By AN ENGLISH SCHOOLGIRL I WENT to Germany with very vague
ideas of the real 1 nature of National Socialism, but very sure that I should be unable to discuss it at all freely. I came back with very different ideas. To the people I met Hitler was very much more of a saviour than a tyrant. But he was a saviour whom it was possible to criticise on some points. He was perhaps " a little too idealistic " for the present day. He was less " wise " than Mussolini in his alienation of the Jews and the Catholic Church. But he arid his disciples were the one more or less divine bulwark of Western Europe today against Communism and the barbaric East. Everyone I met seemed to agree with what I imagine to be the fundamentals of National Socialism, and acceptance of these fundamentals was only the more marked by varying criticisms of its more superficial aspects.
I was staying in Saxony with *hat I imagine to be a fairly typical middle-class family of modem Germany. They had been fairly well off-before the War, but had lost all their private means in the War and later in the inflation. The husband; although he was not a. member of the National Socialist-party, was a State official. He and his wife seemed to acquiesce quite sincerely in the present regime but were less enthusiastic about it than their children (aged 17 and 2o). Herr A. might not be a National Socialist ; he might feel doubts of Hitler's wisdom, yet I am sure that he, too, felt that the individual German was of no account beside the German State, and it was as important that Germany should care adequately for her poor as that she should care for her prestige. He, too, shared the view that Communism was a, demoniacal force to be combated at any price. With me he always argued in support of the present regime, though he ernphasised that it was for Germany alone : that the essential difference between the Germans and ourselves was that they preferred to be led or even driven, while we preferre'd the illusion that we were ourselves the motive force. He could speak no English and I at first no German, so we had to communicate in a hybrid language with Latin as its basis. His criticism might, I think, be summed up in what he said about a Hitler youth expedition, quam beaucoup de " Heil Hitler."
It was surprising how much the other people I met divided themselves in opinion into young and old. I have always disliked such generalisations, but the Hitler youth has a very real meaning. .,All the young people that I met seemed to take it as a personal responsibility upon themselves to convert me. The girl of the family had spent six months last year in ArbeitsdeMst—and surely "labour-camp " is hardly a fair translation. She admitted that the work was often extremely hard, but what, she said, did that matter if one was young' and healthy ?. Her reports were certainly very Flowing; and photographs that she showed me might have been 'taken at a Girl Guide camp which was doing practical good to the community instead of just holiday- making. This girl was, too, a leading spirit in the B.D.M.— the girls' equivalent of the Hitler youth movement. She told me that she was responsible for a thousand girls there ; she spent three evenings at least every week at this work. She took life very seriously ; she was consequently torn between her own intellectual interests and Hitler's canons for feminine deportment.
The son, - and most of the other young men that I met there; were most emphatic in explaining how vital was the return of the colonies. I was given innumerable reasons for this, from the fact (if, indeed, it is one) that the natives insist upon- singing " Deinschland " when they are sup- posed to be singing " God Save the King," to the economic necessity foi increased trading facilities. I was shown population statistics, which did not seem to me to have' very much relevance as they proved only that we have a much denser population than Germany. I was ridiculed when I emphasised the difference between mandated territories and colonies. But the most convincing, and perhaps the only real, argument, was the restoration of Germany's prestige as an imperial Power.
Communism for Germany is still the international creed that it was originally, based upon. the conception of absolute equality. Neither of these factors are much in prominence in the Communism as practised in the U.S.S.R. today, so that it is difficult to account for Germany's almost fanatical hatred. I certainly had not been prepared for it. ' Among the older generation men and women, who I suppose could still remember pre-War Germany and in whose minds the immediate post-War atrocities were still vivid, it was this more negative creed, hatred of the original Communism, that justified National Socialism. I was pitied as one who must inevitably suffer a terrible fate unless we awoke to our own danger. The 'bus strike, the Irish question, the Indian question, almost all our troubles were attributed to a Com- munist source.
Of course they were quite unable to comprehend our attitude towards Spain. They could not in the least under- stand how I personally could feel quite impartially revolted by the actions of both sides, much less how the British Government could put its head voluntarily into the halter by allowing the possible creation of a " Communist " State next to France. Here one saw the dangers of a controlled Press. If accounts of Spanish actions differed in my English paper from their German ones, there could, of course, be no doubt that the German reports were correct. It was quite impossible to discuss the bombing of Guernica ; the German Press was more or less unanimous in their reports and there was an end of the matter.
However difficult they might find it to see my point of view about Spain, they were quite ready to understand our lack of sympathy over their treatment of the Jews. I have a feeling that Herr A. rather more than understood it. Here again, though, it was difficult to find out how much my particular family knew. The girl assured me quite sincerely that although the Jews might be hurrying out of Germany, they were not being positively ill-treated, they were merely being shown, as she said, that in Germany Germans must come first. The Jews, like Communism and the Catholic Church, stood for an international force and go they must because they were incompatible. The Aryan race might not be superior to the Semitic, but it was not going to be ousted from its own ground by it. She told me that she was not allowed to enter a shop kept by a Jew in her B.D.M. uniform; but I know that at the hospital where she was being medically trained she was helping to cure a penniless Jew of cancer with radium treatment.
It was, however, not that agreement over some questions was impossible that surprised me, but that discussion of these questions was possible. Walking along a crowded river embankment one Sunday after tea I was able to express most of my feelings about totalitarian States without feeling that my companion was at all anxious about spies. I told her of my surprise about this, and she said that the real danger of speaking freely was not of being overheard by Government spies so much as of being overheard by someone who coveted your job. It was easy to get anyone dismissed from his post by accusing him with very slight evidence of treason.
This Fraulein X was going to introduce me to her class at the school where she taught, but this proved to be impossible as my last fortnight coincided with the time she.wa.s to spend with her class " in the mountains " Most secondary schools apparently have their " country houses " and parties of girls are sent out in relays with their class mistresses during the summer. Another excellent institution is the "wander tag " ; quite frequently the whole school turns out with its sandwiches and makes an organised expedition to the neighbouring country.
What rather surprised me was the food. I had been warned that Germany was " short." As I had a large appetite, I had expected that this would be very noticeable. However, such is the relative sense of quantities that after a fortnight I had established a reputation for a small appetite. There certainly seemed to be plenty of food, though in this particular family it was mostly vegetarian. The " Winter Help " system was explained to me, and I was given a meal typical of what they would have eaten while it was in force. It consisted of a most delicious stew of asparagus, rice, potato and liver. One had such huge helpings that the fact that it was a " one-dish " meal seemed irrelevant. I do not know, whether it was the food, but everywhere I went during about the first week I noticed a very definite smell. I could never quite identify this, but it may have been sauerkraut.
" Winter Help " was not the only way in which I saw a true socialism functioning. About three times during the four weeks that I was in Germany Frau. A. had to go with her husband to a party where all the men in his office took part in the festivities. She explained that everywhere these parties were now compulsory to promote the feeling of equality between classes. One could see socialism in operation in many other ways. One of the most noticeable was the attitude towards entertainment. Prices were extremely low, a good seat at the Opera cost only about half a crown, and all the seats at the concert hall were the equivalent of a shilling. These places were always crowded. On Saturdays short services, which were in effect Bach concerts, took place in two of the churches and were, of course, free. Indeed everyone whom I met gave me the impression that we in thinking of the present regime in Germany as Nazi (i.e., Nazional) were ignoring a factor that was quite as important as its nationalism—its socialism.
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