Brüning Admits the System’s Illusions

Mr. Reich Chancellor, the new emergency decree on which one places such hopes will also prove an illusion. Early in your speech you said the following:

“On the eve of the publication of a fateful emergency decree I consider it my duty to explain to the German people the goals and decisions of the Reich government. The new measures are the result of world economic conditions, of the burdens laid on the German people, and of our own mistakes. Every day there are new signs of world-wide economic collapse. The sinking of England’s currency affects other currencies.

A wild economic war of enormous proportions has broken out.

The causes of the general crisis, and of Germany’s particular role in it, are known. Nonetheless, there are serious worries as to whether the governments can draw the necessary conclusions from this knowledge quickly enough.

Holding to formal legal principles cannot solve the world’s problems. Broad solutions free from the outdated thinking of the past must be found. Partial solutions for the world are insufficient.”

As a National Socialist, Mr. Reich Chancellor, I owe you thanks for noting for the first time that the responsibility for the present catastrophe is the result of mistakes that our governments have made. And since you are further of the opinion that “holding to formal legalities” cannot solve the world’s problems, you are also admitting indirectly that your own government is apparently continuing these mistakes by relying on formal legal measures in the form of these emergency decrees. I assume that none of the former governments made these mistakes with bad intentions or ill will, instead presumably later recognizing as mistakes what they first though to be correct and helpful; however, these governments erred in the most important and critical matters. They fell victim to “wishful thinking” and chased after “illusions.”

You minimize this reproach by adding “world economic conditions” as another reason. Here German governments have succumbed to the worst illusions. However, Mr. Reich Chancellor, you yourself were convinced that the Young Plan was practical, and would lead to improvements because of “world conditions.” What a terrible illusion! When you speak of the “outdated thinking” of the past and propose broad solutions that are free of such thinking, I can probably say that this outdated thinking was yours, Mr. Reich Chancellor, and that we have proposed such broad solutions free from outdated thinking for years now.

Your criticism of holding to formal legal principles stands in sharp contradiction to the fear evident in your thinking that the National Socialists might achieve power legally, but thereafter sin against the formal legal principles of the constitution. Why so so broad-minded on one case and so worried in the other?

I have not addressed the particulars of the emergency decree. I only intend to establish for the future that its results, too, will be an illusion.