If the opinions of 266 undergraduates who recently viewed "Blitzkrieg in the West" can be taken as a criterion, more than half of Harvard's student body is worried over the consequences of a Hitler victory but does not believe that resistance to the Nazi machine is futile.
These are the general conclusions drawn by Gordon W. Allport '19, associate professor of Psychology, after making a preliminary investigation of the results of a questionnaire circulated after the showing of the picture. The meeting was held at the New Lecture Hall recently under the sponsorship of the Liberal Union.
Most students appeared to fall into several fairly well-defined categories or "patterns," Professor Allport said. Half of them were angered and disgusted by the film, felt that the Germans were as bad as usually painted, but believed that resistance to the Nazis was not futile.
10% Feit Fear
Only 10% of the students reacted as the Germans would have wished. They stated that the dominant feeling they experienced during the film was fear, that the Germans seemed as bad a usually depicted, and that national resistance to Nazi aggression appeared futile.
Fifteen per cent said they felt no emotion and were bored by the picture, believing that the Germans were not as bad as often portrayed. They were chiefly fearful of our entry into the war, but even these were willing to resist the Nazis. Another 5% said resistance was futile although the picture affected their emotions relatively little, a small number were definitely pro-Nazi in their reactions, and the remainder are unclassified.
More definite results of the questionnaire will be available later, and complete results will be printed in the HLU Bulletin.
Read more in News
National Sports