Through a Bloody Haze

The rapacious Nazi beast was dying--but he was dying hard. Now he was backed to the door of his cavern and the blows of his enemies rained upon him without let. Through a bloody haze he saw vengeance closing in. He could no longer think, no longer speak to his followers in words that made even Nazi sense.

He spoke through the voice of fox-faced Lieut. General Kurt Dittmar, ace of the German military commentators. What Dittmar had to say was that Germany was defeated, but that it must fight on, "breaking the will of the enemy to destroy us."

The beast spoke from the Brussels radio, as his troops fled the city, and his message was to Belgians. But for Germans who heard him, this was the harshest, strangest warning yet: "You [Belgians] will acclaim the Allied troops as they march through your streets. You will do that because you know that Britain has never lost the last battle."

What would the beast do now? Hole up in the Siegfried line and try to live a few days longer? Still try to fend off the powerful Russian assaults on the east and in the Balkans ? Live on after these bastions had fallen, while boys and old men, now under training in the Reich, died to postpone the day of doom?

He backed away, flicking his paws. He burned villages down to the last henhouse as he withdrew and, when he had time, and felt like it, killed more civilians for daring to wear a look of hope.

Unless, somewhere in the last ditch, the beast's groping paws could find still a new weapon, there was no chance of even one final sally. The rocket coast was all but gone and London had promise of peace at last. Now bombers that had blasted at the robomb sites were free to concentrate on Germany.

This week Germany stood all but alone. Finland was following Rumania out of the war, more decisively than had feckless Bulgaria (see FOREIGN NEWS). With her went her priceless stores of nickel, manganese and cobalt. Fat, foolish Hungary lay open to the Russians. The "holy soil" of the Reich itself had already been torn by the tracks of U.S. tanks. The haze before the beast's eyes deepened. Soon night would shut.

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