COLD PORRIDGE.

Evening Star, Issue 24290, 3 September 1942, Page 4

COLD PORRIDGE.

The Germans, one imagines, will feel the snows already drifting, piling up their white masses over Germany and deeper over the Russian front, as they read the appeal of their Fuhrer to them for voluntary sacrifices for a fourth winter. The first winter was tolerable enough; the war had hardly begun. The second was bad—made worse by air raids on Germany which they had been told could never occur, but relieved by their hope that it would be the last and by the loot which it rejoiced them to have stripped from every conquered country. The third was an agony, when it was not death, to their soldiers, committed by their Fuhrer to a new campaign which he had said could never happen. No German war was ever meant to be like that. And now there must be a fourth winter, grimmer than any that has passed, because bombardments will be grimmer; and Herr Hitler, who said in 1940, “ Britain will belong to Germany before July is out,” does not even promise that it will bo the last. His promises have been too often belied to breed conviction now if lie made them. In calling for more sacrifices, he makes no attempt to offer cheer. He even suggests that when the war is won —some day—it will be by the Japanese, those Aryans by adoption who know their own troubles.

He continues to lie, however, much in the old way. Britain began the war. Presumably -Mr Chamberlain made three visits to Germany in his eagerness to begin it. Already wo see a new German “ myth ’’ arising. It can bo conceded that the Fuhrer did' profess friendship to Poland, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Russia, Yugoslavia, and others before he struck them down. With some victims he had non-aggression agreements and those were fatal. “ National Socialism has already solvcdl or is solving social problems.”" It solves them by the axe and the firing squad. That ‘‘New Order ” prevails to-day over most of Europe. But that, Germans know, cannot last. “ What of me?” asks the anxious German, and he gets no answer. He may not listen in to the overseas wireless. It is to be hoped he is thinking deeply about his Fuhrer.