THE VOICE OF CIVILIAN GERMANY

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 8, Issue 58, 20 March 1945, Page 4

THE VOICE OF CIVILIAN GERMANY

THE terrific punishment now being meted out to the German populace, compressed between the steadily closing jaws of Anglo-American and Russian armies, has given rise to world-wide astonishment as to why the voice of the civilians has not made itself heard in an insistent demand that the hail of destruction should cease. From the Allied world, amazement, not unmingled with pity has been ex. pressed at the long-suffering of the non-combatant Germans whose fate at the present. juncture appears far worse than that awaiting those actually in arms. The soldier is a member of a uniformed and disciplined organisation. He is at least acting in cohesion, and; has the proteestion of strategic cover by means of orders to advance or retire in accordance with the observations of the shrewdest military brains the country can produce, Not so the civilian who is unfortunate enough to be caught in the pathway of modern warfare. He is pitifully defenceless to a degree. No army orders reach him to retire at the critical moment. No careful and painstaking arrangements ensure him a steady food supply, despite the intensity of the bombardment. No billets or clothing are allotted him as he crouches to the earth in his cellar or shelter which alone shields him from the death-dealing blast which rages outside. We have purposely adhered to the masculine pronoun for our illustration, but the greatest tragedy of it all is that the vast majority of the, civilians caught in the tide of destruction in Germany today is composed of the aged, the sick, the helpless, and worst of all—of terror crazed children, from youths to toddlers, who cannot for one fleeting moment understand why they should be undergoing this nightmare of fear and butchery. We know and feel deeply about the remorselessness of Germany's policy in other conquered parts of Europe; we know the ruthlessness of her methods of conquest; of her appetite for destruction and oppression against the weak, but if we were to be honest with ourselves, we would confess that we are praying inwardly for the voice of the German people as,a whole to demand the peace. To this thought however, is another reaction. The remnants of the German civilian population, after the last demands of the Wehrmacht, are nothing more than a pitiable disorganised rabble. There is no more chance of their organising themselves or giving vent to their desperation by united voice than there was for the oppressed Poles in Warsaw rising and throwing* out the armed bullies who persecuted and slaughtered them at \vi?l during the German occupation. The only united voice in Germany today is that of the army, which dominated by fanatics is prepared to drain the cup of bitterness to its very dregs, irrespective of the torture and suffering it will bring upon the defenceless civilian population in the process.