Inside Report

GERMANY Inside Report

News about conditions in the Reich came from U.S. newpapermen who had concluded an involuntary 13-month assignment in swanky Baden-Baden. They had been caught with U.S. diplomats and relief workers when the Nazis marched into Vichy. Now, exchanged for Germans and Frenchmen interned in the U.S., they were sailing home from Lisbon.

Show in Baden-Baden. The "official" Americans were interned in the superluxurious Brenner's Hotel, one of Europe's showplaces. The food was sufficient, but far below the standards of a U.S. corner drugstore. There were many wealthy German vacationists around, with smartly dressed, silk-stockinged women and doctors' affidavits certifying their need of "cures."

The newsmen realized that fashionable, never-bombed Baden-Baden was untypical. But they did their best. Their sources: Nazi papers and radio; their own stomachs; escorted outings to church, movies, the woods; the look and air of Germans who gazed at the "encaged" Americans; talks with storekeepers, barbers, doctors.

A.P.'s Taylor Henry asserted that only in the last six months have "the Germans begun to realize that they have a war on their hands." Said Henry: "There is almost no sign . . . that an internal collapse is worthy of consideration."

The Baltimore Sun's Philip Whitcomb cabled that air raids so far have not perceptibly shaken German morale and may have stiffened it. Warned Whitcomb: "Germany is working at top speed on the construction of a new Europe, with endless international commissions, conferences, trade agreements, institutes." Added the Christian Science Monitor's Arno Dosch-Fleurot: "Newpapers in 17 languages support a 'New Socialist Europe' under Nazi leadership."

Overall impression: Germany still manages to put on a good show. Although people are worried about tremendous losses in Russia and growing hardships' at home, they seem to have confidence in Germany's fortifications and military prowess. They are constantly told that Germany and her allies have 200 million people, 18 million soldiers, that war production is increasing.

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