THE NAZI CHARACTER.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 253, 25 September 1939, Page 9

THE NAZI CHARACTER.

PUBLIC INTEREST,

(British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, Sept. 23.

The Government White Paper giving the record of the diplomatic exchanges between Britain and Germany preceding the war is proving a “best seller,” and copies were being bought- yesterday at the rate of 1000 an hour. The demand continues to he heavy to-day.

Though tiie documents, which are collected in a volume, are primarily 1 for historians’ patient study, general \ public interest has been deeply stir- j red by the graphic presentation of the sequence of events in ■ the tragic drama. The curious study in the character and tactics of the Nazi leaders which the documents reveal is another feature of the book upon which the newspapers comment. , The Times ,says: “The virtues of the German people, as we have learnt to know them in the years when they were permitted to be our friends and to respect them even when they were our stubborn foes, are pre-eminently those of solidity and sobriety. 'That, they should come to be officially represented by this clique of febrile and hysterical rhetoricians is a bewildering paradox which, in' less tragic times, would be a cause for mirth. But when Herr Hitler describes himself to Sir Nevilc Henderson as by nature an artist and not a politician the laughter is damped by a reflection that the same boast was made by Nero.” The Manchester Guardian concentrates attention on the exchanges during the last few hours before the war, which, it says, reveal that' there was scarcely any pretence that the German Government had ever meant to negotiate. “The whole world knows Herr Hitler was determined to have a triumph or war... He wanted a gesture from Britain, but that gesture was a surrender of the Polish people at his will.”