GERMANY TODAY

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 290, 5 September 1942, Page 8

GERMANY TODAY

S.S. The Actual Ruling Power (By Telegraph.—Press Assn. —Copyright.) (Special correspondent.) LONDON, Sept. 3. With the beginning of the fourth year of war •many assessments are being made of the position of Germany. ' , “The Times” expresses the opinion that Germany is bracing herself mightily, all reports showing unmistakably that the regime is carrying out new and even more ruthless mobilization of the nation’s reserves of material and of moral strength, ideas, and ingenuity. . “It is- folly to interpret reports as implying or revealing a dangerous strain on the German resources,” it says. “The-strain there-is for all to see, but there is no reason to suppose that the German resources cannot be adjusted to the new- pattern of the German campaign.”

The “Observer” euys that a second Nazi revolution has replaced the first and that Germany is constantly changing its Governmental structure. In the past year there has.been a complete elimination from power in every sphere of those conservative and nationalist elements which the original Nazi revolution of 1933-34 was content to co-ordinate, also in the final liquidation of; any vestiges of pre-Nazi tradition in German life. “The instrument of this second revolution is no longer the inllated Nazi Party, as such, but that esoteric order of the most radical militant Nazis, the 5.5.,” says the “Observer.'’ New Ruling Class. “The internal political powers of the German army had to be neutralized before plans could be completed to create a new political ruling class from the S.S. This was done through the development of the armed S.S. into a fullyfledged second army. The armed S.S. of today is a complete second army, comprising every kind of specialized units, and aspiring to become a complete second Wehrmacht by incorporating a Luftwaffe of its own. “There is little doubt that the armed S.S. since March 15, 1942, has been officially recognized as an independent part of the German armed forces, for the main part being saved up for the contingency of civil war. “Meanwhile, the political S.S. has taken control in more and more fields of German political and national life. Since last March the S.S. has taken over the administration of A.R.P., labour, munitions, road transport, sea transport, law, health, adult education, and postal communications.

"The second Nazi revolution,” says the “Observer,” doubtless is not yet at an end, but already it can be said that the S.S. is the actual ruling power in Germany, as well as in occupied Europe. This development must be seen against the background of the, growing resistance in occupied Europe. 'lt marks the end of what might be called popular Nazism, but shows that Hitler and his advisers are determined in no case to capitulate before any internal popular resistance.” Defeat Must Be Complete.

The “Economist,” discussing organized anti-Nazi underground movements in German-occupied Europe, says they exist everywhere, but Ithat Germany itself, because of the Nazi organization of the German State, has effectively prevented the organization of different interests in politics and economics. “Against Jill hopes of a breakdown in the Nazi regime short of military defeat of Nazi Germany,” the “Economist” adds, “must be set the reorganization of the Nazi Party. Nobody can prophesy, but it is safest and wisest to assume that the regime will not break down at the first or even under a secies of military reverses. Only complete military defeat is certain to break the regime. There is astonishingly little factual knowledge about the real political situation in Germany.” The ruthless mobilization which Germany is carrying out embraces the occupied and satellite lands equally with Germany. „ “The Times” says: “Europe is to be ransacked from end to end . for scrap. Germany needs a wealth of skilled labour, transport, and the food of Europe, not because of her own extremity or exhaustion —she is far from that —but because the changed pattern of war calls for still greater endeavours and different enterprises. Such is the main meaning of recent