Last Stand

From a few neutral spots in Europe, Adolf Hitler is now waging an important offensive against the minds and will of his enemies. It is a campaign of propaganda and diplomacy, and its object is to avoid or at least postpone a two-front war in Europe.

In this campaign the Fuehrer has three lines of action open to him. One, even to Hitler, must seem hopeless: an attempt to negotiate peace with Britain and the U.S., thus averting an invasion of the Continent. Or he may try to come to terms with Russia--and the Germans, having grossly misjudged the Russians in 1941, may well be capable of judging that they are now ripe for peace.* The third line of action is to divide the United Nations so seriously that a united strategy will be impossible. On this endeavor the Germans concentrated their chief and most successful efforts last week.

Neutral Bases. The Germans have chosen at least two neutral bases for their diplomatic offensive: Stockholm and Madrid. The point of possible contact with the Russians is Stockholm (the Russians do not keep diplomats in Bern). The Nazis last week defined Franco's Madrid as "the world's most important mediation outpost today."

In these posts, the Nazi Foreign Ministry has well-trusted men who had excellent prewar connections with Allied statesmen: Dr. Hans Thomsen, formerly Charge d'Affaires in Washington, in the Swedish capital and Hans Heinrich Dieckhoff in Spain. At the Vatican, another meeting ground for belligerent and neutral diplomats, Berlin has Baron Ernst von Weizacker, an old-line diplomat who was formerly Ribbentrop's Under Secretary of Foreign Affairs. These efforts constitute probably the Fuehrer's last attempt to win the war by the semipeaceful means which served him well before the war.

Feelers to the East. Germany first extended a public peace feeler to Russia two months ago, when the Nazi-owned Dagsposten of Stockholm noted the futility of a stalemated Russian war, concluded that a Russo-German peace was not unthinkable, and hinted at developments next August. This suggestion left the Russians as silent and cold as stone. Last week, as Count Friedrich Werner von der Schulenburg, once Ambassador to Moscow, made his second visit to Stockholm in recent weeks, there were rumors of a mort. concrete proposal: that Russia simply "lease" the rich Ukraine to the Germans, let them exploit its mines, fields, electric power, in peace. The Russians continued to kill Germans (see p. 29).

Such overtures were double-edged: they at once invited a solution of Germany's difficulties in the east, and were capable of increasing suspicions between Russia and her Anglo-American Allies.

Feelers to the West. According to a report received and believed in Washington, German emissaries in Madrid tried to establish contact with U.S. Ambassador Carlton J. H. Hayes last week. They failed, and they were pointedly referred to President Roosevelt's unconditional surrender statements.

Last fortnight, Spain's Foreign Minister Count Francisco Gomez Jordana made a more open attempt to bring about peace between the Axis and the Anglo-American Allies. Pointedly referring to the worldwide danger of the "revolutionary communistic idea," he offered Spain as a mediator. Gomez Jordana also said: "The Holy See, which labors with such love for the welfare of humanity, and those nations the war has spared, will be able without doubt to facilitate the advent of peace and collaborate in the preparation of treaties. . . ."

*Washington heard that the Russians are training an "occupation army" of teen-age boys, who will be just old enough to police Germany after the war.

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