NEWS OF THE WEEK
DEVELO7MENTS in Germany, following on Herr Hitler's coup against his generals, have been so com- pletely overshadowed by the new stroke against Austria that it would be beside the point to discuss them here. All that need be said is that Herr Hitler's success appears to have been complete ; the reports of military unrest in various parts of Eastern Germany are shown to have had no foundation, and all the signs are that the purge will have no consequences disturbing or inconvenient to the Chancellor. In regard to Austria, each succeeding message from Vienna gives the action taken by Herr Hider at Berchtesgaden last Sunday a darker aspect. Dr. Schuschnigg, the Austrian Chancellor, was summoned, rather than invited, to meet Herr Hider, and was immediately presented with a set of demands which he could reject only in the knowledge that such a course would expose his country to the risk of an artificially fomented internal rising, to be followed by German intervention on the ground that " Germans (in Austria) must not be allowed to kill Germans." It was under those conditions that Dr. Schuschnigg returned to Vienna and persuaded the profoundly reluctant President, Dr. Miklas, to agree to the inclusion in the Cabinet of a Nazi Minister of the Interior, with authority over security and the police, an amnesty to all political offenders, including those guilty of the most dastardly bombing outrages, and the restoration of freedom of political action to the Austrian Nazis within the framework of the Fatherland Front.
