SO IN EARNEST

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 702, 30 November 1933, Page 7

SO IN EARNEST

THE GERMAN NAZIS JOURNALIST'S SNAPSHOTS OF A FANAT1CAL COUNTRY. EUPOPE'S POLICEMEN? •I crossed from Germany into France on April 4, and that night in my hotel in Saarburg I wrote in my diary: "1 wonder. I hope not. But unless I am wrong, and I hope I am, those people are out to break up the china shap." Those people were the Nazis, writes Owen Tweedy in the London Daily Telegraph. ^ (With a friend in an antediluvian car I had spent two hectic, highly unorthodox, but very intimate, months in Germany. When we arrived in mid-February the German stage was set for normal elections, which were due on M'arch 5, and every hoarding was* plastered with posters. But when I read their various papers I was impressed by a curious fact. After the armistice there had been a spasm of discussion as to which of the Allies had really won the war. Here in Germany, in 1933, there was a corresponding debate (if you can call an election campaign which prGduces casualties from street revolver encounters a debate) as to which of these German political groups had last the war. How they hated each other. But I wroite in my diary: "I believe Hitler will win, if only because, at any rate, Nazis didn't lose the war, as they only started in 1920." Stage Mar.aged? And so to Berlin, which we entered the morning after the Reichstag had gone up in fiames. That day was terribly stagey — so stagey, indeed, that both of us had the uneasy feeling that all we saw had been th'oroughly rehearsed. By midday Nazi storm stroops had at last received Hindenburg's official recognition and as speeial constables were careering about the capital conveying* "prisoners" to prison; huge manifestos signed by Hitler had appeared like magic on the walls; and late that night we saw a Social Democrat youth in his coloured shirt •clubbed silly by ten Nazis, while six policemen loolced on. Four days later there was the mammoth "March' on Berlin" — the Nazi torchlight procession along Unter den Linden and a week later Hitler and his so-called allies, the Nationalists, won the so-called election. And then the atmosphere of the country changed. Hitler had won the elections. Now he was going to win something else. On one point I fully agree with what Mr. Vernon Bartlett said in his hroadcast: "The Germans are so desperately — almost in- ■■ sanely — fin earnest." But about what. (From Berlin I went to Danzig and East Prussia. A crisis had aristn between the Germans and the Poles; but when I talked to Germans in authority I had the uneasy feeling1 that the crisis was a detail, and that what they were "desperately in earnest" over was something far more farreaching. My diary will explain: "Herr — j — * — had no doubts at all that Germany would recover the Corridor, and was so confident even that he skimped discussion. 'When we get back the Corridor,' he said, 'it will be the first step towards reconstruction in Europe. What Europe wants is a good policeman. Someone wh'om everyone is afraid of.' " 'But/ I said, Svhy should one he afraid of the police unless one is doing harm?' "He laughed. 'That's League of Nations stuff1/ he said.: 'Europe ought to 'get back to pre-Var ideas. Then everyone knew their place, and if they didn't we taught them it. We Germans are the only policemen who know how to keep Europe in order.' "I got very cross. 'Do you want to start rattling swords in scabbards again ? ' "He looked at me quite blankly. 'Why not? It works. It's more than Geneva will ever he able to do'." Herr — f — — • was a Government official high in the Nazi councils. And so to Leipzig. Wje went to the theatre, where they were playing a drama based on the Napoleonic wars in Germany. Before the play a gentleman in evening dress declaimed one of Fichte's speeches. Again my diary must speak. "The motif was patriotism. Patriotism is the determination to breed patriots who will see to it that the Fatherland is supreme. "After he had finished, to the accompaniment of frantic applause, my hostess — she had been quite reasonable at dinner — nudged me and said: 'That's better than your League of Nations twaddle'." Among Simple Folk. Next we drifted south through Thuringia. Luck hrought us into close touch with really simple life, and one day I toolc the midday meal with an old farmer and his wife. He had served in the Franco-Prussian war. They were both ardent Nazis, and said bluntly that now Germany was igoing to be powerful again and would he able to get anything she wanted by threats. Poland first, and then the others in turn, and this time there would be no Jews to betray them. I said that as Germany was a member of the League they ought not to talk like that. "Geneva!" they said. "We've been there and we-ve had enough of it. It has no place in German culture development. (This from a farmer!) No, iwe Germans do things differently. ' 'Nach Canossa gehen wir nicht'; " And the old man'thumped the tahle and blew his nose, and his wife positively preened h'erself. Lastly S.tuttgart, where we arrived to marvel at the Nazi staff work over the Jewish boycott. The town — for a Wurtemiburger town — (was very excited. I went into a crowded tohacconists shop and innocently asked for a packet of what Germans call English cigarettes. My demand provoked an outbreak which later inspired my diary: ; '"The Reichstag had been a Sauihaus - (pig-sty), said th'e tobacconist, I and the heaven-horn Hitler had purg- I ed it hf all save the true patriots.

Germany was going to be the strong Germany of pre-war days, and next time those mercenary Americans would never fight to save Germany's enemies." Such was the spirit of Germany in April, and no one will urge that that spirit has weakened in the meantime, And yet to-day we are told that "we could swallow a little of our pride and make another attempt to meet the German point of vkw. . . The Germans are so desperately — lalmost insanely — rin earnest." But, I repeat, ahout what? German propaganda can coo like a dove, and has to be experienced, as I have experienced it, to be believed. Mr. Bartlett has also doubtless experienced it. ! But there are others among us who I still have memories of the four and a half years of horror between 1914 and 1918, and we also have ia point of vkw which is desperately — but not | insanely — learnest. Quo vadis?