Nazi Virtue New Zealanders Should Emulate

Radio Record, Volume XII, Issue 37, 24 February 1939, Page 39

Nazi Virtue New Zealanders Should Emulate

German Streets Are Always Clean

{HE European country most ‘‘in the news’’ is, after Spain, Germany, and while there are many things in that great land New Zealanders would never dream of copying, there are some aspects of German life that repay investigation. For example, in a German city one looks in vain for a piece of paper, an apple core, or even a faint trace of untidiness; the streets are as clean of rubbish as a well-kept kitchen floor. As an American woman walked along the street of a city in Germany, she felt the urge to eat a banana. She stripped it of its peel and threw the peel along the way, In a2 moment an officer was by her side, holding the discarded skin in his hand, and saying in good English, "Madam, will you please put this peel in the receptacle nearby? ‘Thank you!" And he was gone. He might as easily have deposited the banana peel in the container himself, but

he knew that the traveller was in need of a Jesson. And she was. One is led to wonder how such immaculateness of city streets is secured. ~The fact is the street-cleaning force is under the direction of a_ technically educated man of wide experience. The department is reeruited from soldiers who have served their time and have passed a doctor’s examination. The rules of conduct, of uniforms, of duties, are outlined to most minute detail. The streets are cleaned for the benefit of the people, clean streets and pavements in German cities do not "just happen." There is a reason. It is impossible for all of us to go to Germany to inspect their clean streets and to see how Nazism works, but radio globetrotting now being fashionable in New Zealand, we can, in imagination, girdle the entire globe. On Saturday, February 25, 2YA listeners will, in the now famous "Ports of Call" series, pay "A Visit to Germany."