Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1939. NAZI AGGRESSION IN AMERICA.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 February 1939, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1939. NAZI AGGRESSION IN AMERICA.

T)UIUNG the Great War, the then rulers of Germany and their henchmen gained the. reputation of being as stupid as they were aggressive in diplomacy and in international conspuacy. "With Nazi demonstrations developed to a point at which they have provoked popular riots in New York and Los Angeles, the present German dictatorship evidently - is in little enough danger of losing the reputation in this respect gained by its predecessors.

The deeds and methods of Nazism, and particularly the subjugation of Czechoslovakia, and the recent pogrom against the Jews, have nowhere been condemned and denounced more heartily than in the United States. There could be no better method of rousing the average American citizen to active and bitter hostility against Nazism than in convincing him that this repellent foreign cult is even attempting to become a force within the borders of the United States. The “American Nazi Fuhrer,” Fritz Kuhn, and his German Bund appeal to have succeeded admirably in imparting precisely that impression. It is reasonably certain that the measure of success the members of the .Bund have thus attained will be their undoing. In looking to the probable outcome of their activities, account has to be taken, not.only of the rough and ready methods by which some Americans of radical inclinations have expressed their opinion of Nazism and all its works, but of the attention these incidents have received in Congress. We are told that when Representative Mart in unsparingly denounced the German Bund and its members as traitorous and asked whether such things must be tolerated in the name of liberty on the free soil of America, members of both parties rose and applauded him vociferously. . . Containing within its borders big blocks of German and Italian population, only partly assimilated, the United States may appear' to offer a favourable field for Nazi and Fascist intrigue. Since 1933, when Hitler attained power, the Nazis have been endeavouring to organise the millions of GermanAmericans. One writer has said of these activities: — The work of Nazi agents has been facilitated by the liberal attitude of the American Government. Storm Troop battalions of Nazis are allowed to parade in’ full uniform through the streets of American cities. They have at their disposal numerous drilling grounds, exercise halls and meeting places. They are the “strong arm” of the Nazi organisations, terrorising dissentients and attacking anti-Hitlerites. Although the Nazi organisations, and the Italian Fascist bodies in the United States with which they work in collaboration, have suffered some vicissitudes of fortune, it would be foolish to regard them as entirely negligible factors in American life. Probably, however, they are much more formidable in such secret activities as have been brought partly to light and exposed in recent espionage investigations and trials in the United States than in open-demonstrations like those that have led within the last few days to rioting in New York and Los Angeles. It is reasonably certain that the Nazis will encounter overwhelming defeat in any open attempt to achieve such aims as were declared by Fritz Kuhn when he wrote in his newspaper, “Dentselier Weckruf ”: — When an American of German blood becomes race-conscious he will form a bloc, which need not be regimented, but will become instinctively, automatically and and forcefully a political unit ... The Bund thereby departs completely from the way of those Germans heretofore in this country who had nothing of raceconsciousness and political influence. The weakness of Nazism in. the United States is that, save in occasional and furtive outrages, its adherents are denied the use of brute force on which their party relies supremely in Germany and in those countries that are unfortunate, enough to lie at Germany’s mercy. Herr Kuhn, it may be taken for granted, will be denied the opportunity of stirring up internal discord and divisions in the United States like those Henlein and others have stirred up in European countries marked out. as victims of Nazi aggression. Many German and other immigrants, as well as the body of native-born citizens of the Republic, no doubt will vastly prefer American freedom to Nazi regimentation. It may be impossible, under the most vigilant policy, to prevent Nazi organisations carrying out a. certain, amount of damaging espionage and intrigue, but the principal effect of the total Nazi and Fascist effort in the United States undoubtedly will be to stir the American people to an increasingly bitter and resolute hostility to the totalitarian dictatorships. That hostility may be expected to find expression, not only in the suppression of totalitarian activities in United States territory, but in, an increasingly critical regard of the policy and methods of the dictatorships in Europe, and perhaps even more in the American Latin Republics.