NEW HYMN OF HATE

Evening Star, Issue 20048, 13 December 1928, Page 17

NEW HYMN OF HATE

GEEMAHY’S "STEEL HELMETS" For the first time a clear demarcation line is being drawn in Berlin between those who desire the peaceful evolution of the Gorman Republic and those who seek a restoration ot the Monarchv (disguised under the slogan “ Reform of the Constitution ”). It is announced (says the Berlin correspondent of the 'Daily Chronicle’) that all the Reichstag members of the. People’s Partv, whose loader is Dr Strcsemaun, are to withdraw teem Hie semi-military, semi-political organisation of ox-eorviccmen and others known as the Steel Helmets }> Leuguc. This withdraw? 1, decided on by the People’s P.artv Executive, is a sequel to the campaign of the Stahl helm (“Steel Helmets”) against Locarno, against Geneva, and (though not so openly stated) against the Republic. At present the Steel Helmets are seeking to mobilise enough oleor-oral support to compel the Reichstag to impose a national referendum on a measure for the “ Reform of the Weimar Constitution.” Matters came to a crisis with the recent demonstration, at which the “Steel Helmets,” in effect, chanted a now ‘ Hymn of Hate,' in the form of a proclamation that — “ We hate the present State, its form and everything in it. “Wo hate a parliamentarism which renders nil responsible leadership impossible. “We hate a system which precludes the prospect of liberating our enslaved Fatherland.” In addition to “hating” the “Steel Helmuts ” also “yearn”—not lor an immediate monarchy, but—for a “strong State,” over which there will at some distant date glitter “ tne German Imperial Crown.” The declaration embodied in the decision that tho People’s Party will neither “ hate ” nor “yearn” is a heavy blow for the extreme Nationalists and ' reactionary forces in Germany It means their complete isolation. The “ Steel Helmets ” are tho head and front of those forces in the country as a whole, and now their only remaining political allies are the German Nationalists, the extreme Right group in Parliament. United against the extreme Nationalists and Reactionaries are practically all the other political parties of any importance or numerical strength, ami tho bases of that unity are tho foreign policy of international co-oporation and defence of tho Republican Constitution. Incidentally, the agitation of the “ Stcci Helmets ” fc„- a “ referendum ” is a livi: < bat the day is p;r t for any ille gal a ■.■•tempt to upset die Weimar Con-titulion. Developments prove; that a covert effort in the same direction is equally doomed to. failure.