The Bulletin’s Day Book

It was only with the greatest difficulty that Hitler was able to overcome the crisis created in his cabinet recently in connection with the announced decision of the Reichsbank president, Dr. Schacht, to leave his post, according to the Berlin correspondent of the Pariser Tageblatt.

Almost every day now, reports indicate, rumors of new internal political complications are circulated among Hitler’s retinue.

Those few members of the National Socialist clique who are really informed on the state of affairs are reported to be growing more and more apprehensive. The course of the government in the immediate future is a huge question mark.

The masses are growing unmistakably restless. What of the standards of living? What of unemployment? And within the Nazi ranks prevailing moods are indeterminate and do not always tend toward complete support of the cabinet.

Opposition-yes, opposition, although of a peculiar species-is developing. For instance, one group emerges with the slogan, “With Hitler Against the National Socialists.”

All this chaotic turmoil, seething under the surface, is the result of a number of circumstances under which the moguls of Naziland are operating. Something has to be done to regain the good will abroad, without losing the following at home. To achieve the former, measures are required which would be directly opposed to the National Socialist program.

But how? At first some of the sages nurtured the idea of reorganizing the cabinet. Today the project stands abandoned and now it is proposed to retain Hitler as a nominal lord and master and to solidify the balance of political forces in the government.

With this in view, it is being urged that a “kitchen cabinet” or a Teutonized version of a “brain trust” be formed. One of the Nazi brain trusters would be Von Papen, who would serve as a link between the chancellor and the business interests. Another would be Hess, a trusted emissary of the party. There would also be a representative of the armed forces, the police and Reichswehr.

As for those who are at present regular members of the cabinet, they would be reduced to the positions of managers or overseers of particular governmental departments. Because of their deflated importance, it would not be necessary for these ministerial specialists to be avowed Nazis.

Bound up with such schemes is the proposal to reduce the size of the Brown army. These projects are developed in circles which are seeking to improve the national economy of Germany.

This is not the first time that the self-contradicting aspects of Nazism have moved it to look frantically for a way out. In the past these efforts to pull the regime out of the mire of its own creation have proved futile, as evidenced by the ever recurring need for further salvation.

A thousand and one reasons may be adduced for these failures. At least two spring to mind instantly in regard to the latest project, just described. The first is to be found in the personality of the Fuehrer, who psychologically speaking is a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He certainly lacks the courage and power of decision to enter upon such a program. The second factor which dooms the most recent effort to save the crumbling structure of Nazidom is the “viceroy,” Hess, who does not desire at this time to lay his cards on the table, because of the risks to his career such action would entail.

Above everything else, the present rulers of Germany, in undertaking any political maneuvering, cannot count on the support of the masses, if they are capable of gauging public sentiment correctly.

The above facts indicate that the new plans, like those in the past, if tried at all, will be tried in a half-hearted manner. But the fact that for the time being they preoccupy the minds of those in the seats of the mighty probably hints at the troubled state of the so-called minds.