THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Monday, October 23, 1944. GERMANY ALONE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25673, 23 October 1944, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Monday, October 23, 1944. GERMANY ALONE

There is, as the Daily Mail has remarked, a wistful note in Hitler’s appeal to the German people to unite in a supreme effort for defence “until a peace is guaranteed which will safeguard the future of Germany and her allies.” Who are these allies? The Fuhrer himself admits the “ defection ” in Europe of all of them, and the whole point of his latest proclamation, with reference to the formation of a German Home Guard, is that Germany is now alone, compelled by a bitter turn of the wheel to work out her own salvation. Himmler, 100, seems to feel that the fates have made a plaything of German —or Nazi—aspirations. “ The days of our successes and happiness,” he complains, “ have been followed by times of misfortune.” But, he consoles himself, the war has become very, difficult for Germany’s enemies. The German concern obviously must be that it has become more than difficult for Germans. A Russian warning, prompted by Hitler’s calling to arms of all males between the ages of 16 and 60 who are not already serving with the forces, is that “Germany will be a battlefield to-morrow.” Nothing that Hitler, Himmler or Goebbels can possibly do, the Moscow radio has added, will suffice to stop the Allied onslaught. Nazi recognition of this grim fact is implicit in the steps that are being taken throughout the Reich to marshal all resources for the defence of the Fatherland'. Goebbels issued the first total mobilisation decree late in July, immediately after an announcement by Hitler that the last ounce of the national strength was needed for the Wehrmacht and the armaments industry. There followed in ra’pid succession a series of orders drastically changing conditions for civilians in Germany. The virtual disbandment of the Hitler . Youth movement at the beginning of this month probably anticipated the Order that has now become effective, by'which the tasks of the young will be rendered more onerous and will be related more dangerously to the actual struggle for survival. It is a harsh future that the German people are being asked to face, as another winter closes down on them. Among the male youth of the country, brought up in the tradition of devotion to the Fuhrer and acceptance of the fantastic cult of German racial superiority, there may be some enthusiasm for Home 1 Guard or guerrilla service after invasion of the Reich has become a fact. But older Germans may be less 7 inclined to see every German city fought for as was Stalingrad, or, in Himmler’s flamboyant phrases, “ every farmstead and tenement block defended by men who do not fear death, and, if they fall, by women and girls.” To a Germany hemmed in from every side the terrors of invasion may be expected to come quickly, and to impress themselves with a sickening emphasis on the average German mind. For most Germans the “ happiness ” of those earlier days of easy and apparently conclusive victory in Europe can now be nothing but. a mocking memory. The propaganda build-up which preceded these latest broadcasts will assuredly fall far short of its purpose, if that was to convince the average German citizen that the tragic failures of the Wehrmacht in the. past year can, at this late stage, be turned into success. Nob German man-power alone has been bled in’the past years of war. The blockade and the bombers have together taken an appalling toll of German resources, and reserves in the erstwhile satellite States can no longer be, tapped. Deprivation will be a weapon turned against Germans within their own borders; and, while the land forces of the Allies press in on the Reich frontiers, the bombing squadrons will still see to it that industrial recovery is made next to' an impossibility. The only reading of this last call for total mobilisation is that it is a measure of sheer desperation, intended for the buttressing of Nazi-ism within the Reich itself. It will not suffice.