"THE BUTCHER BIRD"

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 58, 5 September 1940, Page 10

"THE BUTCHER BIRD"

If any confirmation were needed of the evil traits in the German character that threaten the very existence of all that is best in Western civilisation, a topic discussed in these columns this week under the heading "Wanton Cruelty," it is to be found in the crushing indictment of German lust for power presented by Sir Robert Vansittart, chief diplomatic adviser to the British Government, in a Daventry broadcast. Sir Robert spoke with an intimate knowledge of Europe, gained in a lifetime of experience in the Foreign Office. He compared Germany's onslaught on other nations, not only in this war and the last, but in the three Prussian wars of conquest in the nineteenth century, to the wanton cruelty of the butcher bird that kills other birds for the sake of killing. The first three of the five wars were, he said, but a prelude and a preparation for the fourth, the bid for world domination in 1914-18 that failed, but only just failed. The victors forgot the detestable cruelties of the Germans in that war, and, -said Sir Robert, "the whining bully was picked up, dusted, and put oh his feet." But "the butcher bird had been foiled, but was not repentant." The Nazis capitalised the German blind faith in a mystical destiny, and their inborn cruelty, had again manifested itself in hideous destruction from the air. Prussianism, militarism, lust for world conquest, and Nazism— that, said Sir Robert, was the sequence which had made the Germans the exponents of incredible cruelty. Christianity was rejected because it was too gentle to be compatible with world domination. All these evil qualities of the German character are incarnated in Hitler, and that is why he is worshipped in Germany as above this world. "Hitler is no accident," said Sir Robert in conclusion, and the dictum is borne out by the latest speech of the Fuhrer's reported today. It is the usual mixture of diatribe and dire threats against Britain, allegations of indiscriminate bombing by the R.A.F. over Germany, and boastful promise of retaliation—"hundreds of thousands of pounds of bombs will drop from the sky on England every night after this, in retaliation for the British

night raids. ... If the British attack our cities, we will simply erase theirs." The British people are used to this sort of talk from Hitler and his henchmen by this time. They know that he is most violent in his threats, most extravagant in his claims, when things are going badly with his plans.

If these plans had gone right, the war would have been over by now and Hitler victorious. Such was the promise to the German people of peace in August or, at the latest, in September. Hitler says now: "I know only one date as the date of the British collapse. If it is said in England, 'Why doesn't it come?' then I say, 'Be sure it will come.'" The answer of the British people to all such threats is the Avords of the old song: "Let 'Em All Come." Hitler said: "The time is coming when one of the two will break up; it won't be Nazi Germany." Well, we are quite sure it won't be Britain. So what? Let Sir Robert Vansittart answer:

We are fighting against evil things "which have possessed the German people for three weary generations. The butcher bird is furiously at his habit again. .. . We believe we have the good wishes of all that is best in the world and we accept them. By the grace of God and for the salvation of mankind, we shall rescue the earth from these evils.