"SPITTING ON FREEDOM."

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 115, 18 May 1933, Page 6

"SPITTING ON FREEDOM."

NAZI HYMNS OF HATE. All the large German parties have had their songs: the Communists had the "International" and a few others; the Socialists, too, had a few songs which were rather more anaemic than the Communist songs; the Nationalists still sing "Deutschland liber alles" and other Monarchist anthems; but the most prolific producers of songs —Hitler songs, "Greater Germany" songs, S.A. (Storm Section) songs, anti-Jewish and antiFrench songs—are, of course, the Nazis (says a correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian"). They reflect accurately the whole Nazi mentality —with all its hatred, with all its intolerance, with its megalomania and self-adoration, and with its clammy patriotism and its genuine devotion to the person of Adolf Hitler. Musically the Nazi songs are poor stuff, or, rather, they show a pitiful lack of musical invention. Usually, any old tune will do; quite frequently the "composers" simply dress up some Communist tune in new words, or else write new Nazi words for "Deutschland über alles," "Die Wacht am Rhein" or "Andreas Hofer." The "original" tunes are!, indeed, worse; nothing could bo feebler as a musical composition than the famous "Horst Wessel" song—the official anthem of the Nazi party.

Compared with an old song like "Morgenrot," there is a strange lack of human feeling, of emotional nobility, in most of the Nazi songs. They are full of sound and fury; they are, essentially, songs of hate, not songs of devotion. The only object of sincere and almost childish devotion is Hitler himself. In some of the songs God Himself is being thanked for Hitler:— Up, Storm Troopers and Party Members! In the midst of the battle there stands onr leader. Thank God in Heaven for having found him! Or - else:— May God soon free us of the powerful and wily Jew. And let us dedicate to Him the true German heritage. Have you all decided for the Nazi party? Do you all want to live in peace, without terror, hardship, or pain? Let us all swear to be true to him whom God has made our leader. Those who follow him must follow him unto death. Some of the Nazi songs, says the correspondent, are too crude for t]ie official song books. They speak of butchering Jews, of making their blocid squirt under the knife. Who goes there with flat feet, with crooked nose, and curly hair? What do these people want in Germany? Kick out the Jews! Kick out the Jews! Another one, which the Storm Troops still sing with great gusto:— We spit on freedom ! We spit on the Jews' Republic! "Spitting on freedom" is a great Nazi pastime. But the expression does not so much denote — as one recent writer on Germany put it—a slave mentality as a complete disregard for "other people's" freedom—that is, for democracy. Under the Third Reich, the Storm Troops, have all the freedom they could wish: they hold, indeed, in Germany a monopoly of freedom.