Nominations

To give his life for his country--such in a very real sense was the decision calmly made last week by Paul von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg, President.

Old Paul is 84. By refusing to run again for President he would doubtless prolong a life which his big red country house and his rosy-cheeked, laughing grandchildren make pleasant. Most Germans, when they learned that Old Paul had consented to run again, felt a tug at their heartstrings. They assumed that if re-elected on March 13 President von Hindenburg will die in office. If he lived out his second term he would be 91.

"After an earnest scrutiny I have decided," wrote Old Paul wistfully, "to stand for reelection. . . . Should I not be elected, the reproach of having abandoned my post at a difficult time will be spared me."

As the President said, the time in Germany is difficult. Six million unemployed. Four suicides a day in Berlin alone. Whole industrial regions idle. German raw steel

production lower last week than at any time since the Fatherland's 1919 prostration. German foreign trade (which had a "Baby Boom" last year) down to a new low for the 20th Century.

Amid these difficulties, candidate-picking began. First in the field against Old Paul was Communist Ernst Thalmann, whom the late New York World used to call "Germany's Red Napoleon." His worst enemies, the German Fascists, conceded last week that leather-lunged Comrade Thalmann, once a Hamburg stevedore and later a sailor, would get at least 6,000,000 votes. Some 38,000,000 ballots will be cast.

If on March 13 no candidate obtains a clear majority, the German people must vote again April 10. Such a system produces elaborate political jockeying. Many a candidate is entered for no other reason than to split some other candidate's vote on the first or second round.

To the National Opposition which includes the Fascists and Dr. Alfred Hugenberg's Nationalists, vote-splitting seemed the best strategy. They attempted in vain to collaborate on a candidate. For their candidate the Nationalists and their Steel Helmet faction then chose Colonel Theodore Duesterberg, Deputy Chairman of the Stahlhelm.

The Hitlerites did a risky thing. They nominated Adolf Hitler. Theoretically, handsome Adolf could gain citizenship, and eligibility for office, by accepting appointment to a public post in Brunswick. With four or more candidates in the field, Old Paul's majority might be forestalled, and on the second round the Opposition votes thrown to Hitler. But suppose at the last minute the Reich declares Hitler no real citizen, strikes his name from the lists too late for the Nazis to introduce a new candidate? In such case Old Paul could very well obtain a majority on the first vote. And last week observers thought he might anyway.

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