MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON FOR those who are interested in behaviour there are few pastimes more agreeable than to sit m the hall of some hotel or restaurant and to observe fellow-citizens either chattering together, or coming in, or going out. I have frequent opportunity to -indulge in this pastime, since whereas I am by temperament a most punctual man, my friends are not. So I sit and wait and watch. I have observed that even the most sensible people—even those who for twelve hours of each day will devote their energies and wisdom to total war ; even those who, when once seated at a table and faced with plates and knives and forks, will discourse brilliantly upon the nature of the beautiful and the good—are apt, during the interval between arriving and eating, to allow the flotsam of -their minds to revolve inanely. Even so, at the edge of some majestic river, iet half-abandoned pools, do bits of straw and seed- pods gyrate furiously around some unseen centre, whirling with useless speed. The observer at such moments is able to detect and to examine the minor preoccupations of his fellow-men. Outside; the stream of resolution or anxiety slides onwards in strength and silence ; it is upon the surface of the outlying pools, among the reeds and sedge, that the little hopes, the little thoughts, the small Ideas, twirl round each other fussily. L. have no shame, no shame at all, in thus spying upon my fellow-citizens ; I watch them with alert and on the whole benevolent scrutiny ; I listen with strained ears and with no qualm of conscience to the conversations in which they indulge: and I note the rumours, the stories and the sug- gestions which, day by day and week by week, float on the surface of the tide of history. I have observed that Dame Rumour is. well aware that she is generally thought to be a lying jade, and that she is careful in every instance to buttress her assertions with wide parapets of circumstantial detail. I have observed also that at the root of even the most fantastic rumour there is generally some germ or seed. if not of fact, then at least of probability.
* * * * • During the past week there have been many rumours, and one in particular which I find entrancing. It concerns the health and present whereabouts of Adolf Hitler. I have heard that rumour in London and I have heard it in the provinces. It assumes four main forms. The first, and most extreme, of these four shapes is the assertion that the Fiihrer is not merely dead, but that he has been dead since January roth. True it is that since that date the Fiihrer has been photographed reviewing the assembled Gauleiters at his headquarters. Yet, so the sponsors of this rumour assert, if one looks carefully at the photograph it is obvious that on that occasion the Gauleiters (who in truth had all the appearance of an identification parade at. Sing Sing or Wormwood Scrubs) were being greeted not by the Fiihrer, but by that most romantic figure, " Hitler's double." The second form assumed by this story is that, as a result of the demonstrable failure of somnambulist certainty, the German General Staff have removed the somnambulist to Berchtes- gaden. where he is kept under domiciliary arrest. The third story, and as usual it is authenticated by "someone who has just got out
of Switzerland," asserts that Hitler, on learning of the surrender of Paulus, had an apopletic stroke—not merely a Wutanfall, but an Anfall, and that he is now incapable of speech. And the fourth
story is that the Fiihrer is suffering from a malady of the throat which is far more serious than any minor affection of the respiratory organs. What interests me about these four fascinating stories is that they have as their basis a conundrum which is a perfectly serious conundrum. What, in fact, has happened to Hitler since the Stalingrad disaster?
* * * * It was assumed by those who study the methods of Doctor Goebbels that the purpose of the " Woe! Woe! " campaign launched by that psychologist was to prepare the emotional background for some great Hitlerian speech. The German people; on this assump- tion, were to be reduced to the depth of despair in order that the words of exhortation and comfort pronounced by their Fiihrer might assume an added messianic quality. The atmosphere of
anguished expectation was in fact created ; but the emotional cr deliberately engendered was solved not by a stupendous oration the part of Hitler, but by the deferred solution of Goering's words and by the later and most ingenious speech by Goeb himself. On February 24th, the second occasion when Hitler expected to address his disciples, they were fobbed off by a mes read to them by a veteran of the old Hofbrauhaus days. Is surprising that a whole crop of rumours should have been germinat by these strange abstentions? The official explanation was that Fiihrer was away at his headquarters, and was in any case t busied with warfare to find time to speak words of encouragem to the German people. Such an explanation can have found li credence either in Germany or abroad. On the one hand, it incredible that Hitler could not find a spare hour or so in wit- to prepare and deliver one of his tonic talks. On the other han the German people, who have for years been accustomed to liste on their Home and Forces programmes to tbp crunch of front-1• mortars and to the whine of Russian shells, simply will not belies that any telephonic difficulty exists in linking Deutchlandsender wi East Prussia or even with Smolensk. If the Fiihrer were merel suffering from some momentary affection of the vocal chords, th sorely some official bulletin could be issued describing his illne and recording its hourly progress? Whatever rumours may circulating in Great Britain and in Europe, their counterparts Germany must be even more extensive and alarining. Dr. Goebbe must be well aware of the depression which he has deliberately created and of the anxiety which has ensued. What is the ex
• planation of this silence?
* * * *
All manner of explanations, some of them clearly fantastic, have been adduced. It has been pointed out that in his recent speech Dr. Goebbels did not refer to Hitler by name. It is true that the accustomed formula is "unser beliebte Fiihrer, Adolf Hider," and it the omission of this formula is certainly unusual and even strange sc It is suggested that Dr. Goe5bels himself intends to seize supreme power, and that, in conjunction with Hinunler, he is preparing a second massacre of the comrades. Under this arrangement Goering some of his fellow-industrialists, some of the Potsdam school of generals, together with the whole right wing of the Nazi Party, would suddenly be liquidated. I see no sense in this supposition, since the ardent supporters of Dr. Goebbels are confined to the Berlin proletariat, the toughs of the Moabit. Yet the fact remains that fa the silence of Adolf Hitler is at the moment unexplained ; that some- thing sinister may be happening within the _ranks of the Nazi Party ; that the relations between the Party and the Army continue strained; and that in these transactions Goebbels and Himmler are playing a hidden but ingenious part.
* * * *
As I sit there listening to' my fellow-citizens indulging themselves in these inevitable rumours, I am sorry that so much wishful thinking should be taking.place. That something is happening in Germany I have little doubt ; it may be something important, or it may be merely a slight readjustment of the incidence of power. Yet even were Hitler to die, to be interned in his eyrie, to have gone to some Tokyo conference, or to become certifiably insane, I doubt whether at this stage the war would be appreciably shortened or the resistance of the German ormy and people appreciably b *affected. Hitler for them was the inspired architect of victery they have by now lost faith in his inspiration even as they have lost hope in total victory. He was for them the symbol of something which they ,now know can never be achieved. They are today fighting for their lives, and their resistance to defeat will, under any form of leadership, be formidable, united and prolonged. In this resistance they will have no further need for hierophants or augurs ; they know that the only augury left to them is the defence of 'their own fatherland. The collapse, when it comes, will be complete and sudden ; but the German people, whatever may-happen t in the next few months, are still very far from collapse.
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