-16-
 
 
During my stay in Berlin I heard "Heil Hitler" as a form of greeting 
very rarely indeed, either on the streets or in shops, and I saw no
sign
of admiration of brown shirts. On the other hand, when the guard
marched up
and down Unter den Linden it was followed by large and enthusiastic
crowds.
I should think there can be no doubt that the army is immensely popular
today, and, so far as my observation is of any value, the attitude of
the public to the Nazis in uniform supports what my informants told me.
I had the impression, although it is not clearly supported by anything
that I can now remember that was said to me, that a considerable factor
in all this is the old, traditional admiration of Germans generally for
thoroughness and efficiency. To all appearances the army is as good as
ever and however it may be with the civil servants, the ordinary run of
members of the Nazi party are, I should think, pretty conspicuously
lacking in these qualities. Indeed, I now remember that I was told over
and over again that the Nazis are uneducated people, and in addition to
the remark that people of the officer kind are ruled by people of the
unteroffiziere kind, it was repeatedly said that education is in the
hands of people of the volkschullehrer kind. This is equivalent to
saying that
ignorant, meddlesome, conceited busybodies are very widely in power.
 
 
 I was told over and over again that nobody in Germany wants war
and only once heard anything to the contrary, when in a company of five
or six people a student remarked that the story was going about that so
and so, an important man in the Nazi party, had said that the four year
plan would have no sense if it were not a preparation for war (war a
l'echeance as the French say). Nobody else agreed that this remark was
to be taken seriously, but I am confident that there is a good deal of
wishful thinking in the unanimous opinion of my informants, and of
course they know that they are individually and collectively unable to
do anything about it. In this respect I fear that my informants do
protest too much, not dishonestly, indeed, but wishfully.