Can Hitler Check His Revolution?

The Nazi Revolution in Germany is ended, its originator, Hitler, has declared. If the revolution means only filling all positions with Nazis and creating new salaried posts for members of the Nazi Party, then the purpose of the revolution is indeed attained. But to the masses who followed the leader because they wanted bread or work or because they were promised that the National Revolution means also a Social Revolution, practically nothing is done.

That need not be a reproach because who could, overnight, change social conditions? Who can turn a grave economic crisis in a few months into an economic paradise? Nazi agitation indeed presented the situation as if it were only necessary to put Hitler at the helm in order to convert unhappy Germany into happy Germany. It is a sign of reason that , in spite of the conscienceless incitement, still remains in a large part of the German masses, that they are not demanding the immediate cashing of the sight bill given bearing the signature of Messrs. Hitler, Goering, Goebbels and Frick.

The young people, especially those enrolled in the Nazi storm troops, believed that the second period of the National Revolution, the Social Revolution, would begin, but the old industrial leaders, the big capitalists and the owners of big enterprises who crushed Socialist Germany are again in control in Germany and at their demand, the leader is prohibited even to talk regarding Social Revolution.

We are going to see a most interesting struggle in Germany, the struggle of revolutionaries for their right to revolt against their own leaders. We shall see whether these leaders will not use their military forces against their own followers and whether these military forces will be strong enough to check the revolution that has been started.

The experience of history suggests that the result is very doubtful but there is nothing doubtful about one point, namely that the new turn of events too, will most probably work out disastrously for the Jews. The more disloyal Hitler becomes to his program under the force of circumstances or because of certain political pressure and the more he must therefore disappoint his followers, the more violent Nazism will grow against the German Jews. For, alas, that part of the Nazi program relating to the Jews is one against whose consummation there is the least resistance.

How can a minority of one percent defend itself against injustice and cruelty committed against it by the ninety-nine percent? This explains the timidity which has overcome the German Jews and perhaps when we look at it from this angle we shall understand the harassed way in which they repudiated the assistance offered from abroad. The Jews outside Germany and non-Jewish public opinion in all civilized countries have in their hands at present the sole means of helping the German Jews to attain what must now seem to them the only thing worth striving for—to get out of the German chaos and build up new opportunities of life on the ruins of their disappointed love and hopes.