Now-editorial Notes

The mutiny against the Hitler regime and the shooting and suicide of leading conspirators form the second act of the German drama which is sure to end with the collapse of Hitler.

The first act was the von Papen speech delivered with the sanction of President von Hindenburg. Von Papen himself is an unscrupulous politician. Apparently influenced by the group that planned a military dictatorship with monarchist leaning, he struck the first serious blow at the Hitler regime through his address at the Marburg University, when he made several statements in praise of Hitler, which were widely published in Germany and which were intended to offset the effect of the original suppressed address.

The murder of General von Schleicher, the former Chancellor, who was one of the leaders of the planned military revolt against Hitler, and the killing and suicide of a number of Storm Troop leaders, including Chief of Staff Captain Roehm, reveal at last that the Hitler regime, which had maintained itself on the point of bayonets and with the aid of machine guns, has discovered that not all the bayonets and machine guns could be relied on to continue supporting it.

The Nazi Storm Troop leaders, many of whom emulated the notorious depraved knights of the round table of the Kaiser days, exposed by Maximilian Harden, spend their time in debauchery and racketeering. The “bloodless revolution” by which Hitler put himself into power in Germany has now entered a new stage, Hitler is attempting to liquidate the opposition by desperate and ruthless terrorism, by causing heads to roll, by murdering his opponents, right and left. For a short time he may succeed in remaining in the saddle. But his regime is nearing its well-earned terrible end.

The latest development cannot be kept entirely secret from the people, however rigorously the German press may be muzzled.

The bitterness and discontent of the masses are growing rapidly. The economic situation is becoming even more critical. The financial position of the government is desperate. The moral isolation of Hitlerite Germany is almost complete. The ground is thus prepared for counter-revolution, for civil war.

Germany is quite likely to pass through a series of upheavals in the near future, such as counter-revolutions either by extreme Nazis or by adherents of a military dictatorship of a monarchist hue, to be followed by a communist revolution or by a truly democratic government. The situation of the Jews of Germany at this moment is undoubtedly extremely critical. The Streichers and the Rosenbergs, the rabid Jew baiters among the Nazis, who have continually incited the German people against Jews by the widest and most hideous falsehoods about ritual murder and planned world domination, have created an atmosphere of pogroms, especially in these chaotic days of the Hitler regime’s agony and death struggle. Fortunately, Hitler finds himself confronted with a situation from which he cannot save himself by making the Jews again his scapegoats. He is now faced by opposition beginning with President von Hindenburg, followers and friends of the murdered General von Schleicher, the extremists in his own Nazi party, and then by millions of communists who have been silent until now, and finally by the multitude of the German people who have been fed on false promises of bread and victory.

If Hitler can resist all this opposition, the German people will prove to the whole world that they deserve no better leader.