WAR ITEMS

Grey River Argus, 2 May 1942, Page 6

WAR ITEMS

BRITISH COMMENT. LONDON, April 2. “The Times’s” diplomatic corres-pondent-says: Hitler has given a last warning that justice must be bent to serve the Fuehrer’s will, regardless of what the law says. A half-muted wrangle has recently been going on in German legal periodicals, and even occasionally in the daily Press. Certain judges are accused of carrying out only tae strict letter of the 1 law, instead , ot regarding themselves as interpreters of national emotion. In short, part of the judiciary is asserting its right to be independent, within limits. Hitler’s speech was a formal declaration of a gangster State. The people were told that for the future, in* theory as well as in fact, there will be no law in Germany but Hitler’s. It Is Hitler’s version of martial law, to justify any act in the arduous months ahead.

It is pointed' out in London that in "hi| speech, Hitler virtually claimed to be a greater man than. Napoleon, because the latter was forced to retreat in a Winter not nearly so cold as that faced by the German troops. Such a sentiment is thought to come, queerly from a leader who boasted that he would achieve victory in Russia before the Winter began, and suggests miscalculation by Hitler ns a- war lord, which is now being covered by- the remarkable achievement of Hitler, the leader who. saved his

army from a ruinous defeat. To students of Hitler’s speeches, important elements of them are often points he omits, and these include no mention of victory in the near future, but rather boastfulness of full readiness to cope with transport problems next Winter, no special arguments about a “second front,” and no welcome to his new satellite, Laval. Noteworthy also is the phrase, “If God loves those who accomplish the impossible, then He will also give victory to those who have stood the test against unheard-of odds,” for it would seem that the words might have been spoken, much more appropriately of the Battle of Britain, when the small R.A.F. smashed Hitler’s Luftwaffe armada. The Reichstag resolution 'is in London felt to be the final ratification of a whole series of recent decrees; further strengthening the Nazi Party at the. expense of industry, civil service, and military power. It is" wondered whether Hitler feels, the. need of tightening b ! s rein to make it impossible—with the help of the Gestapo—for any rival section even to make a small beginning. At the same time, it is realised that Hitler is in fact taking, although it is thought by many to have existed ,in theory, powers over subservient Germans which no dictator in history hitherto dared to claim.