GERMANY & ENGLAND

Te Aroha News, Volume XLI, Issue 6411, 6 November 1923, Page 3

GERMANY & ENGLAND

“GOTT STRAFE” AGAIN INCREASING HATRED A German with whom I have had some conversation assured me, “The cry of ‘Gott Strafe England’ is coming back.” This may be an exaggeration, but the fact remains that the German mental attitude towards this country is undergoing a swift and remarkable change, says a London correspondent.

Foreign diplomats and private observers in Berlin agree that German public opinion has turned. The German believes that he has been “let down,” and that Great Britain has failed to redeem her promises. For German diplomacy and the German press have all these years managed to discover in every act of the British Government a promise of assistance against France. Nothing that has been done here, either privately or officially, could destroy this illusion. The Marquis Curzon and his collaborators, in their conversations with Herr Sthamer, the German Ambassador, have explained repeatedly, and with uncompromising clarity, the real state of affairs. But all without avail.

It is only now that the German mind is swinging back to an exact comprehension of the situation. The reaction from a great hope unfulfilled may be the most natural explanation for the new “Gott Strafe England” attitude, the existence of which is now reported from many quarters. The German Socialists have chosen our Ambassador in Berlin as their pet objects for their attacks; they ascribe to him the policy which Herr Cuno has so steadfastly pursued all through these months. There is some amusement to be derived from the fact that the hate for England, which in the war was propogated by the extremists of the Right is now being developed 'by the Moderates, and even more by the extremists of the Left.