LET HITLER JUDGE HITLER
Sm,—Opinion is sharply divided as to the effectiveness of Nazi propaganda in this country, and what retaliation, if any, should be taken. It is the old controversy of Free Trade v. Protection—of opinion, in this case, instead of commerce. But I think one important point is often overlooked by those who quite naturally feel that our foreign news bulletins should promptly out-Goebbels Goebbels.
For the moment the Nazis are taking as much trouble to make the Propaganda Wall as impregnable to truth as the Siegfried Line to other forms of foreign invasion. Moreover, unhampered by scruples of any sort, they have the initiative here as in more material frightfulness.
But though it seems impossible to reach the German people with the truth about this war, there is no subterfuge on earth that can blind them to the fact that Hitler has pre- judged his present actions in no uncertain terms. When he began the decivilisation of Germany he gave them Mein Kampf as their bible and himself as their Messiah. Its "divine 'satiation " was that Hitler would stand as the supreme deliverer of the world from the dire threat of de- struction- by Bolshevism. Its "splendid ideal" was to be the reunion of all Germans in a Great Germany, unpolluted by the inclusion of any racial impurities. What can his followers be making of his subsequent actions? What can history say of a Crusade that has turned upon itself?
Here is his own verdict upon himself in Mein Kampf: "If the Fiihrer doesn't believe any more what he says his defence becomes empty and insignificant and vulgar in its means. When he himself is no more prepared to stand for his political revelations (one doesn't die for something one doesn't believe), his claims to his followers become bigger and more impudent, until he ceases to be a Fiihrer and becomes a simple politician whose only principle is a complete lack of principles combined with an insolent obtrusiveness and a shameless mendacity."
Could any foreign condemnation be more certain?
The history of diplomacy shows Germans as never under- standing any but German mentality. British scruples in war and propaganda are only mistaken for weakness. To have effect, then, counter-propaganda would have to be in the complete Goebbels tradition. But Goebbels has assured us, through his renegade English mouthpiece that all Germans stand solidly behind their Fiihrer in this war. (How he can possibly know, when the slightest breath of criticism is stifled before it can shape itself into words, is beyond conception.) Anyway, it is hardly possible that counter-abuse from a long- misrepresented enemy could avail if, in fact, Hitler's indict- ment of himself has really failed to impress the minds of the slaves of the Third Reich.—! am, Sir, yours faithfully,
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