A MAN OF CHARACTER

Evening Star, Issue 19658, 10 September 1927, Page 10

A MAN OF CHARACTER

A miter in tlio ‘ New York Times ’ probes the secret of the influence of Paul Von Hindenburg, President of Germany, now approaching his eightieth year:— “ Make yourself Dictator! ” prompted the Junkers and Royalists, the everscheming conspirators of reaction. “Scrap the Reichstag! Pave.the way for the return of the Monarchy! Kill the Republic ” And they fully expected their programme to be carried out by an approving President, himself secure in his profound personal popularity. But this Man of Granite, the rugged master of the Wilhelmstrassc and of the hearts of his countrymen, had other, views, it appeared. Although the world had trembled for the German Republic when he was elected its President, while the reactionaries had rejoiced with a rattling of sabres, the aged warrior now showed disquieting signs of ignoring his own caste and being true to his oath of office, lie. the glorious Von Hindenburg, the war dog of the Empire, pride of the Junkers, and hope of the Hohenzollerns, to become in truth the defender of the hated Republic? .It was too incredible, too scandalous! And the dismayed Junkers found themselves driven at length to turn against their idol and try to destroy him. Mr Ybarra tells us of a discussion among a group of American newspaper correspondents just after President Von

A BLOCK OF GRANITE

Character. That is indeed what has made Hiudenburg. Character has served him better than shining armor and rattling sword served his master, William Hohenzollern;" than ambition and brains served his colleague in war, Erich Ludendorff. There is about Hindenburg a genuineness, a solidity, a ruggedness,*' which make men instinctively trust him. If a block of granite could bo imbued with life it would be like Paul Von Hiudenburg. His rugged, unornamental qualities gave him fame in war; now, after two years in the Presidency of Germany, they have added to it a. fame in peace which history may rank higher than his military laurels. Two years ago we American correspondents in Berlin looked upon Presi-dent-elect-Von Hiudenburg with apprehension. Were we very much to blame? Consider the position: In the early part of 1925, some of the most uncompromising -reactionaries among the German that bewhiskered war veteran, Grand Admiral Von.Tirptiz—had got together in secret cpnclave and decided that their ends would best bo served by having old Hiudenburg emerge from retirement a second time and become President of the Gorman Republic. So they went to the forbidding old war dog at

WHAT HINDENBURG THOUGHT

An old mail—a'very old man—seated, rugged and frowning, in silent nocturnal vigil, among the modest heirlooms of his modest home, and thinking as follows: They want mo fo bo President of the German Republic. I am not a Republican. I am a Monarchist. But they toll mo that the best way for me to serve the Fatherland is to run for President. If lam elected I must take a solemn oath to, uphold the Republic. “Well, if I take that oath, I shall take it fully and sincerely, without mental reservations of any kind, and I shall keep it, so help mo God, to the cud of my' Presidential term, no matter what anybody .thinks of mo. That’s that.” The upshot of that silent vigil of the Old Man of Hanover was that he decided to run for President of Germany. And to-day, more than two years after lie came to that decision, he who is now known in his native land as the Old Man of the Wilhelmstrasse, can look back upon an oath kept squarely and uncompromisingly; upon a German Republic immensely strengthened by his keeping of that oath; upon a German Fatherland rescued from new perils and a world preserved from now war threats by tbo way he lias kept it. The consciousness of : duty done against obstacles will be the present which Paul Von Hiudenburg will give himself on the second of next October, when he completes his eightieth year. And those who know him best feel assured

REBUKE TO JURKERS

The Junkers began to got impatient with (Jd Hindenburg. Knowing his record a Prussian militarist and devoted servant of tbo Hohenzollerns, they simply could not believe that ho would lot a little thing like an oath grand in the way of becoming the instrument for making realities out of Junker dreams. . So one day they practically saved an ultimatum. There must, said they, be a dictatorship in Germany, But Hindenburg, towering Gft 3in, in bis uniform of Field-Marshal of Imperial Germany, covered with the medals won in the service of three Hohenzollerii mouarchs clapped the Junker who made the demand cn the shoulder, and growled; “ Now, you go right back and do your part in quieting your fellows in the Nationalist ranks, and see that they don’t continue to make so much trouble for me!” That was the end of the dictatorship talk. The extremists among tbo Junkers cursed Hindenburg. They took dowm bis picture from the walls of the beer balls where they gather to drink and dream. They called him traitor. But ho. went Ids way unshaken, Ids mind fixed on that oath which he nad sworn. And so it has been to the present hour. , For two years and more Paul Von Ifindcnbnrg has lived in the Presidcu-

A SiiPLE BOUND

Tlic daily ronndat No. 73 Wilbelmstrasse is simplicity itself. While curious passers-by stop before the big iron railings and eye the two policemen and the two sentries always posted there, Paul Von Hindenburg, they may feel assured, is going through his Presidential duties as conscientiously and expeditiously as possible. Between G and 7 every morning, long before most Berliners are. stirring, he gets up, breakfasts, and. like that other Old Man of the Wilhehnstrassc, grim Bismarck, takes a walk with his dog in the beautiful garden which No. 73 possesses in common with other Wilhelnistrasso palaces. This garden is at the back, separated by a high wall from the thoroughfare now called Friedrich Ebertstrasse, because the body of Ebert, the saddler, first President of Germany, was carried along it on a March day two years ago amid all the solemn magnificence of official mourning. After his walk Hindenburg goes to his study, seats himself at » desk upon which is an inkstand with the inscription “Ora et Labora 1 ' (Pray and Work), one of the few keepsakes which he brought from Hanover to Berlin, and listens to a general report from State Secretary Meissner. Then come other reports —on internal and foreign

Hindenburg at Eighty

Hindeiiburg’s inauguration. They were all* filled with .misgivings,, says Mr Ybarra, as to what Hindenburg’s election meant. “ Given his record, most of us thought it .meant, the return of The Junkers to the. saddle in Germany, the eventual substitution of a monarchy —probably under a Hohenzollern—for the Republic, and the consequent upsetting of the peace in Europe.”- From these dark forebodings, the correspondents turned to a discussion of Hindenburg the man, and of this we read on: “Why is it,” one of us asked, “that ho lias been picked for leadership in peace just as he was in war? He hasn’t a pleasant personality. He isn’t politically clever. He isn’t diplomatic. The battles and campaigns for which bo gets credit were undoubtedly planned by Ludendor/f. Ho has a face that would scare a child. Why, then, do soldiers die for him aud civilians cry for him? What is there about Hindenburg? ” To which another, who had kept quiet during the discussion, replied; “I’ll tell you, in'one word: Character.” We nodded our heads. “ Yes,” we all chimed in, “ho has character. That’s it.” , The correctness of this estimate of Paul Von Hindenburg, instantly apparent to us when ho had just begun his term as President of Germany, is doubly, so now.that he, approaching his eightieth birthday,- has two full years of his term behind him.

the villa, in Hanover,’where, Hiudenhuxg thought, he was anchored until the end of nis days, and prevailed upon him to accept the nomination. * He was duly elected by an overwhelming majority. The Junkers, the die-bards of Germany, the former officers of the Kaiser’s World 1 War armies, who had sheathed their swords with reluctance, crowed with delight, waved swords and banners, openly showed their conviction that the hour of vengeance against the Entente victors in the- war would soon strike. Throughout Germany one seemed to hear the clank of arms and the thud of the goosestep. The Entente nations, especially France, looked on warily, ready to strike at the first signs of trouble. The peace of Europe seemed to hang by a precarious thread. Were we American newspapermen in Berlin so much to blame if we did non like the looks of Field-Marshal Paul Von Hiudenburg, President-elect of the German Republic, and said so in thousands of cabled words? But those jubilant Junkers had failed to take into consideration a little scone which had occurred at old Hindenburg’s villa at Hanover. Surely imagination may be permitted to picture that scene—though Hiudenburg played it alone, without witnesses.

that, from then until the end of his Presidential term, there will be no deviation from, the narrow path which the old warrior has set himself to tread. Character —that is what has done it. It would have been easy for President Von Hindeilburg to have acted otherwise. He could have done so with only a slight quibbling with his conscience, such as politicians indulge in every day when they wish to justify unquestionable tactics—snaky wrigglings out of tight places. There were plenty of old Junker counsellors around Hiudenburg to show him the way to such quibbling. But throughout two years and more lie lias been deaf to their siren songs. Ho has turned his mind’s eye to that oath which he swore, and he has stood firm. Soon after his accession to the Presidency ho could have met the wishes of the reactionary elements in Germany, of those who dream night and day of a return of monarchy and militarism, by declaring himself Dictator, and thus undermining the growth of German democracy at the very outset of his career. The path to a dictatorship in the German Republic is easy. All the President need do—Hiudcnburg’s staunch predecessor, Ebert, did it—is t 6 declare a state of emergency, dissolve the Reichstag, and rule over the laal without parliamentary inter-feren-.0. This state of affairs can bo prolonged month after month by insisting that the emergency still exists and postponing again and again the date for new Reichstag elections.

tial palace at No. 73 Wilhelmstrasso here in Berlin an existence as near as he could make it to his simple life at Hanover. Ho has not been able to make it quite as simple, though all Germans know he would have done so. if ho could. There are corner stones to be laid, banquets to be presided over, foreign diplomats to be punctiliously received. State functions to be attended - —all* boresome matters, as different as night is from day from the old, smooth life of retirement in the Soelhorststrasse at Hanover. But, aside from these ceremonies that have been wished on him. Hindenburg has rigorously insisted upon being just what he was when he was the Old Man of Hanover. Unless it is absolutely necessary he refuses to leave his Presidential palace for meeting the demands of official etiquette and' ceremony—these must come to him. Except on” very particular occasions ho sticks close to No. 73 Wilhclmstrasso until ho can get away to the country—to Gross-Schwulper, not far from Hanover, where he can play with his grandchildren and his dogs; to Dietramszoll. where there is the mountain air of Bavaria to breathe; or to the little hunting lodge on the Schorfhaide, only a few miles from Berlin, where he can hunt in the daytime and tell hunting glories and drink beer in the evenings, like bis rugged Teutonic ancestors of centuries’ ago.

affairs, on army matters, and so forth. Lunch time. Old Hindenburg—pretty tired probably by this time, but upheld bv his iron sense oi duty sits down to the table. Usually he has the company 7 of bis son. Major Oskar Von Hindenburg—now bis personal aid_ and liaison officer between the President and the Reichswehr—and his daughter-in-law, the major’s wife, who, barely thirty years old, has been for over two years the first lady of the land, lor Hindenburg is a widower. After lunch the old man takes a rest, but only for a short period. Early in the afternoon the round of official duties must bo resumed. He escapes toward evening for another walk in his beautiful garden—if the _ weather is pleasant—often accompanied by his daughter-in-law ami her two iittlo daughters, four-year-old Gertrud and three-year-old Helga Von Hindenburg, who, among all the 60.000,000 Germans iu Germany, are doubtless the two who are least afraid of the dour old giant who is their grandfather. After a frugal dinner Hindenburg reads some official document or other, or plays his part.at some official function. Then about 11 o'clock he goes In bed. His ruio of “early to bod ” i.i practically never broken.