Evening Post TUESDAY, JANUARY 13, 1942. EUROPE AND THE NAZIS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 10, 13 January 1942, Page 4

Evening Post TUESDAY, JANUARY 13, 1942. EUROPE AND THE NAZIS

Despite the strict censorship on all outside sources of information imposed by the Nazis everywhere in Europe they are in occupation and control, the news of Hitler's failure in Russia and Rommel's retreat in Libya must be percolating through the masses of subject peoples, including the Germans and Italians themselves. They must know that something is wrong and that the grand strategic plan of world conquest has gone amiss. It is impossible, for instance, to camouflage casualty lists from the Russian front or to hide the sufferings of German soldiers from the cold. The pangs of hunger all over occupied Europe, due to the shortages of food, are real enough. So, too, is the effect of a stark winter on people deprived of warm clothing for the sake of the soldiers at the front. The departure of troops from the western garrisons to fill up the gaps in the eastern line will not pass unnoticed either. Hence an intensification of hostility to Axis forces in the occupied countries, visible in sabotage on a large or small scale, as in Norway and elsewhere, in open revolt, as in Yugoslavia, in attacks on Nazi soldiers and local quislings, and a general unrest mounting towards upheavals. Reports are frequent and fairly circumstantial of trouble between Hitler and the army leaders, leading to the dismissal of generals prominent in the Russian campaign and to outbreaks among the troops such as that reported yesterday to have occurred at Besancon in France. All tiiis is heartening to the Allied peoples after their many disappointments, but there is still too. little in it to justify hopes of an internal collapse of the Axis on the Continent which some sanguine commentators have been bold enough to predict at an early.date. The sober view held in responsible circles in London and Washington is that it would be unwise and unsafe to pin hopes on such reports, and that any relaxation of effort at this time in the expectation of an automatic collapse of the Axis structure from internal cleavage would be a positive peril. There is nothing to show at present that Hitler himself has lost the confidence of the bulk of the German people, whatever differences he may have with military leaders. The people probably still regard him as a "miracle man," who can by supernatural inspiration and intuition lead them out of the wilderness into the promised land. This applies also to junior partners and minor members of the new order Hitler has tried to sponsor. London, for instance, places little credence in reports that Finland may sue for a separate peace. Whatever the Finnish people want themselves, Finland is obviously subject to German pressure and largely dependent on Germany for food supplies. Otherwise, the Finns know on which side their bread is buttered. Furthermore, they have not yet lost faith in Hitler's promises and his power to fulfil them. Much more then will be needed to promote the internal collapse of the Nazi system to which people look. There is nothing like a good shove and judicious undermining to bring down a shaky building. The Russians are showing the way in their own country and the Allies in Libya.