NEW REICH

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 September 1939, Page 3

NEW REICH

WBAT GERMANY WANTS FRESH EMPIRE PLANNED. ROLE OF THE INDIVIDUAL. The German Reich of tomorrow is no longer but a dream to the National Socialist leaders, wrote J. Emlyn Williams from Berlin to the “Christian Science Monitor” recently. It has assumed concrete shape in many statements during the past- few months. Gone are days when Germany’s inequality among the nations was the chief theme. Nowadays, youth is being imbued with the idea of a new empire based upon that which was “German” in the Middle Ages. But while the former Holy Roman Empire and the new Reich-to-be bear certain geographic resemblance, the ideas underlying them differ very widely. The former was a kind of earlier League of Nations, an attempt to establish European peace on a universalistic basis, in which the various component States were largely independent except for their allegiance to the Emperor, and enjoyed a very large measure of freedom. Such was the structure of, mediaeval society that however great the difference between, e.g., France and Bohemia it was visualised as a single unit both religiously and politically. There was in those days no idea of the nationalism which later developed; nor of the type of racialism which has in later years become a part of the ideology of Germany. The true successor of this Empire was the Autro-Hungarian Empire which disappeared in 1918; which with all its faults was based upon a univers'alistic, tolerant, and federalistic basis. THE PRUSSIAN MODEL. The new Third Reich which has claimed its place in- Europe follows the Prussian rather than the Austrian model, aiming at a centralised State based upon- militarism in which the ideal of Hegel and Marx have triumphed over Locke and Rousseau, and in which the striving for a social equality is based upon a militant democracy. Here, say the National Socialists, is the leadership of the new Europe, whereas for four centuries Europe was governed by the ideology of the western democracies which occupy the fringe of this continent, now the guiding hand is at the centre. One of their first tasks is to rid Europe of the doctrines of the French Revolution, particularly that of the equality of mankind-. “With- the emancipation of the Jews,” Dr. Alfred Rosenberg, the cultural inspirer of the National Socialist Party, recently declared, “began the betrayal of Europe and the emancipation of the coloured people which today is fundamentally admitted, and is already symbolised through the appointment of Secretaries of State who are of the coloured races. This is a new step which, if it has further political consequences, must lead to the decline of a very great civilisation.” This doctrine of equality in his view -was a mistake of the “spirit of the age” (Zeitgeist)' when it was proclaimed, but today to accept it as the basis of culture is a relapse of the most terrible sort. SCALE OF INEQUALITY. The logical consequence-of this viewpoint is naturally the belief in a? scale of inequality among the races of the world. The norm by which inequality is to be measured 'appears to be the Aryans. These have been responsible for the civilisation of the European continent and presumably will soon come into their own again. The new developments in different branches of knowledge are called to aid of the new theory. “Contrary to-former interpretations of history,” Dr. Rosenberg declared in the same address, “racescience and pre-history have proved: today that the land of birth of the Aryan people is Europe and that the migrations from Central and 1 North: Europe have been south-east and l south-west, and with them the establishment of civilisations.” The ideas underlying both the newReich and the Holy Roman Empire have this in common, that the social unit is conceived as being, much larger than in the so-called liberal epoch. To the democracies —the heirs of the French Revolution —the unit of society is in the individual, but not ineither of the German empires.

In the nineteenth century, the great cry was “the greatest happiness of the greatest number.” In the Middle Ages, the individual was powerless, having significence only as the holder of an office—emperor, duke, bishop. If not, he was important in society only as a member of a family or guild. In the same way, the National Socialist sees; the value of the individual to the extent that he is a member of an institution contributing to the story of the great State-idea “Deutschland.” -The big unit has returned to politics; infact, the methods and conceptions of “big business” are inherent in the Nationalist Socialist conception of things today. This difference between the democratic and totalitarian States in their approach to international problems of today makes common understanding difficult. They differ both in the ideals and in the methods of achieving them.