Some Day. . .

Some Day . . .

The Allies will be fooling themselves if they count on imminent capitulation or revolt by the German people. German morale, both civilian and military, is undoubtedly declining, but the very fear of defeat increases the determination of the Germans to fight to the end.

So reported one of the few neutral observers who have been allowed to leave Germany since disaster began to loom in Russia. Other reports last week from the same source:

> After the Stalingrad defeat, Hitler's personal popularity for the first time spiraled downward with Nazi Party prestige. His promise of victory at Stalingrad was too recent and too wrong for even propaganda-hammered Germans to forget; Germans said that Hitler's appointment of reckless "Party Generals" assured the Stalingrad catastrophe.

> Goebbels has banned Germany's biggest recent song hit, Es Geht Alles Vorueber (It'll All Be Over Some Day). Citizens made up new lyrics in which they comforted themselves that what would be over some day was Hitler and his Party.

> The German masses are not wholly in the dark: they often listen to foreign broadcasts and they have learned to read between the lines of their communiques. When the German press reported that somebody had unsuccessfully tried to explode the Rhine bridge to Basel in northwest Switzerland, Rhinelanders cracked: "It must be the Russian Partisans trying to cut off the Wehrmacht's retreat."

> Most Germans do not yet believe that they will lose the war. Only among the upper classes is it said that Germany cannot win. Their policy is first, to defend the European fortress strongly enough to convince "sensible" Allied statesmen that "reasonable" terms with Germany would be cheaper than fighting; second, to exploit the fear of Russian Communism as it has never been exploited before. So far, every suggestion that Germany may lose the war has only stiffened the resistance of the German masses.*

> Nazi leaders are less worried about the home front than they are about the state of the Wehrmacht's elite soldiery after all their campaigns and almost two years in Stalin's inferno. Desertions have increased but remain too few to be important. But they are sometimes spectacular: on two known occasions, Gestapo troops mopping up Soviet guerrilla bands found them led by German petty officers.

*This may well explain the fact that both Roosevelt and Churchill, in their speeches last week, pointedly assured plain Germans they had nothing to fear from defeat. Said Roosevelt: ". . . We do mean to impose punishment and retribution in full upon their guilty, barbaric leaders."

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