South Yorkshire Times, July 29th, 1944
When Rogues Fall Out
Like a good defensive fighter the Nazis have covered up quickly after the staggering blow which the attempt on Hitler’s life undoubtedly constituted. For a few days there was an atmosphere of uncertainty in the air. Nazi propaganda hung fire, temporising with contradictory explanations of the abortive bid to assassinate the Fuehrer and the revolt of which this act was to be the starting signal. While the Nazi hierarchy was getting its breath back the usual totalitarian grip clamped down on all information and though there have been plenty of rumours of fighting there has been no reliable news as to the extent of the insurrection.
Stories put out by Hitler and his henchman and later amplified by Goebel’s broadcast on Wednesday reveal that the attempt was made by some of the higher officers of the army and suggest that fighting did start internally in some places. The Nazis, however, seem to have been too firmly in the saddle to be unhorsed. Having no great confidence in the maintenance of their evil regime by any other means than force and cunning, they had long ago arranged elaborate insurance against just such an attempt as this, and were able to withstand the coup.
All the same the incident has sensationally lowered Nazi stock in the eyes of the rest of the world, including those of the collaborators, willing and unwilling, and must have further sapped the morale of the German armies in the field, which already had so much to depress them. Our own government’s advice, officially offered by Mr. Eden, wisely recommends that we should not build our hopes too high on these evidences of dissension within the Reich. The Nazis have preached the Gospel of the stab in the back of 1918 too long not to have made a cardinal point of preventing defeat by the same means in the present struggle.
There is no doubt that this attempt to overthrow the Nazis represents one of the most encouraging signs of Germany’s ripeness for defeat that has yet come out of the Fatherland. When Rogues fall out honest men profit. Yet Hitler and his associates are too deeply steeped in villainy to do anything but fight on to the end, however bitter that end may be. In Normandy the armies of Rommel are resisting with redoubled fury; In Italy the defence is scarcely less stubborn; and even on the plains of Poland the rooted German armies are fighting back doggedly while Goering strives to build up new forces behind this steadily crumbling protection. Hitler’s latest total mobilisation decree promises to drain away the manhood of the Reich and the occupied countries almost to the last drop of blood in a fanatical attempt to outstay the patients, and resources of the United Nations. Such pitiless persistence and complete disregard for a people whose champion he has set up to be has never been known in history. Victory would be dear at this price; defeat cannot be other than ruinous. How long Germany can stand such merciless driving becomes more and more open to question. While the three fronts present more or less united defensive lines the wary Nazis will continue to fight their losing battle.
Once a serious breakthrough threatens the inner territories of the Reich their solidarity will deteriorate, and even the Nazi whiplash will hardly keep them to a task so plainly hopeless. In the East the Red Army is making a businesslike bid for such a breakthrough and our own armies are applying an ever-increasing pressure to the same end. Hitler’s eleventh-hour desperation is a rare incitement for the converging armies of liberation