GERMANY’S SOLDIERS

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 54, 26 November 1938, Page 13

GERMANY’S SOLDIERS

New Zealand Visitor Not

Impressed

Dominion Special Service. AUCKLAND, November 25.

"I have never been more surprised that I was when 1 saw the physique of the average German soldier,” said .Mr. J. Green, a Dunedin business man who arrived at Auckland by the Mariposa from San Francisco after spending several months touring Europe. Mr. Green said he had 'been led to believe that the German soldier was war material of the highest type, but though he had seen innumerable train loads of thorn during the recent concentration on the Czechoslovakian border, he had formed the opinion that they were generally flattered by what had been said of them.

An astonishing number of them, he said, were short-sighted. He had seen more German soldiers wearing glasses than without them, and the majority could not compare in any way with Hie finely-trained and exceptionally fit Czechoslovak soldiers he had seen. The Nazis he had seen who really evoked his admiration for their physique were members of the Hitler Youth Movement.

Mr. Green, who is a member of the territorial forces, said he had tried to find out while he was in Great Britain how the German air force was regarded, and the general opinion was that it was one of the finest in the world.