NAZI CONQUESTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 145, 20 June 1940, Page 5

NAZI CONQUESTS.

DECADE OF TACTICS. EFFRONTERY AND DECEIT. T ASSAULT ON MORALE. f . _______ (By CHARLES GRATKE, , in the "Christian Science Monitor.")

, When they walked into Norway, tinlocking the gates of Oelo with a traitor's key, the Nazie revealed the method of their conquests. The Third Reich jjavo away a blueprint. It ie a blueprint of Nazi tactics. . The most surprising thing of all was Hot the sudden, unheralded attack upon » neutral nation. It was rather that there was such wide astonishment. For if any one thing hae been consistent about National Socialism, it has been its use of deceit and subterfuge. And the method has never been a (Secret. The Nazis have even boasted about it. But it hardly seemed 'possible that such things could exist in a modern world. And it ie this credulity which hae permitted National Socialism to run through its successive phases, each time achieving a fait accompli virtually advertised in advance. It is a little difficult to-day, when so much ie known, to recapture the atmoephere of 1933. But in those months there was considerable inquiry over the "meaning" of National Socialism. Adolf Hitler had ridden into the Chancellorship of Germany on a demand for complete power. His lieutenants reiterated the Fuehrer's declaration that "nonsensical" Parliaments should be swept away. Yet the Nationalists in Germany believed that the Nazie would make passable political bedfellows. And there was a good deal of talk, elsewhere, that "totalitarianism" meant something different from die-tutorship after all. Pure Dictatorship. The dilemma was repeated ae the Reich began rearming. The training of an air force and the intense preparation! of the civilian population proceeded]

openly. Reoccupation of the Rhineland, formation of a conscript army, and the laying down of a modern navy followed. But all these things were rationalised behind talk of "equality" and the "grievances of Versailles." Yet to-day their [mrpoee is clear. Something more has now become clear. For there had been a good many smilee at Dr. Herman Rauschnig's record of one of Hitler's conversations, in which the Fuehrer made the fantastic prediction that German troops in French uniforms would march unopposed into Paris. Such devices are far from new to National Socialism. Their "desirability" wae disclosed in the daye before the party took office. Perhaps no clearer key can be found than their reaction to the publication in Berlin, in 1032, of a significant book entitled "World War Without Weapons." That book was not the work of a Nazi. It wae a most scholarly treatise issued by Dr. Fredrich Thimme, of the German Government Archives in Potsdam. It showed that Germany waited until too late to esta/blieh an organised war propaganda centre. For it wae not until Aug-uet 29, 1918, that the press bureau was efficiently commissioned. The book made a considerable impression upon some National Socialists. They already were developing a propaganda machine that had no parallel in German history. And they were quick to see the application in terms of warfare. Aβ one black -uniformed officer of Hitler's elite guard explained it when the book firet appeared in Berlin: The mistake of the last war will not be repeated. We will not even wait till the war starts to begin our propaganda. It will be started long before the war actually begins. And it won't be limited to propaganda. For the time to undermine the enemy is when he thinks he is at peace. This method of the Nazi party has been raised almost to a philosophy by Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda. Elaborating the method by which Nazi-ieni hoped to overthrow the parliamentary system, he sa'd: Every Principle Jettisoned. We enter Parliament in order to supply ourselves, in the arsenal of democracy, with its own weapons.. . . [f democracy is -fio stupid as to give us free tickets and salaries for this purpose,

that is its affair .... We come as enemies. As the wolf bursts into the flock, so we come! These words were written in "Der Angriff," organ of the Nazi party in Berlin. Having been applied to the elimination of Parliament, these same methods have been carried over into international diplomacy and war. In Austria ii was apparent that terrorism alone was not the key to the Reich's unchallenged entry. In tht Sudetenland there were intimations that the building of a powerful Nazi organisation had not proceeded on the basis of benevolence alone. And when the facts are known of the fall of Warsaw, the fall of Danzig, and the fall of Memel . . .? It may be repeated that "one of the reasons the Nazis have moved so freely was that the audacity of their plans was not believed. The notion that "they don't really mean it" hae been the Reich's best cloak of secrecy. Just as Bismarck occasionalty told the newspapermen the precise facts when he wanted them to believe otherwise, the Nazis have known that the very enormity of their schemes was sufficient to have them dismissed ae improbable. But cluar perception of the Nazi method is in itself a defence. For there are some things than can only live in darkness, can only be propagated unseen. By their very effrontery the Nazis created the veil of unbelief that cloaked their movements. Looking back over the past decade, it is apparent that one of the world's great problems hae been to perceive the actual meaning of National Socialism. That knowledge has been poignantly thrust upon the world to-day.