The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-01-13

NASASANNA in the rest of the time. This winter | there has been the most severe epi- | demic of colds in Berlin in many | winters, and doctors predict 1t will | get worse each year and probably l assume dangerous proportions if something cannot be done about | food and clothing, especially shoes, which are wearing out fast. BERLINERS BECOME HL-HUMORED
 Weary, and not good in health, Berliners are also, and consequent ly, ill-humored. That is an under statement; they have become down. right "ornery." All lines in faces point downwards, can recom- mend no more effective remedy for a chance fit of good humor than ten-station ride on Berlin tube train. If the packed train suddenly lrrches forward and pushes your el- bow against the back of the man standing in front of you, it is the occasion for a violent, ten-minute battle of words, in which the whole coach-load of humanity feels called upon to take part zealously as If their lives hung on the outcome. They never fight. they just threaten (''Ich zeifie dich an, jtnger Mann!" That's the magic phrase these days: "I1l have, you arrested, you imprudent young man." that and q have friend who's high up in the Party and he will tell you thing or two!" They're like chil- dren threatening to call my Dad, who's bigger'n yours). Berliners have always been notorious grousers. They always complained about any thing and everything. But 1t was a good-natured kind of grousing you could laugh at. What has hap pened in the past year is sonae- thing new and different. It is not funny; it is downright morbid, the way people with pale, weary, dead- pan faces which a moment ago were in expressionless stupor can flash in an instant into flaming, apoFlec- tic fury, and scream insults at one another over some triviality or an imaginary wrong. You could watch peoples natures changes as the war proceeded; you could clearly watch bitterness grow as the end of the war appeared to recede from sight. It has been depressing to watch. Partly it's the jitters and partly it's a national irferiority complex. But mostly, it is because people are sick; just plain sick in body and mind.
 People are seeking escape in Ersatz directions. People who are suffering from nothing else but the inevitable effects of bad nouriSh- ment, are inventing fancy names for their ailments and buying the
 patent houses out of wares. Outside the armaments tn- dustry the only business which is making big money in Germany is the patent. medicine industry. Every woman carries full pill-box of some kind along with her almost empty vanity compact, and no mans meal is complete without some sort of colored lozenge for the belly. Young girls welch boxes of Pervitin from air-force officers to reinforce energy that should be natural.
 If I had to describe Hitler's Reich in one figure, would com pare 1t with fine looking fat apple with a tight, red, shiny skin, which was rotten in the core. The strong, polished hull is the army and the Gestapo, which has become the main constituent of the Nazi Party. It is a strong, very strong cover. The rotten inside is the whole fabric of Nazi society.
 NAZI SOCIETY ROTTEN
 FROM TOP TO BOTTOM
 This is a serious statement to make. I sincerely believe that
 Journalist who consciously m1sirr
 forms his people and allies about
 the state of the enemy in time Of
 war for the sake of sensation is one of the lowest types of criminals.
 have always sought to avoid under
 estimating the strength of the
 Nazis. I refer to the Iinternal
 strength of the Nazi system, which
 this book concerns itself with alone, not the military strength. But, with these elf-imposed restrictions in mind, I am sure of what say:
 Nazi society is rotten from top to
 bottom and in all its tissues, save the strong herlnetically closed hull.
 The whole Nad civil government is in state of unbelievable chaos. Hitler no longer pays the slightest attention to the civl side of Ger man life, and his underlings have followed the transition of his inter ests to the purely military side of things Nobody of any consequence has any interest in the government of the German people, and it has become hopelessly confused and chaotic, and, in its inards, ir- remediably conStipated. It is, in short, going to hell in hurry.
 For a land ridden by laws, Ger many has become the most lawlesS land on earth. Law means noth- ing; the password today is Bezie- hungen, which means good rela- tions with a party big-shot, influ- ence, pull, jerk. You can threaten someone on the subway with get ting the law on him, but when you threaten a bureaucrat or grocer who doesn't give you full rations, you must threaten that you have Beziehungen who will fix him. If you have no pull you can get no goods or service, no matter how strong the law is on your side. II you have got Beziehungen you can get anything, any commodity which has disappeared from the shops, or any service, no matter how many laws there are against it. Law has lost all meaning. We know cheap, corrupt. court-hour politics In To- calities in America all too well. But