FOUR YEARS OF HITLER

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 302, 21 December 1937, Page 6

FOUR YEARS OF HITLER

WHERE GERMANY IS HEADING.

The years have hurried in Germany since the Nazi's took over, and their swirling current has borne both the nation and those who would interpret it along at sucli speed that before one of the changing scenes could accurately be observed another river bend had been rounded to disclose an entirely different landscape. But after four years the pace has slowed down a little, and there is now a reasonable opportunity for the contemplative research that was recently undertaken by Professor Stephen 11. Roberts. Cliallis professor of modern history at Sydney University, and in ''The House that Hitler Built" (Methucn ;ind Company) lie has set down impartially all that he paw and heard during the greater part of I!KSI> which he spent in and around Germany. Ilis long absence from the European scene placed Professor Roberts in a particularly favourable position dispassionately to observe and weigh up the political tendencies of the new Germany, since his mind, while equippTl with every essential for accurate observation, was yet free from the objective prejudices of recent association. Professor Roberts condemns nothing out of hand; on the contrary, Germans in high places were fair to him. and without surrendering tany of his rights as a .critic and interpreter, not once does he weight the scales of his justice against the Germanic people. He found that they knew all about him in Berlin before his arrival, that they had recorded all his wireless criticisms of then, and their ruthless methods, but they did not try to jet even with him, rather they facilitated his work in every possible way. He talked with Hitler, listened to his s|>ceches, discus-sod him with Germans who were brave enough to criticise, and generally made a very full and accurate stirvey of the position. A Complex Personality. Hitler's personality is the subject of close and reasoned analysis. A complex jiersonality it is, irrational and unbalanced, ousted in the lwittle of life until the blood bath of 1014 "redeemed" him. "The two most popular views of Hitler picture him either as a ranting stumporator or as a victim of demoniacal possession, driven hither and thither by some occult force that makes him a power of evil," states Professor Roberts. "But these arc as unsatisfactory as the view of his believers that he is a demigod, revealing the path Germany is to follow, by some divine power of intuitively knowing what to do. I think he is primarily a dreamer, a visionary. His mind runs to visions, and I have heard his intimates say that even in Cabinet meetings, when vital questions of policy are being discussed, he is dreaming—thinking of the light that never was 011 sea or land, the consecration and the poet's dream. He is ready like a medieval saint to go through lire and water for his beliefs. He sees himself as a crusader; he thinks the whole time of saving mankind. That is why he reaches such a stage of mystical exaltation when he talks about savin-? the world from Bolshevism. He narrows his world to his friends —the propagandists and the fighters. "A strange man, this Adolpli Hitler. He is infinitely ]Kilite and courteous in his interviews. pausing perceptibly after every statement in case there is something his questioner wishes to add. He is punctilious to the point of quixotism in acknowledging the salutes of 'his tnen and in himself saluting the standards. The odd feature is that he never seems at his ease in formal gatherings, or when being spoken to. He seems a hunted being, and is always ready to find refuge in making a miniature speech, oven when one asks him a question that could l>e answered by a single word. In making a speech he is at least on firm ground. There lie does not have to think, there he can let himself go—for he has said it all thousands of times, and will keep on saying it till he dies." Justification of War. Hitler's lieutenants, the nature of the Xazi movement, its philosophy, the technique of its revolution, its economics, the youth movement, the regimentation of the whole nation, the foreign policy and the public works system are excellently surveyed and in the last two chapters the author casts up the balancesheets of Hitlerism and iclls what the onlooker sees and does not see. He writes: "Hitler I has always professed a love of peace; but in I the same speeches lie has said that German honour will not 1-c satisfied until the granting of certain demands, which by their very nature could not be given up by other nations until j after a defeat in the field. The whole teaching lof Hitlerism is to justify war as an instrument jof policy in certain contingcncies. and there •is hardly a boy in Germany who does not view [the preparation for ultimate war as the most important aspect of his life. Hitlerism can- | not achieve its aims without war; its ideology lis that of war. Hitler started with an ideological preparation for war years before he came .to power: he added to that a military preparation: and now the structure is crowned by an j economic mobilisation of all the countrv's j resources. The sum of these is staggering. : Hitler has worked up Germany to such a state I that the people are ready to accept war at jjtny moment. Ilis instruments of propaganda I would interpret it as a struggle for survival. | torced on her »y malicious enemies. Finally, ihe is in a position to exploit all the capacities jof sacrifice and heroism that arc so fine in the |German people. That is what makes the GerI man position so tragic. The nation has been j duped in the sense that it has been launched I along a road that can only lead to disaster."