The Wanganui Chronicle. MONDAY, AUGUST 30, 1943 GERMAN MORALE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 87, Issue 204, 30 August 1943, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. MONDAY, AUGUST 30, 1943 GERMAN MORALE

’~pHE bombing of Berlin is breaking German morale at its strongest point. The people of the. Capital City had their own numbers, the presence of the central government, an efficient antiaircraft defence and the distance from the United Kingdom to support their morale. All these have proved to be of no avail. German morale cannot avoid the strain which will be increasingly imposed upon it. The basis of morale is the prospect of success in the war. "When people believe that they will eventually win through to victory their spirits will be sustained by such a hope under the most trying conditions. The trend of German propaganda, which is the voice of the Government speaking to the people, has been drastically changed. The old belief that the German armies would be victorious has been given up. Now the motif of Goebbels is that it is only by sustaining the defence that utter annihilation can be averted. Individuals who remember the progress of German thought during the fateful year of 1918 will recall a similar movement iu the German appeal. The parallel of the propaganda of those two periods, the past and the present, cannot escape, intelligent minds. Once a negative train of thought gets under way it is difficult to stop. Jnside Germany to-day, however, there are events enough which spur it on its way. The continuous bombing of German towns and the intensification of that effort in respect to Cologne, Hamburg, and now Berlin, has given the German people ample proof of thir own vulnerability. The removal of Ministries from Berlin is evidence that there is no belief entertained in official quarters that these raids ean be. fended off in any way, and consequently such difficulties as now exist will continue in an intensified degree throughout the length of the war period. The breakdown of the transport systems due to the heavy destructive programme achieved by the Allies is dislocating essential services, resulting in the inefficient distribution of food and fuel, and in some instances of the water supply. Conditions to-day are bad enough inside the Reich, but the problem of the winter has yet to be faced. The breakdown in the transport systems, the disappointing the destruction of stocks of food and the, exhaustion of pillaged supplies from the occupied countries, added to the tremendous housing shortage due to the cessation of building opertaions and the destruction of bombing—all combine to make a bleak outlook for the fourth winter of the, war, the one through which the Germans could not pass in. 1918. An even longer view of the problem, must also be taken by the German people. What is going to happen to them should the war be brought to a close? The people of the occupied countries will merit being given first consideration. Their problems will be pressing and the Allies will naturally endeavour to succour their allies in the over-run countries of Europe. Meanwhile German credit will be non-existent. If Germany is to draw food supplies from the outside world she can only hope to do so by making an immediate return in kind. Therein lies the real problem which confronts the Reich. The policy of autarchy, so long extolled,. was designed to relieve Germany of the necessity for drawing supplies from outside her borders, thereby obviating the necessity .for securing foreign credits. But a country that will not buy cannot eventually sell to the outside world, and Germany has taught the rest of the world to do without her contribution. That was the backfire of the policy of autarchy. But, autarchy proved to be inadequate to the needs of the occasion. No nation, no matter how well placed, can live unto itself: foreign trade is essential. Germany, before 1914, feared that her foreign trade would not be sustained. After 1918 she failed to revive adequately her exports. This weakness continued into the Hitler regime’s time and the discontent which was voiced in respect to the failure of the export trade led to the Night, of the Long Knives, when von Roehm and others lost their lives. The inability to purchase raw materials, particularly tropical products, led to the German agitation for access to raw materials, which agitation was destined to cloak the real cause of Germany’s economic weakness, the failure to gain export markets and free credits. In the immediate post-war world there will be no place for the German people, and as the countries associated with the Axis are about to drop out of that camp in the hope of salvaging their national estates from the inevitable wreck there will be no considerable area within which Germany will be able to trade on any basis. The destruction of capital equipment which is being effected by the Allied bombers will be increased as the war draws closer and closer to German soil. It ean be expected that the peace will be dictated by an Allied Commander-in-Chief, but whether that officer will be an American, a British or a Russian nobody yet can say. . The Germans have long recognised that there is small possibility of their escaping, to the same degree as they did after the last war, from the retribution which is their due. There are too many nations now determined that the war guilt shall not be the subject of a clause in the peace treaty only, but shall be the basis of a juridical decision and penalty. It is this knowledge of the ring of hate which encircles them and which, prompts the demand for a penalty, that has kept down all dissident voices inside Germany. All Germans know’ they must swim or sink with Hitler, and they are even now spurred on by the courage which is bred of desperation. That, however, is a poor source of inspiration. Desperate men knowingly facing a situation in which the only prospect is that it will grow worse must eventually give way to that despair which overwhelmed them in 1918.