NAZISM REVEALED

Evening Star, Issue 23423, 14 November 1939, Page 10

NAZISM REVEALED

GERMAN EXPOSES ITS INTENTIONS RELATIONS WITH SOVIET THE DEGENERATE ALLIES i An important book bearing on the ambitions of Hitlerism sis seen by a German who revolted against its ways, is 1 Nazism, Its True Inwardness, - byHermann Rausehuing, a former President of the Senate of Danzig. The book w-as published before the war, and it is interesting to see how the estimates presented in it are being confirmed. Rausehning, the sou of a Prussian officer, was wounded in the Great AVar. He was a patriotic German, and was, to begin with, attracted to Nazism bv its restorative aspirations. He played an important part iu Danzig and on many occasions discussed matters of policy with Hitler Rausehuing favoured a legal and constitutional policy for Danzig. When asked to bring into operation a policy similar to that followed by Hitler and the Nazi Party in Germany, including persecution of religious bodies and of the Jews he refused. Consequently he felt .himself menaced by the hostility Of Hitler arid his lieutenants, and, fearing to be snuffed out “a la Schuschnigg/ he sold his properties and fled to Switzerland, where he published in 1938 his hook, ‘ Die Revolution des Nihilisme. This book was published in a simplified English version in London this year. The title of the book, ‘ The Revolution of Nihilism,’_ requires some explanation. Rausehning applies the word Nihilism to the Nazi movement for, according to him, just as the old Russion Nihilists dreamt of leaving no vestige of social forms and of the moral laws of their time so Nazism intends to suppress everything prior to its own appearance. If, on the one hand it has abolished all tho syndical organisations of the working classes, it has at the same time done away with the political and economic power of the Capitalist class, the old privileges of the mostelevated classes of society the prerogatives of the clergy, and even the bonds of family life. Nazism is self-sufficient, a law to itself. In a very real sense it is totalitarian. It is the absolute negation of freedom. To-day Nazism is a colossal machine for governing, repressing terrorising. It functions only to augment its ever-growing power, whilst at the same time it demands absolute obedience from its members whose actions are controlled in their most minute detail. Each member must identify himself body and soul with tho party. _io be suspect is to he in danger of losing the means of gaining one’s livelihood. The account of Rausehning s book which follows is translated from the review of Ludovic Naudeau a close student of foreign affairs in ‘ L’Lustration.’

NATIONAL SOCIALISM AS , “ REVOLUTION? ”

The anti-Socialist movement, says Rausehning, is at once a counterrevolution —iu the sense that it has totally annihilated Marxism—and a social revolution, seeing that it destroys all the old forms, all the old intellectual and moral values of Germany. National Socialism, our author adds, acts continuously upon the masses by stimulating in them the revolutionary tendency. Only in this way, it judges, can they bo left in that state of restlessness that makes them manageable. National Socialism claims to he the best guide to a real social revolution in opposition to re., actionaries, Jews, Marxists, and foreign Democrats. Tt hitherto has been generally believed that Nazism was before everything a regime of “ order ” and that it had throttled the.subversive elements of Germany. On this point, however, Raushning makes surprising assertions The peril, he says, of the new situation in the Reich, resides in the fact thai; the Proletarian Revolution is prepared not only with the (knowledge of the Government, hut with its help. Every memory of Marxism has disappeared from Germany, it is true, but the old German Marxists were not really dangerous, being destitute of all genuine revolutionary impulse. To-day, the leaders of the workers know nothing whatever of the complicated doctrines of Marxism, and have discarded as worthless the old social theories, but on the other hand, would be ready to give themselves up to the most extreme violence.

In an astonishingly short time, National Socialism has produced a revolutionary type that corresponds closely to the type of the Moscow terrorists. To-day everything in Germany lead to a complete State Socialism and to a new social order which will end by disallowing private property, private enterprises, and incomes not justified by labour. Whereas the old German SocialDemocrat, with his narrow idea and class prejudices, was respectful of the law and of individual liberty and also opposed fundamentally to all brutality, the new generation includes, on the contrary, unscrupulous militarists capable of giving themselves up to excessive revolutionary impulses. “ The new Social order will consist of universal servitude, the same for all, A permanent mobilisation will demand from the individual a complete obedience to the most absolute despotism, not only to better ensure certain military designs, but also to realise a complete revolutionary system; this will mean the collapse of all civilised existence Let one make no mistake about it, the anti-Semitic crimes of the Third Reich may be considered as a preparation for a definite revolutionary explosion. We may take it fof\ granted that certain members of the ruling class of to-day have made use systematically of_ antiSemitism with the hidden intention of later on making these predatory practices general for all society in a final uprising. The more it is delayed, the more irresistible it will be-” THE ANALOGY OF NAZISM AND SOVIETISM. On this point fßauschning says: ‘‘lt is in the nature of things that the plans and methods of work adopted by the Soviet State, on the one side, and the States, the one Fascist and the other National Socialist, on the.other side must become more and _ more similar. They will even become identical. completing in this way a necessary and irresistible development, against which all rational effort will he tried in vain.” Rauschning’s reviewer, Ludovic Naudeau, with his keen French logical insight, cannot, however, reconcile the author’s talk of internal revolution in Germany with the vast external enterprises of which he speaks throughout his book, and Naudeau comes to the conclusion, that the attitude of the National Socialist Party in regard to subversive ideas, is only a tactical attitude meant to keep the masses docile who are to he led on, at the suitable moment, towards these great external enterprises -which are to make all classes in Germany rich at the expense of tboi * satiated ” nations. The Germans are-

tho elect people—let them enter into and inherit the earth. THE PACIFISM OF GERMANS. Yet Rausehning would have us believe that Germans as a people are profoundly pacific. “ A nation like ours,” he says, “ with its ideal of Gennithlichkeit, that is to say, of’mawkish sentimentality and material comfort, puts an enormous encumbrance in the path of the military chiefs—the encumbrance namely of a national temperament that is by no means military.” Frenchmen, Naudeau thinks, would find it hard to agree with (Rauschmug’s psychological portrait of the German, especially in view of the unheard-of events that have recently unfolded themselves in Central Europe, and he asks a very pertinent question. Does Rausehning mean to say that the German people is so entirely submissive that it becomes a passive instrument in the execution of actions that it silently disapproves of? If so, is not, he asks, a similar passivity in the future much to be dreaded? However this may be. at the moment all depends on the will of Hitler, and on this subject the author writes: “ The will to peace with which Hitler is penetrated is undeniable. But this declaration does not imply for a single instant that he has no intention of realising, in the sphere of external politics, a revolution of unlimited extent, and of thus carving out for himself an empire from European material. These two conceptions are not incompatible. Hitler certainly, and contrary to certain ideas that are prevalent in Germany to-day, has no desire to introduce war into the life of nations as an element of their normal condition. His conception would rather be that of a war without effusion of blood, in view of which he has composed his famous expression of ‘ enlarged strategy.’ It is this “ enlarged strategy,” says Naudeau, that we have seen displayed at Vienna and Prague. It consists of surprise blows, diplomatic ambushes, violations of the plighted word, and of tricks that cannot indefinitely deceive other peoples. In this respect, Ranschning explains, Hitler remains faithful to the doctrine of Clauswitz—viz., the simple existence of a military supremacy is often sufficient to obtain without war for a State that is conscious of’ this supremacy concessions due to tho intimidation of an adversary that feels his own weakness. So the pacific assurances formulated by Germans may be in many cases as sincere as it is possible to be in politics.” THE PROJECTS OF HITLER. Many interesting things are written under this heading of which only a few are chosen as most significant. In 1933, at the entrance of Hitler into political power, in the presence of Rausehning, the Fuhrer, in explaining why he had separated from the League of Nations, said that his country would never return into the company of the “ putrid ” democracies. These, he added, were condemned to destruction. Ho would make use of the revolutionary tendencies which he knew existed in Germany by turning them against the foreigner. In this respect he and Mussolini were like-minded. Internal ruthlessness was to find a safety valve in external enterprise. The justification of such an enterprise lay presumably in an absolute faith in tho superiority of Germany. So Hitlerian. literature depicts England as a profoundly degenerate country, corrupted by Jews, unsuited to war, even obliged to renounce her colonial supremacy. Any kind of affront can be put upon her without risk. When England persevered in disarming at a time when it was well known that several nations beside her were arming to the hilt, was this not clear evidence that she was abdicating and preparing to abandon her inheritances ? As for France, she was negligible as a Power. The French were good soldiers, hut owing to her dwindling population she was condemned! to impotence and ultimate extinction. She could never wage aji offensive war. All she could think of doing was to defend herself. , ’ Such have been the arguments for a long time employed in Germany and Italy to justify their hostility towards Franco and Britain. Germans nave a curious faculty of being able to believe what they wish to believe.

GERMANO-RUSSIAN RELATIONS. Many interesting and significant things arc written under this head, but space forbids me to give them in detail. Suffice it to say that Rausehning again and again leturns to the idea that the Nazi Party would end by coming to an understanding with the Russian Bolshevists. “ A Germano-Rus-sian alliance would simply he the junction of two currents that run into the same sea—the sea of world-revolution.” But, perhaps, the most dominant idea of our author, to which he reverts in all parts of his book, is - that the ambitions of the Nazis are infinite, precisely because they are undefined. The Nazis themselves do not know at all what their final designs are. These designs are subject to immediate and continual changes according to the circumstances of the moment. The Nazis are on watch ready to profit by every favourable circumstance, ready to in-

tervene in every conflict, and quite decided to allow no moral scruple to keep them hack, ready for all simulations, for all promises, for all ambushes, and, in fact, premeditating surprises of lightning suddenness to the detriment of their adversaries. Each success gained incites them to further and more imperious demands. DEMOCRACIES’ ULTIMATUM? Under this head, llauschning says: “ The only chance of arriving at a state of sure and durable peace in Europe lies in the destruction of the National Socialist regime. But the Western Powers will not act on this principle; they wish to wait in the hope that the German nation itself will appoint for itself other heads. However, the attitude of these Powers towards Germany is becoming firmer, and the moment seems to, be not far distant when, no longer acting on the defensive, they will deliver an ultimatum to Germany, not to satisfy ideas of conquest, but to demand guarantees from Germany regarding peace, disarmament, and the evacuation of unjustly held territory. Such a decision on the_ part of the democracies seems inevitable, as they cannot indefinitely keep up the enormous expense of a permanent mobilisation. The superior armament of the Nazis, which they have used hitherto to attain their ends by threatening the peaceable Powers, will now be turned on themselves.”