STRAWS IN REICH

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 238, 5 July 1944, Page 5

STRAWS IN REICH

Signs Of Despair Seen Among People SOME NORMAL LIFE (From Godfrey Blunden, Special i Correspondent.) iSTOCKHOLM, June 30. TViUat does it feel like to be inside Germany today? Here in l Stockholm it is possible to get some slight, and incomplete picture. . ■ Refugees and escapees arrive in. Sweden every day, wthile Swedish and German businessmen and politicians move constantly backward and forward. Whener»r you cross the track of 'these people you get some small ■ corner of the broader canvas illuminated. Swedish businessmen have not had much to say since German leaders told them reprisals would be taken against them for describing conditions in Germany, but it is possible sometimes to induce them to talk privately. One told me how most German businesses were now-established in .the small not heavily-bombed towns, and" here an effort was made to carry on life as before. Costs would be discussed and orders placed and German pilsener drunk, but behind ’ this facade was an immense weariness of mind and hopeless depression. Some curious, stolid thoroughness and obedience kept them working day after day attempting to repair the ravages of war. More communicative was a German intellectual I met the other day who had come here on some mission. He couldn’t conceal his despair and horror at the situation Germany was getting into. The thing that seemed to affect him most was the effects of war on ■ German youth. There was, of course, the Hitler .Youth Movement, but he was thinking of other younger Germans and Austrians who he said made up the majority of A.R.P. workers now. All over Europe boys aged 14 to 16 were mobilized into A.R.P. gangs, and were moved about the country to deal with fires and demolitions caused by bombing. / “Thank Hitler.” “What will be the permanent effect upon the minds of these young people of being constantly iu air-raids?” he asked. “Unless you have been in one such raid- you cannot imagine it. These children nre petrified with fear, yet they are forced to deal with vast fires and drag thousands of bodies from the ruins. “One boy I know has never been able to’get out of his mind the sight of a man falling out of the sky with his whole body enveloped in flames so that he looked like a splendid meteor. It is impossible to enlarge upon the horror these children see. “Our propaganda attempts to turn this experience into permanent hatred,of the • British and Americans, but it is not successful. I have heard people come up from deep shelters after an air-raid and shout as they look at the ruins of their homes, ‘Thank Hitler, thank Hitler.’ And this cry has been taken up in hundreds of hysterical voices so that S.S. men can do nothing about it.” I met another kind of German a few days ago. one of the many deserters from the German Army who take a chance and escape to Sweden. This young man had been a Hitler Youth product till a few years ago, full of Nazi ideas of heiling his Fuehrer and an admirer of militarism. Now he cannot speak badly enough of Hitler. The interesting thing about this young man is his complete reversal of form. There is apparently no middle way for these young Germans, no balance hqtween adulation and detestation. I tried to pry out of him some view about Gestapo tortures, but this did not seem to be a matter worth serious regard. Apparently he’d never thought much about it before. “Well,” he said casually, “they’ve got to make them talk.” “But what of conditions inside Ger- ■ many? Are many young Germans thinking like you?” I asked. He could not tell me. He was occupied only with his new experience. A Swedish actor who returned to Stockholm the other day after three years touring Europe told, typical actors’ stories about the behind-scenes life of Nazi officials. Official’s Party. He described a party given by Press Chief Dietrich which he attended. There . was every conceivable luxury for the guests—caviar from Russia, champagne, from France, fruit from Italy and Spain. The party developed rapidly into a debauch. In the middle of the party a policeman appeared and cautioned the revellers about the noise, saying there were complaints from neighbours. But when he Saw Dietrich he bowed and apologized. As he went out. however, he was heard to say, “It isn’t like this on the east front.” There wore other stories like this which the actor was evidently fond of telling, and confirmed other accounts I have heard of the moral collapse in Germany. of German officers disrobing women in cafes, and great drinking bouts. None of this would be unusual except that there is some quality of madness, despair, and cynicism in this behaviour, caused no doubt by the effects of five years’ unceasing war. Yon see some of this reflected in newspapers the advertisements in which, are mostly obituary notices of men killed in Russia, Italy, and now Normandy. Many of these notices are for soldiers born" in 1925 or 1926. One glances casually at these black-bordered panels with black crosses and sentimental phrasing, and is only surprised when one sees the notice of someone who apparently has died from natural causes. The other kind of advertisements consist mainly of exchange, notices. Winter coats and shoes are items for which there is greatest demand, and for these you can apparently get almost anything from a typewriter to a hair-waving out-

fit- . , .. . , Other classified notices advertise, jobs in all kinds of industrial undertakings. There are also the.official. Government matrimonial agencies which encourage soldiers to marry and have families. So there is some kind of normal life going on inside Europe as one would expect. Without a Roof. • What these ordinary, ohedieut Ger-, mans are thinking I had a chance of learning the other day. .A Swedish friend showed me a letter.-.from a relative, in Hamburg, north Germany. The writer, a former university lecturer, said .that he and his wife were now living in a roofless apartment because if they letf and went to some evacuees’ camp the apartment would become the property of the State and life in an evacuees’ camp was to be avoided at any cost. “We have just been notified that Max has been killed on the eastern front,” the letter said. "That is now our second sou sacrificed for the Fatherland. You will hardly believe me when I say that we are not overwhelmed with grief, but accept everything with calm. . “Life has become so much simpler. We have no family, no house, no work. M e don’t think of the future, and we cannot think of the past. Me.think only of the day in which we are living. You cannot, understand how much simpler lite has become.”