Evening star., 1943-01-01
Killing Nozis
Is Strategy
OF Russians
Supermen Myth
Blasted by Events
Of Post Yeur
BY SAMUEL GRAFTON.

The hardest lesson the world has
had to learn is that If you shoot a
German correctly with gun, he
falls over dead. This phenomena
discovery was made by the Russians
and has been the basis of all their
strategy.
AS the new year dawns (the year
In which a number of Americans
are going to turn from reading
about Nazis to meeting them, face
to face we ought to see whether we
cannot make more discoveries
along this line.
For instance, the Nazi sometimes
steals metal from piles of scrap
accumulated in public collections.
We know this is so, because a recent
law Furnishes such thefts with death,
and If it happened rarely, or seldom,
so savage a punishment would
hardly have been required.
So, the German sometimes steals
metal from his country, and he also
falls over dead when he is shot. We
are making some progress in de-
molishing that myth of Germany as
the invincible, super-perfect ma
tional community" in which moth
ing is ever out of order, and to
whose citizens ordinary human
frailties do not apply.
Berlin Black Market.
We know, from such works as
This Is the Enemy" by Frederick
Oechsner, and others, that there
was flourishing black market in
Berlin in 1912, in which coffee, tea,
poultry, and clothing could be OBJ
tanned, and that it became so ex-
tensive Mr.. Goebbels had to trot
his tired old death penalty out once
more.
Where is our invincible supermen,
and his trouble-free super-state
now? The German dies if he is
shot, he steals metal from public
collection heaps, and he withholds
commodities from the national war
economy.
What about the manpower situ-
alton? Oechsner, ct al, cite for our
attention the fact that German
papers. in 1912, still ran hundreds
Of Help Wanted ads, asking for
tool-and-die makers, engineers, etc.,
etc. Can it be possible that in the
super state, there are still skilled
workers floating around, shopping
for jobs, and that they haven't got
things organized better than that?
We learn from the Oechsner's
book that Hitler made a huge mis-
take before the war in allowing his
railroads to run down, and betting
on new automobile roads to handle
his war transport. That was all
right for short campaigns, but the
Russian war has exhausted motor
fuel supplies, and the staggering,
worn-out German railroads are now
in such shape that the Swiss have
had to refuse transit to German box
cars with empty grease boxes, be-
cause they break down in the tun-
nels.
What kind OF q silly administra-
ton Is that, one asks to know,
which spends the public's money
building lot of no-good roads, and
forgets to arrange to fill the grease
boxes on the freight cars?
Questionnaires, Too.
I understand, also, that the
German business man has to fill out
80 many questionnaires to get sup
plies it drives him crazy, with the
added refinement that he has to
pay tax each step of the way, SO
that the taxes sometimes total 80
per cent of the value of the goods.
I don't claim that I have brought
the Nazi-German accurately into
focus when I picture him as speci-
men who can't survive bullet, who
sometimes steals from collections OF
scrap metal, who boards commodi-
ties and deals in them on the black
market, who is often shrouded in
red tape, and who did not have
sense enough to build himself some
freight cars when he had the time.
He holds up automobiles, too.
But the picture is at least as ac-
curate as the myth Goebbels has
10 successfully sold us, Of the Ger
man as an uncomplicated, law
abiding, perfectly efficient, indomit-
able, above-discomforts, Viking type
Of fellow, who never does anything
wrong, and who does almost every
thing better than we do.