DEGREES OF INSANITY

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 113, 15 May 1941, Page 8

DEGREES OF INSANITY

The flight of Rudolf Hess is not without its humour. For one thing, it again raises the challenging subject of relative sanity. Hess, as Hitler's deputy, was a high god of the Nazi Pantheon up to the moment of his flight; thereupon he became, in the Nazi classification, insane. Called upon to explain this transition, ihe Nazi' Propaganda Ministry presents a new theory of relativity, and states that Hess "was not regarded as a hundred per cent, insane." The Nazis also recall that insanity can be gradual and progressive; but how does that fact fit in with a transition from the god state to the outcast state overnight? And if one Nazi god can be so suddenly self-deposed, what about the other Nazi gods and demigods? Are they a hundred per cent., or even fifty per cent., sane? Considerations of relativity in insanity lead back to the old story: "All the world, friend, is mad save thee and me, and T have my doubts about thee!" Hitler now has his doubts about Hess, but is not Hess entitled (now that he is in the only Gestapofree country) to return the compliment? The story of these twin souls may mark a new leap in the science of psycho-analysis: and it may require to be a rather big leap if il covers all the farts of the Nazi movement, which far out-do fiction. Sanity and insanity being relative rather than absolute, there is a possibility that preconceived notions about the internal conditions of the Nazi hierarchy are due to sustain further shocks, of which the Hess flisrht is but the beginning. Nevertheless, the peculiar atmosphere which the Nazi leaders have created round themselves, and the doubts raised as to their sanity in n. world where (as their propagandists admit) all sanity is relative, must not dull our sense of the terrible danger for the world with which Hitiensm is charged. Hitlerism, relatively sane, would be formidable; Hillerism. relatively insane, is worse. This mad dog is still at the apex of its ferocity and power to

harm. While provisionally accepting the idea of the Hess flight as a fugitive flight, "The Times" (whose degree of sanity in the newspaper world is relatively high) does not exclude from possibility the other idea that "the whole Hess affair may be a fantastic German plan." After that, who will deny that the Nazis are adept in setting the world guessing? "The Times" considers it possible that the Germans, using the inverse propaganda that Goebbels has used before, "for their oavii purposes wish the world to believe that the 'maggot is already in the apple' " — but let not our war energy be dulled by any illusion that the apple will fall on its own account.

Otto Strasser. "once Nazi, now exile, and ahvays German, makes interesting counter-propaganda suggestions, to break the Nazis' propaganda initiative. Still more interestirg is his suggestion that a German de Gaulle should lead a Free German movement like the Free French movement. Can it be for such a purpose that Hess flew?