CALVARY OF GERMANY

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 55, Issue 164, 24 April 1935, Page 5

CALVARY OF GERMANY

THEATRICAL PERFORMANCE. REGARDED AS BLASPHEMOUS. .(United Press Association—Copyright/ LONDON, April 23. The Berlin correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph" says, "The Theatre of the People on Good Friday gave a special performance, 'The Passion of the German People,' in which Germany is symbolically depicted as undergoing a form of Calvary until redeemed by Herr Hitler.

"Religious circles regard the per formance as blasphemous, particularly after General von Ludendorff's assertion that Herr Hitler had finished with Christianity."

"To be really effective the German armies must be imbued with the old Teutonic faith of Odin and not with the teachings of Christ," declared General von Ludendorff, in the April number of his periodical, "At the Holy Well of German Power." "Spiritual unity in the army," he added, "will not be attained by international influences, such as Jews, Freemasons, and the Roman Catholic Church, which place class and caste above nationality, and divide Germans into Protestants and Roman Catholics under the .reign of Jehovah. It is not hatred of in ternational forces which prompts me to fight against Christian doctrines, but love of the German people and tho German army." On General von Ludendorff s ,/Utn birthday a few days later Herr Hitler announced that Germany was deeply indebted to him, though previously the Nazis regarded him as a crank in advocating a purely Teutonic religion based on the worship of Odin as being better suited to Germany than Christianity.

MURDER BY NAZIS MINERS' EX-PRESIDENT. LONDON, April 23. The Brussels correspondent, of the "Daily Herald" says that news has been received that Herr Frit* Husemann, a former president of the Miners' International, was. murdered by Nazi Guards at the Papenburg concentration camp on the usual pretext of "attempting escape." . The news has been suppressed in Germany but there is intense resentment in the mining population of the Ruhr.

Herr Husemann's recent imprisonment was due to his attempting to obtain compensation for members of the Miners' Federation whom supporters of Herr Hitler had dismissed.