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THE WESTERN MAIL & SOUTH WALES NEWS, August 22nd 1934
HITLER'S Trump card.JPG (206875 bytes)

Hitler’s Trump Card - Fear That Germany May Fall to Pieces

By GARETH JONES

“Deutschland Uber Alles!” Germany above Everything!

I watched thousands of bareheaded Germans last Sunday singing these words with passionate religious fervour, and repeating the last lines like the congregation at a Welsh chapel.

Hitler stood at the window of the Chancellery saluting his worshippers who crowded the street before the Palace.

The awe-filled eyes of the children were fixed upon their leader as upon some bright comet flashing through the sky.  I saw their lips move as if they were chanting, not a national anthem, but a fervent prayer, an exhortation to Heaven - “Germany above Everything!” 

The British do not sing, “God Save the King” in that spirit. They sing their National Anthem with a confidence almost bordering on indifference, because Britain’s political foundations have endured for centuries, and there is belief in Britain’s unity which makes the people take their country for granted.

NOT A REAL NATION 

But Germany is a child among nations.  She was unborn when Britain had been mighty for almost a thousand years.  She is a creation of the last century a hundred years ago “Germany” meant as little emotionally or politically to the world as the “Atlantic Ocean”, she was a mere geographical expression.

She has never been a real nation, but a collection of States loosely knit together and loathing each other.  In fact, Bavarian hated Prussians and Prussians sniffed when they talked of Saxons.  Such a hotch-potch of peoples could easily fall to pieces and Germany could disappear.  That is the present fear of loyal Germans.  Thus when the roar “Deutschland Uber Alles,” while “God Save the King” on our lips is only mumbled, it is not arrogance, not boastfulness that urges them, but lack of confidence in their future, the ever-present fear that the congeries of States and peoples may not hold together. 

“Germany above all” means “Germany before Saxony, before Prussia, before Württemberg.”  It is an invocation: “Oh God, give us unity.” 

THE BREATH OF LIFE 

Unity!  That idea does not enter into England’s political thought because it already operates in her national life. The sea cuts Britain off from the world.  Unity means more to the Welsh because the divisions between North and South Wales.  It means something to the Frenchman, because France has been united only since the French Revolution of 1789. 

But to the Germans, who have only recently become a nation, unity means the very breath of life. 

It was as late as 1871 that Bismarck created the German Empire, but it was Empire in which there were many Kings and Princes with great power in their own dominions.  Even in 1914 Bavaria and other States had their own stage stamps, railways, uniforms, and up to 1933 they had their own Parliaments. 

Even today Germany is not united.  She is a discordant country in religion for two-thirds of the popu1ation are Protestant and one-third is Roman Catholic. 

She is discordant in politics.  The Rhineland’s history is shot through with Roman influences, democratic experiments, and French justice while in Eastern Germany the acquiescence of the serf has never been exorcised from the soul of the people. 

She is discordant in race.  The Prussians are half Slavs, while the Rhineland is peopled by a partly Celtic stock. 

She is discordant in her geography.  In the north one travels hundreds of miles over a flat sandy plain.  In the south the magnificent peaks of the Alps soar above flower-covered valleys where quick-witted musical people, charming and altogether in love with life and their fellows. 

And Germany has no natural frontiers except the sea to the north.  She straddles out to the west beyond the Rhine.  In the east she merges almost imperceptibly into Poland. 

STRUGGLE FOR SUPREMACY 

What a stupendous task it is to make a nation out of this medley of different races, lands, traditions, and creeds!  Goethe’s Faust exclaims, “There dwell, alas! Two souls within this breast!”  But within the breast of Germany there dwell thousands of souls struggling for supremacy. 

No wonder, therefore, that last week the Hitler election poster which drew most attention was this: “We Germans, placed in the centre of Europe, must hold together more than other nations.  We must be united if we are not to perish - Bismarck. Hitler has fulfilled these prophetic words of Bismarck. Vote for him on August 19”.

This longing for unity is the subconscious cause of Hitler’s fanatical desire to mould the country into one single form.  It explains his ruthlessness in stamping out differences of opinion, differences of uniforms, differences in political parties, and differences in religious beliefs.  Hitler’s revolution is a violent swing of the pendulum away from the ramshackle discordant medley which was Germany to a super-regimented, forcefully cemented people who are to speak with one voice, think with one brain, and march at a single command. 

The fear that Germany might crumble to pieces is Hitler’s trump card, and he will use it skillfully.  He will, when bread and potatoes and fats run short, paint a picture of the world threatening Germany.  He will implore his fellow-countrymen to tighten their belts for the sake of German unity.  He will depict himself as the keystone of the structure of a united nation.  

And men who hate his methods will rally to his side because they fear that if he falls chaos and conflict will rend the country and there will be farewell to the dream and prayer of  “Deutschland Uber Alles!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adolf Hitler, Chancellor of Germany.

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