THE THIRD YEAR

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20602, 1 November 1941, Page 2

THE THIRD YEAR

GERMANY AND WAR REACTIONS OF PEOPLE WANING CONFIDENCE LONDON, Sept. 20. The German people enter upon the third year of Hitler’s war, and, which is perhaps even more disturbing, the third war winter, at a time when the "final victory” promised by Hitler for the year 1941 must seem remoter than ever before, writes a correspondent of the London Times. For the first time they are witnesses of a campaign which has singularly failed to develop in accordance with the principles of the "Blitzkrieg.” It must become increasingly clear to them that some millions of young Germans will have to endure the rigours of the Russian winter.

In the occupied territories millions of other Germans are being made to feel that they are, in Mr. Churchill’s phrase, “the moral outcasts of mankind.” Thanks to Hitler’s latest aggression, the blockade, already effective in the west, has been extended to the eastern frontiers of German Europe, cutting off the supplies which would have reached the Reich not only from Russia but also from the Far East, by way of the Trans-Siberian railway.

Transport Problem

The German transport .system, already heavily overburdened and particularly susceptible to the strain during the winter months, is faced with the added tasks of supplying the armies in the east and serving an area of occupied Russia equal in extent to the Greater Reich of 1939. And at a time when hundreds of thousands of German families are receiving newsol relations killed or wounded in the east, the cities of Northern and Western Germany are feeling the weight of the R.A.F. offensive with the ominous addition of daylight and stratosphere attacks. Wishful thinkers may be tempted to infer from this catalogue of difficulties and hazards that Germany is “on the point of cracking,” and that the combined effect of bereavement, of bombardment, and of disappointed hopes will be a collapse in the morale of the German people such as that which contributed to the debacle of 1918. It would be even more tempting if some light-minded prophets had not, during the past eight years, foretold that, for one reason or another., the Nazi regime could not survive the coming winter.

Hope of Plunder

Any attempt to assess the temper of the German people must take account of certain permanent elements. On the one hand there is the fear of defeat and of a "second Versailles”;

the absence of any apparent alternative to National Socialism; the continued belief in the military success of German arms.

There is also the hope of almost unlimited plunder should Germany by her victory inherit the world position of the British Empire.

Against these factors must be set the mounting, war-weariness of a people which lived under something like war conditions for years before ever the hostilities of 1939 began; the progressive decline in Nazi appeals for sacrifice were 'irepeated over and over again; the tendency to react against the intrusion of politics into every sphere of life; and the growing apathy of the mass of the German people. The Younger Generation The most obvious support' of the Hitler regime is the fanaticism of the younger generation of Germans, who have been moulded and educated —if one can use the word education to describe the process of Nazi indoctrination —since Hitler took power in 1933. This fanaticism is backed by the fear shared by party “bosses” and hangers-on in their many thousand's that they might lose the material advantages which have rewarded their past loyalty to party and Fuehrei’. Hitler’s “old guard” would fight desperately to maintain their positions and save themselves from the fate which would await them if the present system were overthrown. Their personal future is bound up with the survival of Hitler’s rule. They have been trained to be utterly ruthless. ~ They are expert in the methods of 'ntimidation and terror. They dispose of the whole formidable mechanism of informers, secret political police, and concentration camps. To defy them would require a degree of individual moral courage vyhich has jiot hitherto been markedly apparent in the German character. Russian Campaign Influence But it would be an error to suppose that the Hitler regime is, or ever has been, sustained only by the fanatics, the timeservers, and the terror. No less important is the anxiety felt by many who are critical of the excesses and follies of National Socialism that the elimination of the present leadership would mean for Germany chaos as well as disaster. A winter stalemate in Russia, coupled with a failure to achieve the promised "Victory in 1941,”, and with sustained bombing by the R.A.F., would shake severely German faith in victory. It would call forth much latent war-weariness.

There have been frequent indications that the spirit of the German armies of occupation, even after the swift victories of June, 1940, was far from perfect. These unemployed armies might at length develop the same mutinous tendencies as were displayed by the sailors of the German navy at Kiel in the autumn, of 1918. With the memory of Hitler’s brownshirt purge of June 30, 1934, dissensions within the leadership of the party might appear if the Wehrmacht failed to achieve a really signal success before the coming .of winter. But it is wise io discount the idea that the German people will turn against its leaders until its lot seems so intolerable that any alternative would be preferred to the continuance of a bloody and fruitless war.