MAY GO UNDERGROUND

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 7, 10 January 1944, Page 4

MAY GO UNDERGROUND

NAZI PARTY AFTER DEFEAT NEW YORK, January 9. Well-informed Berlin circles say that the Nazi leaders have already arranged for the party to pass underground as soon as necessary, states the "New York Times" Stockholm correspondent. A vast number of the Hitler Youth Party, as well as potential legions of critics of whatever conditions defeat would impose on Germany, would be sufficient to establish a new | organisation which, working from below, would become a factor for unrest and trouble in post-war Germany. Many recent statements by prominent Nazis make it plain that the idea [of disaster has occurred to them as sometKing more than a remote possibility. It is clear, however, that so long as the Nazis remain in power and till the last shots are fired the party will not acknowledge defeat any more than will the military hierarchy. Both factions are working hand in glove with the Minister of the Interior, Herr Himmler, and the Wilhelmstrasse blandly envisages that even , generals will be thrown on their own if the eastern front splits under the weight of Soviet onslaughts. With the nerve centre, Berlin, systematically hammered by aerial blows, the Nazis' State is already cut up into sections working independently, t with the administrative offices scattered in dozens of different directions. This disruption naturally gives the dictator plenty of time for loafing, making his office more or less superfluous, a fact which Herr Hitler probably realises. In any case, his public appearances are steadily becoming rarer, and.evidently the only use the party has for him is as a figurehead.