LOOKING AHEAD

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 62, Issue 4430, 26 May 1941, Page 6

LOOKING AHEAD

IF THE NAZIS CONQUERED RUSSIA. LONDON, 6th April. A German conquest of Russia, presenting the Allies with an “ entirely new and verv intractable problem,” is envisaged by F. A. Voight, editor of the Nineteenth Century and After, in the April issue of that publication. “Even if the Germans are thrust back on the Rhine and expelled from Norway, they will be in an immensely strong position if their whole strategic basis is shifted eastward,” he writes. “ If they can hold a strong defensive line in the Balkans, and can deny the Allies access to the Black Sea and the Baltic, it will be a stupendous task to dislodge them, provided the spirit of the German nation remains unbroken and the peoplestand united behind Hitler.” Germany must, if she can, forestall the establishment of a strong, independent Poland, declares Mr Voight. Failing complete victory in the present war, there is only one way for , her to do this, and that is by collaboration with Russia. “If Germany waits for the day of her own defeat, Russia will demand a very high price for collaboration. I “ The Soviet may even decline to j

• run the risk of antagonising Britain and America for the sake of an alliance with prostrate Germany. “ Perhaps Russia would occupy the whole of Poland, and even East Prussia, if she had reason to believe that Germany was too enfeebled and the Western Powers too-war-weary to interfer. RUSSIA A RICH PRIZE. r ' “ Germany, to avert these contin- ■ gencies, as well as insure herself , against the consequences o| her own ■ defeat, must attempt the conquest of Russia or, at least, of Southern Rus- . sia as far as the Caspian Sea. i “ This conquest will not be necessary from the German viewpoint, so long as she can retain the territories i she now holds. “ But if Germany fails to win the battles of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, if she forfeits the initiative, if the Western Powers pass from the defensive to a general offensive—then Germany will be forced to turn against Russia. “ Germany, by overwhelming Russia, will not only enlarge her- industrial and economic basis, and go a long way, even if not the whole way, towards satisfying her needs, especially oil, will also secure a hinterI land relatively immune from attack.

“ The war will then present an entirely new and very intractable problem.

“ Even if the Germans are thrqSt back on the Rhine, and expelled from

Norway, they will still be in an immensely strong position if their whole strategic basis is shifted eastward.

“ If they can hold a strong defensive line in the Balkans, and can deny the Allies access to the Black Sea and the Baltic, it will be a stupendous task to dislodge them, provided the spirit of the German nation remains unbroken and the German people stand united behind Hitler. “Yet it is not inconceivable that the German war spirit will be renewed by an internal revolution in which Hitler and the National Socialist Party would be eclipsed in favour of a form of disciplined National Communism, - with the German officer corps as the principal commissars and German industrial labour as its chief social basis. “ Such revolution would be impossible, or at least Would have only a transitory success, unless two conditions wfere fulfilled—firstly, that the revolution was carried out in connivance with the Russians; and, secondly, with the relationship of the Russians as vassals and the Germans as masters, similar to the present position in Italy. MIGHT HELP STALIN. “ Berlin is doubtless wondering whether a conquest of Russia could be achieved without war. “ Stalin would regard a German invasion as offering manifold advantages if it was carried out peacefully.”