DUNEDIN STUDENT ABROAD

Evening Star, Issue 22471, 16 October 1936, Page 7

DUNEDIN STUDENT ABROAD

INTERESTING IMPRESSIONS OF GERMANY PEOPLE AFRAID OF COMMUNISM NAZI POLICY APPROVED EXTERNALLY “ I am glad I came to this country ... I have been greatly impressed by what I have seen in Germany,” says a former Dunedin student in a lettei to Dr Lawson, of Otago University. “ Cleaner, stronger, and more decent-looking people 1 haven’t seen. The places 1 have so far seen have not been alive with uniforms ns I expected, though in a beergarden last night the waiter told me the anniversary of the party next month was going to result in a fair show. In Nuremberg there were do be 500,000 members gathered for the speech making of the leaders. Outwardly things seem settled enough, and on all sides one encounters real respect and thankfulness to the Euhrer and hearty dislike for his subordinate, the Minister of Propaganda.” “ It does appear to me that it was a foolish European policy which attempted to keep Germany down to the level of a second-rate Power,” continues the letter. “The Germans are much too fine a people to be treated in that way. They are fine physically and culturally (though National Socialism, 'in its seizure of power, may prove so unwise in its administration that the roots of culture are cut), in Munchen-Gladbach, where I was yesterday, I found that the cotton industry was in a b«d way (probably much worse than it is permitted to appear), and the chief reason seemed to be inability to buy raw materials. This is very serious, and 1 hesitate to think how far the Government will go to get access to what industry is needing. It is not a fair thing that cotton growers should bo bribed to plant and produce less cotton when intelligent, decent people want raw materials. “ To look at the faces of the Rhineland peoples is enough to shake one’s ideas built up in the war years. Their children, especially the girls of 11, 12, and 13, are the strongest, nicest-look-ing children I’ve seen for a very long time. The tidiness and orderliness of the country round industrial plants (always an eyesore in England) is a tribute to German abilities. “ The very strength of the Germans may prove their undoing, for they have not yet learned the use of power. Externally, the policy of the Govern-, ment has been approved. Internally there is latent restlessness and a fear in many quarters that things are being achieved at the cost of freedom of the soul. Among the older generation there is often a strange restlessness, not so much on account of themselevs, as on account of the children, who are growing up in provided orders. I myself am not so worried about the youth movements and their control, for there is a very great deal that is fine in the movements, and the Germans strike me as too able a people to swallow indefinitely superlicial propaganda. In .Koln University, a huge new building oh the very latest straightline and fresh air plan, I noticed a substantial notice board given over to the auti-J ewisb paper ‘ Die Stunner,’ and it was so crudely written and so extreme that anyone with anything ( of study in him would come sooner or later to laugh at it. And England has long found that, for a serious attempt to bo laughed at is the worst desolation that can happen, to it. I expect the same will hold good in this great country. “ What students I have seen I am most impressed by. >, I have probably met so far a picked group. They are somewhat bound to European thinking, and have not realised that the new world exists—to say nothing of Australia and New Zealand. The way the students work is a reproach to me, and I was beginning to consider I wasn’t lazy. Their detailed knowledge is amazing, and the way they can move from place to place and from one university to another tends to keep them and the universities alive. “ Just what is happening in university affairs it is difficult to say, but there is fear on all sides that the control is going to defeat its own purposes. On this point I shall have more material to think on after I have come to the end of my stay. In the mean! time I am being swept off my feet with admiration of the clean cities and people, the simple social life of the beergardens, the general friendliness 1 have met with from total strangers, and a feeling of quite-at-homeness in spite of language barriers. I am probably skimming along on the surface

and really have no 'knowledge of the real movements. “ A section of the church, perhaps the Presbyterian section, seems to be sufficiently alarmed at, control developments that it is risking its very existence again. But it is acting out of no desire to embarrass or show disrespect to the Government. It is because it feels that the best loyalists to the State are those who, always and uncompromisingly, are loyal to the truth. There is every possibility of a severe conflict if the State chooses to misunderstand or misrepresent the position of such men, and a great injustice will be done to good people, the very cream of a great nation. The scientific groups have not shown the same character as the church men. There seems'to have been no difficulty of getting successors to scientific men who have been replaced on account of racial or political expression. “Germany is afraid of Communism, and resents’ the English attitude of -not coming down on one side or the other. The Gormans are seemingly incapable of that indolence and lack of formulation which have saved England a great deal of trouble. At the moment instead of fretting their lives about Communism it would be much more to the point to go on with the reconstruction they are really doing well within their own frontiers. Too much is being blamed on Moscow, which is probably much more alarmed at Germany than her leaders care to admit. We are certainly living at a great time, when there seems to be no end to the foolish notions people are getting into their heads. “ I have been walking a good deal, and there is some lovely country surrounding these industrial towns. The Germans are great tree planters, and make the best possible use of all available land. Laud too poor for hay production they plant in trees. “ My chief interest in the universities 1 shall go to will he their faculties of theology and what they are doing in New Testament work, but I’ll probably wedge in a visit to a German school or two, for they take up again next week. So far I have met with nothing, but a patriotic pride in affairs, which is usually only too ready to respond to expressed interest. “ What a tragedy the war was, in that we had to fight with a people in many ways so like ourselves and with so much to leach us and share with us. I’d now like to see German in the New Zealand secondary schools as an equally weighted subject with French. It is a real mistake that both the secondary and junior high schools in New Zealand should be doing only French, and then from an examination and not a human point of view. There. is room for a clean-up on this issue in New Zealand schools. To think I spent years, on French for examination after examination, and'now the merest smattering of German would be invaluable, while French is next to useless for my purposes! I think the Germans as n people have much more to teach us than the French, and it is a . mistake that a chance shouldn’t be given. Most New Zealand students, especially of theology and science, feel this as keenly as I am at the moment.”.