Evening Post MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1942. UNVANQUISHED EUROPE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 107, 2 November 1942, Page 4

Evening Post MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1942. UNVANQUISHED EUROPE

Long before the outbreak of war in Europe Hitler and his Nazis had paved the way for conquest by a peaceful penetration into the hearts of countries marked down' as victims. They had their agents..everywhere, with the duty assigned of breaking down the morale and powers of resistance by the psychological and material processes openly discussed in "Mem Kampf." The ramifications of the Nazi propaganda system extended far beyond the confines of Europe into the two Americas, Asia, and Africa. Every country had its defeatists and fifth column, traitors in the citadel ready to open the gates and hail the entry of the aggressor. The idea was not only to make conquest easy, but to expedite the advent of. the "new order" which the Nazis hoped to establish in Europe. The Germans, judging no doubt by their own experience and temperament, which through the ages has led them to recognise military defeat as final and to accept foreign domination, thought that the independent nations of- Europe, once they had suffered military defeat, would react similarly when they saw the enemy in possession. Hitler had different plans for eastern and western Europe. For the east—for Poland, the Balkans, and Russia—the policy was one of destruction of nationality and the extermination of the conquered peoples, their places to be taken on a large scale by Teutonic colonists to spread their "culture" and the dominion of the Reich to the -Volga, the. Black Sea, and, possibly, the Mediterranean. Hence the wholesale massacres of these eastern Europeans, their starvation and elimination, except for such as could serve as helots to the conquerors.

For the west the plan was .rather to force the democratic peoples into the "new order" through the agency of .renegade quislings and their followers, coming forward to do the work of the Germans among their own countrymen. The Nazis evidently expected much from this foul brood oi traitors. In the first few months after the fall of the Netherlands and France it looked as if they would succeed. In his book, recently published, "Belgium Uiivanquished," Roger Motz, speaking of the period from June to September, 1940, as "one of the most terrible despondency," adds:

For a; few weeks the traitors triumphed. As in every great national catastrophe, types of men came to the surfatce who were anxious to rebuild their fortunes on the ruins of their country... . National parties unleashed all at once the brood of traitors which they had been carefully forming for years. Thus appeared the mob of criminals which exists in all modern societies; not having sufficient courage in peacetime to commit an open offence agfin-st the laws, they wait for invasion, catastrophe, and panic before lifting their heads and showing themselves in their trrie light.

It is quite probable that the Nazis would have succeeded and the quislings prevailed but for one thing. If Britain had fallen with the rest of western Europe, the light of freedom would have vanished from Europe with the conquered peoples sullenly acquiescing, in the role of vassals. But Britain stood firm against air assault through this most critical period- and new\ hope was born among the Western democracies. From that time through sufferings and tribulations and hardships and the slaughter of patriots the hope has grown until it now fills Europe. Unarmed ancl defenceless though these victims of oppression are, they continue to defy the threats of the conqueror and the cajoleries of his agents. France is the test case, the outstanding example of many. For months past the Nazis have been trying to get the workers of France to "volunteer" for work in Germany's war industries. They have fixed a quota of 150,000 Frenchmen to go to Germany. Despite a campaign of propaganda led by the Axis archcollaborator Laval, with all sorts of appeals and threats, not a fifth of the quota has come forward. The Nazis, through Laval and his henchmen, threaten, but dare not try compulsion. The date for "voluntary enlistment" has twice been postponed from October 15 to October 31, and now to the end of November. The workers of France show no sign of surrender. They have won a great political victory over their enemies, a military victory even, if it is realised that every French worker in a German war factory would release a German for service in the field against the Allies. That is why the British Minister of Labour (Mr. Bevin), in his broadcast to the French workers, can say, "We shall never forget the solidarity which has been shown by our French comrades at this great moment." The peoples of the Netherlands, to whom General Smuts has broadcast comforting words in their own language, and of Norway, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland, and Greece still keep up the fight. It looks now as if the Danes, in the illness of their King, whose firm attitude has protected them so far from the worst Nazi oppression, are facing a similar crisis. With the example of their Scandinavian brethren before them in Norway, it is not likely that they will falter or fail in the struggle for freedom.