The Press MONDAY, JUNE 9, 1941. Hitler’s Peace Offensive

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23350, 9 June 1941, Page 6

The Press MONDAY, JUNE 9, 1941. Hitler’s Peace Offensive

Last week the German propaganda machine, capitalising on the German victory in Crete, opened a new peace offensive. Whether Hitler really wants peace at a time when further German gains in the Middle East seem probable, and whether he believes a negotiated peace to be even remotely possible, are questions which cannot be answered and are in any case not at the moment relevant. The peace offensive has been directed, not against Great Britain, but against the United States, and its purpose is, not to bring peace nearer, but to confuse and divide an American public which is already in the throes of a profound moral dilemma. Some of the preparations for the have been visible for weeks; members of. the Administration and of the Foreign Relations Committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives have been, receiving thousands of letters asking them to explore the possibilities of a negotiated peace, and the German-controlled Paris press and radio have been pleading with the President to use his influence to end a war which has become pointless. The occasion chosen, and shrewdly chosen, by the Nazi propaganda for the launching of the offensive has been the return of Mr Winant from London to consult with the President. A section of the American press, not for the first time playing the Nazi game, has put in circulation reports that the substance of Mr Winant’s report to Mr Ropsevelt is that Great Britain does riot intend to carry on the war much longer unless it receives more extensive help from the United States. So persistent and damaging have these reports become that Mr Roosevelt has been impelled, not merely to deny them, but also to announce that he hag documentary proof that they originated with the Nazi propaganda bureau in the United. States. But the tactical pattern of the peace offensive is shown most clearly in the remarkable interview which Hitler gave to Mr John Cudahy, formerly United States Ambassador to Belgium. Hitler began with the blunt warning that “convoy “ means war.” The Anglo-Saxon maritime powers, he said, had established: the precedent that the escorting of munitions to the enemy with naval forces was a warlike act. This part of the interview is linked to the less explicit warning issued by Grand Admiral Raeder a few days before the President’s “ fireside “talk.” Grand Admiral Raeder did not say in so many words that convoy meant war; he did say that United States convoys would be attacked. The German Government is apparently persuaded that this caused the Administration to put off a definite statement on the convoy issue, and Hitler has followed up this presumed success by making the warning more explicit. The second part of the interview is a clever attempt to persuade the people of the United States that they have nothing to fear from Germany and that the real menace to the, peace of the Western Hemisphere lies in the possibility of the United States becoming involved in the support of British imperialist ambitions. He had never, he said, heard anybody in Germany say that the Mississippi river was the German frontier in the same spirit that .Mr Menzies, the Australian Prime Minister, had referred to the Rhine as the frontier of Australia. From one ’point of view, this direct intervention by the German propaganda machine in the battle to Win over American public opinion is encouraging. Hitherto, the unvarying attitude of Gerifian propaganda to United States aid to Great Britain has been one of elaborate unconcern; Great Britain, Americans have been assured, would be out of the war before their assistance was on a large enough scale to affect the issue. ~The change can only mean that the German Government now sees final victory slipping from its grasp and senses an urgent need to persuade, neutral, countries, and the United States in particular, that their interests lie in ending the conflict. But it is also necessary 'to recognise • that the 'peace offensive, which is based on a shrewd estimate of the state of American public opinion, is as great a menace as any military offensive Hitler is likely to undertake in the next few months. Possibly the German Government knows well enough that over the long period its propaganda will not greatly influence United States policy. The point of the present propaganda campaign is that every month, every week of delay by the United States Government in taking, mors adequate measures to reduce Atlantic shipping losses betters Germany’s military position. , The future of the democracies will be decided on the high seas, and by merchant tonnage not less than by naval strength. At the moment, the merchant tonnage available to the democracies is being diminished so rapidly by Atlantic sinkings that, by the time United States war industries begin full production, there will not be enough shipping to take the available munitions and equipment to the war zone. Handing over ships, American and foreign, to Great Britain is merely a palliative which enables the American public to' enjoy a little longer the luxuries of indecision.