Terror in Germany
BY HARRIS ON BROWN.
THE rapidity with which Fascism in its ugliest form has burst upon Germany seems to have bewildered the country. Every day sees the perpetration of acts or the promulgation of decrees and edicts which a few weeks earlier would have been scouted as impossible.
As the insane orgy of unchecked violence proceeds, the outer world may open its eyes in wonder, but still can have little realization of what life in Prussia has come to mean. The Press is in chains, liberty has disappeared, telephones are constantly tapped, letters may be intercepted, and nobody known to be interested in politics can consider himself safe.
A month ago the country was ruled by a military dictator who began as a suspect but who seemed to show signs of inspiring some confidence. To-day it is under martial law and the tyranny of gunmen, and the most unpolitical of citizens look forward with something like panic to a future of apparent chaos.
" I thought my unhappy country had known the worst," said a prominent Catholic to me in Berlin a few days ago, " I am ashamed that it should have fallen to this state, it seems incredible." For the first time since Bismarck the Catholics have learnt the taste of persecution, and for the first time violence has invaded their election gatherings. People have been injured at Bruning's meetings, and another prominent Centrist, Stegerwald, was assaulted in person by uniformed Nazis as he tried to address a meeting. Hitler issued a call to discipline, but qualified it by a promise " to settle with the Catholics himself after the elections " ; and the National-Socialist Press continued to excite their fanatics against the Centre.
Since the election campaign started, Hitler's lieutenant, Captain Goring, has grown to giant proportions. The manner in which he has already established the Fascist "State within the State" by assuming complete control of a police force now swollen to include armed political organizations, indicates something more than mere copying of the Italian model. The sympathies of the Reichswehr are again an uncertain factor, and this possibility of their being beyond the reach of an appeal by Hindenburg is one of the most disquieting features. What is certain is that an armed force has been created under the title of police which it is at least conceivable might find itself in opposition to the Army. Civil war or Revolution have been expected before in Germany and have not come to pass. The present circumstances, however, are so unprecedented that the most balanced observers expect the worst.
It is difficult to convey the state of tension prevailing in Berlin to-day, and still more the rapidity with which the realization of insecurity has burst upon the ordinary citizen. Even the wholesale suppression of newspapers, which started during Hitler's first week in office, did not convey full warning of what was to follow. Censorship has long been active in Germany, and the fact that mild Catholic and Democratic organs should fall under the ban caused little more than the wondering comment, " These people are mad." But the appearance of Goring's edict to the police at the beginning of last week proved a shock. This threatening of the police with disciplinary action if they hesitated to shoot the opposition on the slightest provocation caused a gasp of dismay. The unprecedented barbarism of the document was denounced by the Minister-President of Bavaria as " the most scandalous he had ever heard." But more was to follow quickly. On the following day the new Nazi Police Chief of Berlin addressed his subordinates in still more violent language. And finally came the official enrolment of the S.A. troops as auxiliary police. Then, at last, did the German public fully realize that their defence force had been turned against them. Nazi outrages had been committed with impunity for several weeks, but the turning of gunmen into special constables proved to the public that police protection had been abolished, and Berlin fell a prey to rumour.
For the capital alone the casualty list last week was a regular feature. Three or four people each night were either shot down in cold blood or killed in political scraps. And the rumours increased all the more as the virtual disappearance of Papen and Hugenberg from the news became more marked. Where was Hindenburg ? Was it true that the monarchist-Nazi Goring, was planning to kidnap him and proclaim a restoration of the Hohenzollern ? Would the three southern States secede ? More and more Brown Shirts swaggered through the streets, and it was announced that Hitler would have 250,000 Storm Troops round Berlin on election night.
And then people bethought themselves of the years- old Nazi boast that their first action when they came to power would be a massacre of Jews and " Marxists." Was such a thing conceivable ? The indications became more alarming. Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda chief, announced for next Saturday " the long awaited Day of the Awakened Nation." At dusk there should be bonfires on all the hills of Germany. Through every town and village torchlight processions of uniformed Nazis would take place. The apparently innocent order that all windows were to be left wide open itself struck a chill. During all previous demonstrations any hesita- tion to close an upstairs window has quickly brought a police bullet. " The sleeping shall be awakened," ran the proclamation ; specially erected loud-speakers throughout the land would distribute Hitler's final campaign speech from Konigsberg ; and, finally—" in every house in which true Germans dwell a light shall be set, and from the windows swastika flags shall flutter."
The rumour spread and is spreading, is indeed being spoken of as a plan confirmed by all these previous steps, that on " the night " a fake attempt on Hitler's life will be made which shall be the signal for the massacre. Then the police shall clear the streets and the gunmen enter the houses of their opponents to do their work. It is little wonder that strained nerves arc snapping and panic on the increase.
It is in these circumstances that the Reichstag fire is proclaimed to be the work of Communists. Nobody straight from Germany would hesitate to confirm the statement of the Berlin correspondent of the Morning Post that " the charges amount almost to accusations of political insanity, so certain was the act of arson to play into the Government's hands." But most significant of all is Goring's announcement that the ,incendiary admitted connexion with the Social Democrats, " thus showing the evident fact of a united front " between Socialists and Communists. No more was needed to confirm the fear of a planned slaughter for which an excuse was sought to include quite other elements than Communists.
I am not, of course, predicting that these events are about to take place. Indeed if any such appalling act was ever seriously planned it is to be hoped that the publicity given to the rumour in England and America will have had the effect of opening the eyes of Germany's rulers to what would be the inevitable reaction of civilized opinion throughout the world. The National Socialists' leaders can in any case assume no attitude of virtuous indignation. For years they have openly incited an overstrained youth to crime, for months a reign of terror has existed in many country districts. This terror has now reached the cities and in view of their own past. record it is not surprising that the decent element of every class in Germany expects the worst of them.
