Evening Post. TUESDAY, MARCH 2.7,1934. HITLER'S FIRST YEAR

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 73, 27 March 1934, Page 8

Evening Post. TUESDAY, MARCH 2.7,1934. HITLER'S FIRST YEAR

Discussing in the "Observer" of February 4 the speech in the Reichstag in which "amidst immense and almost idolatrous enthusiasm" Herr Hitler celebrated the first anniversary of his dictatorship*. Mr. | Garvin described it as delivered "in [extraordinary tones of demagogic vehemence," but as having nevertheless "a steady judgment behind all the strident fervour." All the Chancellor's references to foreign affairs, except on the vital question of Austria, were declared to be satisfactory. His second year had opened with still greater power at home and prestige abroad than the first one.

Like Italian Fascism and Bolshevism in* Russia, Mr. Garvin continued, Hitlerism has come to stay for as long as, we need consider. We have, to live with it. If, in the long run, wo are to live safely with it, British democracy in its different manner will have to look without mistake to it's own full strength and discipline. ■ Without both no democracy will survive

The warning to democracy, and especially to the British democracy, upon which the hopes of every other democracy depend, is well timed., Like other mortal things Hitlerism is j not going to last for ever, but it will last long enough to smash other democracies besides that of Germany, if they do not mend their ways. , So spectacular and so thorough has \ been Herr Hitler's triumph during his j first year, so completely has he de-j stroyed every vestige of independent power either, in the Reich or in the States, in the Reichstag or in the Press, in the churches or the universi-, ties or the schools, in the professions, I in commerce, or anywhere else, and1 so feeble has been the opposition' offered at any stage, except in the last, gallant, forlorn hope of the Protestant churches against their | complete Nazification, that it is possible even for outsiders to be sol dazzled by the success as to overlook its limitations and the crucial difficulties that have still to be overcome. The wonderful achievements that have given Herr Hitler a personal power far beyond that ever wielded by any'of the, Hohenzollerns, or by the Iron Chancellor, Bismarck, have been almost entirely negative and preparatory in their, character. As a destructive agency he has shown himself as thorough, as" ruthless, and as swift as Napoleon. In the task of re. construction, which suited the genius of Napoleon equally well, Herr Hitler has yet to be tested. He has forged a magnificent instrument. He holds a "totalitarian" State in the hollow.of his hand, and there is neither electorate nor Parliament nor any other human power to prevent his treating it exactly as he pleases. In saying that Herr Hitler's statesmanship has hitherto been destructive we did not mean to ignore the positive value of one essential asset with which he^ has provided Germany. Just as conspicuously as President Roosevelt he has raised his people from despair to hope and confidence: It may even be said.that in the intensity and the aggressiveness of the hope and confidence which he has inspired the Chancellor has been the more successful of the two, but it is a kind of success which has its drawbacks. ' Extravagant emotions are apt to suffer a reaction which may substitute hew difficulties for those that they have overcome. Two years, if we remember rightly, was the probationary period that Herr Hitler bespoke at the outset for the great social and industrial programme by which he had promised to banish unemployment and restore the prosperity,of Germany. The ""year! that has passed has been so crowded, with one excitement after anottier, with die hysterics of hatred arid destruction and persecution, with mili-' tary marches and parades, with war-' like oratory, and other emotional displays, that a people which has been partly. hypnotised and partly cowed has been little disposed to criticise. But a year has'now passed; the great employment programme still remains in- a nebulous condition, and despite the optimism of the official figures the pressure, of unemployment remains, to say the least, very severe; and, partly perhaps through the dilution of Herr Hitler's defiant eloquence with peace talk, excitement is less frenzied than it was. It would not be surprising if under these conditions even the rank and file of the Nazis were beginning to suffer from "cells" of discontent.

In the "Spectator" of February 2 a remarkable picture of German opinion is given by Mr. H. Powys .Greenwood, who had been investigat-

ing conditions in Germany as its special correspondent. He admitted that the first anniversary of the Third Reich saw "the Junkers still on their estates and Big Business, its. Aryan blood somewhat 'purified, in its offices," and that the methods of the great German bureaucracy were substantially unchanged and its influence considerable., No spectacular modifications: of the economic structure havcbeen made, Mr. Greenwood continued. The Corporative State is still, despite such juggling as tlio substitution -of■ "Estate" for "Federation" in the title of the Eeich Estate of German Industry, largely a vision of the; future. But the rovolution is in "the-air.. The mental strain is intense, the atmosphere charged with electricity. No visitor can avoid feeling that Germany today is passing through one of those great formative periods in the'life of a great nation which govern the courso of centuries, a period. such as those of the French Revolution, of'Cromwell,,or even of the Reformation. In spite of the mental strain and the electrical atmosphere to which the "Spectator's" correspondent testifies, it is to.-be noted that it is not a destructive but a "formative"" period that he regards Germany as passing through, and that the sense of revolution in the air is inspired by the Nazi Revolution itself and not by any reactionary movement. He makes his meaning doubly clear in the passage that follows:— • This does not mean that there is the slightest chance, of the present regime being overthrown. It is astonishing how swiftly the Nazis gained the position which the Fascists and Bolsheviks took years, to achieve. Nothing but an unsuccessful war will shake them. ... Hitler has undoubtedly' grown in stature during the year. .From leader of a movement >ho has become-loader of a people. His authority is absolutely unquestioned. A considerable, development of the critical undertone of which Mr. Greenwood speaks, both within Nazi ranks and outside of them, has taken place within the last two months if the remarkable report of the "Sunday Times" Berlin correspondent, cabled yesterday, is confirmed.