Evening Post WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1941. A PROPHET OF TERROR

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 30, 5 February 1941, Page 6

Evening Post WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1941. A PROPHET OF TERROR

Hitler's victimisation of France in the armistice of last year he now regards as insufficiently complete. It ■was not complete with regard to Mediterranean France; and the omission seems to point to the probability j that while Hitler had thought out; the British Channel and Atlantic pro- ■ blems, and had secured enough of the Channel and Bay of Biscay coast j of France to*suit his Avar on shipping \ and his possible invasion of Britain; and/or Ireland, he did not anticipate the turn of events in the Mediterranean, A defeated Italy makes the problems of the French Mediterranean coast, and the related problems of French North Africa and the French! navy, quite as important to* Germany as the tasks facing her in the West. Hitler may need—and almost certainly does need—to make every post in the Mediterranean a winning post, if victory is denied him— -as it will be —in his war against Britain's communications and production, and in hi& threatened! invasion of Britain herself. The bleaker Hitler's prospects in the West, the more the South beckons. In other words, Hitler must strive to win the Mediterranean because he will fail to reduce Britain by direct action. That is the central fact. But Nazi propaganda in France reverses the factors and distorts the truth. Nazi propagandists are urging France to yield to Hitler the Mediterranean because (according to them) "the capitulation of the British Empire is inevitable." Thoughtful Frenchmen are not deceived; they well know that the Petain Government is being bullied to secure alteration of the armistice by surrendering the French fleet, because Hitler fears defeat in the West. But the Stuttgart radio is trying to make Frenchmen think in reverse—is trying to convince them that because Britain must be beaten (according to Stuttgart) then France had better complete the surrender which Hitler's armistice left unfinished. Diagnosing a climax in the divided opinions of Vichy as to the fate of the fleet, Stuttgart tries to influence Frenchmen against Petain by the following flamboyant boast:

The hour will strike when the German forces will install themselves on British soil, in a blow that will be just as flnal as that which brought down Poland and France.

It will be noted that this frenzy of wishful thinking, parading itself as prophecy, is reserved exclusively for French nerves. Nazi propaganda does not try it in America, where its effect * would be quite different. Stuttgart's prophetic outburst represents the Nazi war of nerves at its terroristic best. It may also indicate that Hitler is reaching the limits of persuasion at Vichy, and, if persuasion still fails, may soon break new ground,