THEN AND NOW

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 8, Issue 49, 16 February 1945, Page 4

THEN AND NOW

"THE whole German nation thanks the Fuehrer for having brought us such times."—(Goebbels, 4.9.40.) The above broadcast statement was made by the Reich Minister of Propaganda, Dr Goebbels when Germany's chances of defeat appeared impossible, and her ultimate victory, a certainty. They were spoken four years ago when Germany's sun was in the full ascendant, when her legions had mastered the whole of the European mainland and were then marching triumphantly into the border states of unsuspecting Russia. In very truth the picture was one of overwhelming victory for the forces of aggression. Might had overcome right, and the rule of the gun was all that counted in Europe, where tens of thousands who dared to oppose its, dictates were ruthlessly murdered or perished miserably m the grim torture chambers of the Gestapo. Hitlerism held sway from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, and one hundred and fifty millions groaned under its yoke. Exaultantly Goering had invited foreign correspondents to the Calais coast to witness 'the spectacle of the ages—the invasion of Britain.' How the invasion eventuated, is now written into English annals in imperishable letters of gold, and it was then that Hitler made his first false step as far as the strategy of war is concerned. Without hesitation he flung the full weight of his combined eastern armies into the land of the unsuspecting Soviet. This was the new move which crashed like thunder into the Nazi headlines. This was the news which was prelude to the ghastly nightmare of events which followed in swift and dreadful succession, and laid low tens of thousands of Germany's brav-* est and best beneath the snowy windingsheets of the gaunt Russian steppes. Out of the ghastly spectres of the past, Hitler has nothing to compare with the terrible Sacrifices made at the blood-soaked approaches of Stalingrad, Sabastapol, Kharkov, Kursk and Veronesh. The decimation at Starraya Russa cost Germany 200,000 first line troops at one fell sweep, the Nazi soldiers holding the outposts of the new Empire by occupation, trembled in their shoes lest they too be sent to perish in the bitter cold or at the hands of the lion-hearted citizen-soldiery of the Soviet. But the scene has become even more painful today. The unbelievable has happened. The Russian peasant, fighting as never before is today knocking at the very gates of Berlin. Hitler's satalites have been overwhelmed one by one, and the Atlantic wall has crumbled under the successive waves of British, American, Canadian and Allied armies, as they crashed to the attack, and sought vengeance for all the ruthless deeds and brutality which has been inflicted upon a long-suffering world by the henchmen of Hitler. Only the Seigfried Line buttresses Germany on the west, and even this well fortified line must collapse under the growing pressure. Hitler's fate is sealed, and the Empire which he constructed must also go the way of doom which throughout history has ever engulfed those who sought to rule entirely by the sword. The time may yet come when a sober Germany may yet repeat in humbler mein 'We thank the Fuehrer that he has brought us to such times.' t