OUR GIFT TO HITLER

...This is not because I have the slightest tenderness for the Nazis or because I am unaware that the Germans must and should pay a high price for the sins of the Nazis...

...But I for one eannot agree to that...

...I have not met a single anti-Hitler German refugee in whose rectitude I believe who is not certain that our unconditional surrender demand and our free discussion of the coming dismemberment of Germany have given Hitler the greatest spiritual boost that he has had since the war began...

...I have just been reading some horrible stories of our losses on the beaches of Normandy and have just heard an announcer say that today we lost 300 bombers and fighter planes...

...So, if we have nothing «lse to offer than what the Germans dread most, we need do nothing about it but let the war be fought to the bitter end and the last drop of blood...

...Our Gift To Hitler By OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD THE reports from the invasion front that many German prisoners have been in possession of American propaganda leaflets and have gladly shown them to their captors, although keeping them is a deadly military offense, is supplemented by statements that many of those- taken are tired and exhausted young men not yet 20 years of age who rea'dily surrendered...

...What does this signify as to the state of Germany's psychology ? I wish some reader could give a convincing answer...

...If the dispatches are to be trusted, they are relieved to be out of the battle and thankful that for them the war is over...

...Even the anti-Hitler German Catholic hierarchy is reported to have urged its church membership to back Hitler after the merciless obliteration bombings began with the arrival of our bombers on the scene...

...If all this is confirmed by later bulletins, this would indicate first a low state of morale in the troops opposing us, and second that the Germans are in a state of mind in which they should be especially susceptible to our propaganda...

...If our offensive proceeds to gain ground as well as since we landed, and the truth is evident that there is nothing before the Germans but defeat after a hopeless and horribly bloody struggle, it would seem as if this were the best time possible to tell the German people just what is in store for them when the end comes...

...Indeed, the reports seemed from the beginning to stress their loss of ground and defeats above their gains...

...But Gen...

...It is because I believe that any wholesale splitting up of the Reich will not endure and will leave open sores that will sow the seeds of World War III...

...If it is a crime to wish we could do something to stop the slaughter of the most precious of our possessions— our sons—then I am a criminal and am ready for punishment...

...Instead of the usual wholesale lying by the DNB and other German news agencies, we have been steadily getting accurate reports, hours before the same reports came from our own headquarters, and those reports are quick to give news unfavorable to their armies...

...Of course if we have nothing to offer but complete surrender, and then dismemberment of the Reich and the marching of hundreds of thousands if not millions of ex-soldiers into forced slavery in Russia and elsewhere, my argument falls to the ground...

...The Germans who hate him prefer to fight on under his despised leadership rather than see themselves handed over to the United Nations for complete subjugation...

...They have not claimed to have inflieted really great naval losses upon us, though in this case they did claim more than was correct...

...That may or may not be the proper fate for the Germans, who have «nslaved millions, and for the Reich...

...We Offer No Choice The point is, however, that it is just fear of this fate which has steeled even the anti-Nazi Germans to back Hitler in their present last stand...

...Perhaps they are thus opening the way for a surrender to us if the coming Russian offensive should prove so successful as to menace German soil very soon...

...At lunch today, a group of six people who have lived in Berlin, some for a number of years, fell to speculating why it was that the Germans are suddenly telling the truth in their reports of what is happening in Normandy...

...The only explanation we could suggest was that, since these bulletins go to the German people, they are preparing the latter for the defeat they may really believe to be awaiting them...

...We were none of us well satisfied by these theories, but there this strange phenomenon is...

...floating about in the water...

...It is hard not to believe that our casualties have been ghastly despite the first statements that they were less than had been expected—something that means nothing until one knows what had been expected and how well founded that expectation was...

...But I have stilt another and to me far more vital reason for our making the effort now to offer the German people decent enough peace terms to induce them to throw overboard their base and wicked leaders...

...Eisenhower himself has not stressed the success of our advance across the Cherbourg peninsula any more than have the Germans well before we did...

...Somehow I feel that there are still other signs that this might be just the time to appeal to the better side of the German masses...

...Some beaches, one dispatch says, are still covered by the bodies of our dead with still more bodies...

...Puzzle Within Germany Now I don't want to dwell on horrors, but not being particularly bloodthirsty I, like every other decent American, would give anything I possess if I could make a contribution to shortening the war by one day for the sake of our own young generation, the loss of which is going to impoverish us far more than all the billions we shall pile up before the war in Asia ends...