Mexborough & Swinton Times – Saturday 24 April 1943
“Happy Returns”
Hitler’s birthday, always a portentous rather than a cheerful anniversary, was a more hollow affair than usual this year. The Fuehrer, skulking in some unspecified refuge, or as Dr. Goebbels put it this week “almost completely hidden behind his work,” cuts a sorry figure, though his fangs are not yet drawn. The R.A.F. has taught the Nazi dignitaries the value of discretion and their movements and pronouncements are not heralded with quite the fanfare of publicity they formerly favoured.
It is all very well to say, “We believe in victory because we have the Fuehrer.” But even the shameless Goebbels was unable to infuse a ring of conviction into a phrase which to Germany’s legions of bereaved must sound little more than brazen mockery. There are signs that while still strong and fundamentally unshaken in their hold on the ill-gotten European conquests the Nazis are testing the diplomatic market with a view to effecting whatever insurances are available. The Spanish peace feeler, however, met with a fate which can hardly have encouraged kite-flying of that impudent sort. Casablanca’s “Unconditional surrender” clause provided an unequivocal answer, and the discomfited inspirers of the gesture were left to mumble unconvincing disclaimers about their connection with, or knowledge of such a diplomatic fiasco. A parade of puppet rulers and the hasty dispatch of a new envoy to the Vatican do not serve any more effectively to bolster up the Fuehrer’s credit. In fact the latter’s appointment only betrays suspicion of Mussolini’s revised representation in this neutral quarter. The Axis partners are a shifty crew and there is as little trust as love between them.
It is not yet certain how much time the beleaguered Axis forces in North Africa can still win. Once this prop has been kicked away one half of the Axis, at any rate, will be palpably vulnerable. The thrashing received by the Luftwaffe during Sunday and Monday at the hands of the British and American pilots in the Sicilian narrows was an encouraging prelude to the liquidation of the remaining resistance in Tunisia, but the course of the fighting depends on the exact role allotted to the Forces of Rommel and Von Arnim. If they stay to fight it out a little extra time may be gained, if they try to stage an evacuation some battalions invaluable for the defence of Italy may be saved. But on the whole the prospect is bleak for them; the alternatives are equally desperate.
In the meantime the R.A.F., aided by the growing forces of American bombers stationed in Great Britain, is piling on pressure in a fashion which underlines the determination of the United Nations to smash a way into Europe at the earliest possible moment. After the wrecking of Krupps comes the heavy onslaught on the Skoda works at Pilsen. It was a target reached not without heavy cost, but the accurate discharge of this mission rendered more valuable the interference with Germany’s other productive resources.
Our Air Force not only reaches out a long arm, but the arm carries a punch which only huge four-engined machines can deliver. This devastation and dislocation has to be assessed side by side with the unceasing wastage of the Russian campaign, and the drain of the African adventure. And when to these claims is added another land front against the combined weight of British and American arms the full tale of these lost hours of production will be told. The inhabitants of the Reich have no doubt bestowed on Hitler the conventional compliment of many happy returns. It is a birthday wish which has quite a different ring in the ears of the Allies, who mean to give it a more literal interpretation, and are in a fair way to do so.