IS HITLERISM CRACKING ?
THE world, after riveting its attention on the Hitler- Mussolini conversations at Venice, and learning nothing of them, has decided that they were simply conversations between Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini after all. That Austria and disarmament were discussed is certain enough in the nature of things, but no formal agreements on either question were to be expected, and the fruits of the German Chancellor's visit to Italy are more likely to be revealed by his actions than by his words. If he puts a check on anti-Dollfuss activity in Germany, however privately, the world will have reason to welcome the initiative that led to the interviews at Venice. That initiative, it is significant to recall, was taken not by the host, Signor Mussolini, but by his guest. Herr Hitler, in other words, went to Venice not because he was asked to go there, but because he wanted to go. The reason for his going is not far to seek. Germany is acutely sensible of her isolation. She has contributed largely to it by her ill-judged abandonment of the League of Nations, but consciousness of that will not necessarily commend the consequences of her action to her. France, Russia and the Little Entente are concerting policies which can easily be interpreted, and in Berlin must inevitably be interpreted, as directed towards the encirclement of Germany—the old Einkreisung, which played so large a psychological part in the years before the War. Germany's need of friends is manifest, and it is of some significance that Herr Hitler should turn first- to a statesman with whom it was obvious that he could reach no understanding unless he was ready to modify his policy regarding Austria.
It is safe to venture rather further into the reign of hypothesis than this. Herr Hitler's regime is not voyaging through such tranquil waters at home that he can afford to have his attention distracted by disagreements abroad. The Polish probleni must be disposed of for 10 years at least. A moderate settlement must be accepted in the Saar. Reasonable disarmament proposals must be framed. An understanding must be established with Italy even if it means slowing down the pace of the anti-Austrian, or at any rate the anti-Dollfuss, propaganda. That hypothesis may not be completely accurate, bet at least it is highly plausible. For signs are multiplying that things are going ill with the National-Socialist State. The fabric, already creaking, threatens actually to crack, not so seriously as to threaten breakdown, but seriously enough to cause the Chancellor and some of his colleagues genuine alarm.
Isolated examples of hostility to the regime are a dangerously flimsy foundation to rest serious conclu- sions on, but cumulatively they may amount to some- thing that demands attention. And in fact there is an accumulation of examples today. It is because of their existence that Dr. Goebbels felt it incumbent on him, as Minister for Enlightenment and Propaganda, to launch a campaign against carpers and critics, and on Monday of this week took the remarkable course of suppressing all reports of a speech in which his colleague, Herr von Papen, who is Vice-Chancellor of the German Reich—but not a Nazi—protested with spirit against the attempts to crush all freedom of expression in Germany. The full significance of this clash between the Right and Left in the Cabinet—for Herr von Papen represents the Junkers and is a close friend of President Hindenburg— has still to be revealed, though the affair will probably enough be glossed over for the moment. In other quarters signs of latent unrest have niade themselves visible. Such minor manifestations as those among the students at Heidelberg and Bonn confirm the impression that the present generation of German students is by no means Nazi in its sympathies, for it did after all go to the universities to learn, and it realizes what it means to university teaching when professors and lecturers by the hundred lose their positions and see them filled by incompetent Nazi job-hunters. , The developments in the Protestant Church dispute are much more important. In the battleErecipitated by attempts to establish the authority of t1e State in the realm of the spirit the dissident pastor are in a, stronger position today than ever before—as may -be gauged by the fact that the impending resignation of the Reich Bishop Dr. Mueller is confidently predicted, and his so-called Chief of Staff, Dr. Oberheid, has been given extended leave and will probably not take up his office again at all. At the same time the protesting pastors,. having formed what is to be called the Frec Reich Synod, are firmly resisting all patched-up compromise with the. State-supported hierarchy. Dr. von Bodelschwingh, who had been chosen as head of the unified German Protestant Church before Dr. Mueller came on the scene at all, has been offered the Bishopric of Westphalia and refused it, and the Bishops of Bavaria and Wurtemberg a week ago declined attendance at an official conference. of Church leaders at Wittenberg, and went to a Free Synod meeting at Frankfurt instead. Meanwhile the. whole controversy is given a sharper turn by the sentences passed at Schwerin on five young pastors who had simply enunciated from their pulpits the principles on which the whole opposition movement rests, three of them being condemned to terms of imprisonment from six months downwards, and the other two fined, with imprisonment as an alternative. When the conflict with the authorities, has gone so far there must either be further embitterment or capitulation by the Government, with the resignation of Reich Bishop Mueller as its outward sign.
More serious still for the Government are the growing economic difficulties. The default on all Germany's external obligations is, of course, ascribed by the Press to the nefarious policy of the victorious Powers and nothing else. But the fact that under a National Socialist Government German exports have been reduced to so disastrous a level that there is no foreign exchange available for the purchase even of essential imports cannot be disguised. And confidence in the capacity of the Nazi leaders is not such as to lead men of intelligence to acquiesce blindly in the straits to which their admin- istration has reduced the country. Small wonder that Dr. Goebbels is alarmed at the growth of the army of carpers and critics. For the foreign observer, no doubt, all the tendency is to exaggerate the dis- content. However difficult it may be to imagine life in a Press-censored country, it is essential to realize that half the facts mentioned in this article—perfectly familiar to English readers because there are English correspondents in Germany—have never appeared -in the German papers and are still unknown to the German public. That .gives the Government temporarily an enormous advantage, though it may react against it in the event of. serious trouble, since a Press in which no one retains confidence or places credence will be impotent to create reassurance or rally support. That there are rifts in the Government ranks the treatment of von Papen by Goebbels plainly shows. That the Reichswehr officers, under General von Fritsch, are by no means enamoured of the Nazi regime is well known, though there is some difference of opinion as to how rapidly the large drafts of new rank-and-file recruits, many of them former Storm Troopers, are assimilating Reichswehr traditions and breaking away from their old associations.. A break- down of the Nazi regime is not a light thing to contemplate, even for those who have the strongest reasons for desiring it, for no one knows what the alternatives might be One, undoubtedly, is Communism, which would bring as much injustice as the present system and add chaos to it. Another is a semi-military dictatorship, with Herr Hitler (whose personal popularity is still great) still as Chancellor, but depending for his authority on the Reichswehr, not on irregular forces. That might well be the safest initial move towards a regime more stable and more broadly based. There is good ground for regarding a political intervention by the Reichswehr as a serious possibility. For the Government to have to rely on a national rather than on a party force would not be a change for the worse.
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