GESTAPO SECRETS

Evening Star, Issue 23700, 7 October 1940, Page 6

GESTAPO SECRETS

AMAZING " INSIDE STORIES" At the headquarters of the Nazi Party in Germany one of the members said he had a fresh joke about Hitler (actually it was an old one—and, oddly enough, supposed to be related by a Jew). All the other members present gathered round to hear it. “ Hitler died and was buried,” he began. “At the grave there was a tremendous crowd. They had to pull the coffin out and lower it again 27 times.” “ Why did they do that?” someone asked. “ Because there were so many encores,” was the reply, which made everybody laugh. Hansjjurgen Koehler tells this in his book, ‘ Inside Information,’ to show that Hitler is by no means the idol of the party. “ OLD WIFE HYSTERICS.” He is neither loved nor hated. “ The prevalent sentiment is.au approving recognition of his shrewdness, mingled with slight contempt for the old wife hysterics of the man, and a tolerant amusement at his crotchety habits.” Goebbels is the one whom everyone hates. He is so spiteful, so petty, so mean. Here is an example. Richard Strauss, the composer of ‘ Rosenkavalier ’ and other works famous all over the world, went over to the Nazis as soon as they came to power. But Goebbels had some grudge against him, and just before a new opera of his was produced the fact was published that the libretto was by Stefan Zweig, the Jewish author, who lives in London. It seemed as if the production would not come off. Strauss, however, appealed direct to Hitler, who told him to carry on. This was a* rebuff for Goebbels, and he did not forget it. He got up a banquet in Berlin to honour Strauss. When Goebbels rose to speak he looked round, sniffed, and did not begin. Instead, he muttered; “ I am afraid I smell Jews over there,” and he looked in the direction whore the composer, with his son and daughter-in-law, was sitting. The remark was evidently a signal, for a number of men got up and bustled about, shouting: “ Jews are here! Out with them!” After this had gone on for a few minutes Goebbels pointed at the wife of Strauss’s son. “ That is where the bad smell of a Jew comes from,” he said. Pale as death, she rose and tottered out of the room. Her husband followed her. Strauss took no notice. He eat and listened to the toast which Goebbels proposed in his honour just as if nothing had happened. Emil Jannings, the celebrated film star, is another artist who sides with the Nazis, though he is half Jewish. One of the Nazi papers denounced him for “ Poisoning pure Germans with his Asiatic art ” because his mother was a Jewess. But Goebbels was not going to lose so valuable an asset as a film actor known and admired in all lands. So he announced that Jannings’s mother was “ a German Indy,” and not a Jewess at all, though everybody knew she was. Anyone repeating the story would bo sent to a concentration camp. Goebbels declared. So Jannings stayed. The author says he was high up in the Gestapo and now professes to reveal secrets. The book certainly throws light on many dark places in the Nazi Reich.