(See front cover)
Banned in Berlin on election day this week was the flag of Germany: black, red & gold.
When a Prussian Deputy tried to fly his country's flag. Berlin police made him take it down. The Deputy's country—the German Republic—was dying if not dead. Meanwhile out of the ballot box another Germany was being reborn. Its flag— black, white & red—the onetime Imperial Hohenzollern colors, flew in every street, floated majestically from Government buildings and was flaunted everywhere by shouting, cheering throngs. Goosestepping as smartly as when they were members of Germany's Imperial Army, and with several Hohenzollern Princes in their ranks, 20,000 Stahlhelmers paraded down Unter den Linden. Strangely enough, no monarchical restoration loomed. Chancellor Adolf Hitler had merely gone to the German people under borrowed colors, had won a thundering cataclysmic victory with catchwords as loose as his slogan: "Rebirth or Bolshevism!"
Not dazzled by a promised "new deal" (for Chancellor Hitler made no specific election pledges whatsoever), Germans, hoping that somehow he will bring back "the good old times." turned out in such numbers on the brilliant, balmy Election Sunday that 88% of the electorate cast ballots—an all-time record. Stay-at-homes got no peace from the Government radio which sternly commanded every few minutes: "Do your duty! Get out and vote! Cast your ballot for the Government parties! Do it now!"
The Returns. From two elections the same day (No. 1 for the German Reichstag; No. 2 for the Diet of Prussia, which governs nearly two-thirds of the Reich) Germans received these significant returns :
The Reichstag New Former Change
*NationaI Socialists 288 (44.17%) 196 (33.67%) +92
Nationalists 52 (8 %) 54 (9.2%) -2
Socialists 120 (18.4%) 121 (20.7%) -1
Communists 81 (12,5%) 100 (17.1%) -19
† Catholic Centrists 73 (11.2%) 70 (12 %) + 3
Bavarian Populists 20 (3%) 20 ( 3.4%)
Splinter Parties 18 ( 2.8%) 23 (4% ) -9
The New Prussian Diet
National Socialists 44.6%
Nationalists 9 %
Socialists 16.9%
Catholic Centrists 14.4%
Communists 13.45
Splinter Parties 1.7%
Thus the Government parties won a clear majority in both Diet and Reichstag. Moreover, if the Communist votes are nullified by Government decree (see below), Chancellor Hitler's Nazis by themselves will have absolute majorities, can tell Dr. Hugenberg and Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen to go to the devil.
Jubilant, the Nazis celebrated on election night by seizing the Municipal Government of Hamburg, a "free city" which is legally a State of the German Republic, contains more than 1,000,000 inhabitants. On telegraphic orders from Berlin grim Nazi Storm Troops rushed upon Hamburg's Socialist Mayor. Dr. Karl Petersen, who promptly resigned. The flag soon broken out above Hamburg's City Hall was neither the Republican nor the Hohenzollern banner. Having won the election under borrowed colors, the Nazis hoisted the Nazi flag: red. with a black swastika in its round white bull's eye.