RUTHLESSNESS OF ENEMY

Southland Times, Issue 24600, 24 November 1941, Page 4

RUTHLESSNESS OF ENEMY

ISSUES INVOLVED IN WAR

MR DUFF COOPER’S SPEECH

A searching analysis of the issues involved in the war and a description of the motives actuating the Germans in their struggle for world domination were given in a broadcast speech which was delivered last night by Mr Alfred Duff Cooper, who is in New Zealand on a mission undertaken on behalf of the British War Cabinet. Mr Duff Cooper contrasted the German system of government before the last war with that of the Nazis and described the reign of terror Hitler had brought to Europe. It was seldom that truth had fallen from the lips of Hitler, said Mr Duff Cooper, but when he had said that the future of Germany for 1000 years depended on the result of this war he had said something at least partly true. The future, not only of Geimany, but of mankind depended on it. That was the solemn fact. It was only by keeping it constantly before the nation that the people could rouse themselves to the efforts the war was demanding. “NO WAR LIKE THIS ONE” “There has been no war like this one. Do not make the fatal mistake of thinking that this is like other wars before it,” he went on. Other wars had been fought for territorial, commercial, or other advantages and victory or defeat only meant the transference to another country of that which had caused the war. Defeat before this in the present war would have meant destruction of the British Empire. Under the conditions which Germany would have dictated Britain would never have been able to recover her strength, as she had so foolishly allowed Germany to do in the years between the two wars. There was, however, something greater at stake today than the existence of the British Empire. “The old German Empire believed in the rule of force and in the philosophy of blood and arms,” he continued, “and we did well to destroy it.” A far more hideous thing had taken its place however. A despotic tyranny had never held sway in the old German Empire. The throne then had had limited powers. There had been a parliament, which could and did, criticize government. There had been a free Press, and within certain limits, free speech. There had been freedom for men to worship as they pleased. ALWAYS A CRUEL RACE Germans had always been a cruel race. Books written about the last war, many of them written by Germans—books like “All Quiet On The Western Front”—illustrated the peculiarly revolting qualities of the German character. Of all the things that would make the Nazi regime stink for ever in the nostrils of decent people, concentration camps were the worst. By means of terrorism and torture the Nazis were seeking to impose their will upon the world. “It would have been a terrible thing to have lost the last war, but it would not have been the end of all things—the final frustration of human hope.” Living in a German-dominated world after the last war, he would at least have felt that there was some hope for future generations. Much evil would have come out cf a German victory in the last war, but a Nazi victory today would mean the triumph of the principal evil itself. PRINCIPLES OF NAZISM Tlie chief principle of the Nazi philosophy, if their system of thought could be dignified by that term—the first lie which was propagated by the Nazis —which was being driven into the round and silly heads of millions of Germans today, was that they were a people superior to all others on earth.

“Millions of Germans have been taught and do believe that they are meant to be a race of masters, and all others, races of slaves,” he said. If these things had been described 10 years ago they would have been dismissed as the nightmare of a madman. Mr Duff Cooper described the brutal subjugation of the Poles. The Germans feared the Poles, he said. They had been increasing faster than any other nation i:. Europe since the last war. The hatred of the Germans for the Poles, however, was as nothing to their hatred for Britain. A German victory would mean death and destruction to the British Empire. “But we need not waste our time speculating on what would happen in case of defeat, because we are not going to be defeated," he said.

Since coming to New Zealand Mr Duff Cooper said he had often been asked what London now looked like. London, he said, was not looking beautiful. She was looking glorious. She had laid aside everything that made her beautiful and had put on “battledress.” Never in her long history had citizens loved her as much as they did today.