PERSECUTION MANIA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 December 1939, Page 5

PERSECUTION MANIA

HITLER'S ATTITUDE. 'One wants to understand Hitler if it is possible, for to understand him would be to avoid many risks, says "Scrutator.” writing in the Sunday Times. Can it be. as large tracts in Hitler's speech suggest, that despite his truculent show he is the victim of persecution mania? Tiiat might explain the strange tangents at which his actions fly oil from his words. He often gives the impression of seeing the better way. and approving it. but invariably he takes the worse, and apparently his excuse is that those nations with whom he has to deal are either i like Poles and Czechs) cursed with an abnormal depravity or (and this is his charge against Britain) with an incurable malignity which prevents him from doing what his better instincts would otherwise persuade him to do. Tlie normal man when he gel cross with the world and tilings go hard with him begins to wonder whether after all the fault may not lie with himself. But the victim of persecution mania finds in opposition only a further proof of his own wisdom and goodness.