NAZI NONSENSE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 April 1941, Page 6

NAZI NONSENSE

BUBBLE REPUTATION PRICKED MANY BLUNDERS. SOME TYPICAL EXAMPLES. (By “Knob-Turner.”) From the moment he took over control of the German propaganda apparatus. Dr. Goebbels set about reviving and expanding the idea that the German is the superman in everything except error. Hitler spread the gospel of the German as the superior race, but Goebbels told the world. Until the real testing time arrived, the doctrine was widely accepted. Even in the British Empire and in the United States there were people who said openly that to oppose the Germans was hopeless, they were so thorough, so wonderful, so colossal. On the Continent the Teuton was a greater terror. Things are different today. The bubble of Goebbels's German has been pricked by the collection of blunders made by Hitler and his colleagues. Here are a few of them: Error No. 1: “The British are a decadent people." used to be a standard cry of Nazi derision. No German will say so today. Error No. 2: “The British will never fight.” Ribbentrop built his truculent policy on this fatal mistake. The British started fighting on September3, 1939, and are still in the ring, growing stronger every day. Error No. 3: “In modern wars navies don't count.” Hitler called the British Navy the “expensive plaything of a plutocratic democracy.” The British Navy has halted .every Nazi advance, and has laid the foundation of the Nazi defeat.

Error No. 4: “If war comes it will break up the British Empire.” The Nazis repeated the blunder of 1914; today the Empire is more closely knit than ever it was. Error No. 5: “It will be a short war.” The Nazis are still saying it will soon be over; but it has passed two winters and the British Empire prepares on a long-term basis. Error No. 6: “The Empire is not behind Churchill.” The Nazis shouted this and believed it; but they know better now. Error No. 7: When France was knocked out the Nazis believed Britain would give in. So did Mussolini. This idea did not occur to the British people. Error No. 8: Britain was to be crushed by invasion in September and on one or two subsequent dates. Britain appears now to invite the Nazis to “give it a go.” Error No. 9: The Germans were told and believed that the Royal Air Force could never drop bombs on Germany. Germany's most heavily defended centres have been blasted by the R.A.F. time after time. Error No. 10: The Nazis said they would smash the R.A.F. Actually the Luftwaffe has suffered losses at the rate of five to one. Error No. 11: The blitz raids on British cities were to have spread panic. The reverse has been the effect. Error No. 12: Hitler and Mussolini believed the Italians would have a walkover in Greece. The Greek idea was more accurate. Error No. 13: Mussolini believed he was a strategist. Badoglio, Graziani and Soddu know he was not. Error No. 14: Hitler and Goebbels thought their wonderful propaganda would prevent the United States from giving aid to Britain and her allies. The Lend and Lease Bill was the answer. In the face of this fourteen—and there are many others —the idea that the Nazi is not a superman in blunders is obviously Error No. 15.