1940-04-27 — Page 10

THE CHINA MAIL, APRIL 27, 1940.

THERE IS DISAFFECTION

For the Rainy Days! IN GERMANY BUT

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WHERE WILL IT LEAD?

THERE have always been strict demarca- tion lines between the various classes of the German people, and these lines vary according to the traditions of the various provinces.

f

Nearly seventy years of unification have still left the individual characteristics of the, former independent States, unchanged. The Hamburg mentality is different from that of Munich, and Stuttgart tradition has: nothing in common with that of Berlin or Koenigsberg.

poor to lose it, as a mathematical certainty, in- ternal peace will not come to the

present country, for many decades. The tragic experience has warned the people against trusting any leader. Whom could they trust seeing that one of themselves, the son of the people, the humble soldier,' has so cruelly betrayed them?

"We are passing through tragic times; but the excitement of the war lessens the pains of our hardships, and we have no time to think. Let peace como and with it the In other words, the Germans form a poll-consciousness of our true position-this is or less the time which every honest German tical nation united by the more willingly accepted Reichsgedanke, and in- dreads."! spired by different and mostly contradict- ing traditions. This becomes more, mani fest in times of stress, when old grievances

acquire the acuteness of fresh wounds.

**

Thus it happened that the Gleichschal- tung, which, had been forced upon the Ger- man people in 1933 as one of the basic prin. ciples of Nazism, exhibits its defects only seven years later. It suffices to visit a few of the representative cities to find proof of the old experience that one can force upon human beings a certain standard of life, but cannot transform their mentalities and emotions by dictatorial decrecs.

It

Nazism has never been able to grasp this truth, though it is as old as, the hills. may still have to pay dearly for its blind- ness. One need only travel through Ger many to arrive at the conclusion that the experiment in regimenting about 70,000,000 people has failed. They have not become robots. They are inarticulate, and unable to offer organised resistance to what has been forced upon them; but they maintain their different characters.

I have reproduced this statement of a re- presentative, and highly honoured German the reasoning of the because it reflects number of intellectuals, by no means small, who in the face of temptation have pro- served their independence and sacrificed to it their material well-being.

*

**

I believe they are still in the minority. Success tells; and Hitler's cheap but spec- tacular successes have swelled the pride of

-By-

A NEUTRAL OBSERVER

The Prussians, with their centuries-old habit of mental "drill," are disciplined. The the average. German, who is not an intel people of the Hanga towns have preserved ligent being though inexhaustible patience their sturdy independence. The people in and discipline have made him a great or- the South, shocked to the core by the atro-ganiser.

cities inflicted upon their faith, are pray- Again, the people are utterly ignorant of ing for the annihilation of what they call what happens outside Germany. The ma "brute Paganism."

jority really believe that Austria invited the Here, again, Hitler has shown his abys-Nazis to save her from Schuschnigg; that mal ignorance of psychological facts. He the Germans in Bohemia were slaughtered has tried to construct a State without the

by the Czechs, and that the Poles solid foundation of family. He has substi- about to invade Germany. Of all the cruel- tuted family by "cella," and in the last re-

ties inflicted on the Czechs and Poles. they sort it will be family which will destroy his know nothing. castle in the nir.

**

* * Wherever one goes, the German pater- famillas is agreed that Nazism, in its en- deavour to secure its rule for the future, has alienated children from their parents, has taught them to deride religion, and given them as a moral support the love of me- chanical precision.

All

A great scholar of universal fame, now retired from his university, said to me in the course of a long conversation:

"One can bear with the present. things pass, and Nazism will not attain the tenth year of its rule. But, what after? It is agony to think of it..

"There will be a generation that has never learned to think; that has never had and' will never be able to acquire what we understand by 'moral,'

were

On the other hand they believe that the English people are starving; that the Bri- tish Empire is being disrupted, and that France is on the eve of a Communist re- volution. The sudden intimacy with

the

Soviets, has shocked the middle-classes-- the most oppressed of.all Germans-and the industrialists, landowners and peasants. It has given the working-classes the cour age to claim higher wages and shorter hours, and they have succeeded. They will certainly try to obtain more and to trans- form their "'Nazi-cells" into.. Communist units.

Ley, the German Labour leader, is not unaware of this danger, hence his propa- ganda speeches and the penetration of in- dustry by more and more Gestapo spies. One hears the word "Communism" much too often now in Germany. It is pronoun- ced by those who wish for it and by those "Look at our courts of justice. Right has

Judges of our tribunals. gone out

and who dread, it. There are a good many who teachers of law vie with each other in pro-wonder whether Hitler has not sold his soul

to Stalin. ducing new fallacies to demonstrate that the whole civilised world has been guilty

Unmistakable signs of disaffection can be

of an idiotic mistake in granting the indi-noticed in the South, and especially in the viduni any right at all.

*

110

CA-

very stronghold of Nazism at Munich, which once, in 1918; had so easily been won over to Communism: 'Now it is the opposite that is happening.

In April, 1919, Munich turned Red as a reaction against the "Prussian" who had into a war; Prussian dragged Bavaria troops quelled the revolution within a fort- night. Now it is the anti-Bolshevik spirit that has been of a Catholic population shocked by the "pact with the devil'"' and the repeated experience of being led into disaster by the "Prussian" that is gly. trig an impetus to an ever-growing separa-

"Have you

seen something of our New Art? It is heart-breaking. There is inspiration, no spark of feeling, and a total of ignorance of the most primitive rules technique. For the last seven years 'no lit- erary work worth reading has been publish ed; no play worth performing produced. I do not know the quality of the work our Superman has created in his former pacity as a house-decorator. But, unfortun ately, I know that he is now the supreme judge of all emanations of. German litera- ture and art, and, still more 'unfortunately, that the ambition to please him is substitist movement, tuting in what are called our modern writ- ers and artists vocation and knowledge;

True, Nazism will pass and those who live will see its creations piled up in pu blic places and burned. But you cannot burn the polson that is in the hearts and the brains of our younger generations. Our people have been whipped up to hatred and soon it will turn against those who have fooled them. No, there will be no revolu- tion during the war; but as we are bound

It may not become active, maybe not even articulate, during the war, yet, with- out trying to be prophetic, one may safely predict that, whatever the result

of the war, the Bavarfans will declare, their in- dependence under the Wittelsbach dynasty. I have heard this wish expressed by the most humble as well as by the highly-placed Bavarian. The Reichsgedanke: is dead in (Continued on Page: 11).

By George McManus

Bringing Up Father

HELLO-DINTY- BY GOLLY- IT'S GOOD TO HEAR YOUR VOICE- YES- THE FOLKS ARE JUST TALKING ABOUT WHERE WE ARE TO GO NEXT I'LL CALL YOU RIGHT BACK AND LET YOU KNOW WHEN WE LEAVE AN' WHERE WE ARE TO GO -

WELL-JUST AS A SUGGESTION-L THINK WE SHOULD GO TO LITTLE ROCK- ARKANSAS - WHEN WE GO UP THE

MISSISSIPPI

BUT DEAR:1 THINK AS LONG AS WE'RE

·GOING BACK TO WASHINGTON - D.C WE SHOULD GO BY WAY OF ROANOKE-

WILL YOU LISTEN TO ME - WE CAN GO THERE LATER- WE SHOULD GO TO DALLAS AND FORT WORTH FROM HERE.

HELLO-DIN TELL WHERE GOIN' AN AS LOOK NOW-IT BE SETTLED QUITE SOMES

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