News of the Week
THINGS have been going from bad to worse in Germany since the Reich Government, as a concession to the Nazis, rescinded the ban on the wearing of uniforms. Last Sunday's rioting at Altona, with its tale of 17 killed and some 80 injured, gave the Chancellor some semblance of excuse for the coup he brought off on Wednesday on the ground that the Prussian Government was not maintaining public order. The official excuse, danger from the Communists, is transparent enough. Dr. Braun and Herr Severing could not be displaced for failing to deal firmly with Nazis. It has always to be remembered that the von Papen administration considers itself', and rightly, the last defence against a Hitler Government. In Prussia the deadlock that has prevailed since the elections in April could not continue indefinitely. The old Socialist-Centre administration has been carrying on without a majority in the Diet, and even when Dr. Bruning was Chancellor the appointment of a Reich Commissioner to govern Prussia was expected. As things were, if once the Nazis could snatch a chance majority in the Diet, as they might if the Communists chose to support them on one occasion for wrecking purposes, they could establish themselves in power constitutionally and so gain control of the whole Prussian police force. Herr von Papen has at any rate forestalled that, and though his immediate emergency decrees, suspending liberty of the Press and of public meetings, and authorizing the search of private houses and the opening of private correspond- ence, are drastic enough for a revolutionary crisis, it is distinctly better to have the Reich Government in charge in Prussia than Herr Hitler.
