LIGHT ON THE NAZI MIND

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 94, 18 October 1939, Page 8

LIGHT ON THE NAZI MIND

In the latest White Paper, a summary of which is published today, Sir Nevile Henderson, who, as British Ambassador to Germany, came into close contact with Herr Hitler and his associates, amplifies some of those strangely interesting passages in the Blue Book on Britain's effort to preserve peace with Germany over Poland which throw such a lurid light on the mentality of the Nazi leaders. He remarks that since February last Herr Hitler had been withdrawing more and more into himself, being accessible, with any ease, only to his henchmen, Field-Marshal Goering, Dr. Goebbels, and Herr yon Ribbentrop. Their influence certainly did not make for peace. In the • last stages of tlie negotiations conducted by the British Ambassador the Fuhrer was apparently suffering from a megalomaniac brain-storm. He, a simple corporal in the Great War, is depicted as desiring to be a generalissimo in this. No decision could be taken without him, and on him rested, in the final issue, the fateful decision of peace or war.' The motives admitted by the Fuhrer in these diplomatic interviews seem like those which influenced some of the Roman emperors in their mad careers, without any relevance to considerations which might be expected to move civilised Governments in modern times with the lives of millions hanging on their actions. Thus the Ambassador was left with the impression that the Fuhrer preferred war now at the age of fifty to fighting it as an older man, taking it for granted, it seemed, that the destiny of nations should be subordinated to the fulfilment of one man's personality. In this respect, as in others, Hitler is an obvious follower of the doctrines of Nietzsche, who attacked pity and humanitarianism as weaknesses associated Christianity. It is a puzzling paradox that the German people, to whose virtues so many visitors have paid tribute, should have allowed themselves to come under such a man and the advisers he has chosen.