THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 1913 THE MISSING FUEHRER

New Zealand Herald, Volume 80, Issue 24537, 20 March 1943, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 1913 THE MISSING FUEHRER

' Hitler, says rumour, is no longer at Smolensk. His whereabouts, indeed, is something oE a mystery. The > touch of the intuitive hand, so evi- > dent at Stalingrad, has disappeared • from German strategy. The recapture of Kharkov, no less than the efficient withdrawal from the perilous Rjev-Viazma salient, was the work of military minds unprejudiced ; by politics, unwarped by paranoia. • The Fuehrer is obviously gone. And ' stranger still, he makes no attemptto cover his absence or eclipse. A dictator must betray no human 1 weakness of body or of spirit. Napoleon, after the deadly crossing of the Beresina, speechless from a heavy cold, thought it necessary to assure the French that "the Emperor's - health had never been better." From scorched Moscow he wrote to his | librarian in Paris, "You do not send I new books sufficiently punctually." ■ | Frenchmen must think of him serene ■ iin the Kremlin, with his mind free ■ i for the gentle arts. That was why i he spent three nights amid the ver- • | min of his Moscow lodging drawing | up regulations for the Comedie Fran- • \ caise. So important was his un--1 | ruffled calm to French morale, so i vital his prestige, and unhampered ' | leadership. Hitler, strong and un- , perturbed in triumph or disaster, is . : as necessary to the German nation. 1 And at such a crisis Hitler hides. 11 is speeches are postponed, and Goebbels' excuses are eloquent of German questionings, i It is important to regard the Fuehrer from the German stand- , point. To conceive him as a party figurehead, moved by other hands, ■ or as the tool of vested interests, is ' : to misread his context. Hitler is the i j incarnation of a German longing. . The spirit of a people has created his ! like before, and in days of prepara- | tion and defeat has longed for the ; visitation of such leadership with | strange religious passion. And curiously enough, the waiting people have ; not been without some knowledge of the nature of the Messiah of their prayers. our saviour comes," 1 wrote Die Post in 1912, "he must not fear to kill or bear the brand of infamy; but he must come soon. We should, if we had a Fuehrer, find ourselves in the presence of a psychological monstrosity, because for Germany what is normal spells de- ; cadence." This desire, widespread in all orders of society, for something brutal and strong to follow, found its supreme fulfilment in Hitler. The Kaiser was dismissed in petulant disappointment as a false prophet, and the Austrian corporal won from an embittered people a devotion such as the Hohenzollerns never knew. It is a phenomenon not paralleled, save in German history. The formal worship of the Emperor, as the incarnation of the spirit of Rome, was a feature of ancient Roman polity. The cult had its priests and temples, and was a bond of empire, but it touched no spiritual depths. The Fuehrer worship did, perverted and base though its spirituality was. The speeches of the Nazi leaders are full of religious language, which cannot be simply dismissed. If it be granted that the speakers themselves were insincere, there remains the problem of popular response. "We love Adolf Hitler because we believe deeply and unswervingly that God has s;ent him to save Germany," said Goering. "You, my Fuehrer," said Goebbels on May Day, 1935, "have given U3 our daily bread this year also." "Everything comes from Adolf Hitler," wrote Ley. "His faith is our faith, and therefore our daily Credo is: 1 believe in Adolf Hitler alone." "With all our powers," echoed Rudolf Hess, "we will endeavour to be worthy of the Fuehrer thou, 0 Lord, hast sent us." No deep derision has laughed such orators to silence. The protests of the Church have found no overwhelming response. A mystic confidence in the power and infallibility of the Fuehrer must be deeprooted and widespread. Disaster has come to shake a horrible faith. Millions of homes have received the tactless German card, "Your son (husband) will not come back. Heil Hitler." The juxtaposition survived j the days of infallible intuition. Those i that bore the names of the dead of ! Stalingrad may have been read with i new vision. Perhaps the Fuehrer is i in wise retirement before disillusion-; ment seeks a scapegoat in the object j: of its former worship. "See the j. odious tyrant," roared the crowds of j < France as Napoleon travelled to ; Elba. It remains to be seen whether , German crowds can be stung to re- \ volt. And much more immediately, it ( will be interesting to see whether 1 any change for the better in German 1 fortunes will tempt the Fuehrer to - don the mantle again.