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The Southern Israelite
Page 7
Fighting Lioute mid Jerusalem
An Analysis of the Broader Aspects of the Hitlerite Victory in Germany—
By EMIL LUDWIG
7 ne new Reichstag in Germany opened to the ac
companiment of violent anti-Jewish demonstrations, smash
ing of "Jewish" windows and cries of “down with the Jews.”
In the; way the Hitlerites celebrated their recent victory at the
polls. Despite its outer anti-Semitic manifestations, it would
he a mistake to regard the Hitlerites as a purely anti-Jewish
party. Their political ascendancy in Germany has a signifi
cance far beyond that of immediatee concern to the Jews,
although Jews are almost always the inevitable sufferers. In
the following article the noted German Jewish historian and
biographer, Emil Ludwig, analyzes the broader aspects of the
present political situation in Germany and speculates on the
likely success of the Hitlerites to gain control of the govern
ment.—The Editor.
The bullet which killed Rathenau
it years was historic. His death
t severe blow to those enlightened
I'cnple who. in Germany, as everywhere
else. tin<l themselves in the minority
laii'c they are in advance of the
tasses in recognizing the necessities
’• the times. They had recognized
that it was a moral obligation as well
a practical necessity to carry out as
tar as possible the peace treaty which
bermany had signed. Shortly before
is death Rathenau said to me: “We
tmi't pay not because we were respon
sible tor the war, but because we lost
Stresemann for years had fought
tthenan and his policy of fulfillment,
hat what did he do when he became
Kathenau s successor? He continued
ithenau s policy. The responsibility
1 power forced him to reconsider and
change his course, and steadily, year
.'ear, he sloughed off his former
until he brought Germany int
•he League and, by his personal in
got the Rhineland evacuate
' before the treaty date. H
• much a European in out
"ok that members of his own part;
attacked him and hastened, i
.7 (,| d not cause, his death.
••sent crisis in German politic
nse comparable to this earlie
I’olicio
cense p
Were ^
ec< .in
l!; g Ol]r
he bettr
Went ,
: unde
they h
battle t
•°r a ’
found
come
will b.
change
The
he iou
of the
1 once thoroughly unpopular
r ’f Stresemann began to in-
:r t of the nation. For things
g badly, and, as usual, people
that beer and tobacco were
dearer because we were pay-
debts, and therefore it would
•tot to pay. The enfranchise-
TO-year-olds that the newly
"public conceded only because
just limped home from the
' has now worked against it,
’e part of the extremists are
tong youths, but when they
power, sooner or later, there
thing for them to do but
ir policies as Stresemann did.
gin of the Hitler party is to
:j rst in the forced restriction
tonal army; second, in imita
tion of Mussolini; third, in a certain
dusky mysticism which is linked with
old German sagas. I do not desire to
malign Wagner, but Nietzsce speaks of
Wagnerians as we do of the Hitler
followers in so far as they arc genuine
idealists. The same General von
Secck, who now is the protagonist of
the new German Army, spoke jokingly
several years ago of the “laughable
imitation of the liberation of 1813,”
to which young Germans who have
learned no history, like to allude. In
1819 Prussia was one of a dozen States
which had been conquered by a single
power, and it was only natural that
they should unite for revenge. But
today Germany is one of the few’
defenseless countries in the world, and
nothing would be less natural than to
count upon forcible liberation.
Two weeks ago 11,000,000 of the
36,000.0(H) German electors voted for
the extreme Right and Left parties
which are opposed to the present form
of the State. But on the other hand
25,000,000 approved the republic though
they would change certain clauses of
the Constitution. The first total is
important but not alarming. In the
second group are many millions who,
six years ago, opposed the republic
and wanted to call back the Princes.
Today no party feels disposed even to
declare in its program for a return of
the former rulers.
Both groups of extremists long to
resort to force—the Communists in
order to bring a Russian revolution to
Germany, the others in order to free
the country from its debts and win
back the lost provinces. The rumor
that Hitler wants to join hands with
the Russians can be believed only by
people who do not know the character
of the Germans.
Outstanding among the characteris
tics of the Germans is their love of
order. They are the least revolution
ary people in Europe, if not in the
world. It was 400 years ago that
they carried out their last revolution,
and even then they modestly called it
“Reformation.” What happened in
November, 1918, was not that the
People rose against the Princes; rather
that the Princes ran away from the
people. Since the Germans value order
above all else, they have submitted for
centuries to a kind of political guard
ianship because the State protected
their property and promised security
and order for their children. Political
ly, they themselves were treated as
children, and so the best members of
the middle class devoted themselves
to scholarship and to the arts.
I do not know whether the great
intellectual conquests which the Ger
mans—indeed, almost exclusively Ger
mans of the bourgeoisie—have made,
whether discovery and science, poetry
and music, would have flourished so
well if these same great minds had
been able to embark upon responsible
political careers. Of course, the taste
for art and learning is native to the
Germans, but the brilliant tradition
they have developed would have been
more difficult to attain if they had
been a politically active people. T hey
are the most musical people of the
world, but they have paid a price for
that distinction.
The Germans’ love of order made
possible the dictatorship of their
princes and kings, under which the
Emil Ludwig
citizen was fairly content—like the
housewife who does not worry about
where the money for bills is coming
from: she is not independent, but free
from responsibility; yet if her husband
dies or goes bankrupt, she falls into a
faint. From just such a fit of uncon
sciousness did the Germans awake on
November 10, 1918, to find themselves
obliged against their will to govern
themselves. Thus did they reluctantly
venture into democracy.
The democratic idea is not yet strong
enough to enable them to believe in
men who come from the people. Had
it not been for his gentle birth, even
von Hindenburg would never have
risen to his present authority. Ebert
was never taken seriously, because he
had been a saddler, and all the jokes
made at the expense of the leaders
of the last decade have played upon
their undistinguished ancestry and re
called that they were sons of artisans
or farmers, if not themselves former
gardeners, locksmiths, or clerks.
Here is one reason why wc shall
never have a prolonged bourgeois dic
tatorship like that of Mussolini. A
prince whose lineage extends back to
God, since he derives from “the grace
of God", bears that mystical quality
which the Germans require in order
to believe and obey. Credo quia
absurdum. But a Hitler who formerly
was a painter, or a Mussolini who was
a mason, or a MacDonald of working-
class origin, could not attain the chief
authority in Germany through inher
ent genius. But faced with the dilemma
arising from the fact that the princes
made themselves impossible and yet
that no commoners can step into their
shoes, nothing was left for the Ger
mans but to swallow the bitter pill of
democracy.
Nothing would be more to be desired
than that Hitler’s followers should be
forced to govern. Then would Ger
many and the rest of the world realize
that though they could make rousing
phrases about "chains of slavery” and
"bondage to Jews”, they could not long
hold the leadership at the tribune of
the Reichstag or in a Ministerial Cabi
net. One need only look at their faces,
hear their voices, to see that the best
of them are idealists without ideas.
Denunciation of the Young plan, mili
tary preparation and attack—it is like
a rising of schoolboys against the
teacher. It is regrettable that the Aus
trian Hitler has been forbidden to be
come a German, for now he cannot
make himself ridiculous in the Reich
stag, and he excites sympathy because
at the crucial moment he must wait
outside the circus, like Carmen in the
fourth act.
Since he preaches the renaissance of
the German spirit and directs a pro
gram against both Rome and Zion,
apparently one-third of all of the Ger
mans—that is, the Catholics—would
have to be routed out, to say nothing
of the Jews who have remained calm
under such threats for eighty years.
The German spirit is “purely Protest
ant”, but all this is not based upon an
ideology such as a clergyman or a phi
losopher might have established. I hese
are merely the phrases of ignorant men
who know neither Schiller nor Hum
boldt, neither Beethoven nor Goethe.
But the program contains another
point—they want to socialize the banks
and the mines, though it was from
“heavy industry” that they received the
money which made their campaign
possible. How soon will these 107
(Continued on page 18)