GERMAN OFFICERS

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 September 1940, Page 4

GERMAN OFFICERS

“SWAGGERING LOUTS” NEW YORK, July 20. “Skulking, swaggering louts,” is the description the New York HeraldTribune gives to the first batch of German prisoners sent from Britain to Canada. They disembarked at Quebec and Montreal last week-end.

“They misconstrued the initial ’ courtesy of their guards as evidence ' of British weakness and decadence,” ' says the paper. “They sulked and indulged in boasts and insults. Appar- ’ ently many of these louts were offi--1 cers, obviously and deliberately trained out of the archaic notion that an ; officer must be both an officer and a J gentleman.” ; Some of the prisoners, principally former civilian sailors, were “em- . barrassed and distressed by the crude unsportsmanlike arrogance of • their , Nazi compatriots.” . “Here,” it is added, “is a signifi- • cant illustration of that basic division ' among Germans which may some day again assert itself politically as it ■ has in the past. In the ascendant . for the present is the ruthless, barbarian, synthetic Goth, contemptuous of every Christian instinct. But ■ throughout his country, suppressed 'jbut surviving, is the antithetical elejment, perhaps numerically superior, 1 and tenacious of the amenities of civilisation. In spite of current evidence : of German unity under the Nazis, this cleavage is unmistakable. It may yet prove to be the fatal joint in , Hitler’s armour.” i