The Evening Star MONDAY, APRIL 30, 1945. CRASH OF NAZIDOM.

Evening Star, Issue 25471, 30 April 1945, Page 4

The Evening Star MONDAY, APRIL 30, 1945. CRASH OF NAZIDOM.

Events in Europe are moving 'at. such tremendous, breath-taking pace that nows is virtually out of date one libuv after its release. Hitler's Third Reich is no longer tottering; it has crashed as no nation • in history has ever crashed, but amid the ruins there is still a resistance that is the most extreme futility, in which blind fools obey blinder commands from a doomed hierarchy only that that hierarchy may save its neck a little longer. Germany's position is irretrievable. The German people no longer doubt this, and in some cases are beginning to respond at last to their own initiative and to strive against Nazism. It was a civilian, head of rebels who imprisoned the Nazi garrison, who cheerfully surrendered Augsburg to the Seventh Army; the speedy, almost bloodless occupation of Munich.—the bi\'th place of the most fiendish organisation the world has ever known — was made possible by internal revolt; and the whole of the State of Wurtemburg is said to be seething with insurrection, with the Gestapo in headlong flight. One by one, within the Reich and beyond, through the combined activities of the forces lined_ against aggression and tyranny—Russian. British, American, partisan, and lesser allies—the bastions of Nazidom are falling, in most cases literally in ruins. Potsdam, symbol of the old Prussian militarism—as Munich was the symbol of the latest German intolerance—has gone; Spandau, Regensberg, Stettin, Bremen, Milan, Genoa. Venice are occupied or liberated. The leaders are in flight or are surrendering. Mussolini, tlie man who may be said to have started all the trouble in that he attacked .and absorbed Abyssinia—a development watched, with interest and envy by the Austrian house-painter and later emulated on a much grander scale—hangs by the neck in Milan, along with others- whose fate was long ago sealed. Goering is rumoured dead; Goebbels, too: Hitler's own fate seems a matter of doubt. Graziani is a prisoner; Kurt Dietmar, one of Germany's best-known commentators, surrendered rather than meet the Russians ; lesser lights of the evil clan are in Allied hands. Tlie summary fate that met Mussolini at the hands of his. own people should be a warning to. the Nazis that in the end it may be better for them to fall to the Allies than be turned upon and rent- by their own pack.

In the meantime there are rumours of German offers to hasten the end. While a categorical denial has been given that the unconditional surrender offer reported made by Himmler to Britain aud America has been accepted, there is no unequivocal denial that such _an offer has been made. Possibly Himmler still hoped that the western Allies' acceptance could be used to frustrate the inexorable Muscovite even after the twelfth hour, but if he entertained such hopes they have been speedily dispelled. If Himmler did make an unconditional offer to Britain and America it is proof beyond words that he realises the end has come; he would indeed be a man strangely unperceptive were that fact obscure to him. Attempts "at barter (for his offer ignoring Russia was just that) will avail nothing at this late hour. It is complete surrender or complete defeat. The latter, in effect, can be said to have been achieved. It is but a question now of .liquidating pockets of resistance, and these are proving weaker than anticipated. Even the great " national redoubt " is beginning to take on the appearance of a myth.- As Germany crashes Japan would do well to study the pattern of events of recent months, to realise that her European partner in flagitiousness has been brought to this pass in less than twelve months, and also that Iter own lot. with a mere fraction of Allied might involved, has been made considerably less favourable than it was at the beginning of that fateful twelve months. What' has befallen Germany will, in time, befall Japan. The writing is on the wall, plain to see.