The Evening Star SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1940. THE NEW ORDER.

Evening Star, Issue 23753, 7 December 1940, Page 10

The Evening Star SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1940. THE NEW ORDER.

The Germans began the last war with the destruction of the great library of Louvain. The present Nazis have far surpassed that exploit. It would be a complete contradiction on the part of Hitlerism if, after seven years of teaching that the only things worth respect were the knock-out blow and the He hypnotically repeated till it was accepted for a truth, it had any regard for‘the things of the mind. Its natural instinct towards those, and towards the free processes of the mind, is to fear them, as being influences opposed to everything that it stands for. Having reduced the universities of Germany to mere schools of Nazism it would be madness to allow universities, except of the same kind, in subjected countries. A race of robots, obeying commands as" if they were levers, dealing destruction without one thought of human compassion or much of advantage, as if they were moved by switches, cannot rule thinking beings; it can only rule other robots, made- weaker by deprivations. The robot condition, therefore, for all but the small clique who are meant to control it, is a necessity of the German “ new order.” The Nazis have done their to bring it about in each country where they have had the power. A pamphlet issued by the Czecbo-Slovak National Committee tells what they have done in Czecho-Slovakia. From the moment they occupied Prague they began to pillage and destroy with great thoroughness. In all the scientific establishments: or schools that had been requisitioned they immediately seized the valuable apparatus, instruments, and scientific equipment, especially in the institutions of the Polytechnic School, the Institute of Natural History, and the Faculty of Medicine. The scientific libraries were subjected to a process of methodical spoliation which was certainly premeditated. Scientific books and films were either torn up or taken away, the archives of the University Senate were torn up or burnt, the card-indexes destroyed or scattered. One recalls Kipling’s story of ‘ Letting in the Jungle.’ The personal possessions of the professors and their assistants suffered the same fate. Some university institutions were transformed into barracks for the German soldiers, and the Goth in control, Dr Frank, personally ordered that all Czech schools of higher education should be closed for three years. Thirty-four students were shot, and the students who were left at liberty were ordered to find a manual occupation—all others were forbidden them—within 48 hours, failing which they would be sent to labour camps in Germany. The professors were no better treated. Some were sent to the Gestapo prisons, where examinations are conducted typically by kicks in the stomach. Some were assassinated, others committed suicide, the rest live under police supervision. A great number of school teachers were arrested. The record falls in precisely with the theories attributed to Herr Darre, German Minister of Agriculture, in a speech to high Nazi officials. “ The new aristocracy will have slaves assigned to them who will he their property and consist of landless non-German nationals. Please do not interpret the word ‘ slaves ’ as a parable or a rhetorical terra. We actually have in mind a modern form of mediaeval slavery which must and will be introduced because we urgently need it to fulfil our great tasks. These slaves will by no means be denied the blessings of literacy, but higher education in the future will be reserved for the German population of Europe.” The rest will supply labour armies for an -economic conquest of the world. But not many Germans, we imagine, would have their minds cultivated under the precious regime foreshadowed. Even an ordered mind, in one German by - adoption, would have meant no Nazism and no ‘ Mein Kampf.’