" THE TREND OF OPINION IN . GERMANY "
haven't been in Germany for a long time, and I get only scanty news from there ; but I hardly think that " the neutral friend" mentioned by "Janus" on February 8th can be right. I quite understand that the present miserable conditions of life lead people to remember better times before the war. The last regime in Germany did a lot to win the mass of the population. The short period from 1933 to 1939 was a revolutionary time after years of struggle between Social-Democrats, Communists and Nazis. Unfortunately, Sqesemann died too early— the only German statesman of those day's who might have given a better turn to German history. I met people of all classes during my visits to Germany before and during the war. Most of them were anti-Nazi, if they dared to utter an opinion. There was a good number of ordinary members of the party among them ; they had to become members and to pay the fees unless they risked to lose very quickly the basis of their own and their families' existence. They knew nothing or very little of what the "inner circle" of the party did, but they disliked the whole system. They couldn't make a revolution against the rulers with their machinery of the administration. Madariaga says some clever words about the impossibility of a revolution against a totalitarian government in the article on Spain in the same number of The Spectator. Many people in Germany looked with deep apprehension into the future, and I feel sure that " the best Germans " don't look back to the Hitler regime as " the brightest period in Germany's history."—Yours,
Previous page
