning. . . .We deny the Liberal-Jew-Bolshevik theory of ‘women’s equality’ because it dishonors them! . . . A woman, if she understands her mission rightly, will say to a man. ‘You preserve our people from danger and I shall give you children.’ ” (Cries of “Ja! Ja! Heil Hitler!”)

Many of the 50,000 women wept as they cheered, and Herr Hitler himself seemed on the point of tears as he concluded: “When my day comes I will die happy that I can say my life has not been in vain. It was beautiful because it was based on struggle.”

Stones for 2035. With such exceedingly simple words Adolf Hitler turned the key that unlocks German hearts again & again last week in Nürnberg. To 50,000 youths he cried: “I want you as slim as tigers, as fast as greyhounds, as hard as stone! Friendship will be accorded only to the strong, as the strong alone deserve friendship. We evaluate a young man by the punishment he can take. I make you responsible to help me make Germany strong!”

Even for the most humble little German who wanders in a daze through modern art galleries, the Realmleader had a heartening, thunderous word. “We are determined not to allow cubists, futurists and others of the sort to participate in the new cultural life of Germany!” roared the man who once wanted to be an artist and ended a house painter. “Dadaists, futurists and impressionists forget that the task of Art is not to promote degeneracy but to fight degeneracy. Those who affect the primitive style are either swindlers or maniacs!”

Artistically unlearned but psychologically profound, this made millions of Germans nod approvingly, and nobody could deny that Herr Hitler last week laid the cornerstone of a Party Convention Hall which will take some ten years to build, will hold 60,000 Nazis, and, according to them, will stand for 1,000 years. The Little Man may not know much about Art but he knows what most Germans like

“Fantasy of Fools.” On financial policy Herr Hitler said with reference to Japan, Great Britain and the U. S.: “We might have eased the situation through devaluation but we did not want to cheat the small people of their savings. We believe the world crisis cannot be solved by devaluation but only through a system of firmly stabilized currencies.”

Noting that German crops were poor last year and that his Government suppressed mention of this fact at the time, the Little Man said with his crystal simplicity, “We can speak about it now.”

In Moscow, said Herr Hitler composedly, the Communist Congress for fomenting World Revolution recently devoted the major part of its machinations to Germany (TIME, Aug. 5). The Realmleader was content that this should be so because Communism in Germany is now “merely a fantasy in the heads of certain fools.”

Approval in Advance. Extremely flattering to the Party Congress was an abrupt order from the Realmleader summoning all Deputies of the German Reichstag to attend him in Nurnberg, this being the first time Herr Hitler has called his Parliament to heel at such a distance from Berlin.

Called to order shortly after 9 p. m. by the No. 2 Nazi, beefy General Hermann Wilhelm Göring among whose countless titles is President of the Reichstag, Germany’s 600 Deputies first waived all the Reichstag’s rules of procedure and voted to place themselves “under the leadership principle.” Thus they approved in advance whatever decrees from Realmleader Hitler might be read out to them by President Göring.

In a twelve-minute speech Herr Hitler scored the League of Nations which last week was making things warm for Dictator Mussolini. Declared the German Dictator: “Memel was stolen from Germany and the robbery legalized by the League of Nations!” Indicating that for the present he will not try to seize Memel from Lithuania, Orator Hitler characteristically waved his olive branch: “There can be only one yardstick for our conduct, our great, unshakable love for peace!”

“Our Holy Symbol!” In menacing tones General Göring then read out three new decree laws. The first ended the clumsy arrangement under which the German tricolor and the Nazi swastika have been flown together as national flags. Henceforth Germany’s sole flag is the swastika. “It is the anti-Jewish symbol of the world!” thundered General Göring amid deafening cheers. “A soldier from the front lines, Adolf Hitler, pulled us out of the dirt and brought us back to honor. . . . The swastika has become for us a holy symbol!” This, Germans considered, completely answered a Jewish judge in Manhattan named Brodsky who recently called the swastika a “pirate flag.” Last week U. S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull sent the German Government a note of “regret” at the Brodsky incident.

Citizenship, Blood & Honor. The second decree read out by General Göring is the National Citizenship Law. This divides Germans into “citizens”‘ (with such rights as suffrage) and “members” (rights not defined). Jews under this law are automatically “members,” and German “citizens” will be degraded to that status if they are found to be Communists or otherwise “unworthy.”

The final decree last week is the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor. This permits Jews to fly a racial flag of their own; prohibits them from flying the German flag; bars Jews from marrying outside their race in Germany; bars them, whether married or not, from having sexual relations across the race line; and, as a final deterrent, forbids a Jew to employ a German female servant less than 45 years old.

The implications of this proviso struck the German Reichstag so forcibly that Deputies clutched their quaking midriffs and the whole chamber roared with Homeric laughter until tears of mirth glistened on many a cheek. Banging down his gavel President Göring boomed: “No Jew can insult Germany!”

Party Above State. Far more important than these laws was a brief but epochal announcement to the Party Congress by Adolf Hitler. He declared that hereafter “problems the State is unable to solve will be solved by the Nazi movement!”

This served notice on Germans that direct-action party zealots like Jew-baiting Boss Julius Streicher of Nürnberg emphatically enjoy the Realmleader’s confidence and may be expected to take German law more & more into their own hands. At their final meeting last week Herr Streicher appeared exhilarated, Herr Hitler tired.