Evening star., 1933-01-15
ERP|CTURED
NEAR CROSSROADS
Editor Predicts Conflict of
QuaSi.ReligiOn and
Politics.
BY the Associated Press.

BY the Associated Press.
BERLIN, January l4.-Adolf Hitler's
National Socialist Workers party is
facing a decision of portentous import,
in the opinion of Hans Zehrer, editor
in-chief of the Taegliche Rundschau,
a non-political Berlin daily. 1t must
decide, he believes, whether in the fu-
ture it desires to be a political move
ment or a quasi-religious creed"
Until today, the decision could be
postponed" Zehrer writes. The party
has hitherto been able to assert that 1t
personifies both-the 'weltanschauung'
PHILOSOPHY of life) of the twentieth
century; in other words, creed or
faith, and at the same time the claim
to translate this 'weltanschauung' into
political and economic reality, in other
words, a political movement.
so long as the NaZis were able to
increase their membership election
after election and had the mythical
halo of success and victory, the ques-
ton of the party's final aim was Sec
ondary. Now, however, the forward
movement has halted. Unshakable
faith in victory has given place to
skepticism and doubt.
According to Mussolini, Hitler Is not
as much a statesman as he is person
whose nature has gradually taken on
the qualities of a savior. That opinion
hits the bulls eye. Adolf Hitler has
united in his person all those unex-
pressed yearnings which fill large
part of our people today. He has &C
tually been pushed into the role Of q
savior and the Nazi party now looks
very much like creed.
Turning to Savior.
1.-THE kingdom of such faith is,
however. not of this world. It is
not concerned primarily about the State
but about the person who, in his feel
ing of being lost and in his fear of
death, is turning to b savior
"A political movement, on the other
hand, desires the seizure of power, be-
cause its kingdom is of this world and
because it wishes to make use of power
to realize its ends.
Adolf Hitler is making the wrong
deduction of trying to be both. He
has been forced into the role Of savior
and at the same time desires to be
chancellor or even president OF the
German Reich.
IF he were political parsonage
only, or a great statesman, he would
the desired power and would make his
influence felt practically. AS a savior,
however, he cannot do that. He can
never take q ministry, negotiate from
early morning till late at night with
officials, or take a train for Geneva to
sit at a table with other statesmen.
HE embodies faith, he can only
sit at the head Of the table, surround
ed by the silent alteration of the others.
He can carry himself only like a king.
He can only announce his decisions
which must be def1nitive, but he can
not argue, bargain, negotiate and spar
with an opponent. At the moment that
he did this, the faith he represents and
large part of his adherentS. would
suffer a bad shock. That is exactly
the situation in which the Nazi party
and its leader find themselves since
September IA, $780,"
(Zehrer here refers to the Reichstag
elections during the chancellorship of
Bruening, when the Nazi party obtain
ed lot seats in the Reichstag instead
of the IL previously heidi
Demands All Power.
adolf Hitler" Zehrer continues,
cannot take anything but the entire
power. The leader of the Nazis, who
desired to unite politics and creed, faces
the fact that the two can never be
united Politics is a thing of this
world, faith or creed of the world be-
yond. The expectations and yearnings
of faith can never be fulfilled politi-
cally and in this world.
What, then, is likely to happen to
the Nazi movement If it does not find
way out of the blind alley into which
it has maneuvered itself? Perhaps it
will prove merely to have been a school
through which 14,000, 900 Germans have
passed, and perhaps these 14,000, 900
will realize their ideals at some later
time in an entirely different movement.
If Adolf Hitler remains where he is to-
day. If he cannot bring himself to sep
arate religious faith from political
movement in the sense that he will 6e-
vote himself entirely to the faith and
remain outside political life. while he
sends the political movement into the
State led by others than himself, then
his party will share the fate above out
lined
In closing, Zehrer expresses the con-
viction that those of Hitler's followers
who are face to face with the problem
of daily bread, of jobs, of things that
call for remedy now, will grow impa-
tient of waiting for the other-worldly
kingdom which Hitler keeps painting
for them and will follow practical men
of the Gregor Strasser type. Strasser's
recent resignation from all Offices with
In the party shook the NaN organiza-
ton to its foundations.