NAZI TYRANNY

Evening Star, Issue 23408, 27 October 1939, Page 10

NAZI TYRANNY

AND GERMAN CHARACTER Professor Ann Strong, lecturing to the World Affairs Group of the W.JS.A. on Wednesday evening, gave a vivid review of Nora Wain’s recent book, ‘ Reaching for the Stars.’ The book, she pointed out, presented a picture of the cruelties of , the Nazi regime, set * off in poignant contrast against the character of the German people—orderly, music-loving, flower-loving, warm-hearted.. Seeing how many of the people of high capacity yielded to , compulsion, Mrs Wain had been reminded of a field of rabbits, each concerned for its own escape from the enemy weasel, but none making any attempt at a united stand. However, she had immediately reflected that this was a self-righteous scorn. Time and again throughout the book she had told of those who were bravo enough to take their stand on principle. Professor Strong referred also to stories of German youth told by Mrs Wain in the ‘Saturday Evening Post.’ One concerned a typically Nordic boy who had insisted on brushing anti-Jew-ish slogans off public places, even ing a Brown Shirt (Nazi Storm Trooper) who had demandedn.that he should desist. Mrs Strong asked members to discuss why it was that ■so fine a as the Germans bowed down to the Nazi tyranny. She did not agree with those who claimed that the Germans had a different mentality and ‘‘liked to bo regimented ” ; hut she did agree with Mrs Wain that the Germans, having been accustomed to absolutist rule until the (Republic was established in 1918, had had insufficient experience of the ways of democracy and had fallen too easily into passive submission. Qther people besides the Germans were by no means free from this weakness, and she considered that New Zealanders, with their proclivity for appealing to the Government to relieve them of all t)ieir difficulties, were in peril of inclining towards a like attitude. As for the element of extreme cruelty, she considered it was largely to be attributed to repression in childhood. Among other questions suggested by Professor Strong, the audience discussed whether those, Germans were wise who had chosen to accept arrest and the sufferings of the concentration camps rather than submit to Nazi demands. The families of such people would suffer severely as well as the individuals themselves. The general feeling appeared to be that it was only by such a stand on principle on tho part of a few individuals that a community could get away from the “ rabbit ” attitude, and that relatives, even though they might have much to endure, usually appreciated such a stand. Professor Strong briefly recounted Nora Wain’s career. She had been reared a Quakeress in Pennsylvania, had gone as a young woman to China, and there had had the unusual experience of living in the intimacy of a Chinese ancestral house as an adopted daughter. Her life in China was described in the novel, ‘House of Exile.’ Later she had spent four years in Germany and Austria with her husband, an Englishman devoted to the study of music. , , . There was a good attendance at the meeting. Dr G. C. Billing presided.