BOOK REVIEWED

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 716, 16 December 1933, Page 7

BOOK REVIEWED

A SINCERE FANATIC WITH A JEW IN HIS BONNET. i "DOING LORD'S W,ORK." llf on© knew nothing of Herr Hitler except from his own account of his life and creed one might find it easy enough to explain what" kind of man he is, but one would not find it quite so easy to explain how snch a man has established himself as dictator over one of the great nations of modern Europe, writes Robert Lynd in a review of "My Struggle," by Adolf Hdtler. As a man, one would say, he is obviously a .sincere fanatic with a Jew in his bonnet — la mian, too, who, as surely as Don Quixote, has the courage of his illusions. The Jew plays the same part in his imagination that the Pope played in the imagination of the old fashioned Orangeman. He has a vision of Jews scheming everywh'ere for the downfall of civilisation and, especially, of Germany. To him, indeed, the JeWs appear to be responsible for all the evils of his time, from the collapse of Germany to indeeent plays in the einema. Seeing a Jew. It is true that he was a Pian-Ger-man before he hated Jews. Even as a little Austrian boy he was prouder of his German blood than of his Austrian nationality. He and his friends at school got into trouble for singing "Deutsehland uber Alles," instead of the niational anthem. Though race fanatieism was thus early in his veins '• however, it was not till he went to work in Vienna that he began to regard Jews with suspicion. One day in the city he saw "a being in a long caftan with black side-locks," and asked himself: "Is that a Jew?" He went further and asked himself: "Is that a German?" "As always on such occasions I proceeded to try and remove any doubts by means of books. "For the first time in my life I bought some anti-Semitic pamphlets for a few heller." After a period of doubt and vacillation, he becarne a fervid anti-Se-mite. Ome of the things. that influenced him was his study of Jewish activities in the Press and the arts. One only had to look at their posters and study the names of the inspired creators of thoss hideous inventions for the cinema and the theatre which one saw commented on them, in order to beeome permanently hardened. It was pestilence, spiritual pestilence, worse than the Black Death, with which the nation was being inoculated. Dramatic critics favoured Jewish authors, and the Social Demoeratic Press was mainly controlled by Jews. Study of Marxism, with its Jewish founder and supporters, confirmed him in his anti-Semitism. "Thus," he declares, "did I soon believe that I must act in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By fighting against the Jews I am doing the Lord's work." It would be unfair to give the impression that Herr Hitler's apologia which was written in prison nine years ago, is a mere anti-Semitic tirade. It is a patchwork quilt of Herr Hitler's opinions on everything that he helieves will help to regenena.te Germany in the future and on everything that he helieves led Germany to disaster in the past. For the disaster he blam-es not only the Jews but the Hapsburgs, whose proSlav policy threatened the purity of German blood, and the German Kais•er and his statesmen who, by their policy of overseas trade, antagonised England and made war inevitable. Herr Hitler thinks that pre-war Germany should have concentratcd on conquering new terrdtories in Europe for her population and left the seas to England. He is ingenuous enough to believe that England would have ' suppor'ted this policy. At the same time, it was the Jew who, in Herr Hitler's eyes, was responsible for Germany's collapse. "If we review all the causes of the: German collapse," he declares, "the final and decisive one is seen to be failure to realise the racial problem and, more especially, the Jewish menace." It is difficult to understand how he ultimately won over an intelligent nation to this view unless we bear in mind the fact 'that a sick nation, like a sick man. turns easerly to a doctor

who is perfeetly confident in his diagnosis of the disease and in his power to cure it. To Germany, crushed by the peace, weakened by suffering, and threatened by the further chaos of Communism, Herr Hitler came with the message that he knew the cause of the trouble, and that the patient had only to trust him in order to obtain a eomplete cure. W/e must also ramember that the passion of racial hostility and the passion for finding scrapegoats are, ignoble as they are, two of the most easily roused passions of human beings. Not that Herr Hitler persuaded the German people to trust him all at once. Hei was at first only the leiader of a fighting minority, as we may gather from his account of an early meeting in Munich, in which his guards had to fight the entire audience. "Like wolves they rushed again and again in parties of eight or ten lat the enemy, and hegan to sweep them literally out of the hall. After1 five minutes I could hardly see anyone who was not streaming with blood." A pistol-shot rang out. "One's blood almost rejoiced at such a revival of old war memories." The new movement was deliberately intolerant. ' Ghri-stianity, in the opinion of Herr Hitler, owed its triumph to "fanaticial intoleranee," and Nazi-ism must- do the same. "The conviction that there is a right to- use weapons, even the most brutal, ever goes hand in hand with fanatical belief that a new and revolutionary order of things must he victorious in the world." As for the future, when the "Jewish menace" hias been suppressed^ Herr Hitler seems to look forward to' ; a day when Germany will carry -out his pet policy of territorial conquest dn Europe. If I • understand him aright, he .has — ior had' in 1924— -his . eye on Russia as the Promised Land. We have .iinished with the pre-War

policy of coloinies and trade, land are : going- over to the land policy of the future. _ Fate itself seems ibo wish to give us our direction. "Wjlien fate abandoned Russia to Bolshevism it robbed the Russian people of the educated class which once created and guaranteed i their existence as a State. The Germanic element may now he regarded as entirely wiped out in Russia. The Jew has taken its place. It is as impossible for the Russian- to sake off the Jewish yoke by his own strength as it is for the Jew to keep control of the vast empire for any length of time. His chanacter is not that of an organised hut of a decomposing leaven. The immense Empire will one day collapse. His Pre-War Mind. The extraordinary thing about Herr Hitler is that his mind is as essentially pre-war as that of Bismarck or Bernlrardi. He has no conception ■of a world hased upon a reeognition of the need for international justiee or of the fundamental rights of human, beings. He helieves , like his pre-war pr-edecessors, in the German right of conquest, and his philosophy is a philsophy of war. Statesmen', however, are — sometimes — educated by events, and it is to be.hoped, for the siake of Germany as well as the r-est of the world, Herr Hitler in power will gradually discard about 75 per cent. of the ideas promulgat-