GERMAN YOUTH

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 585, 17 July 1933, Page 2

GERMAN YOUTH

TURN TO H1TLER POLICY ACCEPTED BY NATION IN A (RlEViOLUTtONAltY MOOD. THEtR LAST HOPE. Therq are many people who caniiot understand why the great iGerman nation has accepted the policy of Hitler, for the majority of the citizens have done so whether other nationS - ■ approve or not. Why have some of them done so ? Professor Heinrich Henel, head of the Department of Germaii, Queen's University, Canada, writing in the Queeii's Quarterly, gives one answer: — "The large majority of persons that have given their votes to Hitler, writes Professor Heiiirich Henel, "are neither disappointed socialists nor ar_ dent self-sacrificing social reformers, they are just nien and women in despair. We witness the extraordinary spectacle of the whole middle-class of a nation, usually the foremost supj porters of law and order, in a revolutionary mood. "iEspecially the young and the old, those for whom. no chance in life is left, and those who never had. any, have turned to National Socialism as their last straw. Solid and respectable citizens, once prosperous in business, hard workers all through their lives have been ruined, have had to sell their houses; they live in attics and must accept charity. ' Millions Pauperised. "There are millions in Germany of I _ - i t T TnoirA

such elder ly ana oia peupic — lost almost everything, who live m conditions of squalid poverty and who know that there is not the famtest chance for them. They simply cannot be cofiservative, they cannot but wish for a cbange, and they baye thrown in their lot with the Hitlerites. Many realise that personally they will d.erive but sma.ll material henefit from the ^national revolution'; hujt all_ draw comfort from the hope that it will usher in a more certain happmess ior the German people. Plight of the Y&ung. "And now the young. Iu March, 1932, when the schools sent out their pupils who had completed their education, there were hundreds of thousands of boys and gh'ls between 16 and _iy years of age who found that they were not wanted. The same must be happening again now. As soon as they leave school they run agamst the wall, they fihd all doors closed upon "They cannot even find oecupation as an apprentice for no pay. There is not enough work to go round. A smiilar fate has hefallen those hetween 20 and 30. Take, lor instance, the teaching prolession. In 19S0, and again in 1931, many schools m Ueimany were closed, the older teMhMS have to teach classes oi 60 pupils (40 used to he the maximum) and tne young were thrown out of employm&"A young man even less than an old man can put up with the plea thal , he is not wanted, his very limhs tell him that he has strength and

L must needs rebel against bo ooda | fate They were not Wanted. -pu ■ there was one man by whom they I were told that he wanted them. Hit- | ler. So they flocked to his swastika banner and hecame memhers of the browri hattaliohs. _ Saving Their Existence. "There is no douht as to the honesty of these men; they really hope o bring about a rehirth oi the nation by taldug upon tHemselves voluntarily etice and ^-iplihe They have accepted their late they no longer hanker alter the pleasures that more lortiinate generations of y°Tg have enjoyed. houe to open up for tnemseiveb.^ that will lead them into a position m | the life of the community, where they | can follow their own chosen occup - | tions and where they can he ot ser « vice in a less militaristic sensel than | thev are at present. gg "A National Socialist, then, is a man | without employment, a man a i hope under the conditions that existed. | Old or young, he is a revohitionary, | man in despair. And the majority of them are persons like you and me, U bourgeois people with conservative mstincts and liberal tastes, who have been driven into their present attitude by the force of circumstances. J They have found that the system o± | individual enterprise has no use ±or $ them, and they are now makmg a I last hid for saving their ^existence I through a collective eifort.