FUEHRER OF FRANCE

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21214, 10 September 1940, Page 7

FUEHRER OF FRANCE

GOERING’S NEW STATUS 8 RICH SPOILS PLUNDERED “REWARDS FOR PAST SERVICES” (Times £.ir Mail Service.) LONDON, July 28. Glittering as any of Napoleon’s marshals, the monstrous, medalstarred figure of Goering dominates conquered Paris, writes George Slocombe, in the Sunday Express. Hitler has taken over, lock, stock, and barrel, Napoleon’s European system; a Europe ruled by princes of Jiis own choice, by members of his own family, or by marshals of his victorious armies, with the Imperial Court as its focal centre. The only changes made by Hitler are that Germany takes the place of France, that Berlin and not Paris becomes the sun of this Nazi solar system. Rich Spoils Goering, Rudolf Hess, Goebbels, Ribbentrop, Himmler, von Keitel, von Brauchitsch and Milch—the Talleyrands and the Fouches, the Murats and the Neys of the Nazi regime—will be rewarded for their service with the rich spoils of conquest. They will become the Little Fuehrers of Hitler’s Europe. For Hermann Goering, Hitler’s companion since the early days of the Nazi movement, is reserved the plum—the Fuehrership of France. I have talked to Frenchmen in London who knew both Hitler and Goering in the years before the war. They have had long talks with Goering, in particular, and they are convinced that the stout and jovial field-marshal has long coveted, long prepared for, long rehearsed the role ascribed to him in the new European order. Even in peace time he went out of his way to study French psychology, to attract influential Frenchmen to his hospitable board, to flatter individual interests, to encourage individual ambitions. As “ Deliverer n And now the Fuehrer’s chief lieutenant is exerting all his bonhomie, his genial manners, his slightly melodramatic but all the same attractive audience—the population of Paris. He hopes to conquer France as Napoleon completed the conquest of Italy—by expelling the old regime, by posing as a deliverer, by announcing the dawn of the new revolutionary era, by claiming the Nazi revolution as identical with the revolution which always succeeds to military defeat in France, the revolution now clamoured for by the disillusioned, the betrayed, the starving masses. The astute, scheming and fareseeing marshal conceals a cold political intelligence of a high order behind his apparent joviality and simplicity, his mountebank vanity and gourmandise. Baton Waving Goering lives in a sumptuous suite at the Ritz. And he lunches and dines daily at the famous restaurants of Paris—Maxim’s and Larue’s and the Crillon. But he takes good care to be seen by the people. He walks gaily along the boulevards, smiling and bowing to left and right, waving his baton jovially at the heelclicking German officers drinking beer on the terrace of the Cafe de la Paix. When he enters the door of a restaurant he is careful to appear unassuming and modest. He outdoes the French in politeness. Unlike Hitler, he speaks French. In that language he converses with his guests. If he talks to a French officer, he is lavish with his praise of the valour of the French Army, a valour only comparable with that of the Germans, and only vanquished by German technical superiority and military invincibility. Political Conquest In short, he is building up a Goering legend, as a legend was built up around Murat and Ney: “Le roi des braves.” Goering counts for the success of his political conquest of France on three things. First, the discredit which the associates of Marshal Petain (the marshal himself is still a venerable, if pathetic figure) have brought on the present Government, both in occupied and in unoccupied France. Second, the growing economic disorder, the threatened famine, the breakdown in communications, the disillusionment and indifference of the population in both areas. Third, the psychological effect of the German victory, the incessant propaganda by German-controlled Frenchmen, the politeness and even cordiality of the German soldiers, the resentment caused by the destruction of the French fleet at Oran, the growing tales of German victories and British reverses.

That is Hitler’s imperial plan for France. And what is destined for France is destined for all Europe.