DIRECT “CALL” TO GERMANS?

Waikato Times, Volume 193, Issue 22203, 24 November 1943, Page 2

DIRECT “CALL” TO GERMANS?

On authority that is not stated an English Sunday newspaper suggests that one result of the projected meeting of Mr Churchill, Mr Roosevelt and Marshal Stalin may be that a “dramatic surrender or take the consequences” call will be made to the German people over the heads of their rulers. The call will give the Germans “their last chance to overthrow the Nazi Government and surrender unconditionally to the Allies.” If the average man were asked for an opinion he would probably reply that such a call at the present time would be futile. But if the three Allied leaders do in fact put the proposition to the German people it can be taken for granted that with their special knowledge they expect some results to follow. They, of course, are continually supplied with data on economic and political trends in enemy countries and are in a position to judge the effect of any appeal. The whole proposition is problematical, however. In the first place it is not at all certain that the three Allied leaders will be able to meet. Nor is there any guarantee that if they do meet they will take the course suggested. There is, however, a great deal to be said in favour of periodically testing the feeling of enemy peoples, as a weapon against their morale rather than in the expectation that at the first time of asking they will agree. But the thing has to be done sensibly and with a due sense of responsibility. The Allies have so far refrained from putting the direct question to the Germans. They did place the choice before the Italians with good results, but they have not hitherto judged that Germany was ripe for such a proposition. A call made now on the lines suggested would cause individual Germans to ask themselves a question which has perhaps not previously seriously entered their minds. To continue the war will only bring them added suffering and make the eventual terms of peace more severe*.