BACK FROM BERLIN

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3114, 19 June 1917, Page 5

BACK FROM BERLIN

EXPERIENCES OF AN -AUSTRALIAN PKOJFUSSOB. ■ Professor Frederick ■ Sefton Deinicr, uU.A., of the University of Melbourne, •■ and" formerly professor of English at the Berlin University, who has beon detained in Germany since tho outbreak of war, has arrived in London. He left Germany on. May 23, after having been jnterued at Knhloben since November, J9li. In March, 1915, an offer was ■made to him that he would bo restored to Ills rank as a professor if he would , cdhscnt to become a naturalised' Prussian. In mentioning that ho had rejected this offer, Professor Delraer said: 'I am an Australian, and I hopo that ,1 have seen tho last of Germany for ever." Professor Dolmer oxpressed tho opinion that tho consumption of food in Germany has been reduced to a point which it cannot go without serious disaster to Germany. Tho land is'on tho,verge of hunger, if not actual starvation. The hoiies in. public vehicles are mere bags of bones. [Professor Delmer is a native of Hobart, a son of tho lato Captain Dclmcr, who was a. very well-known maetcr manner there. Even, as a boy, when a pupil at tho Battery Point publio school, ho was keenly interested in tho Gorman language and in Gonnun history and literature, a fact more curious bocauso ■no is not of German blood. Later, after he had taken liis degree at tho University of Melbourne, and spent some time in leaching and in other work, ho went to Germany and became Professor of English at tho Berlin University. Before the war his lectures were attended by iiioro than 200 students/and besides, it is now interesting .to note, he use(l to jjivo special instruction in the higher branches of English to classes of officers in tho German Army. Professor' Deliner was one of tho leading members of tlie British colony in Berlin in those nays, and was a member of the committee which welcomed tho late King ijdward °" h 'S visit to Berlin. In 1908 J rotessor Delnicr mado an almost prophetic remark, recalled now by the words he used in Londou, to a ■fellowtownsman from Hobart, who visited him in Berlin : -"People sometimes think," ne saw, that I live in Germany because I prefer it to Australia or England. -But it is not so; I would far rather do my work under the British- Flag if other conditions worn equal. I haro niy work here, but if it were a matter <>f choice 1 would far rather live in Ausiralia.' Professor Delmer married Miss Jllook, of Melbourne, and his wife and family wore with him in Berlin when the war broko out.]