GERMANY STATES HER CASE
Germany Speaks. By Twenty-one leading members of Party and State. (Thornton Butterworth. tos. 6d.)
THE case for Nazi Germany has been so poorly presented, in comparison with the case for Soviet Russia, both by its German exponents and by its English sympathisers, that any serious attempt to state in intelligible terms the aims and policies of contemporary Germany is welcome in this country. The present volume comes nearer to filling this bill than anything that has yet appeared. Most of its twenty-one writers occupy, or have occupied, leading positions in the party or State. But not more than two or three of them are widely known, even by name, outside Germany. Dr. Schacht is the only one who enjoys an outstanding reputation abroad. Nearly every branch of German life and thought today is covered more or less adequately in a popular way. The book is, of course, " propaganda " in the now accepted sense of the term. Even the reader who is prepared to admit that much of what is said is true as far as it goes will notice awkward points which are slurred over or ignored.
The articles vary in merit, and the only course open to a reviewer is to pick a few samples. In an introductory chapter Dr. Frick, the Minister of the Interior, explains that German nationhood is a far later growth than English and French nationhood, and that it has been left to Herr Hitler to create for the first time a unitary State and nation. The place of honour after this introduction is occupied by two articles on Population Policy and National Socialist Racial Theories. These contain a good deal of rather slipshod science ; and the writers would probably have been better advised, from the English point of view, to stick to the indisputable fact that national feeling has almost invariably been bound up in the past with racial prejudice than to justify this prejudice by pseudo-biological argument. It is perfectly legitimate to quote the American Immigration Laws, and the racial discrimination practised not only in the United States, but in some British Dominions, and in other parts of the British Empire. On the other hand, it merely provokes ridicule to write of " the imperialistic designs of the Jewish people on German soil." More sympathy will be felt for the discussion of the declining birth-rate, which is beginning to arouse the same apprehensions in this country as in Germany. It is not, however, proved (as the writer here seems to assume) that French national unity has been endan- gered by the liberal immigration policy pursued by France since the War for the purpose of filling up gaps in the popula- tion. It is worth noting that both these articles emphasise a point which is also deeply felt in other countries which went through the last War. " Racial hygiene and war will always be irreconcilable enemies " ; and " even a victorious war is biologically a loss."
These articles only in part repair the most serious omission in the volume—the lack of any account of the political philosophy of National Socialism. Some help towards filling this gap can also be found in the article on the Administration of Justice. Here we have the application of the principle that " the needs of the commonwealth take precedence over those of the individual," so that theoretically the individual has no rights against the State. (This is not fully carried out in practice, since—rather illogically—the individual can still sue both the State and the Nazi party in courts.) The " written law " has fallen into a certain amount of disrepute. It is still the basis of procedure in the courts. But the Judge is expected to " interpret the wording of the law in accordance with the underlying principles " and to " apply those principles in such a manner as to do justice to the vital needs of the German people." This attitude will not surprise those who followed legal developments in Soviet Russia in the first years of the Soviet regime, when Lenin declared that it was the duty of judges to supplement and correct the written law out of their own " revolutionary consciousness." It is, in fact, a typical revolutionary attitude not peculiar to National Socialism. But in the meanwhile, Germans must not be surprised (as is the author of this article) if it seems to the incorrigibly unrevolution- .ary Englishman that " National Socialism has abolished law in Germany and substituted arbitrariness in its place." The accounts of the German Labour Organisations, of Nazi Education, of Sport and Physical Culture, and of Road- Building cover more familiar ground and call for no special comment. Dr. Schacht repeats clearly and concisely the view of German economic policy which he has expressed on
many previous occasions. " Germany has never wavered," he declares, " in her determination to pay back her debts." But one may legitimately enquire whether a certain amount of wavering may not have crept in since his resignation from an official position. Baron von Rheinbaben's contribution on foreign policy is mainly occupied by an argumentative plea for Anglo-German reconciliation ; and he is on surer ground in drawing attention to vacillations in the British attitude towards Germany between 1934 and 1936 than in analysing Germany's present policy. He hardly seems to realise the effect produced on opinion in this country by German activities in Spain, which serve no intelligible German interest, but which have given powerful support to Italy in a policy of deliberate provocation against this country.
The final verdict on laying down the volume may take the form of a general reflexion. However sympathetically one may wish to approach the case of Nazi Germany, one is conscious of a cleavage of thought which it is difficult to bridge. Implicit in every aspect of German thought and action is the view of the German nation as the highest good. Neither the rights of the individual nor the rights of humanity can be recognised as encroaching on that good. It is easy to show that British and French nationalism have in their day been as brutal and self-assertive as German nationalism, and that it is largely because they are today old and firmly established and satisfied that they can afford to allow a certain degree of validity (let us not flatter ourselves by putting it too high) to claims other than those of the nation. It is easy to demonstrate that the peculiarities of German nationalism are explicable not by any supposed vice of the German character, but by the historical circumstances and the period in which the German national unity developed. Such explanations do not make the cleavage any less real. But they show both the importance and the difficulty of mutual comprehension.
E. H. CARR.
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