GERMANY SHAKEN

Evening Star, Issue 23179, 31 January 1939, Page 15

GERMANY SHAKEN

GRUMBLING MORALE MAY HASTEN THE NEXT STEP Reliable information continues to accumulate that there is ever-growing “ malaise ” in Germany, writes the diplomatic correspondent or the ManChester Guardian.’ Hitler s triumph in Central Europe has made little impression on the German public as a whole, and, contrary to what was generally expected, his triumph has_ not perceptibly strengthened the regime. The effect of the anti-Semitic pogroms is profound. It is true that the actual excesses were often cheered by crowds of onlookers, but a widespread movement of disgust and indignation is (perceptible all over Germany, at least in the big towns, and many ‘Aryans ” have taken considerable risks in sheltering and hiding fugitive Jews. The moral bias of the regime has been severely, perhaps irretrievably, shaken. It can be said without exaggeration that of the many Germans who combine common decency with intelligence there are few left who have_ any feelings of reverence for the regime. AN END IN THEMSELVES. But t]ie pogroms have to be considered under another aspect. They were to a certain extent an end in themselves in so far as the real feelings of the National Socialist leaders, Hitler above all, found uncurbed expression. The German Jews have been treated as he and his associates have ahvays wanted to treat them. The pogroms were also an act of expropriatioTi. Whatever wealth was left to the Jews was needed for rearmament. But the pogroms served a third and important purpose; they were a warning to the “ opposition,” especially the Roman Catholics, but also to the Confessional Church, to the “dissatisfied” aristocracy—indeed, to all who are now being classified, most ominously, as “White Jews.” ' As a warning to the (Roman Catholics and others who are regarded as “ opposition ” they are altogether terrific, especially as the administrative and technical preparations for a national offensive against the Roman Catholics are now complete and the signal to begin may be expected at any moment. NOT THE SAME BRUTALITY. ■ It docs not follow that the (Roman Catholics will be treated with all the brutish cruelty with which the Jews have been treated. What the National Socialist leaders intend is to expropriate the Roman Catholic Church in Germany and to destroy it as an organisation. But the anti-Semitic pogroms are made to serve as a warning. It is as though the National Socialist leaders were to say: “ This is what we can do when it comes to the point.” and it is for the Roman Catholics to accept all measures of expropriation and penalisation, and not let it “conn; to the point” by offering any sort of resistance or even by complaining and letting the outside world know anything about it. It is understandable that there should be in Germany a growing sense of the sinister and the disastrous, but it does not seem that the “ Opposition ” is being cowed; indeed, the tendency is for an “ Oppositional ” mood to grow. Physical resistance to the regime is impossible; if it were attempted the consequence would almost certainly be massacre on a gigantic scale. But the spirit of moral resistance has never been so strong as it is now. ARMY OFFICERS ARRESTED. With its usual efficiency, the dictatorship has taken a number of precautionary measures. During the last few weeks a considerable number of senior officers of the Regular Army hate been arrested. There have also been arrests among the aristocracy. The dictatorship is determined to exterminate everything that could be “ Conservative ” in Germany. A large number of Roman Catholics have been arrested, especially in Austria, and there have been many executions, though it is not known who the victims arc —some of them, at least, arc members of the National Socialist Party. As the “ malaise ” deepens the dictatorsliip itself grows more and more uneasy and more and more determined to hasten on its next enterprise abroad. The evidence accumulates that the purpose of this enterprise is the separation of the Polish Ukraine from Poland. That Germany is moving towards a double crisis, both internal and external, is coming to be realised by more and more observers in Berlin, in London, in Paris, and, indeed, in almost all European capitals.