Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1938. TRYING TO COMPREHEND GERMANY.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 November 1938, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1938. TRYING TO COMPREHEND GERMANY.

INTERVENING in the Acldress-in-Reply Debate in the House of Commons the other day, the British Under-Secretary foi Foreign Affairs (Mr R. A. Butler) offered as the best guide to an understanding of the Government’s foreign policy

that they were trying to comprehend the new world which they saw growing up round them and the new forces in it. That did. not mean that they sympathised with or very much liked what they saw of these forces, but the alternative to comprehension might be war and he invited the Opposition to remember that the Government had saved the country from a ghastly war.

The suggestion appears to be implicit in. these observations by Mr Butler that a clearer coinp'rehension by British people of what is going on in Germany would make for toleration and understanding. Unfortunately precisely the opposite appears to be true. The Nazi regime plainly is committed to aims and methods which can awaken only disgust and reprobation in any normal British mind.

The facts of the position, evidently not to be covered up by any smooth and soothing talk about the need lor comprehension, have been emphasised luridly in the pogroms against Jews in Germany following upon the assassination of a German diplomat by a young Polish Jew in Paris. Although some unconvincing attempts are now being made by the Nazi Government to repudiate responsibility, the pogroms, as the London “Daily Telegraph’’ has said, *“bear every mark of careful organisation and official condonation.” Apart from the immediate evidence that is offered on the subject, these attacks upon many thousands of innocent and defenceless people, some of -whom have been killed and many others driven to suicide, follow naturally enough upon the campaign the Nazi Government has concocted and carried on against the Jews. During the years of the Nazi regime, robbery and maltreatment have become the familiar fate of the Jew in Germany, but the wild-beast ferocity of the pogroms nevertheless has made that country a figure of shame in the eyes of the -whole civilised -world.

The attitude of the Nazi dictatorship_towards this abominable carnival of outrage is indicated fairly in the action it has now taken in imposing a fine of eighty millions sterling on the Jews in Germany for the murder of Dr von Rath. The German Government thus endorses and proposes to complete the looting and plundering of the Jews by lawless mobs. While a Government capable of such deeds is allowed to exist in Germany, hopes of an understanding with her that would, amount to anything else than a feeble condonation of vile evil must be rather dim.

It will no doubt assist British people to arrive at a true comprehension of what is going on in Germany that Nazi propagandists are taking it upon themselves to vilify Britain and those of her public men who have spoken frankly on the subject of the policy and methods of the Nazi dictatorship. By way of retort to what has been said about Germany by Mr Churchill and others, Herr Hitler has made sneering references to Palestine, saying that happenings in that country “smell much of violence, but little of democracy.” The taunt is pointless, since Br.it.ain. is taking strong action in Palestine only against murderous violence and desires sincerely that members of all races and creeds in the Holy Land should enjoy untroubled peace and prosperity. Certainly there is no parallel to be drawn between the efforts that are being made to establish order in Palestine and. the murderous and blackguardly maltreatment in Germany of Jews and. other appointed, victims of the Nazi regime.

Whether it is worth while that official notice should be taken, as some London newspapers are demanding, of the Nazi vilification, of British public men, is an open question. The fact stands, however, that this vilification, which includes attempts to implicate British politicians in the murder of Dr von Rath, must be regarded as a Nazi official effort. “Der Angriff,” in which these fantastic charges have been published, is a paper established and controlled by Dr Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda and a close and trusted associate of the Fuehrer. A new standard is thus provided by which to assess the value of the Munich agreement, and of the policy of soft-pedalling and “trying to comprehend” Nazi Germany.