RALLYING THE GERMANS.

Marlborough Express, Volume LXXVI, Issue 251, 24 October 1942, Page 4

RALLYING THE GERMANS.

An intensive internal propaganda campaign is reported to have been opened in Berlin with speeches by Hitler, Ribbentrop, Goebbels, and Goering. The people are being urged to "stick together." One of the slogans is "Death to all doubters." This latest evidence of the sagging state of German morale progressively confirms the observations made at the beginning of the year by Dr Benes, the President of the Czechoslovak Republic, who is very well-informed as to conditions in Germany. Writing in the Manchester Guardian he stated that "a stage had been reached at which there *is no longer any question whether we shall win, but only when we shall win." Dr Benes reached this conclusion somewhat as follows ; Germany must crush Russia, or at the very least win the oil of the Caucasus, if she is not to face a fatal two-front war exclusively on the defensive in which collapse "will again be inevitable, as it was in 1918." By implication — he was careful not to be explicit on this point — he ruled out an offensive which would achieve these objectives, and considered it "quite clear that this realisation — that the war cannot be won in military terms— has been reached not only by the German Generals but by all, the important Nazi leaders." Events in the meantime have largely justified his anticipations. But what is not certain is how the situation will develop, or in what manner the inevitable collapse will eventuate. What is called the Second Nazi Revolution must be taken into account. " Against all hopes of a breakdown in the Nazi regime, short of a military defeat for Nazi Germany must be set this reorganisation of the Nazi Party," the London Economist commented recently. ■ 1 • It is impossible to prophesy, because so little is known. There is astonishingly little factual knowledge about the real political situation in Germany. Neutral travellers and repatriated diplomats and journalists back from Germany tell what they1 have seen ; but the interpretation they put upon it is speculation. There are food shortages in Germany, There is a war weariness. They are openly discussed in the German newspapers. But they

| do not necessarily constitute the basis of an effective opposition to the regime and to the war. The administration of "law" is practically passing into the hands of the security service of the S.S., which is at the same time public informer-at-large and virtually controlling authority of the judges, who are becoming little more than puppets Terror has become law. Hitler has ^rmed himself and his Gestapo agents with this weapon of summary procedure in order to dispose of ,any person whom he fears or disapproves of. No need for a future Roehm Purge. He can get the same results by haling his enemy before the "People's Court," of which the new Minister of Justice was the ruthless president. Hitler 's decree is a sign of fear. No ruler sure of himself would resort to action so damaging to his own regime. The Nazi State is not only organised for war ' abroad ; it is organised to meet and put down civil war. The liberal slogans of 1918,

1929, or 1933 are no incentive to the German people to revolt ; for the younger generation the language of democracy is a lost tongue, a dead language, and without the younger generation active revolt is not possible. Every judgment must be tentative. The crack may come and the revolt start sooner than any observer, from the facts he knows, can possibly say. But even dissatisfaction, war weariness and privation need organisation to be effective ; and it is the essence of Nazi totalitarianism that the organisation of opposition is rendered impossible. The conclusion must be, however tentatively, that the upsurge of opinion and action which is waiting in Germany for an expression is not likely to find its channel until the Nazffied State has! been beaten on the battlefront. — V