FEAR OF WINTER

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 163, 3 October 1941, Page 7

FEAR OF WINTER

THE DRAGGING WAR

GLANCE AT GE3RMAN MINDS

When a neutral's fellow-passen-gers on a train in Germany learns .that the traveller is a neutral they show an instant eagerness to obtain a correct picture of what the wai looks like from outside the Reich, since they themselves see no foreign newspapers and hear few foreign broadcasts, which is any case they are not always able to believe.

Their invariable questions, it is reported are: "When will the war end?" and "Won't this war cause others before it is terminated?" but the fact that the same people then draw a gloomy picture of the hardships of another war winter shows that the rank and file have already concluded that an egrly close to the war is unlikely- The Germans are said to be universally certain that the Russians will be beaten in the end, but they fear that the vastness of the Soviet Union may lead to a very prolonged conflict and the hopes which were: at first built on the expectation of a revolution against Stalin are fading away.

A dark shadow has been cast on families all over the Reich by the appalling toll of death taken by the Eastern campaign. The crowded columns of death notices in the newspapers represent only a fraction of the total number of killed, while the fact that official casualty lists are not being published intensifies the uncertainty and anxiety of the public. As the obituary notices frequently show, certain families have lost all their males, while, others are contracting; hurried war marriages after only the slightest acquaintance, openly admitting that their purpose is to keep the family name alive. In the cities the women noticeably outnumber the men.

Regarding the future a certain fatalistic stoicism is developing. The entry of the United States into the war, for instance, is calmly expected in the autumn. Nevertheless, the fundamental conviction still persists that Germany will somehow finally emerge victorious, and that the better age promised after victory will far outweigh all the present hardships.