News Between the Lines

The German people last week believed they knew the next turn that World War II would take. No more fools than citizens of other nations, Germans no longer believe the rant and propaganda which passes for news in their press. But they still buy papers for two reasons: 1) to read the Army communiques; 2) to see what they, the German people, are being prepared to expect next.

The communiques from the Russian war were not conclusive (see p. 75), but the papers made it quite clear what Germans should be prepared to expect.

Yelped the press: "Roosevelt is a trail blazer of criminal unscrupulousness . . . Aggressor No. 1 . . . a marathon runner in his pursuit of war. . . . Roosevelt thus further proves that the provocatory assault on little Iceland was only a beginning."

Germans automatically translated this into news: Don't be surprised if America goes to war against us.

Lost Illusions. To Germans of all ages this news meant that another illusion was gone. The Nazis had assured them: 1) bombers will never reach Berlin; 2) Russia is our friend and this war will never have two fronts; 3) the war will end in 1940; 4) in 1941; 5) the U.S. will never come in. To older Germans who remember the impact of the fresh, strong, enthusiastic, unprepared, badly trained U.S., which turned the tide of World War I, the new press preparation was ominous. To the youth of Germany the probability of the U.S. fighting against them was a blow; for the youth of Germany--which cannot dance, hear good jazz, use cosmetics, which must work, fight and bear children--still thinks of the U.S. as a land of plenty, the land of skyscrapers and Artie Shaw and Clark Gable.

Undoubtedly the grimness of the war was coming home to the German people. The Russian campaign had been neither swift nor bloodless. German families without a casualty in Poland, France, the Balkans, Africa or Crete heard that a son, a father, a husband, a sweetheart or a friend had been killed in the fighting against Russia. The R.A.F. was pounding harder, by day as well as night (see p. 17). And though midsummer had come as a late blessing to homes heatless by decree since May 1, warmth was the only mitigation of Germany's joyless and complicated living.

Lifeless Living. Workaday Germany is no less tired than in winter, for work hours are still 60 hours a week for men, 56 hours for most women. The pay is still low: whole families work and pool wages to make a livable family income. After work, men stand an hour or more in line in front of tobacco shops to get five cigarets, made, they say, of "sunburned grass." Women stand before candy stores to get the 20 pieces of candy allowed each person monthly. They have to visit seven or eight shops to add a vegetable or fruit to the potatoes and bread and ersatz coffee and 400 grams of meat allotted to each person per week.

> Beer is scarce in Germany and the Kneipen (corner beer saloons) sell beer only between 11:30 a.m. and 3 p.m., and between 7 and 10 p.m. (One glass to a customer.)

> There are few bicycles remaining to civilians and no new ones available. (The German people have long gone without autos.)

> Clothing is tightly rationed and of bad quality. (A shirt can only be washed twice; wood-ersatz suits dry-clean into something that looks and feels like wood-ersatz. )

> The monthly soap allowance, used daily for hands and weekly for bodies, withers away by the third week of the month. (It is latherless in the withering.)

>There is no leather or rubber to repair shoes. (New shoes, rationed, are of wood or ersatz.)

> For fun when work is finished, workaday Germans go to parks and sit.

Why Not Revolt? Some of the German people like this (those who do not have to bear it). The rest are tired, disunited, unarmed, afraid. Strong and honest resentments against the regime there are, but the resentments have not coalesced into effective opposition. There are not equally strong and honest convictions. The Church can never fight beside the Communists; the monarchists cannot go along with radical groups; the Bavarians still hate the Prussians; the democrats are lost.

Except for the extreme left, none of these groups believe they have anything to win by losing the war. They remember Versailles and the aftermath. They fear the hate and revenge waiting for them at the hands of Dutch, Belgians, French, Poles, British, Czechs, Serbs, Greeks, Norwegians, Russians. In this negative sense, Hitler still has his nation united behind him and his Army.

By last week the German people had won all the war they wanted to win. But if they tried to overthrow the dictatorship, they would lose the war. And if they won the war under the dictatorship, they could not then get rid of it. In this dilemma, the German people were numb. And now they would apparently have to fight the U.S., too. They still had one hope about the war: to live through it.

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