Evening star., 1939-12-16

no reason to be ashamed. It will re-
main lustrous. even If superior Brit
ish naval forces, now lying in wait
of the Uruguayan coast, eventually
capture or destroy the Graf Spec,
thus Kidding the allies of one Of the
three major threats which menace
allied shipping and have inflicted
serious losses upon it.
But the spectacular and substan-
tial successes of the Nazi Navy on
the broad high seas of the world
remain at best sporadic. In the
aggregate they make no appreciable
dent in the still overwhelming pre-
ponderance alike of British naval
and commercial tonnage. The Ber-
lin claim that Germany "commands"
the North Sea and is even supreme"
IN the waters surrounding the British
Isles is Goebbels moonshine, pure
and simple. Such bluster is obvi-
ously designed to bolster the fading
morale Of a country progressively,
If not yet dangerously, running short
OF foodstuffs, Of raw materials for
industry and Of vital sinews like oil
for Hitler's mechanical war machine.
There must even be Nazis who know
the truth is not in their masters
when these tell the besieged and
blockaded nation that it is Britain,
not Germany, which is being
starved" into submission.
In one of his pre-war Reichstag
harangues Hitler proclaimed that
the German nation must export or
die" What conclusion is to be drawn
from certain admissions on that
score just made by Herr Emil He'll
ferich, one-time maritime adviser
to the Fuehrer," who became chair
man of the North German Lloyd and
Hamburg American Line when the
Nazis forced the two companies to
merge in 1888 If this candid and
distinguished authority is to be be-
lieved, the rigor mortis which Hitler
fears has already set in. Writing in
the official magazine of Marshal
Goering, director of the Reich eco
nomic four-year plan, Herr Helfferich
peddles publicly the most unabashed
gloom to pass the German censor in
many day. 1--WE must face the
facts" he says. They are the same
as in 1914-1918. England's power has
brought German overseas trade to a
complete standstill." Except for the
meager European markets still open
to her, Germany has ceased to be
an exporting nation.
All the world knows that Herr
Helfferich speaks but the historic
truth in reminding his countrymen
that invincible British sea power
spelled Hohenzollern Germanys
doom twenty-one years ago. The
silent service" is once again doing
It's deadly work. It wrecked Philip
of Spain, Napoleon, and William II.
Unless all the lessons of history are
to be belied, it will wreck Adolf Hit
ler. "The armada of those far
distant, storm-beaten ships, upon
which the Grand Army never looked,
stood between it and the dominion
of the world" wrote Admiral Mahan
in "The Influence of Sea Power Upon
the French Revolution and Empire. :"
So the modern ironclads of Britain
stand, as Nelson's feet stood at
Trafalgar, between world dominion
and another would-be Napoleon.
A thousand Siegfried Lines, a myr-
lad of heroic achievements such as
U-boats and pocket battleships have
to their credit, cannot prevail against
sustained naval superiority. Until
the Nazis demonstrate a capacity,
not yet revealed, to overcome that
trump card in Britains possession,
their ultimate defeat in the war
they Wantonly provoked fourteen
weeks ago seems as certain as the
doom Germany courted when she un-
leashed her thunderbolts in 1914.
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