Bouquets for Germany

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23275, 18 February 1939, Page 4 (Supplement)

Bouquets for Germany

By E.M.B.

Ell" ERR HITLER, not to mention his medical friend, will be pleased with Mr. Hairy Rudin. Professor Rudin is a Yale historian of some reputation, and he has applied his obvious gifts for careful research to a study of German imperialism in the Cameroons, over the thirty years of the occupation, The conclusion is (tell it not in Gath!) that "the reason was unjust, and the result unfortunate, when Germany was compelled in 1919 to surrender her colonies on the grounds of maladministration and general incapacity for colonial government." The ''Deutsche Kolonialzeitung" will conclude that some goocl thing can come out of America and review the book at length. This is not to suggest that the study. is what the Germans call "tendenzios." Mr. Rudin has investigated all the sources. His documentation is colossal. Not a record remains unscjymed. Anyone who questions his conclusion need go no further than his own book for o<=»o<r=^><T=>o<=r>o-c==>o<r=>o-e=

Herr Hitler Will Be Very Pleased

material to disprove it. That is what the critics will do. They will point out that there is no evidence or a comparison of the German colonial record with that of. say, Britain, France, or Holland in similar areas. They might also find that the case that could be made for South-west Africa is not so good. There is a German novel describing with relish the campaign by which the rebel blacks in the South-west were driven by a military cordon into the desert to die en masse of thirst. .Before the last engagement when the natives halt in despair on the desert's edge, the chaplain coinmends the arms of the Fatherland to God. They are to bo used in divine judgment against a people who have rebelled against God's fiat which brought them German rule! But, of course, one man cannot do everything. Years of careful work have gone into Mr. Rudin's book, and it is not for any chance reviewer to criticise . his findings out of pure prejudice. It) the meantime, hero is something American for commendation in the Brown House. The author deserves a holiday at Berchtesgaden. "Germans in the Cameroons, 1884-1914. a Case Study in Modern Imperialism, by Harry K, Eudin. (Jonathan Cap.e.)