Evening star., 1934-07-15
BY FRANK II. SIMoNDs.

1
i in Germany Mortified the
world, speculation is rife as
TO what that upheaval means for
relations. What effect
Is 1t likely to have upon the problem
Of peace? That is the question one
Is bound 10 hear most frequently. To
answer it must be largely guesswork,
there is a certain amount
of precedent. Unhappily, too, that
precedent points to war.
The nearest parallel to what has
just occurred in the Reich is the coup
d'etat by which Louis Napoleon. hav-
ing become President of the second
French Republic, made himself Napo-
leon III. In becoming Emperor he
cast aside precisely those elements
which had made him President. Re-
establishing the throne of his uncle,
the great Napoleon, he came to power
by violence and bloodshed, But he
told the world that the empire meant
peace.
Far from meaning that, the Third
Empire was a period OF war. The
Crimean War In 1855, the Sandman
War in 1859. the Mexican War in 1864
and the Franco Prussian War in 1870
followed in rapid succession. Foreign
war was the single fashion in which
a regime founded upon violence and
established by treachery could hope
to avoid the ever-present menace of
domestic unrest and resistance. Thus
the two decades Of the Second Empire
were times of almost continuous war
and. in this respect, of course, the
little Napoleon followed the example
of the great.
Supporters Lost.
Turning now to the case Of Hitler,
IL is plain that he has definitely
broken with his own most sincere and
numerous supporting groups. He came
to power through the activity Of large
numbers of youth-for whom there
was no outlet because of economic
proStration-and of the middle class
which had been economically ruined
by imitation. His movement was no
more than the capitalizing of the vast
discomfort of a great people which.
having long enjoyed the highest
standard of living on the Continent,
had been plunged into a decade and
a half of misery.
BY invoking the spirit of patriotism
Hitler skilfully joined to his cause the
elements which would naturally have
gone to the camp of radicalism. The
Germans were In an odd fashion both
nationalistic in their international
emotions and socialistic in their do
mestic. They were equally eager to
strike at the foreign nations. begin
ming with the French, who had I'M
posed the treaty Of Versailles and at
the domestic profiteers Of the war
and imitation periods.
On the other hand, finance and
industry, along with big business,
financed the Hitler movement at the
outset, deliberately to get rid of the
Social Democratic leadership which
had dominated Germany from 1918
to 1893. Their calculation was that
they could use Hitler to overthrow
the republic, first of all. and then to
rid Hitler's own movement of those
who had turned from the Republican
to the Nazi camp as a better medium
for establishing real socialism.
Return to Right.
This second revolution, which we
have just witnessed, represents the
realization of the second half of this
calculation. In no small degree it
constitutes the return to control Of
those elements which ruled Germany
at the outbreak Of the war-the
Junkers-who we're the old landed
aristocracy of Prussia and the new
aristocracy of business and finance.
They have forced Hitler to break
with his own revolution and become
the agent of their counter-revolution.
Their purpose is to get back to the
pre-war situation.
The continued decline in the eco
nomic situation of Germany newt
ably increased the discomfort of those
elements which had made the revolu-
ton Of 1888, convinced that in that
revolution lay the promise of pros
perity. Recently they became salts
fed that prosperity for them was
possible only if they made a new
revolution directed at the rich, the
landholders and the financiers, as
well as the great industrialists. And
when Hitler hesitated they began to
turn against him and to look to the
men who had always been the apos-
ties of violence.
When Hitler seemed still to be heSi-
tating between Right and Left, the
Left began to drift away from him. AS
a consequence he had no choice but TO
strike. But in striking he separated
himself from those who believed in
his program and necessarily fell into
the hands of those who intended
from the start to use him for their
purposes. In driving into the opposi-
ton the vast mass of the youth and
the middle class who had followed
HMM sending them down the
same path the democratic groups
took last year-Hitler has finally put
himself in the hands of the Right
and restored the great division be-
tween Right and Left in Germany, to
abolish which was the greatest of his
promises.
Prosperity Impossible.
II. like Napoleon III. he could now
bring to his country a period of pros
perity, it is not to be questioned that
Hitler might last for a time. But
prosperity is beyond the grasp of any
German government, Right or Left. To
produce even moderate employment
at home Germany must buy raw
materials abroad in vast amounts. To
pay for them she must sell or bor-
row. But she can do neither. Eco
nomic nationalism plus the Jewish
boycott has closed the world market.
AS for lending Germany any more,
that is out of the question, because
her credit is ruined
What then can Hitler do, when
after a brief furry following the re-
cent upheaval and the paralysis Of
popular mind by a reign of terror, the
mass of the German people begin once
more to demand food and jobs? What
other outlet for popular emotion is
there save a foreign war? Military
considerations will not stop him. be-
cause politicians do not, like the SOL
der. weigh the odds of winning a
war. He will be moved only by the
l. - Ir@rN~ -F -