HITLERISM AND THE GERMAN PEOPLE.
Sir,-As Audax II. says, I have popped up again. But I notice that my friend with the 2nd-class audacity is still registering from the prone position. Quoting Priestley was a sad blunder. Protests against his broadcasts have been coming in from as far afield as Canada. (Vide Nat. Review, April, 1941). Priestley is the prophet of that school of soul-snob-bery which is ashamed of its country and runs down the British Empire. His talks are offensive in the extreme to patriotic people of all shades of political thought. Here are his own words, "I am walking a tight rope every Sunday morning. I doubt if it will be possible to continue. I have had attacks from the Right, and not the slightest assistance from the Left, and not one word from the Labour or Trade Union Movement." A less vain man than Mr. Priestley who was criticised by his political opponents -as all speakers are-and who was not
supported at all by his own party, might ask himself in what way he had got out of step with his countrv.
E. A. W.
SMITH
(Christchurch).
Sir-Some of your correspondents are horrified at the idea of holding the German people responsible for the crimes they have committed. I wonder if they are capable of realising that their opinions on this matter are not worth two straws, any more than mine are or even Churchill’s. Only Stalin’s opinions will matter when his armies march into Germany, and he and his people have bitter reason to know what Germans are like. Though I am not a Communist or even a Socialist, ever since June, 1941, I have been grateful to Russia not merely for giving us our only real hope of victory, but for making it certain that our ladylike humanitarians will not be allowed to jeopardise the next generation as they have this one. Of course your correspondents probably believe that it was severity rather than leniency at Versailles that led again to war, and likely enough it was both, but as I have said, their opinion here matters not at all.
XXX
(Christchurch).
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19421218.2.8.3
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 182, 18 December 1942, Page 3
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357HITLERISM AND THE GERMAN PEOPLE. New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 182, 18 December 1942, Page 3
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