RECENT CRISIS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 November 1938, Page 7

RECENT CRISIS

TREATMENT OF SUDETENS NAZI’S VIEWPOINT. TRIBUTE TO MR CHAMBERLAIN. What may reasonably be interpreted as a reaction of a section at least of the German public to the momentous events of the past few weeks in Central Europe is being disclosed in a letter from a Hamburg resident to a friend in Dunedin. The letter, which is couched in halting but expressive English, was written on September 19 when the Reich was expecting the worst and making full preparation for it. The writer's comments on the rights and wrongs of the situation are illuminating, and his reference to the British 'Prime Minister may be regarded as indicative of a confirmed Nazi’s opinion of democracy. “In my last letter,” he writes, “I mentioned something of the ailments of the European ’blindgutt,’ but I would not believe then that this indisposition could lead- to political disturbance. But the inflammation has now become so acute as to make necessary the application of the surgeon’s knife. The management of the League of Nations and the creation of this bastard State of Czechoslovakia were surely intended as a means to perpetuate European restlessness. Can Germany stand it any longer to see her kinsfolk on her very threshold treated like dogs and wild beasts by this human rubbish called Czechs? Excitement all over the country is at boiling point.”

The writer’s tribute to Mr Chamberlain is genuine, but it is also tinged with pity. “The most popular figure in Germany today,” he says, “is your Prime Minister, and no German will ever forget the trouble this man has taken in coming over in his old age to see Adolf Hitler. In Neville Chamberlain we see one of the few men with a sense of responsibility”—and here is expressed the pity the German feels for the great man —“but, alas, he is chief in a democratic concern where every cobbler and bartender pretends to be a political genius, so it is not quite certain whether he can master the situation.

“In the prime of my life,” the writer continues, "I could observe the activity of his father, and no one may contradict that ho was the last of the great statesmen after the death of the giant Bismarck That clever Hebrew, Lord Beaconsfield, once said about him at a meeting of diplomatists, ‘Gentlemen, be careful of that man. He is dangerous. What he says he means.’ “I do not remember anyone who could be called a statesman since that time until the advent of Mussolini, Kemal Pasha and Adolf Hitler. Referring to the development of the crisis, the letter states: “No one can escape his fate, nor can nations. Our position is not a bad one. A blockade from the Atlantic side cannot affect us. Our magazines are filled and our friendly neighbours can always supply what we need. What hysterical old France will do we do not know. Jean Potage has for the last three centuries tried to put his dirty fingei’ in every German pie. What Moscow will do is almost certain, and this time I hope England will keep away from this matter.”