THE GERMAN MIND

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 25 October 1941, Page 8

THE GERMAN MIND

i Mr Douglas Miller. author of an 1 article in the “New York Times Magazine,” from which the following extracts are taken, spent 15 years in the American foreign service in Germany, six of them during Hitler’s regime. The Germans ' are a quarrelsome people. . . The atmosphere is al'■'"uys full of accusations and bickerings. Family life is filled with ferocious squabbles. . . the trait of self-assertiveness and combativeness flavours all large organisations and enterprises. We have heard much of German efficiency. ... In common practice Germans often fail to reach Ameri- | can standards. . . When the first Foid assembly line was set up in Germany employees fainted—not because of demands upon their muscles, ] but because they were not accustomed to think so rapidly. . . German trains carry larger crews than we use for much longer trains in U.S.A. Germans do things so well that they are always inclined to overdo 1 them. . . If life were a science the Germans would have us beaten; but , life is an art. It cannot be merely learned —it must be felt and perceived. . This is a fortunate thing for the rest j of us. : Nazi speakers proclaim: “We must | restore the Germany of Bismarck, when we were feared and respected.” , Only by putting their feet upon the J necks of other people could the GerI mans recover that sense of superiority j which gave them inner satisfaction. | The Nazi philosophy will prove j inadequate for the German spirit because of its jack of content. It has not Marxian dialectic, no body of j scholastic dogma. As a religion it is too cheap and shoddy to replace the body of Christian teaching which 1 Germany shares with the rest of the Western world. ; If someone asks what the German i people think about Hitler, the answer > is: “Most of them don't think at all. They ju*t accept him as they do the j weather.”