Leidsch Dagblad
- Leiden in trouble.
- An incorrigible fantasist
- The von Seeckt question
This Leiden daily of 8 October 1926 mixed local, national and foreign news. An editorial on the previous day's power failure argued that, although the municipal light works could not be blamed for a run of unlucky coincidences, the city should secure a standby supply by contract with a provincial electricity company or with The Hague, because businesses and residents in Leiden and neighbouring towns had suffered real losses. A column of short Dutch news items covered a repeat swindler who wept before shopkeepers over a daughter's invented death, a director's denial that the export slaughterhouse at Hook of Holland would close, and the death of a motorcyclist injured at Bussum. From Germany, the paper reported that the whole cabinet backed Defence Minister Gessler against General von Seeckt and expected Hindenburg to accept the general's resignation despite talk of officers lobbying for him.
Translation
Leiden in trouble.
question: should not everything be done to prevent a repetition of such an inconvenience by means of a contractual agreement, either with a provincial electricity company or with a large municipality, in this case The Hague, which in the event of a breakdown such as yesterday's could supply the current needed for industry and other purposes? We do not wish to invoke here the well-known proverb of the drowned calf and the well, for on balance one neither can nor may hold the Municipal Light Works responsible for a series of fateful circumstances such as occurred all at once yesterday; but we wish emphatically to point out the truth of another proverb: "Better to turn back halfway than to go astray all the way." For it is beyond dispute that, as a result of yesterday's event, numerous people both in our city and in the surrounding municipalities, who shared in the general malaise, have been seriously harmed. It was not only the large businesses that suffered the nuisance and the damage
An incorrigible fantasist
possesses. With several shopkeepers he had managed to arouse pity, because the death of his daughter made him weep floods of tears. The whole story, however, was a lie from beginning to end. J. already has several sentences behind him for this offence. It is known that he made a profession of earning his living in this way. The export slaughterhouse at Hook of Holland. – In response to the report in Het Volk concerning the closure of the export slaughterhouse at Hook of Holland, the Vee- en Vleeschhandel learns from the director, Mr Snijders, that there are still enough hands for the whole business, both office staff and slaughterers. For export, slaughtering therefore still goes on for every possible country, without any disruption. There are not even any plans to close the business. Died of his injuries. – The motorcyclist Mr Boonakker, who collided with a lorry at Bussum, has died of the injuries he sustained, in the Majella Foundation there.
The von Seeckt question
over the interpretation of the whole treaty. GERMANY. The von Seeckt question – The settlement with the Hohenzollerns. All the ministers present in Berlin have declared their solidarity with the Reichswehr minister Dr Gessler, and the Reich chancellor also fully shares the position taken by Dr Gessler. In other words: the Reich president will have to choose between the Reich cabinet and General von Seeckt. Nobody doubts that under these circumstances Hindenburg will accept von Seeckt's request to resign, however difficult this decision may be for him. It is reported from various quarters that among the officers of many North and Central German garrisons there are plans to set up a campaign in favour of General von Seeckt, who enjoys great popularity throughout the officer corps. They would wish to press Reich president Hindenburg not to accept General von Seeckt's request to resign and rather to let matters come to a conflict with the Reich cabinet. It remains to be seen whether these plans, if they are being considered at all, will actually be carried out. In parliamentary circles people are convinced that Hindenburg will not allow himself to be influenced by such whisperings.
Context
What triggered the clash over Seeckt's resignation
The Leidsch Dagblad presented the affair as an open contest: every minister in Berlin and the chancellor stood behind Defence Minister Otto Gessler, and President Hindenburg would have to choose between the cabinet and General von Seeckt, though the paper expected him to accept the resignation. A chronology of the Weimar Republic, citing Eberhard Kolb's history of the period, names the trigger as the participation of the Hohenzollern Prince Wilhelm in a Reichswehr manoeuvre that the defence minister and the president had not approved beforehand. The same chronology records that relations between the Reich leadership and Seeckt had already deteriorated because of his open opposition to the government's Locarno policy and his disputes with Hindenburg over their respective powers, and it dates his forced departure to 6 October, at the insistence of both Gessler and Hindenburg. Seeckt's tenure as head of the army ended that October. Where the paper still portrayed Hindenburg as a president facing a hard choice between cabinet and general, later accounts count him among those who pressed Seeckt to go.
Gessler's long partnership with Seeckt
Otto Gessler served as Reichswehr minister from 1920 to 1928, across a long series of Weimar cabinets, and he worked closely with Seeckt in setting up the Reichswehr and turning it into a modern army. His biography records that he did not see his role as controlling the military but as cooperating with its command staff. That history gives the paper's report its significance: a minister who had for six years left the army leadership wide room to act now had the whole cabinet and the chancellor behind him in a dispute with the army's chief. The paper's formula that Hindenburg had to choose between the cabinet and Seeckt marks the point at which that partnership turned into confrontation.
Why the officer corps rallied to Seeckt
The paper reported plans among officers in many North and Central German garrisons to lobby Hindenburg on Seeckt's behalf, and it stressed his great popularity throughout the officer corps. Seeckt had shaped that corps himself. The Treaty of Versailles limited the army to 100,000 men, only 4,000 of them officers, and as commander in chief Seeckt set out to keep the best officers within that small force. As a monarchist he also encouraged traditional links with the old Imperial Army. Those choices help account for the officers' attachment to him, and they also explain why a Hohenzollern prince's appearance at army manoeuvres could become the issue that cost him his post. The paper itself left open whether the officers' plans were even being considered, and it reported parliamentary confidence that Hindenburg would not be swayed by them.
The Hohenzollern property settlement in the same column
The German section's subheading paired the Seeckt crisis with "the settlement with the Hohenzollerns", a separate dispute over the former royal family's property. Prussia had negotiated with the House of Hohenzollern for a long time. On 12 October 1925 the Prussian Ministry of Finance submitted a new draft agreement, which was heavily criticised because it would have returned about three-quarters of the disputed real estate to the princely house. In the first half of 1926 a petition for a referendum succeeded, but the referendum on expropriation without compensation that followed failed, and individual compensation agreements between the states and the former ruling families took its place. Both subjects under the heading concerned the standing of the former dynasty within the republic, and the prince's presence at army manoeuvres tied them directly together.
Who supplied Leiden's electricity
The editorial absolved the municipal works of blame for the outage but urged a standby contract with a provincial electricity company or with The Hague. The body the paper calls the Stedelijke Lichtfabrieken appears in Museum De Lakenhal's collection record as the Municipal Gas and Electricity Works on the Langegracht, which was responsible for building the electrical network in Leiden and its surroundings. The same record notes that the transition from gas to electricity was in full swing during the 1920s. Because the city works served the surrounding area as well, a failure at one municipal plant reached beyond the city, which matches the editorial's emphasis on losses in neighbouring municipalities. With industry increasingly dependent on electric current, the paper treated a single point of failure as a problem for the whole regional economy and argued for an outside source of backup power.
Original
Leiden in last.
vraag: moet niet alles in het werk gesteld worden om een herhaling van een dergelijk ongemak te voorkomen door een contractueele overeenkomst ' t zij met een provinciaal electriciteitsbedrijf, ' t zij met een groote gemeente, in casu ' s-Gravenhage, welke ingeval van storing zooals gisteren de benoodigde stroom voor industrie - en andere doeleinden kan leveren? Wij willen hier niet gewagen van het bekende spreekwòord van het verdronken kalf en de put, want per saldo kan noch mag men de Stedelijke Lichtfabrieken aansprakelijk stellen voor een reeks van noodlottige omstandigheden als zich gisteren tegelijkertijd voordeed, doch met nadruk willen wij wijzen op de waarheid van een ander spreekwoord: " Beter ten halve gekeerd dan ten heele gedwaald. " Want onbetwistbaar staat het vast, dat door het feit van gisteren tal van personen zoowel in onze stad als in de omliggende gemeenten, die in de algemeene malaise deelden, ernstig gedupeerd zijn. Het waren niet alleen de grootbedrijven, die er den hinder en de schade van ondervonden
Een onverbetelijk fantast
bezit. Bij verscheidene winkeliers had hij het medelijden weten op te wekken, omdat de dood van zijn dochter hem tranen met tuiten deed huilen. Het geheele verhaal was echter van begin tot eind gelogen. De J. heeft voor dit feit reeds verscheidene vonnissen achter den rug. Het is bekend, dat ijh er een beroep van maakte op een dergelijke wijze aan den kost te komen. De exportslachterij aan den Hoek-van-Holland. - Naar aanleiding van het bericht van Het Volk aangaande sluiting der exportslachterij te Hoek van Holland, verneemt de Vee - en Vleeschhandel van den directeur, den heer Snijders, dat er voor het geheele bedrijf nog voldoende krachten, zoowel kantoorpersoneel als slachters, zijn. Voor export wordt dan ook nog voor alle mogelijke landen geslacht, zonder eenige storing. Er zijn zelfs geen plannen om het bedrijf te sluiten. Aan de gevolgen overleden. - De motorrijder, de heer Boonakker, die te Bussum in botsing is gekomen met een vrachtauto, is aan de bekomen wonden in de Majella-stichting aldaar overleden.
De kwestie von Seeckt
over de uitlegging van het geheele verdrag. DUITSCHLAND. De kwestie von Seeckt - De regeling met de Hohenzollerns. Alle te Berlijn aanwezige ministers hebben zich met den rijksweerminister dr Gessler solidair verklaard en ook de rijkskanselier deelt het door dr. Gessler ingenomen standpunt ten volle. Met andere woorden: de rijkspresident zal hebben te kiezen tusschen het rijkskabinet en generaal von Seeckt. Niemand twijfelt er aan of Hindenburg zal onder deze omstandigheden de ontslagaanvrage van v. Seeckt aanvaarden, hoe moeilijk hem deze beslissing ook moge vallen. Van verschillende zijden wordt gemeld, dat er onder de officieren van vele Noorden Midden-Duitsche garnizoenen plannen bestaan om een actie ten gunste van generaal von Seeckt, die in het geheele officierscorps groote populariteit geniet, op touw te zetten. Zij zouden er bij rijkspresident Hindenburg op willen aandringen, de ontslagaanvrage van generaal von Seeckt niet te aanvaarden en het liever op een conflict met het rijkskabinet te laten aankomen. Men dient af te wachten of deze plannen, zoo ze al worden overwogen, ook ten uitvoer zullen worden gebracht. In parlementaire kringen is men overtuigd, dat Hindenburg zich door dergelijke influisteringen niet zal laten beïnvloeden.
Source: Source: Erfgoed Leiden en Omstreken (leiden.courant.nu)