Crux of Crisis

(See front cover) The compass point of all Europe last week was a huge square brick and stucco manor house in East Prussia atop which perched pensively a knobby-kneed stork called "Oscar."

Old servants say that Oscar must be nearly as old as the President's son, spruce Lieut.-Colonel Oscar von Hindenburg. With his nameless mate Oscar spends his winters in Africa, as do most East Prussian storks, but summer finds him always back at Neudeck to bring not babies but good luck to the 86-year-old Reichspraesident. In backward, superstitious East Prussia nothing is so unlucky for a great landed Junker as to lose his stork. "Take care of Oscar" the President benignly commands when leaving Neudeck, and Oscar, so peasants think, takes care of Old Paul. Last week Oscar, dozing on the President's roof with one leg tucked under his wing, straightened up with a jerk and a squawk as a roaring Mercedes sped up the long white road and out jumped Adolf Hitler.

The crux of crisis since the Nazi blood bath had been reached (TIME, July 9). Either the pudgy, smudge-mustached Chancellor would kick out of his Cabinet such experienced non-Nazi statesmen as Vice Chancellor von Papen and Foreign Minister Baron von Neurath. after which he would go the whole Nazi hog alone, or else these "Balance Wheels" would be retained to steady his careening Government. In Berlin for some days von Papen had been considered politically dead. The strain of living under house arrest, never knowing when his guards might turn executioners, had made the Vice Chancellor's eyes red from sleepless worry--or nervous weeping. Even a son of onetime All Highest Kaiser Wilhelm, gape-jawed, goggle-eyed Prince August Wilhelm ("Auwi"), had been called on the carpet as a plot suspect by bull-necked Nazi General Hermann Wilhelm Goering. After grilling perspiring "Auwi," whom he scared half to death, General Goering kicked him out of the Nazi Party and out of the Storm Troops in which he had been a group commander with the stinging words: "Dummkopf! dunderhead! you are too stupid to be bad. Get out!"

By no means stupid, Col. von Papen begged his guards to take him down to the Chancellory. There the Vice Chancellor sent up his card, "I wish to see the Chancellor."

Adolf Hitler, who was sitting with Nazi members of the Cabinet around his modernistic Round Table with a hole in the middle, professed surprise and sent down a question, "Why does the Vice Chancellor not come up and take his seat?"

Instead red-eyed von Papen begged a word with Herr Hitler away from his Nazis. When this was granted he offered his resignation, protesting, "My service to the Fatherland is over!" As von Papen drove away, still guarded, official Berlin considered him an ex-Vice Chancellor and workmen began ripping down partitions in his offices. In moved the new Chief of Staff of the blood-purified Storm Troops, leather-lunged Viktor Lutze.

Previously Storm Troop headquarters have been in Munich, home of Adolf Hitler and hatching ground of the Roehm Mutiny fortnight ago. Last week Munich's famed Brown House stood as empty as though a cyclone had swept through it. Chief of Staff Lutze reigned in Berlin and Adolf Hitler was rumored planning to make a clean sweep of non-Nazis when he took off at 4 p. m. in his giant tri-motor for Neudeck 250 miles away in East Prussia.

Such was Berlin's state of nerves that whispers had the President already dead. Adolf Hitler took along his personal cameraman to snap pictures which would convince the Fatherland's last doubting Otto.*

Water, Wine & Order! Candles were winking in the old Neudeck manor house. When bristling Chancellor Hitler arrived in civilian clothes and sat down to dinner with President von Hindenburg, also in mufti and limping about on his cane. In a sense Neudeck is Nazidom's gift to the House of Hindenburg. Wealthy Junker admirers of Old Paul bought the estate and gave it in 1927 to Col. Oscar von Hindenburg, so that when the President died there would be no annoying inheritance tax. Later gifts of adjoining estates brought Old Paul's acres up to 4,000 and an early act of Chancellor Hitler was to decree that this domain shall belong tax free to the House of Hindenburg so long as there shall be a Hindenburg direct male heir. To enemies of Hindenburg and Hitler this decree is a noxious bribe to win the President's support of Nazidom. It is, at least, a personal tie.

Over the President's wine and Teetotaler Hitler's water they discoursed upon high politics. Once again the shrunken-jowled President boomed out the useful aphorism which serves him on all occasions: '"Ordnung muss sein! We must have order!" There are times when such platitudes are the highest statesmanship, especially when dealing with an hysteric type like Adolf Hitler. His air was almost reverent as he posed two hours later with the Reichspraesident for a farewell flash portrait. As Der Fuehrer ducked out to fly by night back to Berlin, massive Old Paul, slightly pale with fatigue, bade him pious Godspeed: "God guide you, Herr Reichskanzler!" Even before the thundering tri-motor reached Tempelhof Field its radio had spoken and in high Nazi circles the President's steadying hand was felt. Old Paul had persuaded Chancellor Hitler that the way to ORDER lay in retaining Vice Chancellor von Papen and taking certain other vital steps with which the German Press soon hummed.

Hoch Siam! Hoch Siam! To take German minds off what the Chancellor was hatching every newsorgan in the Fatherland was ordered to play up as biggest news of the week a royal visit to President von Hindenburg by weak-eyed little King Prajadhipok of Siam and his equally short but amply curvesome Queen Rambui Barni. Oscar and the other venerable storks of East Prussia had not seen such pomp since Kaiser Wilhelm's day. Two private cars of the German State Railways sped Their Majesties out from Berlin, across the hated Polish Corridor (an emotional barrier not in the least inconveniencing the King and Queen) and on to the snug East Prussian station of Freystadt where they were met by Col. Oscar von Hindenburg.

Since Old Paul hates motor cars and likes his guests to hate them, the usual thing is to drive out to Neudeck in an old-fashioned landauer. But for Royalty would this do? For Siam's little King, who dotes on the picturesque and is forever filming it with a Leica still camera and a Bell & Howell cinemachine. a landauer would have been just the thing. But swank Col. Oscar von Hindenburg insisted on a Mercedes. As the big car swept up to Neudeck an entire company of Reichswehr troops stood at wooden-soldier salute, flanked by peasants in bright, old-fashioned East Prussian costumes. Whrrrr went His Majesty's camera while the peasants roared: "Hoch Siam! Hoch Siam!"

Sliced sausages, always a favorite dish of Junkers on their country estates, were set before Their Majesties at luncheon. Cooking at Neudeck is of the simplest, with an emphasis on boiled potatoes, home-made cheese and common greens. Oranges for dessert are rated a treat, served peeled and sliced. As is usual when the President has foreign guests, Old Paul blinked, smiled, nodded and said little. King Prajadhipok and Queen Rambai Barni stayed two full hours. As a send-off they got a fine goose-stepping Reichswehr march past and more shouts of "Hoch Siam!" Then they motored to the most imposing medieval stronghold in East Prussia, famed Marienburg Castle, onetime seat of the "Teutonic Knights,' a motley crew who left off crusading for the pious work of converting pagan Prussians. Coming from the Near East, they brought with them Oriental ideas of architecture. Last week Their Majesties spent a whole afternoon minutely examining a vast moated palace as grotesquely strange as some of the temples of Siam. "Really, you know." said King Prajadhipok. "I am very interested." In the visitors' book His Majesty dashed off a modest squiggle. less than a third the size of the eight-inch-wide VON HINDENBURG written by the President with a special monster pen which he carries for public autographing.

Beloved Storm Troops. Back in Berlin, meanwhile, Chancellor Hitler had cheered up Vice Chancellor von Papen whose son and daughter, members of Berlin's smart younger set, went about chirping, "Papa is all right now." He was not quite all right. Unidentified Nazi enemies in a last effort to get something on von Papen moved fast and secretly one night while he was out. The Government's muzzled Press disclosed nothing, but Frau von Papen told friends, "They searched the whole house, even the kitchen!"'

Confident that nothing which could be used against him had been in his house, Vice Chancellor von Papen. no longer red-eyed, gradually recovered his aplomb until he was his old chipper self. Since the duties of a German Vice Chancellor are even more nominal than those of a U. S. Vice President, Herr von Papen was in no hurry to have a new building found for his Vice Chancellory. He urbanely left his old offices to Storm Troop Chief Viktor Lutze who kept peppering brownshirt Storm Troopers every few hours with new orders. They must not wear their uniforms during July, must not assemble, must not question or dispute the Government's massacre methods in wiping out "the mutiny of a few Storm Troop leaders, a mutiny in which the rank and file were not involved." As a final sop to the boys in brown, who have every reason to fear that Adolf Hitler is going to reduce their numbers by a "cleansing" such as that through which Josef Stalin periodically puts the Communist Party, they were told last week: "Adolf Hitler is faithful to the Storm Troops. He loves the Storm Troops."

Economic Tsar. Behind the Storm Troop mutiny of last fortnight lay deep-rooted discontent and some of it was economic. Germany faces, due to drought, what may be her poorest harvest in years. Potatoes had tripled in price. Meat was ominously cheap as cattle which now cost too much to feed were rashly slaughtered. Next winter, as Adolf Hitler and Paul von Hindenburg well know, the German people must go back to eating what they hate-- substitute foods.

In an effort to conserve the Fatherland's dwindling store of foreign exchange--sure to be needed to buy vital food imports next winter--Reichsbank President Dr. Hjalmar Schacht recently decreed a sweeping moratorium (TIME. June 25). Last week British threats of retaliation broke the moratorium as far as British holders of Dawes and Young loan bonds are concerned (see p. 15). This breach in the Moratorium Front looked certain to widen before onslaughts at once launched by the U. S. and French Embassies in Berlin. There seemed to be only one answer for Germany: controlled inflation, bulwarked by government control of the Fatherland's whole economic life. While the Press kept up a fanfare about the King of Siam and printed countless Hindenburg-with-Hitler pictures, the Chancellor got in the most drastic economic undercover work of his regime.

The Chancellor by an abrupt decree widened the powers of Economics Minister Dr. Kurt Schmitt until he became an Economics Tsar. Old-school Economist Dr. Schmitt is secretive about whether he is yet a Nazi. He is famed for the quiet way in which for months he has shielded Jewish businessmen whenever possible and generally run the Ministry of Economics on sane, rational lines which made him hated by Captain Ernst Roehm and other "Nazi Bolsheviks" now safely massacred. Last week the Cabinet decreed, effective for the next three months: "The Minister of Economics is empowered to take all measures ... to improve German business or to prevent damage to the nation's economic structure. . . . The measures taken may be contrary to existing law. . . . The Minister of Economics may punish failure to obey his rulings with imprisonment or fines. There is no limit to the size of the fine."

Dr. Schmitt is well known to favor devaluation of the German mark by 20%. The staggering powers slipped into his hands last week resemble those granted by the U. S. Congress to Franklin Roosevelt, some of which the President has of course not used. Tight-lipped Tsar Schmitt gave no sign of how he may use his powers, but Adolf Hitler was seen to have created a nearly perfect engine of economic despotism. Thus far in economics he has been largely windbag. From now on German Big Industry--the Thyssens, Krupps, Siemenses and their ilk--are in a position to receive from Adolf Hitler vastly more than they ever dreamed of getting when they backed his Nazi Party with their millions. They know best how to profit from inflation, controlled or uncontrolled, and about such mysteries of exalted finance Old Paul von Hindenburg knows conveniently next to nothing.

Month of Truce. Under the fateful Enabling Act (TIME, April 3. 1933) signed by Paul von Hindenburg after he made Adolf Hitler his Chancellor, the President's signature is no longer needed to validate even such Cabinet acts as that which last week created the Economic Tsar.

Old Paul is potent now chiefly because the name of HINDENBURG is still so great that Chancellor Hitler is glad to buy this talisman by humoring the President's simple wants. He was more than prepared to bow to the Reichspraesident's will and keep on in office Old Paul's "best comrade" and favorite among all his bygone Chancellors, Lieut.-Colonel Franz von Papen, a brother officer in the Feldmarschall's old regiment.

Looking back nine years to Old Paul's first campaign for election as President in 1925, observers remembered last week how the proletariat jeered Der Feldmarschall, how Germany was plastered and peppered with such savage attacks as: Vote for the Mass-Murderer?

Vote for the Kaiser's Henchman? Vote for the Profiteer's Friend? Vote for the Hangman of Democracy? If you would elect all four VOTE FOR HINDENBURG!!

Today Adolf Hitler, except that he is no Kaiser's henchman, has fulfilled most of the sardonic 1925 reasons for voting--or not voting--for Hindenburg. The President votes for Hitler--that is, last week he endorsed the blood bath in a personal telegram to his Chancellor and last week his knobby old fingers steadied but scarcely guided the helm.

"Ordnung muss sein! We must have order!" But who is to bring order out of Germany's political and economic chaos? Last week Adolf Hitler, seven days after he had sent some of his closest political henchmen to Death and two days after he had made an Economic Tsar, suddenly left Berlin by plane for the Bavarian Alps "to draw from Nature further inspiration." In Berlin his party henchmen declared blankly, "July will be a month of truce. Also no more Cabinet meetings are scheduled for July." An inspiration. widely published by the official Press, exhorted all unmarried men and women under 25 now working in Berlin to "Give up your jobs to married people! Leave the comforts of office and factory! Go to work on farms where you can breathe fresher and freer air!'' "

The Storm Troops are proudly carrying on without uniforms and remain loyal to the Fuehrer," hopefully declared the Chancellor's personal newsorgan. "Even in civilian clothes our splendid Storm Troopers can easily be recognized!" With time to mull over the announcement that Herr Lutze was planning to slash their numbers from about 2,500,000 to an unarmed "political army" of some 800,000, they had the small satisfaction last week of hearing that their rivals of the Stahlhelm were being taken out of their uniforms too and sent off on a vacation until August 18.

Jitters-- With Chancellor Hitler breathing the fresh, free air of the Bavarian Alps, a bad case of jitters sent Vice Leader Rudolf Hess of the Nazi Party, who is often called "Hitler's Other Self," dashing up to Koenigsberg, the picturesque capital of Old Paul's East Prussia. Shouting like one possessed over a nation-wide radio hookup, Orator Hess roared that the Storm Troops are not military, but that Leader Hitler has a right to condemn even guiltless Storm Troopers to death because "in a military mutiny every tenth man is punished, irrespective of whether the bullets strike the guilty or the innocent!" Fearful that some kind of European alliance to attack the Reich may now be forming, Vice Leader Hess began to switch his talk from German to French. "Malheur pour nous! Malheur pour vous! Et malheur pour tout le monde!" puzzled Germans heard him shout. "An evil day for us! For you! And for all the world!"

*In Vienna last week Chancellor Dollfuss' official Wiener Zeitung stirred up a hornet's nest of official German denial by printing that Old Paul had just undergone a rejuvenation operation.

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