Evening Post. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1933. HYSTERICS AND LIMELIGHT

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 31, 7 February 1933, Page 6

Evening Post. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1933. HYSTERICS AND LIMELIGHT

The contrast between the old and the new in Germany, between the strong and' the violent, the quiet and the noisy, the solid and the histrionic, was happily indicated in the cabled report of the-rejoicings in Berlin; a week ago over the agpointment of Heir Hitler as Chancellor. . . '. ■ - . , _

Seventeen thousand Nazi storm troops in 'steel' helmets joined in a torchlight procession to the Chancel-lery,-where -Herr Hitler stopa in characteristic fashion in a spotlight, answering cheers and taking the Fascist salute. In contrast, President Hindenburg was standing soldier-like inside a window of his house opposite acknowledging the plaudits.

The showman claiming all the limelight and mo_st of the noise at the expense of the soldier-statesman recalls Browning's picture of Verdi in the theatre at Florence "at his worst opera's end." . , .

While the mad houseful 's plaudits near outbang His orchestra of salt-box, tongs' and bones,. , - He looks,through all the roaring and the wreaths Where sits Eossini patient in his stall. Hindenburg will have to do a good deal of, patient sitting in his stall while Hitler holds the boards, and often he will prefer to be out of sight altogether. Such an occasion, apparently occurred on Sunday, when a State funeral which was essentially, a party demonstration of a very extravagant kind, would have made the highest official representative of the State feel sadly out of place.

Only twice in its life of fourteen years had the German Republic given a State funeral to anybody. The first to be so honoured : Was Ebert, who, t though not a great man, had as its President during the first six years, and particularly by his success in defeating the Soviet model which probably would but for him have been adopted, accomplished a really great work. The second of the ■ Republic's State funerals was given' to Stijesemann, who. is not only regarded as Germany's greatest man since Bismarck, but as the principal architect of Locarno is probably entitled to the first place among tall the post-war statesmen of Western Europe. Both of these men had been great benefactors riot merely, to Germany but to the world,. As the third recipient of the, same honour, Hans Maikowski makes an astonishing and even a ludicrous misfit bedside Ebert and Stresem'ann. During his lifetime he was quite unknown to fame^ and the; little that has since been told of him is not to his credit. What other occupation he may have had is not included among the par-, ticulars supplied on Saturday, but it may be that in those strenuous times his duties as "leader of Storm Detachment No. 33" kept him busy enough. In this capacity he had apparently shot a Communist, but the report is not quite clear, and the incident was evidently some time ago.

Maikowski, we are told, confessed to shooting a workman during his de~ tachment's attack on-' a Communist meeting, for which he received amnesty at Christmas time.

As the workman is not declared to have been a Communist it is possible, that he was not one. The fact of the confession points in that direction, for why should a Nazi confess the kind of thing in which his leader has taught him to glory? In either case, however, it was murder, but General yon Schleicher was both liberal and prompt with his amnesties - for political crime when he took office in December.

But the amnesty was naturally not respected by die Communists, and their murder of Maikowski on the, day after Hitler's swearing-in gave the new. Chancellor a magnificent opportunity for striking while the iron was hot.-and organising a- firstclass political, and military demonstration under, the guise of a State' funeral. Berlin "indulged in an' orgy of Nazi, hero-worship" in nominal honour c-f ihis obscure member of the party/and of a policeman who .was murdered at the same time. There were thousands of j uniformed Nazis in the procession. The "Steel Helmets" were there too, and a downpour of rain could not keep hundreds of thousands off the streets. Inside the cathedral, which was draped with flags, "the coffins lay in state before the altar guarded, by blue-clad police and brownshirted storm-troopers." At the cemetery aeroplanes with black streamers flew overhead, and there

Maikowski was buried beside the famous air-ace of the World War, Baron yon Richthofen. It was not enough to give to a man unknown in civil life the honours hitherto reserved for two only of the Republic's leading statesmen. The man whose chief military distinction was to commit a murder, though apparently not the one he intended, in a street brawl must also be given, a place beside one of the most gallant of the war heroes of Germany.

Though President yon Hindenburg may have felt it to be inconsistent with his honour and his dignity to take part in such an orgy, the old order was represented by others who have undertaken no responsibilities to the Republic and are not so squeamish. .

d?he ex-Crown Prince, in the uniform of the Death's Head Hussars, attended, and .- greeted his brother the Prince August Wilhelm with., a Fascist salute and placed wreaths on the coffins.

And with a,, little luck an even more, distinguished personage than • these two rather feeble relics of the Hohen-zollerns-might have been there too, no less a hero than their august parent. On Saturday the ex-Kaiser was waiting with his luggage packed at Doom in expectation of the signal to return. Only a week or two ago he had declared himself ready to return to Germany but not before he was asked, but he evidently regarded Hitler as so much a man after his own heart that he accepted Hitler's appointment as equivalent to an invitation. It apparently had not occurred to him that, though Hitler may Be a man after his own heart, the converse does not follow. Like most other people in Germany the Chancellor would be thankful if the ex-Kaiser would stay just where he is, and on the ground that "immediate return might disrupt the election" he has persuaded him to wait till afterwards. The ex-Kaiser still hopes to return to Berlin during the 'celebrations of the Nazis' victory, but even then he may not find such a concentration of limelight and hysteria as that of which his sons made such poor use on Sunday. ,