The extremity of these measures indicates the extent of the real fear of the Nazis, who are striking these blind blows, in the dark, against a “hidden” opponent — afraid even of the ruins of institutions they have crushed.
* * *
The Nazis have destroyed or undermined:
1. The family, and the private life of the Germans.
2. The quality that gave the Germans the name of “the nation of poets and philosophers”: their love of truth, science, and all objective thought.
3. The power of the Church in Germany.
They have destroyed everything which for centuries was holy to German citizens.
Adolf Hitler’s regime knows that certain people cannot be other than enemies — family members, professing Catholics and Protestants, men of science, and all other groups alienated by the destruction of their rights and sacred possessions.
The regime knows that its only hope lies in the young, those unaware of denial and destruction, who cannot know the news unless somebody — one of the enemies — informs them.
The regime knows that, attached to their parents, attending school, the children are still open to those suspicious influences. They have religious training. And there is a generation of enemies who still live in the country and who, later, will provide the jobs for these children to step into, and there, perhaps, learn.