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As Germans read of the adjournment, they read also of the split: Gregor Strasser, national organizing director of the Fascist Party since it was founded in 1920, had suddenly resigned his Party office (though he remains a Party member) and Gottfried Feder, chairman of the Party's Economic Committee, had asked for a "long leave of absence."
Rumors flew that Chancellor von Schleicher had offered to make Herr Strasser the Reich Minister of Interior if Herr Hitler would consent, that Leader Hitler had refused to let any Fascist enter a Cabinet until he, Hitler, should be Chancellor and that Herr Strasser, disgusted by this stand, had made his feelings known in the only way he could. Herr Feder and about 50 of the Party's 195 Reichstag Deputies were said to support Herr Strasser, arguing that it is madness to deny job-hungry Fascists government jobs.
In a blunt communique, Osaf ("Supreme Leader") Hitler claimed again that his leadership of the Party is supreme, personally assumed the office resigned by Herr Strasser and declared: "I shall soon make known new objectives and orders . . . for increasing the striking power of our movement."
* Oldster Litzmann began his new career by opening the Prussian State Diet for the Fascist Party last May.
* O. S. A. F. are letters plucked out of Adolf Hitler's official German title Oberste Sturmab-teilungenjuhrer (literally "Supreme Storm Troops' Leader") in his brownshirt army.