BOGY TO PEACE

Evening Star, Issue 25769, 16 April 1946, Page 5

BOGY TO PEACE

(N.Z.P.A. Special Corretponttent.)

(Rec. 10.40 a.m.) LONDON, April 15. Mr Bevin is expected to have talks ■with the French Government on the question of Germany before the meeting of Foreign Ministers on April 25 —a meeting which, incidentally, is awaited with 6ome anxiety and doubt as to -whether the Big Four will reach agreement on the many problems confronting them.' Whether the Big Four will discuss a settlement in Germany is not yet clear, but-one thing is clear —namely, that some decision on Germany is becoming one of increasing importance. It is reported that while the Allies have not yet made up their minds as to what action should be taken, the Nazis are getting a grip on Germany again. Since the "cease fire" sounded there has been a gradual moral recovery of Nazism, says the. ' Observer,' ■which continues:— . ... " Underneath a thin crust of ' democratic ' military government

The anti-Nazi parties have been given no real power or responsibility, but they have been made to bear co-responsibility for all the unpopular decisions of the military government in the eyes of the German people.- The result is growing despondency even among those anti-Nazi leaders who had set all their hopes on co-operation with British democracy. They now feel more and more like helpless puppets of a foreign Power, surrounded by the hostility of their own people. " What should begin now—and begin in deadly earnest—is a fight for the soul and mind of the Ger-

The vitaL statistics of the Nazi regime, published by the International Committee for the Study' of European Questions are attracting attention. They indicate that while Hitler lost the war, he left Germany larger; by 5,000,000 people, and an weakened man power of other European countries, so endangering the future balance of the Continent. The population of Germany increased by 7.5 per cent, to 72,000,000, with another 2,000,000 prisoners to return. In the seven years before the war, Hitler's policy gave Germany 1,566,000 more births,' while the birth rate in the rest of Europe was falling. Any war-time decline in. birth rate in Germany jWas checked by regular leave for servicemen, and no mobilisation of toothers on a large scale for war work. At the same time, over the rest of Europe, Hitler separated between 11,000,000 and 12,000,000 men and women from their marriage, partners for five years by prison camps, racial separations, and slave labour raids, thereby

Revival of Nazism Predominant German Attitude Some Startling Statistics

Anti-Nazis Helpless Puppets

What Hitler Accomplished

Germany is instinctively and rapidly re-educating herself back to National Socialism. " In the British zone one constantly hears from anti-Nazi Germans that if free elections were allowed now 70 to 80 per cent, of 'the people would vote Nazi. Even now—in her utter impotence—Germany is beginning to dream of revenge again. . True, the moral recovery of Nazism has not yet found any clear political expression. Germany's political life continues to be controlled by the Military Government. The Nazis themselves have not yet had time fully to live down the inevitable confusion of defeat. But at present the moral recovery of Nazism is clearly creating the first and most t essential condition for its political revival later on."

Political experience of the past year has been encouraging, the article continues. The prestige of the anti-Nazi parties, which was potentially high after the collapse of the Third Reich, is now at a very low ebb indeed.

man people—a great eounter-offen-sive against Nazi ideology that has been regaining ground. " The only effective de-Nazification —conceived as a fundamental problem of policy, and not narrowly as a set of police measures—is full and unstinted encouragement to those German parties and groups to whom anti-Nazism is the air they breathe and the essence of their creed. Full employment within the framework of a predominantly Socialistic economy is the only possible method by which Germany can be both economically rebuilt and politically doNazified. This is also a precondition for the res-establishment of democratic freedomln Germ any. *'

shattering the birth rates of the occupied countries. He also sent his victims home in a condition that in many cases destroys their reproductive value. From 12 to 15 per cent, of the French deportees came home suffering from tuberculosis. In Poland, 1,500,000 Poles, are now tubercular. The European allies lost four times as many people in the war as the Germans did. Only, two out of every 1,000 workers in German factories were killed in air raids. The losses of life from bombs were far below the most conservative Allied estimate—a total of about 350,000 civilians. The air raids, in fact, reduced Germany's population by only .52 per cent., while, Britain's much smaller population was reduced by .13 per cent. The total German war casualties were approximately 3,600,000. casualties in other European countries were about 15,000,000, of whom 7,000,000 were in Russia, and 4,620.000 in Poland. Germany, though defeated, remains the bogy to European peace. " It is that very bogy which is causing the Allies difficulty in reaching an agreed policy—a fact which gives much satisfaction to latent Nazism.