29 AUGUST 1941, Page 10

There is another, and in appearance a more scholarly, falt ael

which I find seductive. It is the conception (so ably expounded recently by Dr. Stern Rubarth) that if Prussia could to enucleated from the Reich, then we should all return to health, sanity, and " fiber alien Gipfeln ist Ruh." A more elabon variant of this fallacy places the blame upon the carlint Hermann, or Arminius, who defeated Varus in the Teutobergn wald in A.D. 9. This misfortune induced Augustus withdraw his frontier from the Elbe to the Rhine, thus dept ing northern Germany of the civilising benefits of Roman and creating a permanent dissonance in the German soul. would be comforting could we suppose that any reliable diffe ence today exists between the descendants of those German who were enclosed within the Roman limes and those pa septs who raged and ravaged outside. There was indeed a ti when the divergence between the civilised and uncivilis elements in Germany was apparent and effective. Bismar flung the whole weight of his genius into eradicating that diver gence, and Hitler has completed- the process of unification has expunged the traditions of Roman urbanity even from gentle Rhineland. Austria remains today the sole repository the Roman tradition in Germany. * *