THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

PRO ECCLESIA DEI, PRO REGE ET PATH IA

VOL. 184 N o . 5434

PUBLISHED AS A NEWSPAPER

LO N D O N , JU LY 1st, 1944

S IX PENCE

THE MAINTENANCE OF EMPLOYMENT

The White Paper and the Commons Debate THE TRIAL OF WAR CRIMINALS The Essential Underlying Postulate. By Walter C. Breitenfeld

A TEST FOR SCOTTISH CHARACTER

By Colm Brogan

TH E WORLD WEEK BY WEEK The Russians in the Baltic

The Russian a t tack has no t been resumed in south-eastern Europe, but has instead opened with great vigour in the northern p a r t o f the huge front. The northern and southern parts are to be regarded quite separately, with the desolate no -m an ’s-land o f the Pripet Marshes dividing them. The southern part, where the boundaries o f the Soviet Union were reached earlier in the year, leads to the Balkans. The nothern p a r t leads to th e Baltic. I t is to th e Baltic th a t the Russians are now directing their a ttention. F irs t there was the prelim inary campaign against the F inns which led to the capture o f the im portan t citadel o f Viborg. There are reports th a t th e F inns have been forced to the verge o f capitulation ; but it was n o t fo r th a t th a t the Russians have been fighting them these past few weeks. They have been fighting to command the G u lf o f F in land. T hat objective is to be seen in rela tion to the ensuing break-through a t Vitebsk, the opening move in the larger land offensive which opened last week. I t is n o t difficult to perceive th a t if Vitebsk was chosen as the poin t o f a ttack i t must be from ap in tention eventually to drive no t only to Warsaw bu t across to the Baltic as th e sea tu rn s southwards, isolating E sthonia and Latvia and reaching th e coast probably in L ithuania. I t is impossible to speculate with precision, since the Russians have shown themselves so independent o f rail tran sport, as a result o f their largely American motorization. I t is no t essential fo r them to make for the nodal railw ay-centre o f Vilna. But it is certain th a t their immediate strategy is conceived in term s o f distances as great as these, as was their strategy in th e south last year, which so brilliantly succeeded, i f n o t in ensnaring the Germans, a t least in expelling them from th e te rrito ry they held.

There has, in effect, been a shifting o f the centre o f political gravity to the northern p a r t o f Europe. The enemy is a no r th European ; and it is in northern Europe th a t the decisive battles will be won. The Ita l ian th eatre is secondary to th e F rench ; any landings there may be in southern F rance will be secondary to th e N orm andy landing ; and it is in Baltic and n o t in sub-C arpathian Europe th a t the Russians will fight their last engagements. I t is in northern Europe, by way o f the Baltic, th a t in the closing stages the Western Allies and the Russians will jo in hands as they converge on Berlin.

The background to the Russian drive towards the Baltic States is very sim ilar to the background to the Russian re tu rn to Polish te rrito ry . T hat is to say, the pictufe is one o f an underground movement active against the G erm ans w ithout being a t all dismayed o r tempted to collaboration by the advance o f a n Army whose perm anent occupation o f their te rrito ry would be regarded as scarcely a less disaster than th e G erm an occupation.

The L ithuanians have shown themselves no less determined th an th e Poles to spurn all offers o f collaboration, and the Germans have now abandoned, after a year o f fruitless effort, th e a t tem p t to secure it. The first a t tem p t a t the m ilitary conscription o f these most Catholic and s tubborn people was made in the spring o f last year. The registration o f no more th an a few hundred o f the 100,000 liable to conscription a t th a t tim e led to the abandonm ent o f the project to form a Lithuanian SS-Legion, and to various reprisals. Then the a t tem p t was made to secure L ithuanian labour instead for the ancillary services. The Catholic Bishops led the way in proclaim ing th a t these were unjust demands. One recent report sums the position up by saying th a t the Germans had hoped to obtain 250,000 soldiers and 100,000 men fo r labour service in the Reich, whereas in the whole o f 1943, despite the heavy penalties for evasion, only 2,000 L ithuanians obeyed the call-up.

Underground movements co-ordinated in to one organization are active in all three States, with the L ith uanians the most prom inent. The directing committee in Vilna excludes the Communists but is otherwise broadly based, envisaging reconstruction “ on democratic lines as proclaim ed by the A tlantic C h a r te r ” in independence equally o f Russia and the Reich. Its hopes are placed mainly in th e United States. The Final Phase in the German Army

Badly mishandling their forces in Norm andy and in Italy, and in danger o f being overwhelmed when the extricating manœuvres can no longer be kept up on the Russian front, the Germans are dearly very hard-pressed.

The resistance o f their garrison in Cherbourg was a resistance o f fanaticism . Machine-guns behind the defending tro ops have been an added inducement to General von Schlieben’s injunction to fight to the last man ; but there was little evident reason fo r wanting to prolong the action. N o advantage was gained by delaying the unpreventable loss o f the port by th ree days, and much enemy life was thereby lost. One may suspect the influence o f the political commissars whom the Germans have lately been introducing to their Army on a large scale. “ The fight against Bolshevism,” says one Germ an commentary, ‘ 1showed th a t it was necessary to tu rn the formerly unpolitical soldier in to a National-Socialist fighter with a conscious political a t t i tu d e .” The political commissars are called NSFOs ; Nationalsozialistische Fu hrungsojfiàere.

“ Every NSFO must first have proved his value a t the fron t. He must be able to speak from experience, so that his words may awaken an echo in the front-line soldier. I t is his ta sk to deepen and strengthen the N ationalSocialist ideology am ong the tr o o p s .” Another article in a Germ an newspaper says th a t ideological training

“ is particularly energetically cultivated in the ‘Grossdeutschland’ units, which are given two political lessons per week and one additional lesson every second week.” Once a m onth there is a big Feierstunde, and party-leaders come to speak, and songs are sung. Reichsleiter Rosenberg is the F i ih re r ’s delegate fo r “ the supervision o f the entire spiritual and ideological train ing and education o f the N SD A P ,” and it is his work th a t has been extended from the Party to the Army. This is a development o f the present spring ; the spring in which Mr. Churchill, for his part, said th a t he believed the w ar was becoming less ideological. There has naturally been always a certain am ount o f political