GERMAN HATE

Otago Witness, Issue 3234, 8 March 1916, Page 24

GERMAN HATE

A NATIONAL CREED

"GOTT STRAFE ENGLAND."

(Fbom Oub Own Cohbesfondent.) LONDON, December 17

A neutral friend of the Entente, who has had recent opportunities of observing the trend of feeling in Germany, says hate of England is the prevailing sentiment. " The intense hatred of Great Britain, which is expressed daily in ninety-nine out of a hundred households in every part 01 the German Empire, is not new. The seeds of this poisonous weed were sown by Bismarck in tho middle of the last century. It is inconceivable to one who, like myself, lived in Prussia for some 10 years, and was educated at a German university, that the British Government or individual Englishmen should ever have been, deceived as to the aims of Germany in regard to the British Empire. It cannot bo said that the Germans have ever hidden their sentiments about the English. A few wise newspapers from time to time called attention to German hostility, but for the rest it seemed to mo that your public were drugged by the cynical visits of German burgomasters, professors, and the like. " Prince Henry's anti-English .sentiments aro well known to everyone in Berlin. He is largely responsible for the ruthless treatment of certain English prisoners at Nauheim. Prince Henry's is a typical example of the better-class German attitude towards England. Over an intense hatred it is deemed wise to throw a cloak of bonhomie and friendship. Thereby you ..deceive the Englander, and at the same time obtain information. The bases of German hate are envy, greed, and the resentment that all Germans have against the undoubted air of superiority adopted, and probably with very good reason, by the English towards' Germans. ' One day we will show these decadent British that we are no longer the poor relations of Europe,' was said to me at Frankfort. It has taken 50 years of propaganda, deliberately spread by tho Government, to bring about this state of feeling, and nothing but a settlement of the war on German soil, and far forward on German soil, will, in my opinion, check it. The greed of obtaining English colonial possessions, the envy of the lofty position occupied in the world by Great Britain, added to the horrible surprise of the intervention of England in this war, are factors which confronted me on every day in my tour. Nor has the conduct of Great Britain during the war been of a _ nature to do much to change German opinion. " While I was in Germany several articles were published describing the lives of interned Germans in England, and stating how comfortable they were. These were not regarded as evidence of humanity on the part of Great Britain, but as of fear, 'You see,' pointed out a Lutheran minister to me, ' these Englanders are already prepared for the settlement. They want to keep on the right side of us.' It is universally known throughout Germany that the Germans kill your prisoners and wounded. I heard it repeated agftin and again, never with any expression other than that it was the right-thing to do. Left to themselves, I believe that Bavaria and \\ urtemberg would gradually resume their old kindly feelings toward England. The hatred has been fanned during the last 10 years especially, and undoubtedly the fire would die if it were not kept alive by Prussia, Some time ago there was published in the English newspapers a document called Lissauer s Hymn o- Hate" On account of the ridicule it aioused in Scandinavian countries. Lissauer. who had been decorated by the Kaiser for its composition, was asked to withdraw But that 'Hvmn of Hate' is only one of a thousand scurrilous poems still in circulation. , , , " A great many efforts have been made by Germans, who largely control the Austrian press, to inculcate hate in Austria. They have had very little success I did tot hear one single expression of hatred towards England or France in any of the Austrian towns I visited recently. 1 argued with a good many Germans as to tne wisdom of their attitude towards Great Britain I pointed out that it would da unreasonable to expect the British to adnrt Germans to social intercourse M'ltbin a generation or two after the war. After the war,' was the reply, 'the English will have to do what we tell them, so far as commerce is concerned. The power of our great Customs Union will be such as to compel England to trade With US During the war we are developing all tho_ trades which England had. We are storing up cotton in America, wool and hides m feouth America, and iron ore in Sweden._ We shall bo independent of Great Britain, but she will not be independent of us. Uur aniline dyes alone will be a sufficient lever to prise open tho commercial gates of England.' " .