Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-08-16
BY FRANK H. sIMONDs.

TIME Germans do not call their
present chancellor Machine
gun Harry" nor do they en-
4 ploy any such irreverent So
briquet as the Wrong Horse
Harry" which a recent essayist has
bestowed upon the American Secretary
of State The reason Is twofold. In
the first place nicknames have not the
same vogue in German politics as In
American and British, and, in the sec
ond, Heinrich Bruening does not lend
himself to nicknames. And yet no Ger
man ever fails to tell you almost I'M
mediately that the man VINO now
guides the destinies Of his nation once
Commanded a machine gun detach-
ment.
This detail is not merely significant
because it discloses the fact that the
German chancellor. like the former
French Premier, Andre Tardieu, Is
veteran of the war. In Germany one
speaks Of the machine gun officers and
men as thu heroes of the forlorn hope,
the men who covered the great retreat
when the war was lost, whose courage,
devotion and mistaken will constituted
not the least brilliant page in the his
tory of German military achievement.
Fights on Double Front.
The detail is, too, significant Of the
literally heading the forlorn hope OF
republican Germany. If he fails and
falls. there is nothing left. Then we
shall see either the folly Of an imitation
MiIssolini or the madness OF some REQ
disciple of Lenin and Trotsky. And as
the German army in the final phase OF
the World War was fighting on the
double front, with victorious enemy
in its face and a domestic revolution In
ErI1aY fnHAV
French hostility abroad and Nationalist
and Communist upheaval at home.
No conspicuous figure OF the present
day is less easy to describe than Bruen-
ing. His past is unilluminated by anec-
dote, his present Is surrounded by a
cloud Of mystery which Is almost equally
bathing to the German and the Tor
eigner. For Bruening Is literally a new
man. He has been in the Reichstag
less than seven years and in the public
eve little more than two. In that period
he has never said or done any single
thing which would supply an easy label
Or permit quick summing up.
Bruening Is Of People.
Like Ebert, the saddler-p president, and
Stresemann, the great foreign minister
of the German republic, Bruening Is OF
the people Although he was a soldier,
he began his service as private, which
is an aii-significant fact in Germany.
But, on the other hand, while his origin
is humble, he was student at the Uni
verSity of Bonn, which used TO receive
the Hohenzollern princes for a brief
period Of education.
In a crowd Bruening would attract
attention. II at all only because he
would COMPUTE all popular notions of the
politician. This spare, ascetie, taciturn
man might be mistaken for priest or
a a
utterly unconvincing. Sitting on the
government bench at the Reichstag,
faced by the tumultuous deputies, he
appears shy, nervous, totally out OF
place.
When he speaks, too, he has neither
the wit and force Of Stresemann nor
the polished eloqueElce OF Breitscheid.
He Is as little an orator as he appears
politician. Nor has he any art Of catch
ing or conquering crowd. Last Winter
when he went to East Prussia to carry
message OF cheer 70 the stricken popu-
lation of the eastern marches they
greeted him with insults and ended by
stoning his car. In Breslau his recep-
ton was not less unfriendly.
Record Marked by Blunders.
As chancellor, too. Bruening's record
Is marked by plumbers Of appalling
magnitude 1t was his mtscalculation
strangely reminiscent Of that similar
mistake of Stanley Baldwin a few years
ago which gave Labor its first govern
ment) in disSolVing the Reiehstag last
Autumn that cleared the way for the
great Hitler sweep Of the September
election His assent TO the Treviranus
declaration for treaty revision and Of
the Curtius proclamation Of the Aus
trian-German tariff union produced
the French political repereussion which
in turn was responsible for the present
German financial crisis.
All these men Of the contemporary
German government. Bruening himself,
Treviranus. Curtilis and that nephew of
the old Hohenzollern chancellor. BueloW,
are young. Most of them are under so.
And all but Buelow were In the war All
save Buelow lack precisely that expert
ence in foreign affairs which is most
essential at the moment And along
with this comparative youth and mex
perience goes natural aspiration TO lift
their country out of its present helpless
and wellnigh hopeless posture
Possesses Courage and Will.
What. then, is Bruenings great quail
fly? For II Is clear that no man could
direct German fortunes in the present
critical hour without some capacity.
What Bruening possesses is a rare COM
bination Of courage and will He cam
not be frightened and he cannot be
moved. And in modern Germany that
means something quite definite, for
while the public men Of other countries
always face possible defeat and retire
ment, the German statesman has con-
stantly 70 reckon with the assassin Just
around the corner. ErZberger and
Rathenau were murdered because they
urged Germany to follow the single
pathway open TO her--that of co-opera-
tion with Britain and France
While Brnening was absent in Paris