HAVE LOST WAR

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 62, 14 March 1944, Page 5

HAVE LOST WAR

NAZI LEADERS KNOW

Army Must Be Defeated By Invasion Force N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent LONDON, Mar. 13. The opinion expressed in London by well-informed persons is that the German military leaders know that they have lost the war, but that the war certainly will not end before the German Army has been defeated by invading forces. It is understood that German officers captured on the Russian front admitted that the German position there was hopeless, but that the German Army must continue to fight or starve.

The Army is many miles from Germany and is faced by Russians who take few prisoners. Behind it are the Partisans, who take no prisoners. What the position may be when the front line recedes nearer Germany may be another matter.

The Round Table asks: Will there be a crack in Germany? Discussing the question it says the answer is not easy. All it is safe to assume is that whatever change may occur inside Germany, it will be the direct outcome of military developments.

The journal adds: "At a certain stage in the war a combination of the High Command and the big industrialists may organise a coup for the forcible elimination of Hitler and his immediate collaborators."

Movement of Desperation

A mass movement of desperation against the regime is also conceivable, the journal adds. If, for example, bombing ever reaches the point of human unbearableness. "it will be important to distinguish between such a movement which springs from individual sorrow and a popular rising which is concerned about the better ordering of German life within the European family of nations."

The Round Table adds: "There is, it has to be recognised, no present evidence whatever of a new dynamic force in Germany. The taunt that the only people in Europe to be cowed by the Gestapo is the German people may be cynical, but it is not without truth."

Discussing the underground movement in Germany the journal says it is true enough that such a movement exists. It is sustained by much sacrificial effort, but on the disclosed facts it would be wrong to suppose that the movement constitutes an organised opposition capable of threatening the stability of the regime. Regarding the German home front, there is no doubt that the National Socialists have maintained stability. The presence of a large foreign element among the workers, which is known to be hostile to Germany, however, is a definite source of weakness which may be expected to have very serious consequences as Allied military pressure grows. Crack From Without The German agricultural population has proved to be a more stable factor than the industrial population. It is not being exposed to bombing and has also done fairly well out of the war. A revolt of the peasants is not in sight. . The Church has not yet carried its resentment to the point of condemning the regime for its succession of aggressive wars, while the middle class is in no mood or condition to start a counter-revolution. The journal sums up by saying that the indications are that the professional soldier has taken the direction of the war from the hands of the party leader, which can only mean one thing. Whatever changes are brought about in Germany in the coming months will be the result of their own military action. The crack will come- from without, not from within.