Denied; Britain No Longer Thought Decadent The article below, reprinted from "The Times," concluding the impressions of. a recent traveller in Germany, describes the strength of the Nazi Party and its limitations and the contribution which Britain may honourably make to an understanding. The first of the series was published last Sunday.
ORITY-FOUR years ago a war broke out, for which the average Engtishman believes a war party behind the German Government of that time to have been responsible; he casts no sort of blame on the ordinary German citizen. With absolutely equal sincerity the ordinary German holds a different view.
Not seeking to excuse his Government for its pre-War naval policy, he believes that Russia for Pan-Slav purposes took opportunity to enlarge a Balkan quarrel, that when Russia moved France knew the hour had come for avenging 1870, that Britain culpably allowed Russia to be too confident of British support in any circumstances, that Germany turned to fight for her life, and that the German armies went through Belgium because in no other way could they deploy against the French rapidly enough to safeguard Germany's national existence.
These opinions will not change now of either side, It is better to agree to differ, and to cultivate that disputed ground so that it may raise blossoms of peace, not war; ior only by realizing the German view of 1914 can one understand the national attitude to the Versailles Treaty, still the most universally potent force in modern Germany.
From 1918 to 1933, compulsorily disarmed as punishment for an act which she did not believe she had committed, Germany felt herself unable to ensure her own security in the midst of powerful. neighbours. Land frontiers cause a feeling of exposure which an Englishman can hardly appreciate unless he imagines the British Navy sunk. Only. then will'he realize the German impotence of those fifteen years and the horror of encirclement that is present always. In so far as Herr Hitler maintains his hold over the whole German people, it is because he ana he alone has been able so far to release them from the bonds of Versailles without involving them in another war, He can evoke the emotions even of those who most abhor Nazi methods if he can continue to maintain peace and shatter the Treaty. But if war comes the gratitude crumbles. A recent free vote of the German people would as certainly have shown a majority in favour of continuing National-Socialist government, as a plebiscite for. or against going to war {o succour the Sudeten Germans would have resulted in a crushing defeat for war-makers.
To a large part of the German people, chiefly of the middle classes, Herr Hitler is a Messiah, and his will "or, rather, his interpretation of the principles. of National-Socialism—is the touchstone of morality. Does it matter whether National-Socialism is at issue with Christianity? They are convinced that Adolf Hitler in his own person is providing the German race with a new religion.
Who suggests that the churches are not free in Germany? All they must do is not to interfere in politics. In the cottages of Catholics one may see a photograph of the Führer on the wall over against a picture of the Virgin Mary. At Nuremberg swastika streamers float from church towers. One wonders how deep, how widespread, 1s recognition of the unappeasable conflict, and cannot tell the answer.
Indifference to Treatment of Jews For all the outward neglect of religious observance in modern England, the influence of Wesley and those many others who stirred the national Conscience still brings it about that {he common reaction of Englishmen to public questions is fundamentally Christian. A surprising measure of indifference {o the concentration camps and the treatment of the Jews is perceptible within Germany, not among Nazis only. That unimaginative quality of mind operates strongly, except when cases of tyranny core to personal knowledge.
Largely the German public seems io numb its moral conscience with the feeling that the Jews are receiving very much what they deserved They knew how to manipulate financial crises and grow rich from them, One will hear. it said, while we Germens saw ourselves becoming poorer and poorer, and less and less able to prevent Jews from acquiring positions of power which they would rise to their own ends with no thought of citizen duty. The right of a foreigner to judge the Jewish question is denied, unless he lived long in pre-Nazi Germany or Austria Persecution when obvious has few ¢efenders, outside of party disciples. "Der Stürmer,' that Government-authorized organ of anti-Jewish obscenity, which smirches all that is cot in National-Socialism, is exhibited in every town and village for old and young to read. Apart from that,.a visitor may easily forget Nazi heartlessness till he sees the notice "Jews Not Desired" outside hotels and swimming-pool This notice hangs at the entrance to the village of Oberammergau. The Christus of 1,900 years ago must have been watching as men nailed it there National-Socialism is not "Prussian militarism" in a new dress. It is e fanatic reaction against the idea, long cherished by France and acquiesced An by Britain, that a great nation of 60 or 70 million people can be kept indefinitely subservient by an imposed treaty. Relentlessly it follows the programme dictated by its fundamental theory of race, and for its purpose it has resurrected a tribal morality—to which a Nazi would reply that the English had better - abolish their slums and see what is left of their external policy after self-interest is taken away before they start to play the Pharisee.
Quietude can only come through Europe accepting or Germany retracting the policy of unification of all German peoples, by force if need be, to which Herr Hitler's political faith so-deeply commits him. But it is neither the morality nor the race theory which secures National-Socialism its popularity, That rests on its victory over Versailles and its impressive internal achievements, strengthened by the typically German admiration for a fearless man of acgiven the working man the so-called Labour Front, in theory making him ce-partner with his employer, in practice securing him a number of safeguards and amenities. They have created Kraft dutch Freude, commonly known as K.t. k, providing en-terrainments and holiday trips for him and his family which would otherwise be far beyond his pocket.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.