The Wanganui Chronicle. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1942 HITLERIAN ANTICIPATIONS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 86, Issue 308, 31 December 1942, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1942 HITLERIAN ANTICIPATIONS

J-JITLER is silent concerning liis present day anticipations, but there is still the possibility that he may exercise his prophetic vision in a New Year message to the waiting world. The Great Man’s instinct which led him from victory to victory—but which I hose with a sense of realism unkindly called playing liis luck—has permitted him to make some emphatic declarations of fact in the past. For instance, on October 3, 1941, he declared: “Russia is already beaten and will never lift its head again.” In December of the same year he asserted: “Now it can be declared that Russia is already broken and will never rise again.” He was too soon in this forecast, for throughout the whole of last winter the Germans found that there was a resurgent movement from east to west which over-rail much of the German advance organisation and inflicted severe losses on the German armies. Despite the erratic behaviour of accomplished facts in not conforming to the Fuhrer’s averments, Hitler summoned his prophetic strength and girded up his intuitive loins to declare that “the Bolsheviks will be aimihilatingly defeated by us this coming summer.” That was on March 15 of the current year. True, the Germans made tremendous efforts to achieve this much-desired result, but summer turned into autumn and still the Russian armies persisted in remaining in being. It became clear that a winter campaign would have to be faced, and so, on October 5, Goering speaking, ironically enough at the Harvest Thanksgiving Festival at the Sportspalast in Berlin, declared that whoever went without the German people would be fed, which was hardly the kind of talk to inspire satellite peoples with confidence in the German New World Order. “The coming winter will not be so easy, but it will not be comparable to last year,” declared Goering. “This time we are prepared. We know what the Russian winter is like. We will be able to stand it better. The enemy may attack all along the front but he will be cheated at the final point.” The foregoing statements of Hitler and Goering, taken together, constitute a process of declension from the high point when victory was already accomplished to a dour outlook. The lowpoint in the process has, however, been sounded by the important daily newspaper, the Frankfurther Zeitung, in its Christmas message, wherein it urges Germans to the greatest exertions and warns them that if they weaken they will be “lost eternally and delivered to a merciless destiny. Not only are German life and the German State threatened but all German soil.” The Zeitung appeals to those showing indifference to remember that “only those believing firmly in a German victory can believe in the future of the German soul.” The admissions that are contained in the foregoing article are important. For instance, it is clear that the Nazi State after years of propaganda effort, with 6,000,000 foreigners working in Germany and, according to Goering, 5,000,000 prisoners of war held inside the Reich, is faced with the problem of indifference. The narcotic of Hitlerian prophecy no longer stimulates the flagging German people. They gave their furs and warm clothing to aid the armies which were fighting in Russia during last winter; they are facing the present winter with depleted wardrobes and reduced rations. Goering’s advice to them to stoi’e potatoes in their drawing-rooms to ensure that they don’t get frostbitten was depressing news for a people which was not to go without food whoever else did. And while these privations are being endured and while the realities of the dark future are not relieved either by Hitlerian prophecies nor what would be more to the point, by victory in any field, the Russians who had been conveniently annihilated in 194! are passing once again over the land that Germany captured in the summer and autumn. The Reich that cannot hold what it conquers, that cannot annihilate its foes, faces the fateful year of 1943. Despite anything that Hitler may say, the German people know that the moving finger writes their fate upon the wall, and that the hour of their defeat and disaster is fast approaching. When that dreaded hour will be ushered in they know not, but the lethargy which is engendered bv the knowledge of assured defeat