The Press MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1940. Hitler Turns Left

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23204, 16 December 1940, Page 6

The Press MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1940. Hitler Turns Left

Last Tuesday a thousand hand-picked Berlin armament workers founds themselves confronted by one of the most impressive assemblages of political and military leaders since the outbreak of war—Dr. Goebbels, Field-Marshal Keitel, Grand Admiral Racder, Dr. Ley, Rcichsmarshal Goering, and Hitler himself. The contrast between the audience and the blaze -of uniforms and decorations on the stage must have been startling; what followed was even more startling. The armament workers were told that Germany was fighting to defend the right of the working man to enjoy the fruits of his labour, that as long as Adolf Hiller lived money would be (in Germany) man’s servant and not his master, that the only backing of the German currency was the toil of the German working classes, that the aim of National Socialism was the creation of the “ People’s Socialist State,” that the power of the “officer class” in the German Army had been ended, and—strangest proposition of all—that the policy of the National Socialist leaders had always been dictated by the wishes of the people. History moves fast in Germany. There must have been many of those Berlin armament workers who remembered the time, barely seven years ago, when working class leaders who expounded the ideas now being expounded by Hitler were being hunted in Berlin streets by Nazi gunmen drafted into the police for this purpose by Goering. And among the group on the platform there must have been some with embarrassingly intimate memories of the party purge of June, 1934, when those National Socialists who were as sincere -.in their socialism as in their nationalism were systematically butchered in the interests of party unity. German propaganda, however, is always tuned to the needs of the moment and is never restrained by scruples about truth or consistency. Since Tuesday, the whole propaganda orchestra has been elaborating the theme sounded by Hitler in his speech to the armament workers. Trade unionists in Mr Churchill’s Cabinet are castigated as betrayers of their class in language as vituperative as that which Moscow radio used to employ against Mr Ramsay MacDonald and Lord Snowden. All previous explanations of the origin of the war are superseded by the breath-taking statement that “ when the English ruling class found a “ Socialist they could not buy [meaning “Hitler], they set out to destroy him.” Germans are being told in detail about British slums, about British unemployment, and about the profits of British armament firms. The theme is not new. Even before the war, German propaganda was beginning to portray National Socialism as a social and economic revolution and the Third Reich as a workers’ paradise. But never before has the theme been so dominant and so insistent. Last Tuesday, it is clear, marks a turning point in the history of German propaganda and possibly of German policy. The most obvious explanation of the change is that the morale of the German workers has become so seriously affected by British bombing and by the strain of long hours of work—a strain imposed long before the war began—that it has become necessgry to convince them that, more than any other class, they would suffer by Germany’s defeat. But it may be suspected that there are also somewhat deeper reasons for the change. Hitherto, Hitler has justified himself and his methods to the German people by an uninterrupted succession of diplomatic and military successes. If he is a man of acumen, he rrfust know that a regime based on success is based on sand, because the quest for success must lead ultimately to exhaustion or disaster. The really great conqueror 1 is he who knows when to stop and is strong enough to stop. Hitler has conquered half Europe; but the longer the war goes on, the further afield he has to send his armies, the more certain it becomes that the whole crazy edifice of oppression and exploitation will collapse under its own weight. He cannot call the war off; but he might, if he is clever enough, persuade Germans that they are waging a war of defence and not of conquest and that if they lose they must expect the military and economic bondage of another Versailles. Hitler’s speech to the armament workers may therefore be the beginning of an attempt to find an alternative to victories as a means of keeping National Socialism in power. But it may also have an external significance. Italy, on present indications, has failed Germany as an ally, and the German wireless and press are pointedly ignoring events in Egypt and Greece. Now, more than ever before,' Germany needs a permanent understanding with Russia. The only possible, basis for such an understanding is a true community of economic and political ideas. This week the voiefe of Berlin was scarcely distinguishable from the voice of Moscow, though whether Stalin or the armament workers were impressed may be doubted. *