Hitlerist Minister in Brunswick

Brunswick, one of the States comprising the German Federal Republic, which had a Hitlerist Minister until recently, in the person of Dr. Franzen, the Minister of the Interior, has again secured a Hitlerist Minister, with the appointment to-day of Government Councillor Klagges, by the Brunswick Diet. 20 Deputies belonging to the middle-class Parties and the Hitlerist fraction voted in his favour, giving him a majority of one over the 19 Deputies of the Labour and Social Democratic Party.

During Dr. Franzen’s regime the State of Thuringia also had a Hitlerist Minister, the notorious Dr. Frick, who was Minister of the Interior and Education, and used his official position for enforcing anti-Jewish enactments in the State. The People’s Party in Thuringia recently adopted an anti-Hitlerist stand and Dr. Frick was by the withdrawal of their support compelled to resign. Soon after a similar situation arose in Brunswick, and Dr. Franzen lost his position, so that the Hitlerists were left unrepresented in any of the States Governments. About a fortnight ago, when the Party alignments in Brunswick again underwent a change and the Hitlerists, who hold the balance of power between the Right and the Left, were again promised a seat in the Government in return for their support of the Right, Hitler himself intervened, sending instructions to the Brunswick Hitlerist Party that they should not send Dr. Franzen back into the Government, but should instead appoint Deputy Rust as their representative. It seemed at the time as if Dr. Franzen would lead a revolt against his leader, his protest against his supersession being supported by Deputy Groh, the Chairman of the Hitlerist fraction in the Brunswick Diet, and a group of Hitlerists throughout the country. Both Dr. Franzen and Deputy Groh also announced that they had left the Hitlerist Party as a protest against Hitler’s dictatorship. A compromise appears to have been reached, however, by which neither Dr. Franzen nor Deputy Rust becomes Minister, and the post goes to a third Hitlerist leader in the State.

At the time of the anti-Jewish excesses in Berlin last year Dr. Franzen was in Berlin and got into trouble with the authorities there by making a false statement to the police that one of the prisoners arrested for participation in the riots was a Hitlerist Deputy named Lohse, claiming his release on the ground of his Parliamentary immunity. It finally came out that the man was not a Deputy but a member of the Hitlerist storm troops named Guth. Dr. Franzen admitted that he knew both men well and that he had made his statement knowing that it was untrue.