THE DEBACLE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 8, Issue 45, 2 February 1945, Page 4

THE DEBACLE

IT is a long time since the world at large heard as sane a speech from Hitler as that which marked the anniversary of his accession to the Chancellorship, last Wednesday. Under the dread of the Russian onrush; under the strain of inevitable defeat; under the dawning conviction of the hopelessness of his cause, Hitler's voice has lost its frenzy, its arrogance and its threatening blather. Wednesday's speech was almost one of sober reality. It was one of selfconfessed guilt, hiding under the transparent veneer of self-pity and false idealism. Well may the Fuehrer, bemoan the fate of his country. His hour has almost struck. Like his colleague II Duce, the 'Sawdust Ceaser' of the new Roman Empire, his overthrow draws nearer with each dawn. Never has the Berlin radio been more candid than it is today. Propaganda had faded before the picture, of hideous realities now being portrayed in East Prussia and in Silesia. Meanwhile from the Kremlin Marshal Stalin issues triumphant orders-of-the-day in which the prodigious advance of the Red Army is announced in world-shaking bulletins. Never in the history of modern warfare, declare the critics of England and America, has so vast an advance and offensive been carried out. 'Sixty miles from Berlin' declares the latest Russian announcements. If distance to us is to mean anything, it is that Whakateans should learn with terror that the invading Japanese forces had now reached and captured Tauranga, and were advancing on this town as their goal. The parallel may help us to realise the chaotic state of the Berlin population, where the heart of the Reich palpitates with abject f\ar in 'the face of the fate which is about to overtake it. The momentum of the Russian advance has staggered the world and if it can be maintained, Berlin should be reached before the end of next week. Hitler's bravado is as hollow as his broken promises to' Poland, Czechoslovakia, Belgium and Holland, and his note of quailing distress can scarcely be expected to awaken pity inj the face of the five-year programme of unremitting ruthlessness, with which he bullied and terrorised the helpless populations of the subjugated countries under the German heel. Thus the German debacle in the east, can be coupled with ease to almost every utterance in the latest, and possibly the last speech of the German Fuehrer as the curtains draw,