Peace at a Price?

Adolf Hitler remained strangely hidden, strangely silent. Berlin suggested that he was resting after arduous labors on the Russian front. On the thin shoulders of Propaganda Minister Paul Joseph Goebbels fell the job of exhorting the German people: "Are you willing to continue the war with wild determination, unshaken by all vicissitudes of fate? . . ."

Goebbels broadcast a frank admission that Germany was in danger of being overwhelmed by "the whole wild greatness" of Russia's unsuspected military power. And he made the most open effort yet to split the U.S. and Britain from Russia: "What would England and the U.S. do if the European continent fell into the hands of the Bolsheviks?"

Plain were two propaganda objectives in this and other recent German speeches: > To play on the fear of defeat in order to wring new sacrifices from the German people, and keep them united internally. > To divide Russia from her allies by harping on the familiar theme that Germany is the European bulwark against Bolshevism.

Rotten Compromise. Not so plain was the possibility that Goebbels was sending out a peace feeler in double talk. In fact his speech, if taken at face value, specifically rejected any interest in peace without German victory. He called upon the Germans to prepare for a counteroffensive in Russia this year, and declared:

"I know that the British press will fall upon me, furiously yelping that I have stretched out the first peace feelers because we are pressed on the Eastern front.

But you may be sure that there can be no talk of that. In Germany no one thinks today of any rotten compromise. . . . Only a German victory can favorably impress foreign countries." But Propagandist Goebbels had mentioned peace, he had mentioned feelers--and, for whatever they were worth, the feelers did exist.

Compromise Peace? In Rome's Giornale d'Italia, Columnist-Editor Virginia Gayda blurted:

"Italy must resist until the moment when England realizes that her debt to America is growing ever larger, her world markets are being destroyed, and Communism becomes overwhelming if peace is not made rapidly. We could then consider a compromise peace with Britain and America, but never with the Soviet Union."

Apparently under pressure from Berlin, Rome retracted. But Allied speculation was increased by: 1) the visit of New York's Archbishop Francis Spellman to the Vatican (TIME, Feb. 22); 2) reports from Swedish sources that Finland hoped to make a deal (see below). Semi-official consensus from London and Washington: Keep eyes & ears open, but do not expect peace before victory.

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