NAZIS IN EUROPE.

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 20 June 1933, Page 4

NAZIS IN EUROPE.

When religious and racial passions arc stirred in such campaigns as that now being conducted by Hitler’s Nazis, it is difficult to get at the truth that underlies the assertions and coanterassertions by the parties. Some of the anti-Nazi stories being circulated through the newspapers of the- world appear to have the taint of propaganda; it is almost incredible that a cultured and efficient European nation—or any •dominant section of it—would countenance such horrible excesses a-s those that have been reported, first in the Jewish persecution and now in the campaign against Communists, Catholics and others who endeavour to resist, the Nazi movement. At the same time, common Sense, no matter how i!t may strive to remain detached and allow for partisan exaggerations!, cannot escape the conviction that Hitler’s forces constitute a menace to the decencies of civilisation in that part of the world which the Nazis seek ito dominate and even, indeed, a danger to Europe at large. Though he has made pronouncements indicating a statesmanlike grasp of the situation —such as the interview granted to an English authoress, referred to in yesterday’s cables Hitler has done nothing calculated to dissociate his name and the ideals o.f his party from the horrors of the Nazis’ reign of terror. The perpetration of acts of gross brutality invariably accompany r revolution, even when that revolution aims at the overthrow of a system which lias placed the masses under l> yoke of terrorism—or perhaps became of it. The first few weeks or month? may provide too short a periw to-judge of the sincerity of the idealism of leaders and the efficacy of a new system. But in Germany, after allowing for the misapplied enthusiasm of sup porters of the Nazi party and for the misdeeds-of liangers-om, there have beer provided grounds for fearing thal Hitlerism is a particularly obnoxious form of tyranny. Leaders of new causes must believe in. themselves am. the rightness- of their cause t:o ac-hie.vc anything; a certain amount of suppression and injustice is- an inevitable consequence of the conversion of large masses of people to such a cause. But Hitler, by passively, if not actively, countenancing a campaign of persecution in Germany and allowing his forces to create a state of tension in Austria, has-brought upon himself just, suspicion of the purity of' his motives and world wide condemnation of his methods.