THE WESTERN MAIL
AND SOUTH WALES NEWS, March 2nd, 1933
A WELSHMAN LOOKS AT EUROPE
(xii)
PRIMITIVE
WORSHIP OF HITLER
Emotion
of National Eisteddfod at Political Meeting
By GARETH JONES
FRANKFURT-ON-MAIN,
For eight hours
the biggest hall in Germany has been packed with 25,000 people for whom Hitler
is the saviour of his nation.
They are waiting,
tense with national fervour. Five cars are now rushing towards the hall.
In the first sits Hitler; in the next two open cars are the stalwart bemedalled
bodyguards; then comes our car with Hitler’s secretary. The hall is
surrounded by Brown Shirts. Wherever we go the shout resounds, “Heil,
Hitler!” and hundreds of outstretched bands greet us. We dash up the
steps after Hitler and enter the ante-chamber.
From within we
hear roar upon roar of applause and the thumping and the blare of a military
band and the thud of marching, feet. The door leading to the platform
opens and two of us step on to the platform. I have never seen such a mass
of people; such a display of flags, up to the top of the high roof; such
deafening roars. It is primitive, mass worship.
Through the broad
gangway Nazi troops are marching with banners, and as each-new banner comes
there is another round of shouting. Steel Helmets now march in with the
old Imperial and regimental flags, symbolic of the rebirth of militarism.
Pandemonium
Then Hitler
comes. Pandemonium! Twenty-five thousand people jump to their feet.
Twenty-five thousand bands are outstretched. The. “Heil, Hitler,”
shout is overwhelming. The people are drunk with nationalism. It is
hysteria. Hitler steps forward. Two adjutants take off his Brown
coat. There is a hush.
Hitler begins in
a calm, deep voice, which gets louder and louder, higher and higher. He
loses his calmness and trembles in his excitement. In the beginning of his
speech his arms are folded and he seems hunched up, but when he is carried away
he stretches out his arms and he seems to grow in stature.
He attacks the
rulers of Germany in the past fourteen years. The applause is tremendous.
He accuses them of corruption. Another round of enthusiasm. He whips
the Socialists for having vilified German culture. He appeals for the
union of Nationalism with Socialism. He calls for the end of class
warfare. When he shouts, “The future belongs to the young Germany which
has arisen,” the 25,000 hearers leap to their feet, stretch out their right
hands and roar: “Heil, Hitler!
A Comparison With Lloyd George.
It the emotion of
the National Eisteddfod exaggerated multifold. Imagine the Welsh national
feeling responding to Mr. Lloyd George and add to bitterness of defeat, the
depth of humiliation which, Germany has gone through; the painful poverty of the
middle class, the sufferings through inflation, the rankling injustice of the
War Guilt Clause and savage political hatred, and a picture of the Hitler crowd
is there.
Imagine a speech
of Mr. Lloyd George. Take away the wit, take away the intellectual play,
the gift of colour, the literary and Biblical allusions of the Welsh statesman.
Add a louder voice, less varied in tone, a more unbroken stretch of emotional
appeal, more demagogy, and you have Hitler. Hitler has less light and
shade than Mr. Lloyd George. He has less variety of gesture.
Hitler’s main motion is to point out his right hand, which trembles. He
is without the smile and the sharp glance of Mr. Lloyd George without his hush
and sudden drop of the voice.
Mr.
Lloyd George is more of an artist and knows that life is not all emotion or All
tragedy. He lightens a grave speech with humour, as Shakespeare brings in
the comedy of life in the porters’ scene in “Macbeth”. Hitler is
pure tragedy or heightened melodrama, and reminds one of Schiller’s
“Robbers”. His only comic relief is bitter irony. Mr. Lloyd
George has a wider scale and as in a Beethoven symphony, makes
lighter mood follow or precede a tragic part. Hitler is the Wagner of
oratory, a master in repeating the leitmotiv in many varied forms, and the
leitmotiv is “The Republican régime in Germany has betrayed you. Our
day of retribution has come.” His use of the brass instruments of
oratory is Wagnerian, and he thunders out his resounding blows against
Bolshevism and against democracy.
“We Shall Do Our Duty”
Whereas Mr. Lloyd
George is more complex and more subtle and a speech of his is kaleidoscopic,
changing in tone and colour from one moment to another, Hitler is more uniform,
and his oratory is in colour one blazing red which makes the people mad.
But both orators
know their audiences, and Hitler’s speech is the speech for nationalist
German. He has now ended with the words: “I shall complete the work
which I began fourteen years ago as an unknown soldier, for which I have
struggled as leader of the party and for which I stand to-day as Chancellor of
Germany. We shall do our duty.” Again the hall resounds. He
marches out and we follow into the ante-chamber. He is wet with
perspiration. From the hall we hear 25,000 voices singing “Deutschland
uber Alles.”
We rush
to the car. As we step out of the hall we see thousands of blazing
torches, and we drive through an avenue of Brown Storm Troops, each man of which
holds his torch in the left hand and stretches out his right hand in adoration
to the leader, Adolf Hitler.
Such was the
manifestation of Fascism in Germany. With the shouts of “Heil;
Hitler,” resounding in my ears I prepare to leave Germany, the land where
dictatorship has just begun, and to go to the land of the dictatorship of the
working class. From the country of Fascism I now go to the home of
Bolshevism. In a few days’ time I shall be on my way Berlin across the Polish
Corridor, East Prussia, Lithuania, Latvia, until I enter the territory of Soviet
Russia.
The Europe
of 1933 has seen the birth the Hitler dictatorship in Germany.
What will
it see in the Soviet Union?
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Adolf Hitler, Chancellor of Germany.
Nazi Flag
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