Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, JUNE 23, 1941. HITLER ROUNDS ON RUSSIA.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 June 1941, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, JUNE 23, 1941. HITLER ROUNDS ON RUSSIA.

li'oni its bearing' on the war outlook, the attack' now launched by Nazi Germany on Soviet Russia —on a front Irom the Arctic to the Black Sea—commands attention first and loremosl as a new and spectacular proof of the worthlessness ol the Nazi word. 11 is. of course, well understood that good faith is a thing unknown to the Nazis, but even so their latest act of perfidy is remarkable. In his dealings with Russia, Hitler has twice unbliishingly changed front and it will be strange if even the enslaved masses of Germany do not find these reversals rather staggering. From 1933 onwards until 1938, Hitler lost no opportunity of vehemently denouncing Bolshevism. Addressing the Reichstag in -January. 1937. he said: — Bolshevism is the doctrine of world revolution, that is. world destruction. ... It is necessary that we should avoid all close contact with the bearers of these poisonous bacilli . . . Any treaty links between Germany and present-day Bolshevist Russia would be without any value whatever. The sentence last quoted deserves attention as one of the few truthful things Hitler has ever said on the subject of German relations 'with Russia. On August 23, .1939, he announced that a pact had been concluded with Soviet Russia, and the people of Germany were invited to believe that a firm and lasting friendship had been entered into with the “poisonous bacilli’’ of his preceding orations. Now Hitler has declared war on Russia, and in doing so has affirmed that Bolshevism is opposed to National Socialism in deadly enmity. Of the pretexts on which Hitler has based his declaration of war nothing need he said except that they obviously are invented for the occasion. As in all the other campaigns he has undertaken, he is attacking Russia in the hope of obtaining plunder, lie is engaged in the attempt predicted by Air Winston ( hnrehill in April last when he said there were many signs which point to an attempt to secure the granary of the Ukraine and the oilfields of the Caucasus as a German means of gaining resources wherewith to wear down the English-speaking world. ' In what manner the German attack on Russia is to affect and influence the course of the war*depends primarily upon the fighting power of the Rod Army. Russia is not formally an ally of the democracies, but she is promised by Air Churchill all the help that. Britain can give. A stout resistance by Russia might materially assist the Allies by helping to engage and to sap Germany’s fighting power. On the other hand account has to be taken of the possibility that Germany may gain comparatively easy military successes against Russia and thus contrive to build up some categories of her war supplies. Evidence as to the quality of the Red Army is somewhat contiailictory. J hat if is inferior in efficiency and offensive power to the German Reichswehr is agreed almost universally. Dissenting to some extent, however, from opinions freely expressed that the Red Army will bo overcome easily, a wellknown American correspondent, Air William Henry Chamberlin. observed recently that the Soviet military forces probably are well enough armed and equipped to put up a stubborn defensive struggle, as Russian troops have often done in their past history, but on two conditions: that inieinal discontents would not flare up under stress of war and that the transportation system, chronically strained in time of peace, did not collapse under the vastly increased demands of war. Stalin has declared of late that: “AVe must keep our entire people and State mobilised in preparedness to face the danger • ol military attack.” What. the claim hero implied is worth will now be put decisively to the fest.