THE PEOPLE'S WILL

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 52, Issue 3771, 19 June 1936, Page 11

THE PEOPLE'S WILL

HITLER’S MAY DAY SPEECH. / “LIES ABOUT AUSTRIA.” Central Berlin was entirely given over to-day to the “disciplined enjoyment of the workers’ holiday” which the National-Socialist regime had ordained (telegraphed the correspondent of The Times on May 1). No ordinary traffic was allowed through the Tiergarten or in Unter den Linden and surrounding streets, and, all business being suspended, orderly crowds wandered about listening to wireless encouragements to enjoy life. In the evening there was dancing in cafes and open spaces. In the morning the chief event was a speech by Herr Hitler, delivered in the Lustgarten, in which a large Maypole had been erected and decorated with swastikas and fir branches. Herr Hitler drove to the Lustgarten along some miles of broad thoroughfare, where large crowds of workers were marshalled behind lines of S.A. men. Many wandered away as soon as the Fuhrer had passed, but most waited to hear his speech through the loud-speakers and to join afterwards in singing “Deutschland über Alles” and the “Horst Wessel Lied.” Herr Hitler began by saying that in earlier years when May Day came round in Germany the Government usually began to shiver. Every May Day saw men fly at each other’s throats, and the Governments and the people were thankful if it passed without anything worse happening. To-day, three years after the National- Socialist revolution, Germany seen from outside must present a picture of the most profound peace. “Why was a revolution necessary?” the Fuhrer asked. “We Germans are in a specially unfavourable and unfortunate position in the world. A people of extraordinary talents, of great industry, endowed with a unique capacity for action, living in a constricted living room and suffering from a dearth of many raw materials, and at the same time a people of high culture requiring an appropriately high standard of living.” Unity Needed. What had that involved, before they could reduce the 7,000,000 unemployed and finally secure work and bread for every individual German —a problem that countries with 20 times as much space and the same population had scarcely been able to solve? It was necessary first to organise. the German people in a form which permitted the millions of individuals to be fused into a unity, to transform their individual and perhaps often divergent wills into one will, to cast the energy of so many hundreds of thousands and millions of men into one great force. Individually the soldier was nothing, but everything in the framework of his company, battalion, regiment, division, and therefore in the framework of the army. So also was the individual national comrade nothing, but in the framework of the community of the nation there arose out of the weak wills of 60,000,000 individuals a gigantically powerful clenched will of all. ’ The Fuhrer went on to say that Grmany needed peace abroad in order to solve her internal problems. Perhaps many insignificant politicians could not appreciate that. The Germans were not a turbulent mass in which everyone did and could do what he wanted. We have organised our people, he continued, for great communal achievements. We have set ourselves aims. To others we would say: Do not cross our path, leave us alone. We can manage ovr own problems without involving others in them. You be content to look after your own. Have Stayed at Home. I do not hold it necessary to win the respect of my people by any act of renown which leaves millions of dead behind it—l have them without that. I do not need to lead millions to the slaughter-house in order that a few other millions may perhaps believe in me- We have done nothing in these three years that could bring suffering to any one other nation, have taken no step that could cause anyone anywhere grief. We have not stretched out ahand to take what does not belong to us; we have stayed within our own frontiers. We have offered the hand of friendship to others repeatedly; what more can one ask of us? A short time ago we made a great offer to the world, not something puzzled out by jurists and advocates, but reasonable, simple, and clear. If the will is there the offer can be used to give the nations internal peace and a feeling of security. But what happens? At the same moment at which we, without regard to the past or present, declare ourselves prepared to offer our hand to all nations and make treaties with them, at that same moment we see a new campaign ' of hate break out. The lie goes forth again that Germany will to-morrow or the dayVfter that fall upon Austria or Czechoslovakia. I ask myself always: Who can these elements be —(Shouts of “The Jews”) —who will have no peace, who incite continually who most sow distrust, and want no understanding? Who are they? (Re-

newed shouts of “The Jews.”) I know they are not the millions who, if these inciters had their way, would have to take to arms. “Take a Glance.” How fine it was to have in Germany, Herr Hitler continued, people who no longer required to be ruled by knuckle-dusters. He only wished that at this moment other nations could take a glance at Germany and see this nation at peace and work. If they could, he believed they would take out the inciters and destroy them. They would then understand that this community was, and would be, one of the strongest guarantees of a genuine European order and of a really humane culture and civilisation. A procession of detachments of the armed forces and Nazi formations, including 7000 torchbearers, was made at night to the Lusgtarten, where General Goering, the Prussian Premier, made a speech from the steps of the Old Museum facing the former Imperial Castle. For the fourth time, he said, the fighters of the movement and the soldiers of the new army stood together in the light of torches on that memorable spot. Their deepest thanks were due to the Fuhrer, who had not despaired in the night of German darkness and had known that the resurrection would follow Golgotha. As the torches burned to-night so had the torch of the Fuhrer’s faith burned and illuminated Germany. The army —a people’s army such as had never existed before —stood no longer on one side, but was in the midst of the nation and the movement, and ready, if the Fuhrer called, for the last sacrifice. The motto of the day had been, as the Fuhrer decreed, “rejoice in life,” and they could once more rejoice because they were again strong and free.