An Apologist for Hitler
If Dr. Goebbels had written a speech for General Hertzog and wirelessed it to him at Cape Town he could not have improved on the utterance of which the ex-Premier delivered himself in the House of Assembly on Tuesday. That, indeed, was the comment General Smuts made on it. General Hertzog's language—for a man who four years ago spoke of Britain as his country's best friend and the British Navy as the defender of South African freedom as of British —was incredible. He spoke of Germany as martyred by the Treaty of Versailles ; repudiated the idea that Herr Hitler was aiming at world-domination when he was merely seeking " the restoration of his deeply wronged country "; reproached the Allies for rejecting the peace offered by Herr Hitler after the rape of Poland, and declared that the only possible con- clusion was that they wanted to destroy Germany completely. To that form of Anglophobia no reasoned answer is relevant. General Smuts said all that was necessary when he observed that the speech read like an extract from Mein Kampf. Mr. Pirow, who warned the Prime Minister of the consequences if Union troops were sent to fight outside the Union, was promptly confronted with a letter which he had written when Minister of Defence, promising Union help to Kenya in case of need. General Hertzog's resolution demanding immediate peace with Germany is likely to be defeated, and General Smuts' amendment virtually negativing that carried, by comfortable majorities.
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