AFRICA’S TROUBLES

Waikato Times, Volume 114, Issue 19125, 9 December 1933, Page 12 (Supplement)

AFRICA’S TROUBLES

German Nazis Raise Their Flag in Africa, But Britons and Boers Give a Very Cool Reception.

German Nazis are having a difficult time In Africa. They are making an energetic effort to transplant Hitler doctrines in the fatherland’s former colony, now the mandate territory of South-West Africa. But the Union of south Africa, which administers the country on behalf of the League of Nations, is treating the movement with considerable coolness, and a motion is being discussed in the Legislature at Windhoek, capital. of the region, to forbid National Socialism altogether (writes Eric Rosenthal in the San Francisco Chronicle). Of the 30,000 white inhabitants that live alongside the 200,000 natives in this area of more than a quarter of a million square miles, less than onehalf are Germans. They were left over after the World War from the settlers sent out by the old Imperial Government. Socialism, Communism, Convervatlsm, steel helmctlsm, and most other political isms that have flowed through the German Reich since 19IS have been reproduced on a tiny scale by the 14,000 Teuton colonists in Africa. For the last two years a recognised branch of the "'Brown House” has existed at Windhoek, as well as branches in one of two other towns. Tho swastika has been sported in buttonholes. From holding private demonstrations of their fealty to Adolf Hitler the Nazis lately proceeded to be more demonstrative. They indignantly deny that they desecrated tho Windhoek synagogue, but on the occasion of the great Hitler demonstrations recently held overseas (hey turned out. to the number of several hundred in the town, and, holding swastika banners aloft, marched through tiro streets and made speeches.

Attaok on Flag. One of the men went at night to the Government offioes, where he substituted a Nazi banner for the flag of the Union of South Africa. There was a police prosecution and a warning.' Thereupon the Nazis decided to organise a boycott of the local Jews. At the Turnverein they strike all “non-Aryans” off the roll, but the Windhoek Lodge of Freemasons declined to follow Instructions from Berlin by adopting a similar measure of "purification." At the diamond mining settlement of Luderitzbucht, Nazi action against the Jews appears to have met with some success, and several residents of more than a quarter of a century there think of moving away. The British and Boers of the territory have formed an anti-Nazi legion, which gathered a large number of members in a short time. 'Meanwhile a Dr. Brenner, chairman of the State-subsidised school of the German community at Windhoek, returned from a trip to Germany, and announced the introduction of the "principle of individual leadership" as opposed to democracy In the administration of the institution. He dissolved the committee of the school and established himself as dictator. Strong opposition from the nonNazi section of the Germans (which still exists) brought about some disturbance, and the Hitlerites smashed the windows of a shopkeeper in the opposition camp. A Bill is under consideration to prohibit foreign political bodies In the territory, to ban unauthorised uniforms (brown shirts have already been worn), to prohibit subversive activities that stir up Inter-communal strife, and generally to nip Hitlerism in the bud.