Day of Jubilee

Stalingrad was a graveyard for 100,000 of the Herrenvolk's fresh, young sons, The Caucasian oilfields of Maikop were lost. Along the Eastern Front, along the North African coast, the Fuhrer's hurt and weary armies were in retreat.

It was Naziism's tenth birthday, a day for celebration. In the Hall of Honor at Berlin's Air Ministry building, which had been decorated with flowers for the occasion, meaty, perspiring Reich Marshal Hermann Goering scowled at the pages of his carefully prepared speech. In the hall his comrades in arms stood waiting. Across the Reich, the silent people of Germany also waited. In a moment the Marshal would step to the microphone.

In far-off England monitors on the German frequencies, listening for Goering's gutturral voice, 'heard instead the sudden crump of bombs, a confusion of muffled shouts. A flustered voice announced that Marshal Goering had been delayed for a moment. A military band brayed out.

High over the capital of the Reich droned planes of the R.A.F. Swift, light Mosquito bombers, in the first daytime raid on Berlin, were dodging ack-ack, fighting off the few fighters of the astonished Luftwaffe and raining 500-lb. bombs on a now noisy and exploding city.

It was 45 minutes before Herr Goering could speak.

"Today we are united," he shouted desperately. "We shall fight to the very last for our way of life. . . . You all know the law that you must die for Germany if Germany's life requires it. ... Hitler has led us from poverty and impotence to victory and is now leading us to the greatest of all victories. . . . Our leader--our beloved leader--Sieg Heill"

But the beloved leader kept quiet. In the afternoon it was Propaganda Minister Paul Joseph Goebbels who stood before the crowd in the Sportspalast. "The hard necessities of warfare do not permit him [Hitler] to leave his headquarters," he said.

What was the future of National Socialism? In 1933 when Naziism came to power Herr Goebbels said he did not know whether to laugh or cry with joy. Now--"the battle for survival approaches its dramatic climax. . . ."

Once again the skies erupted death. Once again, precisely timed, Mosquitoes roared over Berlin, dropping their 500-lb. missiles. But little Herr Goebbels would not be stopped. "There is not one person left at home whose soul is not filled with that fanatical will," he screeched--"his will to work or his faith in victory and his desire to be worthy of that battling front of heroes."

Then he read a proclamation from the beloved and busy leader.

"Only today do we realize fully what would have become of Germany and Europe if fate had not handed power to National Socialism on Jan. 30, 1933. . . . Today there are only two alternatives: either Germany and her allies win or the Central Asiatic flood from the east will surge over the oldest civilized continent. . . ."

To whom was the beloved leader speaking? Was he appealing to the U.S. and Britain? It was too late. Churchill and Roosevelt had said: "Unconditional surrender."

The Mosquitoes had gone. Berlin was silent. On their day of jubilee, Germans wondered, as Herr Goebbels had wondered ten years before, whether to laugh or weep.

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