HITLER'S PROBLEM.

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 33, 9 February 1933, Page 10

HITLER'S PROBLEM.

Between Sunday, arid Wednesday Berlin seems to have passed from the top notes of a melodramatic and megalomaniac hysteria to tlie reac-tion-of sober and self-respecting politics. On Sunday the Hitler Government made Germany the laughingstock of the world by the apotheosis of a murderer whose only previous title to fame was that he had committed his murder in a street fight with the Communists and had afterwards been murdered in a similar fight himself. But Maikowski's real merit was that he was a loyal member of the Nazi party, that it was in its service that he had committed and suffered murder, and that at the time of his death it was intoxicated with its first taste of office. Wednesday's demonstration was of a different character. Its object was not to advocate or to condone either murder or any other form of violence but to present a reasoned attack on the policy of the povernment. In view of this declared object and of the record of the Nazis and the Government that they control, it is to their credit that not only was an Opposition procession permitted and Nazi gunmen discouraged from levying toll on it as it passed, but it was protected as effectively as though it had been marching to Hyde Park. \Two hundred thousand Republicans, of whom one-third were women, guarded by hundreds of police, marched with bands playing and flags flying to the ex-Kpisor's palace and wildly cheered speeches affirming unrelenting hostility to tho Government. • Republican sentiment in Germany will doubtless be relieved tofind that there are limits to the despotism even of a Nazi Chancellor and a Nazi Minister of Police. The right of public meeting has received a recognition denied to the freedom of the Press. The Communist "Red Flag" was probably fair game, but it is the habit of the ''Vorwaerts" to respect tlie law and to measure its words with far greater care than the Nazi Press has shown, and there is no reason to suppose that, with the Nazis in charge, it has abandoned its normal caution. The offence for which last Friday morning's issue of this great -Socialist paper was confiscated was the publication of an election manifesto accusing the new Government of having a hatred of th% Labour movement and describing the parties supporting Herr Hitler aa beneficiaries of agricultural relief and industrial subsidies, and appealing-to the electors to vote for the expropriation of big estates and industrial concerns. X any of this is high treason, one might suppose that a rare combination of courage and discretion would be needed to enable a man to make an Opposition speech of any value at all in Berlin just now without getting into gaol. The speakers at Wednesday's meeting appear, however, to have succeeded, and on this point both they and the Berlin police are to be congratulated. But surely the affirmation of hostility to tlie Government1 must have gone very near the line. 'To the reader of the cabled summary the most vicious thing in the "Vorwaerts" article is the imputation to the Government of "a hatred of the Labour movement." In inciting Labourites'and others to "an unrelenting hostility to the Government" were not the speakers at Wednesday's meeting equally entitled to suppression? Yet the one was taken, and the others left. The demonstration is described as "the most imposing in memory"—a very high compliment but tantalising in its brevity. The return of the victorious German armies from Paris in 1871 is within living memory, and so are other great occasions of State when Germany had the soldiers to make them impressive. Are all these included in the comparison? Is even the, hysterical display on Sunday to be'included? The probability is that we are intended to understand that this demonstration of 200,000 Republicans was the most imposing of .its class within living memory, the class being political demonstrations in general or democratic demonstrations in

particular. Even oh the narrowest interpretation the diagnosis is welcome, for it indicates at the least that the Republican forces are in good heart at a time when there are good grounds for discouragement in the general miseries, of the country and in the accession of their archenemy ,to power., Nor need anybody be scared by the statement that the procession marched under the motto "Berlin Remains Red." Though tlie Communists have recently made great strides in Berlin, this was riot a Com,munist procession, nor would such a procession have been allowed. Excluding the Communists, who appear to hate the Socialists next only to the Nazis, the Socialists are still the strongest power in Berlin, with 250,000 votes against the Nazis' 230,000; and on this occasion, despite the Red motto, the description of the demonstration as Republican implies that bourgeois parties must have been represented too. One cause which is specially mentioned to-day as contributing to the excitement of the workers is the growing number of political deaths. On Monday the number of these deaths since Herr Hitler took office was reported to have reached twenty—an alarming total for his •.-first five or > six days. Today's figures are unfortunately not comparable, since they date back to the beginning of the year. But a total of forty-five since that date is in itself a very serious matter, and it is obvious that the pace has been a good deal faster under the new regime. Except for a few accidental deaths the chances are nearly all the forty-five were murdered, for it is not likely that those of them who were breaking the law were breaking it' in such a way as to justify the police in shooting. Our reports suggest indeed that most of the shooting has been done by the Nazis, and that the hope that they would be on the I side of the law .because they' could now support the Government is hot ! being fulfilled. The unruliness of his own followers threatens Hitler with a far.greater problem than that of the Communists.