the fall ofa repugnant regime

thursday may 3, 1945

Nearly 1,000,000 Germans in Italy and Western austria have surrendered unconditionally to Field Marshal alexander. Berlin has fallen to the russians. Goebbels joins the growing list of leading Nazis now reported dead.

It will please the British people to learn that the first mass capitulation of the Wehrmacht has been made to a commander who has brilliantly conducted some of the hardest campaigns of the war, and to men who have fought gloriously from el alamein to the plains of lombardy. Their hour is richly deserved. The capture of Berlin is news that would at one time have rocked the world. Today it is but one more incident in the onrush of mighty events.

It is, nevertheless, a great achievement. Berlin was the heart of the reich — the centre of the Nazi spider’s web. With Berlin gone and Hitler dead, what is left? Nothing but collapse. Hour by hour the end of the reich gains weight and momentum. It has become an avalanche carrying to perdition the monstrous structure that has overshadowed the world.

In Germany, meanwhile, the farcical political puppet show continues. In place of the familiar figures of the old gang we have men like admiral Doenitz, the sea-hating sailor. What is their aim — what purpose? If Germany had been a normal country, the task would be easier. But for 12 years, lying has been elevated to the first principle of public policy, so that it is hard to know where falsehood ends and truth begins.

The only way to assess the situation is to restate the key facts. Hitler and Goebbels are dead, Goering and ribbentrop have been dismissed and Himmler is no longer prominent. What is incontrovertible is that the Old Nazis have vanished from the picture.

Doenitz may calculate that since he is not ‘identified’ with the regime, he may be able to get better terms from the allies.

If he is thinking along these lines, he is deluding himself. His task is to surrender unconditionally. after that it will be his duty to accept the terms we impose. There will be no negotiations. The one overriding fact which the Germans cannot escape is that they and their Third reich are finished, and that their only course is submission. Italy, Western austria, Denmark, Norway, Berlin show that the house that adolf Hitler built is dissolving into rubble.