TRAGEDY OF LOST CAUSE

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20994, 22 December 1939, Page 4

TRAGEDY OF LOST CAUSE

Suicide of the captain of the scuttled German pocket battleship Graf Spee lends a tragic touch to a story which for Germany has been all tragedy. It is probable that the whole story has not been told. Perhaps if all that has passed between Captain Langsdorff and the German High Command were known the mystery would be explained. As far as the public knows, there was no need for a normal person to commit suicide in the circumstances in which Captain Langsdorff found himself. He apparently fought bravely against a superior enemy and, according to information from Berlin, the scuttling of the ship was ordered by Hitler. Evidence is not wanting that the spirit of the German naval and military forces is not equal to that of the Allied services. This can be well understood, for apart from the radical differences in the mentality of the two races, many clear-thinking Germans must know that their country is facing the certainty of defeat in a cause which to large numbers of them is anything but popular. Service in such a cause is not calculated to improve the spirit of the men of the German Army and Navy. With the progress of the war it becomes increasingly clear that for Germany the whole campaign is in the nature of a gamble, with a desperate lack of confidence in the result. If Germany had hope of winning the war, why should she order fine ships which have been lying in neutral ports to make the almost impossible attempt to return to Germany ? In this way large numbers of ships have gone to their doom, including the costly liner Columbus. Twenty-three ships have thus been scuttled to avoid capture. If Germany expected to win the war she would allow those ships to lie in safety to be reclaimed when peace returned to the world.