Hitler's Voice
For nearly a year Hitler has played little part on the public stage in Germany. His broadcast last Friday was the first considerable public pronouncement he has made since his speech on Septem- ber 30th last year, when he guaranteed the fall of Stalingrad and asserted the impossibility of successful landin6 in Europe. What- :ver the cause of his long eclipse, he has so far regained activity as to come before the German people with explanations of the most recent failure and words designed to reassure them and rally them
to his cause. There was just enough of the characterisic personal egoism to reveal that the voice was Hitler's own, but otherwise how changed and subdued was the tone. He minimised the importance of the revolution in Italy by suggesting that that country had been always a liability rather than an asset, and contrasted Mussolini's position in Italy with his own assured position in Germany in relation to the party, the generals and the admirals. Hitler in fact has reached the point when he thinks it necessary to say that his will never be the fate which befell Mussolini—an idea apparently already preying upon his mind. The outstanding feature of an otherwise featureless and completely uninspiring utterance was the remarkable opening paragraph: " I see that the moment has now come when I can again speak to the German people without being under the necessity of lying to myself or to the public." However it be interpreted, this is an astonishing piece of naiveté. It must occur even to the docile German people that the necessity which compelled Hitler to lie to them (and himself) in the past may no less easily operate in the same .way in the future.
