GERMANY: Consolidated Sausage

As hope for a short war faded last week, wishful thinkers turned to a fresh hope that might bring about war’s end: the internal collapse of Germany. Outside the Reich, newspapers carried dispatch after dispatch pointing toward such a possibility. From Zurich came reports of rioting in Essen, Cologne and Dusseldorf; from Amsterdam a report that 500 Gestapo agents had been sent to put down strikes in the Krupp works at Essen. In Austria, Tyroleans were reported to have distributed 1,000,000 leaflets saying: “Hitler leads us to catastrophe—we want peace.” The slogan, “Down with Hitler! Down with War!” was reported chalked on walls in big German cities. Slovak troops on the Polish front were reported sandwiched between German troops to guard against desertion. Passive resistance was reported rife in Slovakia, Bohemia and Moravia, with former anti-Nazis being rounded up by the thousands. The British Independent Labor Party reported it had received a message from German Independent Socialists: “Hitler begins war with Poland against the will of large masses of the population. German workers do not want this war; German peasants do not want it. . . . This war is not our war!”

All these reports added up to little more than propaganda. There was no authentic evidence of revolt in Germany last week, or even of the desire to revolt. Life had merely become harder. In Berlin, where last fortnight crowds appeared stunned and silent, the crowds had disappeared. The people were too busy to stand in crowds. Women were beginning to run trams and busses as men went to the front (during a blackout two streetcars crashed headon, injuring ten passengers). Women sold newspapers and delivered mail. The Nazi uniform all but disappeared from the streets and field grey took its place. The Army had taken over the country.

New laws mobilized 80,000,000 Germans behind the Army. In a series of drastic decrees, death by hanging was ordered for saboteurs, pillagers, arsonists, profiteers and loafers. Before officials could get the gallows up, one Johann Heinin was shot in Dessau for sabotage and in Stammheim Herman Weisser was beheaded for stealing shell parts. Income taxes were upped by 50%, taxes on beer and tobacco by 20%. The tax on radios was made practically confiscatory and the death penalty ordered for those caught listening to foreign broadcasts. Public dancing was prohibited as incompatible with the spirit of the times.

Hospital trains began to arrive in Berlin and Hitler Youths were given first-aid training. But no casualty lists were published. Stories of glorious victories over the Poles gave the people something to be happy about. Secure in its belief that the defeat of Poland would be followed by peace, Germany faced its hardships last week.

What would happen if peace did not come, nobody knew. What would happen if casualties rose to 60% of the forces engaged, as they did in World War I (last week they were .004%), nobody knew. In the long, dreary, penetratingly cold winter nights, with their cities blacked out and air-raid sirens screaming, Germany’s disciplined people might crack, as they did in 1918, and turn against their leaders. But last week they felt about the war as they did about the new consolidated sausage which took the place of the three score varieties of wursts they could eat in pre-war days: they did not like it, but they could take it if their Führer told them to.