HITLER'S END

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 287, 4 December 1941, Page 4

HITLER'S END

BY OWN FANATICS

DESTROYED IN YEAR

A PRISONER'S PREDICTION

(By EUGENE PETROFF)

CENTRAL FRONT, Oct. 10.

In previous articles I told of talks I have had with German prisoners. Their conversation was evidence of the beginning of moral disintegration in the German Army. To-day, I interviewed an unusual specimen of German soldier. He helped me to understand what modern Germany and the German Army really is. I will not disclose his name because his relatives in Germany might suffer.

He was brought in late at night. He swam across a river dividing the advance edge of our sector from the German lines and surrendered. He said that he acted consciously, deliberately and after lengthy reflections, not under the influence of fear or because of cowardice, but because of ideological considerations. He is not a Communist. He is an ordinary young non-party German. "I couldn't stay there another minute," he said after he had been seated at a table in a little hut.' "They are not human beings." His clothes were still wet and he was trying to control the shivers which racked his body. He was sitting near a kerosene stove on which a kettle of water was boiling and he warmed his cracked hands over the fire. "When I finally came to a decision I had to act. I decided that Hitlerism must be destroyed by whatever means possible. Give me a map." Drunk With Success A map was handed to him. He unfolded it, took a pencil and wrinkled his high forehead. Then he said quickly:

"Here are the positions of a battery. Here is the commanding point of a regiment. There is a concentration of mines. The division staff commander is somewhere in this region, I don't know exactly where." After turning away from the map he gave me a brief outline of his life. He is 24 years old. His father was an office worker in a small manufacturing city in Westphalia. His father was a Liberal, and he was educated in a "democratic atmosphere." When Hitler came into power, his father was discharged and replaced by a Hitler S.S. man.

In 1939 he was conscripted into the army while in his second year in a university. From then on—"hating war with my whole soul"—he became a German soldier.

"The last two years of my life have been a continuous nightmare," he said. "We marched through Poland, through France. My life was darkened by the smoke of burned places and impregnated with the blood of human beings. I gasped for breath in that inferno. But what could I do? I couldn't escape. There was no place to escape to. The glamour of success reigned. My comrades were drunk with this success. And if before they believed in Hitler, after success he became their god. "And then began the Russian campaign. I was with my division in France. Our regular division was sent here to your sector ten days ago. All of those ten days, day and night, we were under artillery fire. We retreated, made hasty fortifica-

tions and again retreated. I was continually searching for an opportunity to cross over to you. Suddenly at night such an opportunity came to me. I was with a comrade in a sentry post. He moved a short distance away from the post. I threw away ? un an d swam across the river dividing me from you. Blind Belief in Hitler "Believe me, I am no coward. I came to you not because I hate war and want peace for myself. I want peace for all humanity and I want to nght against Hitler. It is necessary to vanquish him by any means posflill *1' f German, say this. Don't think that I am a bad German and a poor patriot. I Know that only by destroying Hitlerism can Germanybe saved. The prisoner paused for a smoke and then continued: .The young rank and file German I soldier is unable to think. He reads nothing, thinks about nothing. He doesn t even read the Hitler literaW1 Tf , whlch , the front is cluttered. If he reads anything it is an adventure story. He blindly believes in Hitler just as he believes in everything he is told. Strange as it seems, it is in this very fact that Hitler's end can be foreseen. Now the situation for the extremely bad. They naturally discuss the situation and how the war will develop. Hitler told them the war will end this year and that the soldiers would be able to go home They live only for that day. Since the war has progressed as Hitler promised up to now, that is the congest of Poland, France and the other countries, they believed him and expected victory. "But now autumn has arrived and people are beginning to understand that the war will not end this year. Nevertheless, they continue to believe in Hitler. Now they talk like this: Well, the war will continue next year, but before winter comes we will get a furlough to go home because Hitler promised us. Others will be sent to fight, but we will be given leave.'

j "Hitler Will Be Destroyed" "They are absolutely sure of this. They are ignorant and shallowthinking youths. They don't realise that in a war such as this things don t happen that way and that they will be compelled to fight. "In the winter they will grow to hate Hitler propaganda in the same way as they accepted it. Hitler taught his youth not to think, and this in the end will cause his destruction." I asked the prisoner whether he liked Erich Maria Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front," and suggested that the author's experiences bore a close resemblance to what was happening on the Russian front. "Very much," he replied, "almost exactly." I asked him what his plans and his hopes were. "In not more than a year Hitler will be destroyed," he said, "and in place of Hitlerism a free democratic Germany will arise."—Auckland Star and NA.N.A.