A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK HAVE heard so much from various sources
in the past
I
week about the growth of anti-war and anti-Nazi feeling in Germany that it is difficult to pick out salient cases to quote. There is, of course, a danger of making too much of an unrest which is very far from being serious enough yet to imperil the Government or even to prevent a war. But that the unrest is growing, and has grown rapidly since Septem- ber, is incontestable. Criticism of the regime in public places is now general, apparently for the reason that the secret police cannot keep it in check and have given up trying. The official propaganda has completely overreached itself, and so far from believing what he reads in the papers the average citizen disbelieves it on principle. The B.B.C. broadcasts, on the. other hand, are listened to eagerly—which no doubt accounts for the asperity of the references to them in Herr Hitler's speech on Monday—and I heard of an English-speaking waiter who said he was asked out almost every evening in the week by various friends in order to translate to them the ordinary B.B.C. news bulletins. Every decent German is appalled and shamed by the persecution of the Jews. That is true particularly of the young people of sixteen and upwards. Many of them admittedly are being successfully turned into convinced Nazis, but many others are deciding with profound anguish of mind that they must come out of the movement altogether. The prevailing feeling among almost all classes appears to be deep apprehension lest the administration lead them into war.
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