The more Hitler's speech is considered the more difficult does it become to understand exactly why at this juncture he decided to make it. It runs true to type, and much of what he says he has said so many times before that those portions of his speech can be disregarded. Obviously quite a great deal of his remarks was devoted to boasting of the German success against Yugoslavia and Greece, and the admission of casualties of Such slight numbers that it is almost a wonder that he admitted losing any men at all The facts are well known, and the main one is that most severe casualties were inflicted upon the Germans and the Italians, and that Hitler, at this advanced stage of what he assured his people would be a quick war, dare not admit to his people that the Germans in the Balkans received a severe manhandling. Everything possible has been done to prevent the truín becoming known to the German masses, few if any of the wounded being returned to Germany for treatment but spread instead throughout Austria as was the case in the campaign against Poland.
It was only a comparatively short while ago that Hitle and his minions were assuring Germany that the war would be ended victoriously for them this year. September was.mentioned as the possible month. He has now intimated that he expects hostilities. to last into 1942, boasting that in that year German soldiers will possess better equipment than in this. Mr. Wickham Steed holds to the opinion that the Hitlerian timetable has already been. delayed no less than nine months. That seems to be justified from Hitler's boasts as he embarked upon this war, when he promised he would be in London by August 15 of last year. It is now May of this year and he is just as far from entering the British capital as he was prior to the collapse of France. His latest admission suggests that he is preparing his people for the probability of his being well over a year behind his programme by the time 1942 comes round, and is endeavouring to reconcile them to the prospect of another winter of war with the promise of better equipment of the German troops.
His picture of the British "a rarely intelligent people," being misled into this war by Mr. Churchill is one of those ridiculous statements to be expected of the perfervid Hitler. He dare not tell his people that the moral of the British people, despite what his ruthlessness and wantonness has been able io do to them, has not weakened their determination to carry on until the menace of Naziism has been completely rooted out. He dare not admit that the Battle of Britain was lost last year and continues to be lost. He dare not confess that the Battle of the Atlantic is not proceeding with the speed he would like, and he dare not disclose to his own people the lying statements concerning the losses he alleges Germans have been able to inflict upon the British mercantile marine. That serious damage has been done the British would be the last to deny, but the fact remains that the almost astronomical totals, which he and his satellites claim as marine casualties, are the products of minds 60 disordered as to be able to convince themselves of the veracity of lies.
His reference to the Turks is also interesting. He reminded Turkey that she was Germany's ally in the last war. Yugoslavia, Turkey's ally, he said, recently turned against the Axis but Turkey reserved her independence. That German diplomats are endeavouring to persuade Turkey from her present stand is only too obvious. But the Turks are acquainted with what has happened to other countries which Hitler has penetrated either by fraud or force. They must know what will be their fate if they submit either to blandishments or force.
Their temporary end would undoubtedly be that of Poland. All in all Hitler's speech is not particularly astonishing, or epoch making. He does a lot of crowing on his own blood-sodden midden. The speech was good theatre, but it was the utterance of a man who has io prepare his people for another winter of suffering, a prolongation of the period of malnutrition. It was a preliminary warning of more hopes deferred, an admission that, though the German path may be occasionally lighted by the beacons of immediate successes, ultimate victory is just as far off now, so far as he is concerned, as it was when he criminally plunged Europe into this hideous war.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.