NAZI RATS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 April 1943, Page 6

NAZI RATS

PREPARING TO DESERT SINKING SHIP REMOVAL OF PARTY BADGES. TRAVELLERS REPORT RISING POPULAR ANGER. Travellers reaching Sweden from Germany say that many Nazis from officials down to smallfry ward heelers are beginning to remove their party badges from their lapel buttonholes because they are losing faith in victory and fear the consequences, an American Associated Press correspondent in Stockholm wrote recently. These sources added, however, that although this is one of the first signs of the Nazis running for cover, they still carefully carry the buttons with them and wear them at official functions to keep up appearances. This reported symptom of deteriorating morale reverses a trend which started early in 1938 with Hitler’s overrunning of Austria. Then swastikas popped out overnight on lapels. Many persons who were members of the party for years came into the open and began wearing them for the first time. The Party itself grew rapidly in the years of cheap victory. The explanation that the travellers give is that the Germans sporting the swastikas and party badges now are beginning to see the handwriting on the wall and at the same time sense the underlying hatred toward them among the many who have suffered at their hands. This feeling has been aggravated as a result of military reverses, the economic pinch of the fourth year of war, and the general repercussion of casualties which they cannot escape because soldiers daily hobble about on one leg or dangle an armless sleeve on the streets. With the swastikas gone, they hope the people will forget. Although they are constantly m the (shadow of the Gestapo, however, the Germans frequently remark: We know every Nazi, every S.A., every S.S. man (Storm Troops and Elite Guards), every party Bonzen (racketeer) and we will know where to find them when the time comes,” these travellers said. The travellers also said they had witnessed open expressions of protest against the Gestapo treatment of the Jews and had heard Germans denounce the persecution—something they never dared do before. Also, workers were said to be tired of the ceaseless driving by the Nazis to increase war production. The Nazis, therefore, have to contend with absentees in factories on an increasing scale, the travellers said, although the workers run a risk of severe punishment for being ■ away from work without cause. The Nazis are trying to counteract these tendencies with a jarring propaganda which emphasises that not only the Nazis and party leaders but also the German people would have to pay for defeat.