4 MAY 1944, Page 14

The Morning After Hitler

Excellency X. By R. G. Waldeck. (Geoffrey Bles. zos. 6d.)

Tilts is a book of varying merit, beginning poorly and ending well The idea—to discuss the personality who will emerge as the leader of a defeated Germany on "the morning after Hitler "—is good, except that the assumption that an individual Ffihrer must neces- sarily be succeeded by an individual Ffihrer is open to some challenge. Countess Waldeck is, or was, a journalist, and has an unfortunate habit, common to second-best journalism, of writing with an affectation of intimacy about personages standing in reality in no relation of intimacy at all. In the first chapter, for example, Erzberger, who signed the-Armistice in 5958, is referred to in the first instance as Matthias Erzberger, and thereafter simply as Matthias ; that is simply silly, silly enough to suggest that the writer herself must be silly. Actually she is not, and her book, which improves considerably as it progresses, contains a good deal of political wisdom, as in the advice to the Allies to insist on the coming Armistice being signed by soldiers (though that is obvious enough this time), and to attach more importance to making peace with politically uncongenial Germans who may be in a position to deliver the goods than with politically congenial Germans who are not.

While the discussion of the various possible successors to power in Germany is interesting, it loses something of its importance through the frequency with which one after another of them is ruled out. Here are the principal possibilities, and the verdict on them :—A Hohenzollern ; no. Rommel ; •conceivable. A bureau- crat (the usual assumed familiarity with Dr. Gaus, who is taken as typical, does not prevent the mis-spelling of his name through- out); no. A great industrialist ; possible as the power behind the throne. A Socialist ; no. A refugee ; no. A Communist ; quite possible. Goering ; no. Schacht or Meissner ; far from impossible. A Liberal ; not yet. A Church leader ; here more than a yes or no is called for ; the chapter on the Churches is the most interest- ing in the book, and, if it can be relied on, the most encouraging. Countess Waldeck is the daughter of a Jewish banker at Mannheim. Whether she has become a Christian is not clear, but she writes with undisguised sympathy of the Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches in Germany, and the stand they have taken, practically alone among organised bodies of opinion, against Nazism. While the writer does not see a Cardinal Faulhaber or a Martin Niemoeller becoming the head of the new German State, she does see in them, and men like Bishop Galen of Munster and Bishop von Preysing of Berlin, forces that will greatly influence the future Germany, and influence it uniformly for good. One statement she makes—that "95 per cent. of the people are still registered as Church. members" is surprising, and confirmation of it would be welcome ; regarding this and a good deal else, it must be remembered that it is several years since Countess Waldeck is, or could have been, in Germany. Her book, as has been said, varies in quality, but it is certainly worth