THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, June 7, 1939. HERR HITLER'S WRATH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23828, 7 June 1939, Page 10

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, June 7, 1939. HERR HITLER'S WRATH

That Herr Hitler is more than a little disturbed at the direction which British diplomacy has taken since the aftermath of Munich revealed the futility of any faith in Nazi Germany's outward professions has been made apparent in various recent utterances. A leader well-balanced mentally would be wary of committing himself to the extravagances of speech in which Herr Hitler indulges. More than a trace of that hysteria which not infrequently colours his speeches .is discernible in an address delivered this week by the Fuhrer to German ex-servicemen. According to the report of this, he hurled defiance at "British encirclement," a purpose thus interpreted by himself to which he has made angry and contemptuous reference on various occasions of late. He identified Britain's aims as "the same as those before the World War—the destruction of Germany's trade, the annihilation of her mercantile fleet, and the robbery of her colonies." That extract alone from his speech should make it quite clear once more that Herr Hitler deems no bombast and misrepresentation for the justification and glorification of the Nazi policy too gross for consumption by the German nation. Hopeless it must appear that the German people should in such circumstances have any cognisance of the real truth, any proper understanding of the attitude of Great Britain and other Powers towards their country when their leader thus dins into their ears these rantings in which he attempts to represent Germany as being on the defensive. To the extent to which he indulges in angry invective, Herr Hitler reveals himself a leader who sees obstacles in the way of the fulfilment of his designs for the aggrandisement of Nazi Germany. His talk is of the necessity of a nation armed to the teeth, "militarily trained and educated." In an amusing passage he has spoken of Germany's " frivolous neglect" of armaments before 1914, as if the world had quite forgotten all the sabre-rattling and mailed-fist demonstrations of the Germany of that time, and the Kaiser's inordinate pride in her great and threatening war machine. Recently, Herr Hitler's fiftieth birthday was celebrated by the biggest military parade that Berlin has ever known.

Setting the pace to-day for international rearmament, Germany, her people permitted no relaxation from the iron compulsion exercised by a militant Government, will continue to do so. But, of course, the way of the totalitarian States is the way of justice and peace. Their leaders have proclaimed it. But the peace which Herr Hitler would have in mind is a peace conforming to his own curious conceptions of justice, a peace crowned by the attainment of his own inordinate ambitions. When other Powers seek the organisation of a "peace front" they are railed at for attempting to encircle Germany. Their crime is, of course, that of concerting measures whereby Germany's policy of over-running other States under threat of force may be effectually tHwarted. Already Herr Hitler sees the difficulty of further application of that policy, hence his splenetic outbursts. In ,his appeal to the Nazi and Fascist dictators in April, President, Roosevelt ended with the words: "Heads of great Governments in this hour are literally responsible for the fate of humanity in the coming years. They cannot fail to hear the prayers of their peoples to be protected from the foreseeable chaos of war." Can it be that Herr Hitler lends ear to any such prayer from the people of Germany? In his " Mein Kampf" he has repeatedly scoffed at "universal sentimental drivel" and " whining and blubbering pacifists," and by reaction eulogised force — " the clenched hand must take by force that which was refused to the open hand of friendship." The internal part of his book has been described as "a breath-taking eulogy of expediency." The people are to. be no better than " fodder for the superman, who is above morals." Germany, Herr Hitler has written, "must necessarily win the position which belongs to her on this earth " if she follows Nazi principles and keeps her race " pure," and such a State, he has declared, "must one day become ruler of the earth." It is to the service of his vision that the German people are to-day in subjection. But as his own interpreter, Herr Hitler has made many things increasingly clear. It can be under-

stood why the policy of " appeasement," which from certain points of view seemed so reasonable, increased rather than diminished the danger of a European conflict.