Pearls of Nazi Culture

Northern Advocate, 14 December 1939, Page 9

Pearls of Nazi Culture

There is nothing very subtle about Clara Reiser’s annotations of the Nazi cultured pearls which she has strung together in “Nazi Nuggets,” put then there is nothing very subtle about’ the excerpts themselves. They are the pronouncements, more typical than selective, despite their fantastic quality of prominent public men in present-day Germany, and of an obedient press, upon a variety of subjects, from peace to lipstick, on which the Nazi State has felt called upon to pontificate. Such is their cumulative effect that the reader may feel he is being conducted down the main psychopathic ward in a hospital catering to sick minds. It becomes ever more incredible, as one scans the brief paragraphs that they represent the serious’utterance of men who are the present leaders of a great State, and responsible for the conditioning of the political and social intelligence of 80,000,000 people. A few dark gems from this spurious diadem will best suggest the text of the book, and the mentality of those who are its unconscious contributors. Of the New Germany: Even in the German streets the new spirt is visible. . . . The ashcans are lined up as if standing at attention. (German newspaper). Of Herr Hitler:

Hitler is lonely. So is God. Hitler is like God. (Dr. Frank, Minister of Justice). The Grace of God attends our Fuehrer and our glorious movement because our Fuehrer, and we with, him, took up and conducted a struggle for our people from wholly clean, pure 'motives. (Julius Streicher). The Fuehrer belongs to those who fulfil the will of God and realise the life of Christ in this life to an extraordinary degree (Dr. Fabriens, German theologian). What he does is right; whatever

he does is necessary, and whatever he does is successful. . . Thus manifestly the Fuehrer has the divine blessing. (Rudolf Hess).

Of Christianity

Christ is a false prophet. He was a Jew and thus the source of every ill. (Frau LudendorfT).

Christ cannot possibly have been a Jew. I don’t have to prove that scientifically. It is a fact. (Dr. Paul Goebbels). The truly great Bolshevists of human culture were the Christologists. (Dr. Bergmann, in “The German National Church.’’)

The pre-requisite of all German 7 education is the acknowledgment that it is not Christendom which has brought us civilisation, but that Christianity owes is lasting values to the Germanic character. (Rosenberg). When the Fuehrer addressed his last speech to the people on March 28, 1926, it was as if a profound agitation went through the whole nation; one felt that Germany was transformed into one single House of God, in which its intercessor stood before the throne of the Almighty to bear witness. It- seemed to us that this cry to heaven for freedom and peace could not die away unheal’d. That was religion in its profoundest and most mystical sense. A nation then acknowledged through its spokesman, and laid its destiny and its life with full confidence in his hand. (Goebbels).

On Eating: Eat National Socialist! (Nazi Health Bureau slogan). Thorough mastication avoids needless waste and payment of unnecessary expense to foreign counti'ies. (Der Heilgarten). We don’t ask anything of you that we, the leaders, are unwilling to bear ourselves. Too much fat creates big bellies. I have been eating less butter and have reduced 201 b. (General Goering).

Of Women: Thank God, we reject women in Parliament, on the platform and in State administration. (Nazi slogan). In the education of women emphasis must be laid primarily on physical development. Only afterwards must consideration be given to the spiritual values, and lastly to mental development. (Hitler). Woman —her place is in the home, her duty the recreation of the tired warrior. (Goering). Other Themes:

The subject of animal husbandry has some enlightening paragraphs, including the definition of what constitutes an Aryan hen, and a dissertation upon the important racial differences which may be found between ordinary pigs and the “German noble white hog.” Attacks on the Roman Catholic faith, some naive and some extremely vicious, occupy a chapter to themselves, and race, of course, produces a few revolutionary scientific theories.

Other subjects into which the industrious editor of “Nazi Nuggets” has delved with success are press censorship, the Jews, the child and education. It is an amazing and in some sense a sickening contribution to the humour of nations which she has made, and is appropriately introduced in the words of General Goering; “If what we have done here is lunacy, then lunacy becomes us.” —M.C. in Otago Witness.