Sixty years ago last week (while the White House was inhabited by Ulysses Simpson Grant) one Paul von Hindenburg, 23, Prussian lieutenant, cheered himself hoarse in the Palace of Versailles, hailed the first German Emperor, Wilhelm I, hailed Prince Otto von Bismarck's proclamation of the "German Realm," the glorious Deutsches Reich! The Realm or Reich remains—as a republic. Last week the victorious Imperial banners of 1871 were unfurled again in the Reichstag (this time by steel-helmeted Republican troops) and old Paul von Hindenburg, President of the Republic, searched his heart. He...
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