Ballyhooer's Return

Exactly what Chancellor Heinrich Bruening might have expected when he ballyhooed Germany's fiscal depression and growing radicalism on his visit to England, came to pass last week.

Citizens of the U. S.--world's quickest reactors to ballyhoo--instantly began withdrawing short term credits from Germany. During the week it was estimated that $100,000,000 of U. S. credits were withdrawn. German businessmen were furious. Stocks fell on Berlin 'change. In certain Berlin banking circles U. S. correspondents were told:

"Your bankers have no nerve. It is a world calamity that America dominates the money market. Your bankers, who deplore a run on their banks at home, are starting an irresponsible run of their own on Germany."

"Bruening crack up!" To take a calm view of the Germany which faced Chancellor Heinrich Bruening and Foreign Minister Julius Curtius on their return to Berlin last week indeed took nerve.

The German press, virtually without exception, was thundering against Chancellor Bruening's ''emergency decree," issued in his absence by President von Hindenburg. Its upping of the income tax, gasoline tax. tobacco tax: its slashing of the wages of state employes and the unemployment dole; finally an impression that ''Iron Cross" Bruening had written his decree with a ruthlessness fanatic & unfeeling--all this profoundly displeased the German populace.

In Berlin it was not necessary to barricade any streets against rioters. In Hamburg, Kassel and Frankfurt-am-Main it was.

In Kassel a policeman was killed and a 90-year-old shoemaker shot dead as he watched the riot from his window. In Hamburg five people were wounded. In Bremen rioters stoned policemen, belabored them with short lengths of drainpipe. In Muehlheim six Communists and a police captain were seriously injured. In Berlin order was preserved and bloodshed prevented only by heroic measures. Example: when 12,000 Communists mass met at the Sportspalast, perspiring policemen patted and searched every one of the 12,000 for arms. As Drs. Bruening and Curtius rode through Berlin on their re-turn Fascists jeered them yelling:

"Germany wake up! Bruening crack up!"

"Freedom & Bread!" Not without reason is Dr. Bruening called new Germany's "Iron Chancellor." He stood like iron against demands from his own Catholic Center Party that Dr. Curtius be "sacrificed"' to the mob, dropped from the Cabinet.

Even Dr. Curtius' own People's Party seemed to want to get rid of him (his popularity has waned since he "bungled" the Austro-German customs union scheme). At a hectic midnight meeting the People's Party caucus ignored pleas by Dr. Curtius and President Luther of the Reichsbank, voted stubbornly and contrarily to desert the Bruening Cabinet, desert Dr. Curtius and go into Opposition. That amazing act shook the Iron Chancellor's nerve. He began to hint to the Socialists (Germany's largest party) that his emergency decree is "subject to amendment."

Leaving this bait behind. Chancellor Bruening hopped onto a train for Neudeck in East Prussia. There among very green trees stands a very red house, built of old red tiles and red plaster by direction of its occupant, Old Paul von Hindenburg.

Earnestly President and Chancellor talked. There was stirring, they knew, among the politicians in Berlin a demand that the Reichstag--now in recess--be convened. Should this be done it would upset the Bruening program of ruling Germany by Presidential decree as a semi-dictator while the Reichstag is not in session. Young Heinrich, 46, told Old Paul, 83, that the steering committee of the Reichstag was about equally divided as to whether the Reichstag should be called or not. What to do?

Old Paul did all he could. He sent Young Heinrich back to Berlin with the word that HINDENBURG did NOT favor convening the Reichstag. As the steering committee prepared to meet, it faced not only the President's potent advice but a dire threat by Dr. Bruening. Desperately he threatened to dissolve the Reichstag rather than allow it to meet.

This would mean new elections--with Germany in ferment. It would certainly mean large Communist gains, might mean a Fascist landslide.* In his Munich bailiwick last week Fascist Adolf Hitler said: "On the day of [Fascist] victory the German people will be given a new emergency decree which will put them in a position to say:

" 'We won't pay any longer, for the Germany of today is different from the Germany of yesterday. Dire distress brought us back to our senses and therein lies our power and might and our right to freedom and bread!' "

*The Fascist Party is already second largest.

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