Evening star., 1935-04-08
Nazis Fail in Danzig.

It was not quite the expected that
happened in Danzig on Sunday, for
the Nazis counted upon capturing a
full two-thirds majority in the Free
City parliamentary elections. Actually
they fell materially short of that
margin. rolling up only 59.l per cent
of the total vote of 100000 that was
cast They aimed to wn forty eight
out of total of seventy-two seats,
which would have given the Hitlerites
absolute and interchangeable control,
with power to turn the region into a
miniature Nazi realm.
Instead. according to the latest
figures. their strength will not exceed
forty-four seats. They still predomi-
nate in Dauzig, but are not yet in
position to rule it automatically,
despite their vociferous hopes and
boasts. The result does not enhance
the prestige of the three outstanding
German leaders who were flung into
the campaign fray at the eleventh
hour-Gen. Goering, the Nazi air
lord; Rudolf Hess, Fuehrer Hitler's
personal deputy. and Goebbels, the
Nazi spellbinding ace. Adopting a
tone that could not have been more
arrogant if Danzig were already a
Nazi province, instead of a free city
under League Of Nations Jurisdiction.
Hitler's spokesmen brazenly appealed
to the electorate to emulate the Saar
and Indicate in no uncertain terms
its desire for incorporation within the
Reich.
Had Danzig given the Nazis the
two-thirds majority they craved, Par
lament could have remolded the con-
stitution and wiped out all remaining
vestiges of democracy in the COM
munity. The next step would have
been a plebiscite in which, on the
Saar pattern. Danzig citizens, who
are overwhelmingly German, would
have had opportunity to vote directly
on the question of joining the Hitler
realm. The result of such a poll
would hardly be in doubt, although
Sundays vote, with its recorded anti
Nazi minority of forty per cent. re-
veals that the swastika does not yet
wave omnipotently over the ancient
Baltic port.
Their blighted hopes of landslide
victory in Danzig will not deter the
Nazis from continuing their reckless
campaign to Hitlerize all those por-
tions of Europe contiguous to the Reich
and in which the Germanic element is
strong. In Danzig itself. in Memel.
in Schleswig -Holstein, in the German
speaking areas of Czechoslovakia, and,
above all. in Austria. efforts to re
claim" these territories will go on and
continue to be primary dangers to
peace. Nazi spokesmen disavow any
purpose on Hitler's part to take them
by force, but in the face of a rearmed,
aggressive Germany none of her neigh
bors in question will or can feel secure.
Poland has the chief interest in
seeing that Danzig does not fall into
Berlin's clutches. Once the Nazis
were supreme there the doom of the
Polish Corridor would almost certainly
be sealed There is already sugges-
ton that anti-Nazi groups in Danzig
will protest to the League against Ger
man excesses in the campaign just
ended. If the Geneva powers reveal no
more inclination or capacity to check
the Nazis than hitherto, Hitler need
lose no sleep. At any rate. on the face
of the returns, Danzig registers some
thing of significant rebuff for him
The Nazi break through to the Baltic
has been checked-for how long is
another question.