HITLER’S POWER

Waikato Times, Volume 124, Issue 20734, 18 February 1939, Page 9

HITLER’S POWER

HOW IT WAS DONE A BRITON’S DEDUCTIONS 'From a Correspondent.) LONDON, .Tan. 25 " A former British resident in Germany,’’ writing in the Manchester Guardian, says:— M. Mantoux recently asked: "Who will deny that Hitler was elected by his people? " I lived in Germany through most of the Republican years and through the whole transition, and I can say quite definitely that Hitler was never elected by his people. At the last free election, in November, 1932. only 33 per cent of the votes were cast for Hitler. Hitler was appointed Chancellor by Hindenburg on January 30, 1933. He was not elected by the people. Free Speech a Memory Free speech rapidly became a memory only, fear was spread everywhere, and after the amazing episode of the Reichstag fire the Terror was in possession. I suppose that only those of us who lived through it can at all realise how it worked. We were openly told the " traitors ’’ who voted against Hitler would he discovered. I met no one who believed the ballot would be either secretly or honestly conducted, and a very general feeling was "It will make no differenc how we vote." This was an exaggerated pessimism. The Nazis had not yet control of everything, and in spite of the Reichstag fire and a wild campaign of slander and intimidation against a totally silenced opposition less than 44 per cent of the votes were cast for Hitler. His victory was one not of votes but of force. By expelling the Communists, arresting a number of Social Democrats, and tricking the German Nationalists Hitler got the majority he needed to give himself absolute power. " Elections ’’ since then have been a force. I find it always impossible to make people in the democratic countries understand how wholly powerless the individual is under a dictatorship. What faces the man who would in any way oppose the dictatorship is ruin of his family and prolonged torment for himself. I personally dare not reproach anyone who shrinks from this frightful choice. I confess that, even as a foreigner in Nazi Germany, i learned to be wonderfully cautious. “ The Beast In All of Us ” M. Mantoux asks: "Is there any other nation to-day where such things (as the present pogroms) could have happened? ” Assuredly. There is the beast in us all that only needs to he let loose. Given a Government that favours and promotes blackguardism, as I have seen the Nazis do, those with no scruples have free play, and the number of these grow. Mobs in London attacked the sho-ps and houses of German bakers during the war and threw their furniture out, while little was done to stop them. Any Government that appeals to the worst in us will have plenty of men and women to do its dirtiest work and can accustom us all to a lower standard of sympathy. Indeed, the whole world has had its standard lowered by the dictators. A general accusation against the German people cannot be supported by reason at all, but only by prejudice. Britain. France, the United States, and indeed every nation (especially if it has great possessions) has committed crimes enough, and it may do us good to have the Nazis remind us as they are doing) of what we have done. But, in a democracy, we can protest, we can condemn the evil done in our name, we can organise, we can seek to learn the truth. Under a dictatorship that is all totally forbidden, all totally impossible. This we dare not forget, when we think of Germany.

I have had some glimpses of the opposition in the hearts of the German people. My impression is that—in spite of the propoganda and the obscurantism —there would be a great sigh of relief from the people if the dictatorship vanished to-morrow. One of the most terrible facts of modern life is that before a dictator who has ihe army and its modern weapons behind him a whole people of any number of millions is powerless.