"Rotten Democracy"

Some of the work of Germany's new Cabinet members last week:

Chancellor Hitler, facing Germany's general election March 5, opened his campaign with a speech in which he seemed to forget the oath he swore as Chancellor to protect and defend the Republic.

"The Parliamentary-Democratic system must be fought!'' he roared in a speech which he compelled every German radio station to broadcast. "We want a break with what a rotten brand of Democracy has produced, and realize that all that is great can be created only by the strength of individual personality and that all that is to be preserved must be entrusted again to ability and individual personality!"

With almost regal pomp Chancellor Hitler next opened Berlin's automobile show. Disregarding the fact that the German State railroads are one of the Government's most important sources of revenue, Handsome Adolf promised Government assistance to the motor industry, postulated: "The railway is too impersonal in that it restricts individual freedom. Today the automobile and the airplane [invariably used by Herr Hitler in preference to trains] constitute the most perfect instruments of transportation."

Swooping to Leipzig next day Chancellor Hitler, who can play the piano and prefers to play Wagner, sat through a musical commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Wagner's death. A bachelor and only 43, Handsome Adolf has often been rumored engaged to Frau Winifred Wagner, 35, an English-born widow whose maiden name was Williams, and who is the relict of Genius Wagner's son Siegfried. Greeting Frau Wagner formally though courteously, Chancellor Hitler left her with the stereotyped phrase, "Auf wiedersehen, Gnaedige Frau."*

Hermann Goering, former War ace, new Commissioner for Air (see above), is one of the most violent of the Hitler lieutenants, was promised the Foreign Ministry months ago when Handsome Adolf dreamed of an all-Nazi Cabinet. If he could not be Foreign Minister last week Herr Goering determined to act like one. When the Swedish Gothenburg Handelsoch Sjoefartstidning declared: "It is incomprehensible that the statesmen and Press of the world should be compelled to occupy themselves with this figure. Hitler is an insult." Fiery Hermann Goering promptly telegraphed the editor: "As a true friend of the Swedish people I see in such dirty expressions a serious danger to the friendly relations between our two peoples."

The Goering telegram not only brought a sharp retort from the Swedish editor, but caused the first open squabble in the polyglot Fascist-Nationalist Cabinet. To Chancellor Hitler, Foreign Minister Baron von Neurath loudly insisted that Hermann Goering must be prevented from sticking his pugnacious nose into foreign affairs.

Alfred Hugenberg proved more tractable toward the Wiggin commission now in Berlin. German delegates presented an ingenious scheme whereby U. S. banks with stillstand credit in Germany will be allowed to draw 3,000 marks monthly ($714) from this credit, in the form of travelers' checks which in turn they can sell to U. S. tourists at cut rates, thus encouraging tourist traffic, helping German industry.

Berlin's Lusstgarten glowed red with thousands of torches last week when 200,000 Socialists defied Hitlerite orders and assembled for the greatest political mass meeting Berlin has ever seen. For once not Adolf Hitler, but Vice Chancellor von Papen and Minister Hugenberg, were the chief objects of attack. At each mention of their names the crowd joined in one great cry that echoed blocks away. "PHOOIE! PHOOIE!"

* In Venice one afternoon 50 years ago a stumpy old man of 70 sat at a table littered with manuscripts, trying to work. A chill winter rain beat against his window, poured down into the murky Grand Canal. Several rooms away his wife, a gaunt, yellow-haired woman 25 years younger than himself, was eating lunch when suddenly a bell jangled once, twice through the house. The old man had one of his heart attacks. Groaning he let a servant help him to a sofa, start to undress him. His watch dropped from his waistcoat pocket. "My watch!" he complained in his petulant, high-pitched voice. The servant bent to pick it up. The heavy old timepiece still ticked but the man on the sofa was dead.

This week orchestras and opera companies throughout the Western world commemorated the 5Oth anniversary of Richard Wagner's death. But of the countless tributes paid to Wagner the most serviceable and lasting is a biography by Critic Ernest Newman, first volume of which was published this week by Alfred A. Knopf ($3).

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