Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1939. HITLER’S POWER FAILING?

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 October 1939, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1939. HITLER’S POWER FAILING?

SPECULATION has ranged widely within the last few days ° as to the probable outcome of the conferences of! Hate Governors and district leaders summoned by Hen H ter 1 Berliri. It has been suggested that the Fuehrer is nite learning what the German public are really tlnnkin a < ■ he is attempting to get information, at first hand and not t" word of Herr Himmler, Chief of the Secret Pol.ee. Some correspondents predict that Hitler willl stake his remaining hopes 611 a forlorn hope bid foi vi J Western Front. Others declare that such ; nn . °^T plv that far from promising the results desired that it is y Germany’s war effort will be concentrated on the sea and in the air,‘ particularly against Britain. Placing one Prediction against another, it, is evident that a great, deal of is going ( on as to the intentions of the Nazi dictatorship.. , Setting aside speculation and conjecture, however, the fact stands out that except in her. submarine faring badly, Germany has not yet engaged m a effort against the Allies in any branch of warfaie. In viev of all that the Nazis have had to say, in boastful terms to the 1 own people and in threatening terms to those of other nations, on the subject of lightning war,,and bearing 111 mind that time is on the side of the Allies—not only on account of the blockade, but because the British Empire, in particular, has vastly greater potential resources to draw upon than Germany—the inactivity of the German forces during the last weeks of the northern autumn can only be regarded as. very damaging to the position and pretensions of the Hitler dictatorship.

To this it has to be added that the anticipation of important policy decisions at, or as an outcome of the conference of btate Governors and district leaders in Berlin m itself implies a very considerable modification of the conditions 111 which Herr Hitler has hitherto ruled over Germany. Moreover this is not the first or only indication of a. weakening of the leadership principle, which until recently was the unchallenged keystone of the Nazi tyranny.

Plainly as the merely opportunist character of the Nazi regime has been exposed time and again in the jettisoning of its formerly alleged principles —the most blatant example 01 all perhaps" being the conclusion of a pact with Soviet Russia, to whom Hitler and his followers had proclaimed their implacable and undying. hostility—the Nazi regime until less than two months ago had maintained as fixed and immutable the leadership principle, which meant in working practice that no one challenged the commands of Adolf Hitler. Unquestioning obedience to the Fuehrer was enjoined in the teaching of youth" and observed, in every branch and detail of national affairs. Many examples have been cited of the . absolute authority exercised by Hitler, not only in determining Luge issues of policy, but" in details of administration—in some instances by protecting guilty officials from punishment, or even from dismissal.

At the beginning of last month, however, it was announced that Herr Hitler had appointed a supreme council of six to exercise control during “the present political tension. Ihis decree, Mr J. Emlyn Williams wrote some weeks ago in the “Christian Science Monitor,”

means nothing less than that the Fuehrer shares power with subordinates; in fact gives them the sole right to issue decrees carrying legal authority, so that Reich affairs are conductable without even Herr Hitler’s signature, without so much as by the Fuehrer’s leave. Herr Hitler reserves to himself simply the right to determine the expiration date of this decree. This new defence council (which excludes Dr Goebbels and Herr von Ribbentrop), as stated, clearly is intended for the co-ordination of military, financial, economic and administrative services for the better prosecution of the war. . . . So the war leads to the abandonment of the leadership principle, one of the remaining fundamentals in the programme of logical development of the survival of the fittest, with the Fuehrer, as the fittest, controlling.

Until he embarked on the Polish adventure, Hitler had himself contended that he was “advancing 1 confidently like a sleepwalker.” So long as he was able to achieve the bloodless victories ■which culminated ,at Munich, or perhaps .in the subsequent seizure of Bohemia and Moravia, his authority was accepted by the body of the German people and opposition to his absolute rule, in the extent to which it existed, was driven underground.

A new phase has now opened. The appointment of the supreme council and the conference which has just concluded alike point to a loss of confidence by the Fuehrer in his ability to maintain the pretensions on which his power is based and to a desire on his part to share the responsibilities he has hitherto, monopolised. Amply sufficient reasons of course appear for this loss of confidence. The Nazi imposture is breaking down. Promised further bloodless victories, or at worst victory in a lightning war, the German people find themselves faced instead by the prospect of death, suffering and hardship on a scale of catastrophe, in a vast ami extending conflict, of which no one can envisage the outcome. Whatever the stage to which the process of German disillusionment Jias meantime been carried, it is hardly in doubt that the Nazi dictatorship is in sight of the beginning of the end.

RUSSIA AND FINLAND.

J£ARLY reports of the line taken by the Soviet Government in the renewal bf conversations with the Finnish delegation at Moscow are in st measure encouraging. It is now stated that, although Russia desires the cession of some small islands in the Gulf of Finland—that is to say in waters separating Finnish and Russian territory—she does not. seek to establish troops on Finnish territory, as she has in Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. Accommodation may be possible on these lines, the more so sinca the report quoted implies, for what it is worth, that the Soviet will not'seek the right to control and fortify the Aaland Islands, lying between Finland and Sweden. It of course remains likely that the Soviet would object to Finland fortifying the Aaland Islands, on her own account or in agreement with Sweden, but this need hardly raise any serious difficulty. Safeguarded neutrality, rather than strategic developments in any degree challenging Russia, evidently must be the ruling aim of Finland and the Scandinavian countries. Only a firstclass naval power, allied with Finland and the Scandinavian countries, could have used the Aaland Islands effectively against Russia. Germany formerly might'have aspired to the role of protector of Finnish and Scandinavian neutrality. In view, however, of all she has now conceded to the Soviet in the Baltic, Germany, for the time at least, fades out of the picture.