20 AUGUST 1932, Page 2

Hindenburg and Hitler Last Saturday's meeting between the German President

and Herr Hitler, fresh from his triumph at the Reichstag elections, has not clarified an uncertain situation. Marshal von Hindenburg refused Herr Hitler's demand for the Chancellorship, but offered him three minor places in the Cabinet which Herr Hitler, of course, declined. It would appear from an official account of the meeting that Herr Hitler, as leader of the largest German party, demanded the same position as Signor Mussolini obtained after the Fascist march on Rome. Possibly the official version would not coincide with Herr Hitler's, but his own speeches have made it clear that he desires full control of the Reich administration. His popularity is undiminished, and the Von Papen Ministry remains without any following in the Reichstag apart from Herr Hugenberg's thirty-seven Nationalist deputies. It is suggested that the Reichstag will be adjourned again after a brief sitting and perhaps dissolved at the end of the year. But Germany cannot go on indefinitely without a Parliament and a Government responsible to it, unless it is intended by the army leaders to throw over the Weimar constitution and resort to Bismarck's veiled autocracy.