LISTENINGS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 65, 20 September 1940, Page 21

LISTENINGS

Perpetrated and illustrated by KEN ALEXANDER NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE EXCESS

VERYTHING in Germany is new-new politics called the Axes policy, new religion (so new that Cain knocked Abel out with it), new economics which

are quite good if you don’t want to eat, new news known as Goebbels’s garbles, new Truth utterly unrelated to the old firm and, above all, new logic which functions upside down because it hasn’t a leg to stand on.

This is how it works out. Hitler, in his twelve-months-of-war broadcast from Berlin, vowed that he had refrained from bombing London for three months in the hope that the R.A.F. would give up the naughty custom of bombing Berlin. Here is an imaginary broadcast interview with a neutral journalist. Neutral Journalist: " But, tut tut, Herr Hitler! You know that you bombed the London suburbs and tried to reach London Central long before the R.A.F. blew up military objectives in Berlin." Hitler: " Ach! A mere technical bombing! A justifiable retaliation for what I suspected Britain of thinking about doing to Berlin. In fact I had one of my pre-monitions-of course you know about my famous premonitions. Sometimes I get a very nasty one. I had a premonition that Britain might bomb Berlin one day so I bombed London first in retaliation. And, what do you think? Sure enough Britain did bomb Berlin shortly after my relatiation. That shows

you what they are! Utterly unscrupulous! Gah! Gotte straffe Ghurghill-!!!!" The Fuhrer throws one of his famous fits; Goebbels brings him round with a whiff of nitro-glycerine while Goering dries his tears with a synthetic guncotton handkerchief and explains that the Fuhrer is always so upset by violence. In fact, rather than have any trouble with his neighbours he kills them. His simple logic is that if you kill folk you can’t be unfriendly with them any more. This is the guiding Nazi principle in the rearing of its youth. The chief Nazi Youth Leader advised little boys to play football on Sundays in preference to going to Sunday school. "And if," he added, "any of your little companions refuse to play football beat them all until they are dead." It is obvious beating little boys to death must save a lot of unpleasantness and friction which would otherwise mar the snirit of

friendly rivalry so prevalent in Nazi sport. What are the lives of a few little boys so long as Nazi harmony and joy are preserved? And, later on, the splendid little fellows who survive will grow up to spread love and harmony throughout the world with a machine gun. This same simple logic explains why Hitler bombed hospital ships. We knew that when their occupants reached England they would spread stories about Nazi frightfulness which would make a lot of people unhappy. Hitler couldn’t bear the thought of people being unhappy so he tried to sink the hospital ships in the name of harmony and brotherly love. His Nazi pals call him Big-hearted Adolf. The rest of the world has some good names for him, too.