The Southland Times TUESDAY, AUGUST 18, 1942. No Compromise With Hitler

Southland Times, Issue 24825, 18 August 1942, Page 4

The Southland Times TUESDAY, AUGUST 18, 1942. No Compromise With Hitler

THE Prime Minister of Poland is reported to have said, in a London interview, that Germany will pi’obably try to obtain a compromise peace before the end of October. Statements of this kind are usually intended to warn the enemy that his motives are understood, and that his latest plan for escaping with the plunder has no chance of success. The war has revealed many things. It has proved 'beyond doubt that Germany was preparing for a new struggle almost before the ink was dry on the peace treaty of 1919. The scientific looting of the occupied countries could not have been carried out so swiftly and cleverly without a preliminary planning that involved years of study and experiment. Similarly, the efficiency of the German army was not the result of a merely conscientious peace-time training. The momentum of attack, the perfection of tactics and the grasp of detail in operations of the widest offensive character, were all evidence of a deliberate and scientific approach to the campaigns in the west and in Russia. It is now known that the German Army was preparing, by manoeuvres of the most realistic kind, for the battles of Poland and France while Hitler was assuring the world of his peaceful intentions. Every operation expected to take place in a wai’ of aggression was practised in advance, so that when the time came for action the programme of attack moved like clockwork. For instance, the silencing of Eben Emael, most formidable of the forts at Liege, was accomplished by a handful of men who, under the command of a junior officer, had rehearsed the movement hundreds of times, using a replica of the fortress in a lonely part of the German countryside. The thoroughness of preparation can be admired as part of an impressive military efficiency. But when an army devotes its training to the attainment of specific objectives, known to exist in countries with which its Government is at peace, it becomes quite clear that military and political policy are devoted to a single end. Germany’s record of pre-war politics, her broken pledges, her systematic blackmail and secret planning of aggression, make it impossible for any sane Government to trust her present rulers. The dream of world conquest has dominated the German mind since the beginning of the present century. It was interrupted, but not destroyed, by the Great War. Under Hitler’s rale it has . brought suffering and misery to the enslaved millions of .Europe. It .would pot be ended by a compromise peace. Only the defeat of the German Army, or the collapse of the home front under pulverizing blows from the air, can utterly destroy the obsession. The Allies have declared from the beginning that there can be no compromise with Hitler. Recent events, emphasizing the danger which confronts the United Nations, have also emphasized the need for total victory. Hitler has shown an uncanny sense of timing. He would score his greatest success if he could end the fighting just at the moment when the air fleets of the Allies were ready to undertake a shattering offensive. General Sikorski’s statement is proof that the war will not end in anti-climax. There can be no hope of security while the Nazis are free to make a patched-up peace the instrument of a new aggression.