20 OCTOBER 1944, Page 1

NEWS OF THE WEEK

THE announcement on the same day of Hitler's arrangements for Germany and General Eisenhower's arrangements for Ger- many forms a by no means unfortunate coincidence, which gains some further point from the fact that the Trades Union Congress was simultaneously declaring for firm treatment for Germany and defeating an amendment tending to water down the main resolu- tion on the subject. With the Hitler-Himmler call for a levee en masse, supported by Himmler with rhetoric on the level of Goebbels' most luxurious periods, it need only be said that it is the. natural response to an invasion which the German leaders realise will be irresistible, but that to improvise a Landsturm, or home defence army, in the days of the Battle of Leipsig, which Himmler pointedly recalled, was a very different matter from arming untrained citizens in the era of tanks and bombers and flame-throwers. The invasion, in spite of the Landsturm and all else, will continue and prevail, and the announcement of the regime to be established.temporarily- that is, till organised resistance in Germany ceases—is opportune. The measures described by one of the heads of Civil Affairs in Paris on Wednesday are stem, as they necessarily must be, but just. Every trace of Nazism will be wiped out and war criminals will be arrested, for subsequent trial by an approved procedure, but the ordinary apparatus of justice in Germany as it existed before the Nazis distorted it will be applied, and so far as possible the popula- tion, provided_it attempts no acts subversive of the authority of the Allied commanders, will be free to live its life securely, private property in particular being in all ordinary cases retained. The only provision which raises some question is that laying it down that the English shall be the official language. This presumably means that proclamations will be issued in English, but it will clearly be necessary to append a German translation ; and it will be still more difficult to make English the only official language in areas where the French army, not the British or the American ; is in control. But this, of course, is a subsidiary point. Germans, so far as they learn of the new procedure should be agreeably reassured by it.