HITLER’S SILENCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 August 1943, Page 4

HITLER’S SILENCE

REGARDING AIR RAID DEVASTATION AGITATING GERMAN PEOPLE. OFFICIAL EXPLANATIONS UNCONVINCING. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.45 a.m.) LONDON, August 18. Ten million German women and children have been evacuated from Berlin and other danger zone cities, says the Stockholm newspaper, “Aftonbladet,” quoting German sources. It adds that only men working in war factories and essential offices are remaining in the cities. Goebbels, addressing a conference of regional chiefs of the Propaganda Ministry, said: “The air war is Germany’s greatest problem, but the enemy’s aim of breaking down morale will not be achieved.’ Germans are becoming agitated about the silence of Hitler, declared a special correspondent of the London “Times.’ Examining the trend of events' in Germany, the correspondent says: “At no stage cf the war has the home front been subject to so much discussion, scrutiny and anxiety in Germany as new.

Not a day has passed without newspapers and party speakers recalling to the public the seriousness of the situation, denouncing doubters and appealing for solidarity. It has not passed without comment that, amid the distractions and disappointment of their earlier hopes, Hitler keeps silence. This silence is so marked that spokesmen are seeking to explain it on the comforting ground that the front takes up Hitler’s time day and night, and they add: ‘Hitler is silent as he always is before important decisions.’ Like Mussolini, Hitler has steadfastly refused to visit the victims of his war, or even to address a word of consolation to them. Yet the greatest preoccupation of German civilians, and probably of soldiers, is the desolation and disorganisation which the Allied air offensive is causing in Germany.” “The Times” deduces from the vigorous excuses made for Hitler’s silence that the Fuehrer is being criticised.