Evening Post. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1941. HAS HITLER REPRIEVED BRITAIN?

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 83, 4 October 1941, Page 8

Evening Post. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1941. HAS HITLER REPRIEVED BRITAIN?

Though no official text of Hitler's latest speech is to hand at time of writing, he appears to have said a good deal and to have implied even more. If, he is correctly reported as stating that a decision against England in the West would have "needed the whole strength' of the Luftwaffe," and "is no longer possible," he implies that he accepts a considerable limitation of his.military destiny. It is not so long since the same Hitler was expressing regret because God had commissioned him to destroy the British Empire. But now the British [Empire is reprieved! According to Hitler, he possessed just enough Luftwaffe to overthrow the British island fortress. But, warned by, the Battle for Britain, Hitler took it upon himself last June to alter the commission from the Deity to the extent, that the Luftwaffe should be used not to conquer the island, but to bite off a big piece of the Russian land-mass. The substitution of Russia for Britain as the main objective of aggressive conquest is now, Hitler implies, the definite basis of German war policy. Ger-man-occupied Russia —which he says will be substantially added to by gigantic pre-winter army movements noAv in hand—will be included with other oqcupied countries in a great European bloc, under Germany's heel. The further implication of Hitler's speech is that Britain will be outside this German-led Europe of the New Order—and can stop outside.

Such a huge European State as Hitler expects to build up from his army's conquests has never been dreamed of since Napoleon's time. If Hitler, on the conclusion of his summer-autumn campaign in Russia, were to stand on his gains and consolidate them defensively, what would be his position? He would control the most vital part of the European Continent. He may claim that this Continental bloc is strategically and economically homogeneous—in other words, that it could defend itself, feed itself, and be self-contained—but, racially, it would be most heterogeneous. In fact, no unifier could possibly undertake the consolidating of a more | formidable admixture of diverse (even perverse) races and breeds, j Yet Hitler professes no fear of the multi-racial dangers. In his latest speech he boasts of having forced Europe to work for Germany and of, having put the whole Continent into the Reich'-s service. He particularly emphasises this boast in its application to occupied Russia, where a German administration now exists behind the German lines, ready to advance towards the Caucasus as the German lines advance with a new drive through Russia to Asia. "We know how to organise these conquered areas," boasts Hitler. Thus he asserts his ability to consolidate his diverse occupied territories militarily and economically and even ethnologically—as if no racial problem existed. All this is magnificent. But can the Hitler programme on the Continent claim to j have any more lasting and solid] foundation than his conquest of Britain? Will he again have to modify, next year, the commission he received from on high to be lord of England and Europe? Though Goebbels and Hitler have broken, almost at the same time, a fairly prolonged silence, their notes do not seem to blend very well. Hitler gives the impression that racial" pride and human discontent can be ironed out flat by German ruthlessness; that all those many | races that have centuries of warlike record behind them, and whose blood has flowed time and again for their own idea of freedom, can be made to sit down like children in a classroom under a German schoolmaster; that racial liberty is easily lost in] the Germanisation process; that liberty is only a convention, and in its racial aspect will disappear. But if this submissiveness is easily pro-] duced among foreigners, it should) be much more easily maintained] among Germans—and Dr. Goebbels'si evidence is to the contrary. A large dissentient element in Germany—a body of opponents estimated by the Nazis themselves at millions—exists | and persists. Goebbels upbraids them for listening to London and "receiving their explanations from Churchill." "Behind locked doors" they tune in to London • broadcasts to hear the other side of the story, thus showing lack of confidence in Nazi statements —a lack of confidence that is a crime. These things, admitted by Goebbels, show that the Nazi lion-tamers, anxious to manage the whole menagerie of Europe with its many breeds, have not even tamed in entirety the people of Germany. There is no more intriguing question than this: If Hitler did succeed in consolidating his many-hued European bloc, how long would it last against the upsurge of the dissentients within? But that question will never be answered, for Hitler is going to fail ultimately in his war with Russia just as he lost the Battle for Britain. His new commission, like the former one, is an empty boast. If Hitler's idea is to establish himself defensively in a huge European bloc this winter, awaiting in the spring a peace or a futile Allied offensive, the answer is that neither on the Russian front nor anywhere else in the world will Germany be able to subdue the fires of war which she has started. Russia is not broken, as Hitler alleges; and no German fence or rampart or forti-

fication will stay the blockade, or the air war, or even the land war. The encirclement of which Hitler complained, when it did not exist, will presently reveal itself in a military sense, and decisively. Hitler has disclaimed his war in the West —too late; he will disclaim his war in the East—again too.late; and it is over Germany that West and East will meet in final judgment. When that happens. Hitler's commission from the astral planes will not be again amended. It will be torn up and thrown away.