Absence of Privacy

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 307, 29 December 1939, Page 2

Absence of Privacy

NAZI EULE IN GERMANY TO-DAY ■ j Tho almost complete disappearance of privacy under Nazi rule is described ■ in a remarkable article published in the i Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, excerpts i from which arc featured in The Times. ■ I The Times comments; "An article ■ written with siich skill eoa'd be inter- . preted either as a defence of Nazi ■ methods or aB a warning that such . methods may go too far towards [ imitating Bolshevism.” The article asks where present Nazi ' tendencies are leading, and complains ■ that the Germans are living amid a revolution of their social and economic life, which is felt 4 4 sometimes like tl^c i gradual movement of sand dunes and i sometimes like the shock of an earthquake.” The article states that in politics, in i business, in law, and in culture, there i is “a crisis of privacy.’’ , I “The word ‘private’ may still stand i on the offieo door,” tbe article proceeds, 4 4 but the office door has to admit firstly, tho State’s financial representa- , tive, from whom nothing is concealed; secondly, an official from the Labour Exchange, who takes away the expert

staff for war duties; thirdly, official* who bring endless questionaires to be filled in; and, fourthly, a representative of the Labour Front, and the Nazi representative of staff interests.” Having admitted that the shrinkage of private life is not an evil, but a political necessity, and having included one or two orthodox Nazi phrases about the community and the individual, the writer of the article is content to point out that the place of the individual in the community is one of the things which must be settled when the war is over.