The Wilmington morning star., 1944-01-20
By WEsTBRooK PEGLER

NEW YORK.-Nobody on our slae Of this
war will drop tear over the finish of Count
Ciano He was nasty, grating, continental
society louise and a drawing room parasite,
who was way over his head in anything big
ger than gin rurnmy and would have been
at home and social success in Palm Beach
and some of our more expensive dumps in
New York. The only reason he ever amount
ed to anything in the Fascist regime was
that he married II BUNS daughter and it
was his marriage that finally caused him to
fall before firing squad
But Ciano's death probably can be taken
as a horrifying promise of things to come
as the Germans fall back into their own coun-
try because if Hitler would kill Mussolini'S
own son-in-law and leading protege, ev IN
though Ciano had backslid, what will he hest
tate to do? The Nazis are desperate men
now who know that they must die for crimes
already done and it is reasonable to expect
that they will destroy everything behind them
in their retreat to doom. Ciano had served
the Germans rather well and had lived on
terms of personal acquaintance, although, Of
course, not of friendship with Hitler, who
and if II Bum had not been prisoner, himself,
living on table-scraps and borrowed time, he
undoubtedly would have been allowed to live
in some prison until the arrival of the Allies.
But Mussolini had no power to save him and
he died like Hitler's own old comrades who
went out IN the purge.
This execution is shocking because of the
family relationship involved for civilized hui
man beings do not execute their own kinnery
and the Italians are as sentimental as the
rest of us about family. In this savage killing,
Hitler acted in the Duce's name and thus
kicked the Italians in the teeth so God only
knows what he will do in his retreat. He
might even shoot the Pope for having cores
pondence with the enemy and dynamite st.
ofnr'c and Tho Vofi no
postoffice in Naples It is refresher, on the
fiendishness which the world underestimate
when Hitler early in his career destroyed
Polish countess accused Of spying by having
her head chopped off with long-handled
meat axe in the hands of an executioner
wearing formal evening dress Lidice, the
long, cold pogrom of the German Jews, the
slaughters of hostages, occurred when Hitler
was strong and on the offensive. The sort of
enemy that the normal mind pictures would
begin to moderate his ferocity in retreat in
the hope of saving his people, even if he
knew he, himself, was doomed. But Hitler set
out to rule the world or obliterate as much
of civilization and its personalities and works
as he would, and there is no reason to expect
that he will go easy, even to save the Germans
from obloquy as long as the world lasts.
To Hitler there is no such thing as family.
He has been estranged from his own, he is
queer and Unreasonable by any human Or
C1VlHLeu StdHudIuS, he mas DuLcHSreQ deI-
mans as farmer beheads a chicken on the
stump and his deliberate spot-bombing of old
churches in London may be taken por-
tent of more stunning shocks to come.
1t is futile to call Hitler a fiend, monster
and butcher just as an expression of hatred.
That stage passed long ago. The world knows
what he is but do we realize what he is
capable of doing in the final days of career
that no human being could have imagined 10
years ago? We did have civilization then and
not even history gave us an example of Hit
ler's satanic, personal Indifference to the
ideals and morals of world which had come
long way since man emerged from the
caves, his contempt for the opinions of man.
kind as to his people as well as himself, and,
on the positive side, his delight in killing and
destroying.
OF itself the killing of one Fascist by orders
of another is nothing. But the peculiar sur
roundings of the Ciano execution give it great
err and probably prophetic meaning
Notre Dame? Boom! Then flames and ruin
beyond salvage. Why not?
It would be counting trouble if Poland were
re-estabished with her 1921 frontiers, because
MANY of the territories included were never