This column first appeared in the Victoria Daily Times on Feb. 11, 1939.
In Douglas Reed’s book Insanity Fair, he describes the launching at Kiel of a German ship, the Deutschland, at which a strange incident occurred.
The dedicatory speech was being made and the moment was approaching when the bottle of champagne would be broken over her, when the ship did not wait. She took the water without authority, racing down the runway, and the people who were inclined to be superstitious shook their head and said the signs were heavy against an ill-omened ship.
Seven years the Deutschland sailed the seas. Then one day she was mistaken for one of Franco’s ships and bombed by the Spanish government as she lay in a harbour of the Balearics. In retaliation for this, a German squadron shelled a peaceful and unfortified town called Almeria in Spain in a brutal and senseless attack on unoffensive people. The town was razed — men, women and children were ruthlessly killed, and the whole world was shocked. An ill-omened ship surely.
There is something allegorical in all this. Germany herself is like the beautiful ship with its lovely lines, great power, potential leadership. Before the [First World] War, Germany was a proud and happy country — “Made in Germany” was a guarantee of good workmanship. Germans were welcome in every corner of the world. German music, German universities, German scientists, doctors, philosophers led the world. They were winning everywhere, peacefully penetrating by sheer worth.
Naturally, one wonders where they would have been today if they had not broken away like their ill-fated ship.
However, there are still many things which we might learn from Germany. They have a beautiful, clean and orderly country. This has been true for generations. Hitler had done many things for Germany, but cleanliness and order belonged to Germany all down the years.
They know how to carry on coal mining without creating slums or depressed areas. Their mine workers live in well-constructed modern houses with garden plots, trees and flowers. They do not deface the country or leave black blotches on the earth when they sink a mine shaft.
They do not leave denuded forests when they cut down trees. For each tree that is felled a sapling is planted.
They made use of everything, so no tin cans, milk bottles or what have been described as “Picnic Papers” offend the eye, even in the picnic season. It is bred in the German people to be thrifty and orderly. Taking care of the aged and needy is not left to chance, or to the generosity of the individuals. It is done systematically and efficiently.
Let us grant all this, and admire them for it.
We can learn from Germany.
It is true that there is intensive training in Germany. Children are passed from one society to another as the years go on, until they arrive in the army full grown, tough, hard, physically sound and fit, morally and mentally standardized and obedient. Ready to do anything they are told — even to entering a children’s home and throwing babies out on the street.
That must be quite a test of system. No wonder they had to work all thought of religion out of their young people before they could get little chores of this kind done.
“We have taken Adolf Hitler,” said one, speaking for many of his countrymen, “instead of Jesus Christ, for Hitler has done more for us in five years than Jesus Christ had done in 19 centuries.”
This is a terrible statement, but it has to be faced. Germany was a defeated nation 20 years ago, with foreign troops in her territory. She saw her battleships dismantled and had to take orders from someone else. Her channels of trade were blocked and her people suffered.
Now she sits in the saddle. She has made her way by force, cruelty and ruthlessness, and her natural reaction is to praise the means whereby these things have come to pass. But she must know that this power has been bought at a terrible price.
Her best people can have no pride in their country. The loss of respect and prestige is reflected in the falling off of their foreign trade and that is something that cannot be covered with parades and martial music. The country, in spite of concentration camps to hold the people who dared to express an opinion, is torn with internal strife. There are plots and rumblings.
No one can say that Germany has found the way to peace. Peace is not in their program. Dr. Goebbels says: “It is a sacrifice for us not to have another war. War is the simple affirmation of life.”
That slogan is “Joy Through Strength” — not through service or co-operation. But through strength.
With declarations like this, it is easy to see that the ethics of Christianity have no place. Christ met exactly the same conditions when He was on earth. The ruler in His day said scornfully that His doctrine was fit only for women and slaves — forgiveness, meekness, brotherly love, the strong bearing the burden of the weak. They would have none of it, they said.
It is the old struggle, and it is not confined to Germany. We have exponents of this belief in force in our own country, and it may be that brute force, cruelty and oppression will have its innings again. Indeed, it is having it. We may all wander in the wilderness for many years.
Perhaps we deserve to wander in the wilderness. We have not lived up to the light we had. We have grabbed where we should have given. We have allowed pride and prejudice to rule us.
Someone has said there are still many people who would rather pay than pray.
We have not yet learned that there is only one way to overcome evil.
But whether it takes one year or a thousand years, some day God’s love will rule the earth, and men will learn to live together.
Families do it now. Plenty of them. You hear of the failures, but you do not hear of the successful ones. Blessed are the families who have no history. In the family there is the entire framework of a Christian society. If one member is sick, he is “carried” by the others. The strongest one does not wear the best clothes, eat all the white meat of the chicken or the celery hearts.
Strength is not the measure of privilege, but need. So they manage to keep the ship afloat. Someone is always there to row. And they have fun and hilarity and complete satisfaction.
If there are differences, they are settled out of court. The more they help each other, the stronger grow the ties.
This spirit is capable of being extended. It is economically sound. It is the only solution to the troubles of the world.
Germany was a great nation before the war; great in service to humanity, great in philosophy, art and science — a great nation, on her way. But she tired of the slow pace. She broke loose. She enrolled under the Black Flag of Force and is dragging the whole world with her.
It may take great sacrifice to turn the world to sanity again. Nothing is accomplished without sacrifice. Telemachus threw himself between the gladiators in the arena in Rome, in protest against the cruelties of this form of sport, and met his death by stoning.
People said he was a fool. He might have known they would kill him. He did know. But the sport was stopped. Telemachus triumphed.
