Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1941-01-10

TO be able some time TO see II
more effectively advocated than II
is al present.
l anticipate opposition to 1t in
Great Britain quite as much as IN
America, and ! am not a British
agent. My advocacy is wholly
based in reason. and on a view
of what seems TO me 10 be the
most likely developments in the
world as a result of the war.
EIRST of all I believe that
language. not race, is the
primary tic between peoples. |
believe that language creates a
type of mind. and that the white
world. AT least, is not Importantly
divided into races. but into types
and language groups.
Even Hitler. whose anthropologi-
cal ideas are, TO say the least. con-
fused. mixes up race and language
When he says "Aryan" he actually
uses word deriving from a
linguistic, not a racial grouping.
and when he speaks of the union
Of all Germans. he means simply
any one who natively speaks the
German language except Jews.
The Baltic Germans and the
Wendish Germans are more diff
ferent racially from the Celtic
AustrianS of the Salzkammergut
than the latter are from whole
groups OF Frenchmen and British
Celts.
THE former. the Baltic Germans
L and large part of the Prus-
SLAMS have strong slavic strain,
and show it in the physical type
The CZechs and the Prussians are
racially very similar. The English,
racially anyhaw. are mixture
of Teutons and Normans and
Mediterranean races.
i People are the way they think.
and except for mathematicians
and musicians. people think in
words. And even musicians and
mathematicians communicate with
zach other and with the rest of the
world through words. Einstein
doesn't greet his housekeeper with
an equation.
The extent 10 which I under
stand the mind of Germany is not
the extent 10 which l have German
blood: il is the extent to which l
understand the difference between
"Ehre" and Honor, between
"Stimmung" and Atmosphere. "
between kitsch" and "tripe. And
the difference is a great deal wider
than the difference between lift
and elevator"
Shakespeare may have been an
IriShman. as the Irish, with very
persuasive logic. claim. but he GER
tainly wasn't a German. as the
Germans sometimes claim with no
logic al all.
On the other hand Goethe was
a German. and although he Is the
most universal of all Germans. o
one really understands him who
reads him in English translation.
for there IS no translation. that
completely transmits the nostalgia.
emotion and the melody of
'Kennst due daS Land wo die
Citronen Bluehen" or "Selig wor
SIGH Won der Welt ohne Hass
verschlicest.
4 s LONG as a language lasts a
n people lasts. and the endur-
ance of language is one of the
most fascinating phenomena of
this world. One hundred and fifty
years of partition and oppression
could not obliterate the Polish
language
MuSsolini sent German school
teachers 10 the Lipari Islands for
teaching Tyrolean children the
German A. B. C.'S. Does any one
remember this. any more?
But when he and Hitler got
together and Mussolini decided TO
LEI the Germans Germans be-
cause they spoke German. there
wasn't any other test-be "repat-
rated" 10 Germany, although they
had lived for countless generations
in these same mountains. the chill
dren all spoke German as their
mother tongue. The Italian was
just school-language
When we wish to indicate that
we get on well with any one. we
say He speaks my language
The emotional content of the
mind Of a people as well as the
intellectual. is nodded by the
words they hear as children.
"Ueber allie Gipfel list Rub" or.
"a la tres chere. Ia tres belle
do not invoke in the average
American as much emotion As
even Twinkle. twinkle. little star
and il is not the fault of the
Germans that Mr.. Werner Krauss.
reciting the most moving lines .of