The Wanganui Chronicle THURSDAY, AUGUST 14, 1941. GERMAN CIVILIAN MORALE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 85, Issue 190, 14 August 1941, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle THURSDAY, AUGUST 14, 1941. GERMAN CIVILIAN MORALE

AN interesting’ distinction is drawn by men who have returned from active service between the Nazis and the Germans. It is natural to those who have come into contact with the Nazis to regard them in a different light from the Germans, because of the marked dissimilarity of their conduct. The Nazi is a good lighter who fights with a will to win. When captured he volunteers no information, and when questioned shows his resentment quickly. In captivity he withdraws himself from the non-Nazi prisoners, and associates only with his own kind. The Nazi evidently belongs to an army within au army. The methods whereby the Nazis have raised their members to such a high pitch of fighting quality merit close study, and the source of success will probably he found in the application of the merit system in the selection of leaders. Hitler may—or may not—believe in racial superiority, but he is a thorough-going democrat when it comes to searching for the best human material. This is not surprising in view of the disadvantages of his early years in a country where a works manager’s contract usually contained the provision that, his son was to succeed him in his position. The majority of the Germans, as distinct from the Nazis, who were captured in Greece and Crete, apparently showed a willingness to surrender when it was safe for them to do so. They presented themselves as unwilling combatants who knew that if they refused to fight they would be shot and their families penalised. When German prisoners were interrogated they answered readily and gave answers which prompted further questions.

This attitude toward the war by those Germans who arc fighting in a victorious army, is of very great importance, and its significance cannot be ignored. Au army can usually instil a fairly high standard of morale into its personnel, and this task is easy to accomplish when the army ean boast ot its recent successes. The German armies have been successful wherever they have gone. They have reached their objectives in each and every case and, despite their failure to maintain their schedule, the progress which has been made in Russia has been considerable. The success has been quite good enough for the purposes of maintaining a high general morale. Why is this not in evidence?

The answer to this question appears to be that the Nazi policy of creating a State within a State and an army within an army is not sound. It may draw to itself the adventurous and patriotic, but it must also attract the cunning and the unprincipled. and these latter classes can be expected to achieve sufficient success in their own way so as to overlay the idealistic side of the movement in the eyes of those who are on the outside. Reactions and counter-reactions are bound to occur: some covert, some overt. Illustrations of these actions and reactions wore to be observed immediately after the signing of the Munich Agreement. It will be remembered that when Mr. Chamberlain went to Germany he was received with undisguised pleasure and approval by the mass of the German people. It will be remembered, alsjo, that when Sir Nevile Henderson visited the Berlin Foreign Office for the purposes of an interview, he had the goodwill of the officials toward his pacific efforts always manifest. \\ hen the agreement was signed and the German people were as relieved as the British people that war had at least, been put off, there appean <1 in the Schwaefc Korps, the organ of I hi' German S.S.. the following article: “It is a sail truth, based on experience, that in the gravest hours of a natioini’s existence there were always to be found traitors and saboteurs who sought the nation’s downfall. Wc ean ignore here the people who, out of bourgeois stupidity or cowardice, have made defeatism their religion. We arc speaking of others now. Of those who .systematically plotted and planned, and for whom the nation’s decisive hour was nothing but the long-awaited opportunity to put in action their plans for the destruction of the Reich and of the German people. We are thinking of the political meddlers among the clergy. At the moment when the fateful hour for the German people struck, again we found this clergy at the side of Germany’s enemies. We saw how, deluded by false calculations concerning the strength and resolution of the German people, they selected this hour as the one in which to take up an attitude against the nation, and thus exiled themselves from the community of the people. This is so terrible that it might seem incredible, but it is true: the very men who were offering' up prayers in the churches for peace were, in the depths of their hearts, wishing for war and, through war, the end of National Socialist Germany. These prelates and priests who got their news from the Vatican and from London, and felt so sure of themselves that one after another they openly spoke of the Church’s freedom being brought about by the nation losing a war. German agents brought from the Vatican the news that it was the conviction of the Holy Father that’in the near future Germany would be in a terribly difficult foreign political situation. which eould only develop to her disadvantage. Papal infallibility already saw the end of the Reich.” The tone of the article is definitely anti-clerical and dominantly anl i-('atliolie. But that should not blind the world to its true .significance. It is the effort io explain away, and to escape from the implications by finding a scapegoat, the public reactions of the German people after Munich. Military success is heady wine, but not so on short rations. And now Hitler is preparing for a winter campaign in Russia. . Cut off from enemy and neutral sources of news, fed on propaganda which is rapidly becoming more and still more selfcontradictory, the German people must be reverting to those apprehensions and fears which found relief in expression after tlie Munich conversations had been concluded. If Russia can maintain the air raids over Eastern and Southern Germany in collaboration with the Royal Air Force’s operations over Eastern and Northern Germany, there is a good prospect of civilian morale inside the Reich deteriorating speedily from now on. Himmler, Chief of the Gestapo, in September 1937 declared that “we must realise that any war in which wc neglected this internal theatre of operations would end in defeat.” Himmler was correct in this: where he erred was in applying the methods of the gangster and the concentration camp to overcome the essential weakness of Germany then and to-day.