NAZI DOMESTICITY

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21177, 29 July 1940, Page 9

NAZI DOMESTICITY

WHO “TALKS” IS LOST NIGHTMARE OF SUPPRESSION SOME PERSONAL EXPERIENCES Everyone knows that the feverish eight years of German rearmament which followed Hitler’s accession to power cost untold sums of money. Dr. •T. H. Wolff states in the Sydney Morning Herald. They involved heavy material sacrifices, and Goering’s “Guns before butter” really meant, as I know from personal experience. “Guns instead of butter.” The material cost of turning Germany into a Nazi engine of war is something British people can understand and measure. But this was only half, or less than half, the price that was paid. The bitterest sacrifices were in the realm of spiritual values. Only one who has himself lived in a country in which justice became a mockery, in which family life was undermined and destroyed in which science, art and culture of all kinds were prostituted to serve the Hitler plan, can understand what these things meant. Let me give you a few brief sketches from my own actual memories. Unconscious Agents 1934. A family round the breakfast table : Father, mother and two children eight and ten years old. The mother explains : “In future we will have brown bread for breakfast, with jam and corn coffee—” (Corn coffee is prepared from roast wheat, rye or malt). “Eggs are rationed, two a week each; butter is rationed, and real coffee—the cheapest sort of Brazilian coffee—is now about 5s a pound, and hard to get.” Whatever the father may think, he answers : “That is all right. Whatever our Leader orders is for our good.” These parents know by experience that there are two unconscious agents of the State Secret Police present. The children will be asked at school and in other places : “What did your mother say ? What did your father say?” Many a child has been the innocent cause of his mother and father being taken to the concentration camp, not to return. 1934 again. In the well-known German health resort of Wiesbaden, the hot springs were the property of some private owners, and there was also an agreement between the municipality and the owners over the use of the springs. One day the municipality began building a pipe line to divert the water. The proprietors asked the Court for an injunction, and started appropriate proceedings against the City Council. Their rights were clear. But a fortnight before the Court proposed to give its judgment the President of the Court was summoned to see the highest Nazi official in the province. Next day the owners’ lawyer withdrew from the case. He told them that, had he known the significance of the case, he would not have accepted the brief. The decision was against the owners and they were warned on no account to appeal against the judgment. Disobedience would have meant the concentration camp ! Perverted Justice In 1935 it was made public that the courts must give their decisions according to the intentions of the leader. That was practically the end of the independence of the judges. Another case from my personal recollection illustrates this : A Jewish manufacturer was on trial for fraud. He had no previous conviction; evidence at the trial clearly proved his innocence. But the judge sentenced him to two years and ordered his immediate arrest. The defendant’s wife, who was present in court, broke down. At the last, only the couple, their lawyer, and the judge remained in the court, and the judge seized the opportunity to whisper to her, “I did that to save his life; now he will be under police protection. If I had acquitted him he would now be in the hands of the Black Guard.” The same year, at ten o’clock one morning in front of the Opera House, a group of stage workers talked about conditions in general, criticising some of the Government’s newest economic measures. The man who criticised loudest went afterwards to the director’s office and told him that he was a member of the Gestapo, that he had a midget dictaphone with him, and that the Herr Director would be short of a few stage workers in the afternoon. Just before the outbreak of the war, I received notice of the suit for my own divorce. My wife asked the Court to grant it because her husband had expressed criticism and hostility to the German Government in letters to friends. And that was the only reason for the suit. I have never heard the result of it, but the grounds were sufficient for a Nazi judge. Spying a Popular Pastime Spying and informing were the favourite pastimes of millions of people in Germany. It destroyed old friendships; it ruined social and family life; everyone tried to avoid talk about politics and economics. It was a time when jokes nourished. For one became accustomed not to give straight answers to a question, but to say instead, “I don't know—have you heard this or that joke?” And one’s interrogator was left to make out whether you meant the joke as an answer to his question, or as a joke only. Australia has never known this nightmare of suppression. Happenings such as I have related could be multiplied a thousand times. They may seem fantastic and almost beyond belief, but they are grimly real. The defeat of Hitler will mean not only victory for the Allies, but victory for every member of the human race who sets a value on his own. spirit and soul. PROFIT BY EXPERIENCE Experience teaches that there is nothing quite so effective as Baxters Lung Preserver for coughs, colds, and bronchial afflictions. ** Baxters ” relieves inflammation, cuts phlegm, clears congestion, soothes and allays irritation. Children love it. “ Bax- ! tors” has a tonci action, too. Experi- ; encc says “Baxters.” (1) j