"How can this weakening at the centre be achieved? One powerful means, of course, is the skilful use of propaganda. But the greatest importance must be attached to the combination of bombing of industrial objectives with the blockade, For all practical purposes, the Nazi-controlled part of Europe can be and is cut off from supplies from the outside world. This blockade. whereby Nazi military power can be weakened from within. Bombing and blockade are two aspects of the same thing—the economic attack at the very heart of Nazi power.
"Supplies of all kinds to Germany and Italy and to the occupied territories are therefore stopped. If British coal were sent to France. for example. the French transport system would be able to work without supplies from Germany, and so the pressure upon Germany's coal-mining resources would be eased.
"The blockade of Nazi-dominated Europe can be and is effective. What practical results can it be expected to achieve by itself and reinforced by bombing? All sorts of unpre-dietable factors enter into such a calculation the rate of consumption of materials (which itself depends upon the development of the war). the Nazi policy in occupied territory. the size of pre-war stocks, and the extent to which they have been exhausted in a year's warfare and supplemented by loot from conquered territory.
"Although the Nazis now have the whole resources of Continental Europe at their disposal, there are a number of serious raw material deficiencies which will become increasingly apparent as the war proceeds. Dr. Goebbels claims that the continent of Europe is a compact and independent economic unit. or at any rate sufficiently so to enable it to dictate trade terms to the outside world. This assertion however, is nothing more than propaganda. It is an unfortunate fact. from Hitler's point of view, that Europe is relatively poorly endowed with natural resources,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.