Within the last few years, changes have been carried out in the public administration of Germany which will affect the military government to be established during and after Germany's defeat. Their general trend has been to subordinate state (i.e., Reich, regional, and local) administration to the Party, which has been vested with more and more power. This is of particular interest in the light of the present “total mobilization,” in which the Party plays a dominant part. To some extent, the changes discussed in this note show a definite trend toward decentralization, although there has been no actual delegation of powers to smaller units, since all power remained in the hands of the Party—this being, of course, the reason why the Nazis could afford to “decentralize.” On the local level, the reforms aimed at tying together the loosening bonds between the régime and the people. Only the most recent emergency measures of “total mobilization” are touched on in this note.

1. Gauarbeitsaemter. When the Reichsanstalt was created in 1927–28, the Reich was organized in 13 economic regions, each having one regional labor office (Landesarbeitsamt). The idea was to establish large economic districts containing various industries so that a crisis in one industry could be absorbed by the labor market of another within the same district, thus creating “ausgleichsfaehige Bezirke.”

Many times we have been told that the United States led the League in dealing with the Manchurian Affair of 1931. The statement is essentially false, but contains an element of truth in that the League did defer to the United States. It recognized that it could accomplish nothing in the Far East without American support and played for that support, but without getting it at the critical points. The United States Government did not lead—rather it deliberately chose to follow; it refused coöperation with the proposed first effort of the League; it supported, if it did not lead, the abandonment of the immediate issue represented by the Resolution of December 10 and the appointment of the Lytton Commission; and its leadership was clear only in the final substantive surrender represented by the Non-Recognition Policy.