NAZIS FAILING?

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 180, 1 August 1935, Page 5

NAZIS FAILING?

GERMANY TO-DAY. N.Z. STUDENT'S OBSERVATION I OPPOSITION PARTY GROWING. Impressions of Germany under Hitlev I are given by Mr. John N. McDougall, '8.D., a former student of the Auckland University College, who has just spent nine months in Germany studying at | the University at Marburg. Mr. McDougall returned by the Rangitane yesterday. He left New Zealand some four years and a half ago. He took his bachelor degree of Divinity at the University of Glasgow, and then went to Germany. Hβ intends to take up mission work in the Punjab, India. "It is hard to give impressions of Germany," said Mr. McDougall. "I suppose that, having lived there, I should have a clearer idea than anyone who is not in Germany, and who hears about events a long time after they have happened. And yet the very fact of being in the middle of them makes a just perspective difficult." From what he saw, and from what he was told, lie thought that the Nazi Government was losing power, though the personal popularity of Hitler was undiminished. Hitler was almost worshipped by some. One reason he adduced for the apparent decline in Nazi influence was that a great deal of manufacturing! had been done, largely on credit. That account would have to be met some time. He had seen enough to know that the cost of living was rising, and that living, conditions were being depressed. It was [ a problem of keeping the people con- 1 tented under such conditions. I Hitler, he said, had been compelled to concede certain points to an opposition party known as the "Eights." They held to the monarchical idea, and were ( ■ powerful in the army—and were becoming increasingly powerful. He re- J

ferred to the muder of General von Schleicher, who had been hostile to the Nazis, and therefore not politically popular with Hitler. Yet, in an official record of the year's great men, von Schleiclier's name had appeared. People Opposed to War. Mr. McDougall said that the Germans! as a people did not want war. He had met individuate who looked with military eyes towards the Polish Corridor, but as a general rule the people were anti-war. They were friendly towards England, a feeling that went back to the days of the Rhine occupation by British troops. Towards the French the feeling was different—and it dated back to the same time. To an extent he eymjs/ithised with the Germans in their nationalistic outlook. The Treaty of Versailles had been unfair to them—"the same as every treaty after every war is unfair to someone." Living among them, one could not but concede them equality of armaments. Personally he was averse to armaments, but if other nations increased their arm , ments, Germany should be allowed to do the same.

j German nationalism, he thought, had j its origin in a rebellion against an inferiority complex forced on them after the war. They hart wanted to be a nation again, and, under Hitler, they were. That explained the devotion to Hitler, whom he thought a sincere patriot. Mr. McDougall eaid history had taught that when a nation was faced with difficult economic conditions great national gesture to divert the eyes of the people from their own wants was sometimes efficacious. '-Witness Italy and Abyssinia," he eaid. He did not think the same thing was true of Germany, though the concomitante were present. Germany was for peace, but as a last resource it might go to j war if its passionately idealised nationhood were threatened. Religious Issues. i On the future of religion in the 'countrv he wculd say little, though he raised certain issues. To the statement that the reversion of a highly civilised nation to Xordic gods was a little absurd, he replied that Germany, or a section of it, did not think so. "They do not mind being called heathens," he said. "They say that those gods stand for something virile and manly." The

persecution of the Roman Catholics he thought might be an evidence of the failing of Xazi power. It was difficult to get at the heart of the matter because there was no source of reliable information. The Press was censored. The persecution of the Jews, he said, was a blot on the German revolutioi, although he understood its origin. I the pre-war days, he said, it was the fashionable career to e.iter the arnn The young men who were able did s< The Jews took whatever was left, namely, the professions and commerce. After the war, however, militarism war; discredited, the army became unpopula and the young manhood of Germany had to look in other directions, just as Jewry had had formerly to look. "But the young- Germans then found the Jews" in the professions and commerce. What you have heard about and read about followed, -, said Mr. McDougall. Out of a lot of general impressions he had left the country with a real affection for a <;reat deal that was fine in pcxst-war Germany. He had made many friends there.