Over Their Shoulders

The sudden and complete Allied victory in Tunisia set up a clamor of urgency over all of Europe. Once again it had been proved that the German Wehrmacht was not invincible. To peasants and patriots in occupied countries the certainty of eventual Allied victory was a staff to lean upon until guns could be used again. Satellite states squirmed. In Germany, the "master race" looked furtively over its shoulder.

Fear & Horror. No propaganda build-up such as preceded the defeat at Stalingrad had conditioned the German people for the disaster in North Africa. According to a Swedish report, 55 troops dispersed crowds demanding word of relatives in the Afrika Korps. The Berlin communiques were significant enough in their belated admissions and excuses. German families haunted short-wave radio sets to pick up the details from London and Sweden.

There was resentment at having been treated "like children" when Herr Goebbels announced that the North African campaign had never been considered decisive anyway. The dullest man in the street knew that Goebbels had tricked them; every German feared now that the next Allied move would be against the Continent. German newscasts noted the massing of Allied troops in North Africa.

In the midst of Wagnerian gloom, Hitler spoke his piece, and it was somber. Appealing for German Red Cross funds, the Fuehrer said that the German Eastern Front armies had overcome a winter crisis "that would have broken every other armed force in the world." He spoke of "superhuman hardships'' and the need for sacrifices so that Germany might be "spared the horror of war."

Food & Guts. Nazi propaganda has long claimed that Germany's enlarged economic sphere can more than match that of the Allies. But defeat in Africa shook many a German's faith in the Axis economy. A traveler from Germany into Switzerland said that on the day the meat ration was cut again, one German protested: "My God, this and Tunis too!"

To take the people's minds off their worries, Goebbels launched the most violent anti-Jewish propaganda campaign of the war. The Nazis also decreed, at least for public consumption, that Party leaders can no longer hold private industrial directorates, and increased the tax on war profits. Heinrich Himmler's Das Schwarze Korps attacked Die Uberschlauen (smarty cats) who quoted letters from soldiers praising Russian techniques and organization. Explained Das Schwarze Korps: "All that which apparently is strong is nothing more than the product of the bestial urge to destroy the higher cultures of better races. . . ."

Hope & Humor. German soldiers stormed that impudent Belgians asked them: "Have you packed your bags yet?" A Danish bookseller put two huge portraits of Hitler and Mussolini in his window. Between them, he placed a copy of Les Miserables.

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