News of the Week
GERMANY to-day is a country from which individual liberty has disappeared. All the guarantees,Of the constitution have been suspended, and no one knows for how long. Methods, not merely of firm suppression but of bridal warfare, are to be employed againSt the' Government's enemies. Measures against foreign as. well as German journalists have been enacted. '• Not- merely Socialism and Communism but demoeracy. generally are to be eradicated. All the approved methods of the agent provocateur are in evidence, and chaiges' quite as likely to be deliberately fabricated as genuinely' believed—and in some cases much more so—are- being, bandied about to provide justification in advance for any kind of pogrom that may commend itself to Herr Hitler and Captain Goring. Equally repugnant to all sense of decency is the renewal of the characteristic Nazi attacks on the Jews, to whoM so much of the prosperity and culture of modern Germany is due.: There is no element of relief in the pictUre. Germany, to-day is one of the world's black. spots. Force is in control and while the dominant minority is armed and the unorganized minority for the most part is 'TM, force will inevitably have its hour of triumph.: A demo-' eratic Germany will no doubt re-emerge. - But there-is a' chapter of force to live through first, and force wielded by incompetents can be a tragic business. The elections on Sunday will of course be a farce.
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