Nelson Evening Mail TUESDAY, JULY 29, 1941 CRACKS IN HITLER’S HOUSE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 29 July 1941, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail TUESDAY, JULY 29, 1941 CRACKS IN HITLER’S HOUSE

AMONG the first air offensives of the war were the “bomphlet” raids over German}'. By persuasion Britain hoped to wean the German people from Nazi allegiance. But that did not happen. Britain found 1 that she had mistaken the hold that Hitlerism had on Germany and soon had to revise her notion that she 1 was not fighting the Germans but | only Nazism. On the whole these raids were a disappointing failure so' far as dividing Germany was concerned though they might have sown some seeds of dissension. These were the days when there was much wishful thinking throughout the j world about the disunity of the Ger- j mans, coupled with optimistic prophecies that the war could not last. Hitler’s long line of successes counteracted all that and even made world opinion veer towards the other extreme. Wishful thinking received a rude jolt; the Nazi army and air force seemed to be going from victory to victory like a well-oiled military machine. So much so that there were few signs of any friction internally. If the Germans had their difficulties and their disagreements they managed to hide them very well. But of late there are signs from the outside of Nazi Germany that things are not so rosy as they were. Competent observers who know the mind of the German are beginning to ; notice them. One of the first big blows dealt to the Nazi mana was the defection of Rudolf Hess. The world does not know yet why Hess flew to the camp of the enemy but the exit from the Reich of the Deputy-Fuhrer was an omen of the greatest import. Writing in the “Spectator.” London, Hermann Rauschning, himself a German in: exile, estimates the damaging power 1 i of Hess’s flight to the Nazi cause as j more than a lost battle. He does not J I know for certain what led Hess to| ' come to Scotland but hazards the guess that Nazi intentions towards! Russia led to the estrangement be- j tween him and his Fuhrer. This fits I in broadly with the peace plan solu- | tion put forward with such confid- j ence by the Lord Provost of Glasgow. ; The Russian campaign is producing visible cracks in the edifice of National Socialism. Why did Hitler, at the zenith of his military achievements, and after having overrun the Balkans and taken Crete, leave the Mediterranean and strike against Russia? Was his need for speed as I pressing as all that? Did he believe I that the shortest and quickest path ! ; to the oil he needed so much lay through European Russia? Or was it : a case of now or never? Whatever j I he may have thought, this eastern j j drive has not so far brought him to , ! the oil, though it may do so. But.; i for the first time, the German timeI | table has failed. To a certain extent, j i too, German strategy has failed and i ' ( scapegoats are now being sought, j General von Brauchitsch. Hitler’s i Commander-in-Chief, is supposed to have been relegated to the background. General von Keitel, Chief of the German General Staff ever since the outbreak of war, is reportj ed to be in disfavour. But the | Fuhrer’s displeasure has also been * reflected in the inner ranks of the I Nazi hierarchy, suggesting either dis- | agreement with Hitler’s plans or per- ! sonal jealousy among the Nazi leadI I ers, which seems to have become | I more pronounced since the departure j ; of Hess. Himmler, the infamous j Gestapo chief, is now second to the | Fuhrer, it is said, Goering having :« passed into eclipse. Of course some of these reports, too, may be wishful thinking indulged in by anti-Nazi propagandists but they have appeared too persistently lately not to have some foundation in fact. It is common knowledge that Hitler cannot brook failure _ or frustration, while it would appear b that he went into Russia against d some of the best military advice at . his disposal. It looks as though one d or two of the Nazi chiefs have been saying, “I told you so,” and from its

earliest days, Nazism has had one standard method of getting rid of dissenters. Since the beginning of the Russian campaign, too, there has bet'll a welling up of hope in the oppressed countries which may in time be welded into a movement of rebellion under the V banner. All of which does not mean that Germany is close to revolution, her military power nearly spent and her campaign in Russia on the point of failure. To believe that would be to engage in the most dangerous form of wishful thinking. The same observers who see the cracks in the house that Hitler built warn against \ the assumption that, through them, can be glimpsed the smoulderings of a mass revolution in Germany. If the German people are not intoxicated by victory, but rather oppressed by doubt and fear, they are still obedient to the mighty system which has been built up. The weaknesses bringing that system to collapse may prove to be lack of resiliency and absence of the power of regeneration. For the present the most that can be said is that the German people might prove more receptive to the appeal of “bomphlets” than they were eighteen months ago. But we have no transport for them now. Bigger and better planes are busy nightly carrying over the Reich bigger and better bombs which we did not have eighteen months ago when we raided with leaflets.