The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1944-07-24
Battle For Europe

German broadcasts heard this week have
threatened to turn the continent of Europe
into maelstrom of destruction where only
one cry is heard-the cry of Blood This is
the sort of people the Nazis think they are.
1t is true that many of them, including gen.
erals. prefer surrender to shedding the par
ticular and to them, precious blood that cir
culates in their own veins. Yet it seems GER
tain that Hitler. Goering, Goebbels. Himmler
and others for whom there can be no mercy
will do all they can to complete the ruin of
Europe before they die.
Actually, they have never had any other
objective. They began before the Kaiser's
whipped armies were disbanded in 1918. 1t
took them fourteen years to destroy the Ger
man Republic, but they did it. After Jan. 30,
1888, they destroyed the German parliamentary
SYSTEM the German electoral system, the Ger
man system OF justice, the German labor
unions. They corrupted the schools and poi
soned the universities. They attacked the
churches They destroyed what was left Of
German honor by repeated violations of trea-
ties and sworn promises. They set up fam
tastic Culture Chamber under Goebbels,
which was in fact lethal chamber for the
arts, the theater, literature, the press, the
motion picture and the radio They symbo-
lized their withdrawal from modern civiliza-
ton by burning the best of German and for
eign books and by killing, imprisoning or driv-
ing into exile the best and noblest of German
writer's.
They took this destructive system with
them when they raped Austria in March,
1888; when, in shameless violation OF the
Munich agreement, they took Moravia and
Bohemia in March, 1889, and when, in Sep
TENDER, 1885, they embarked on a career of
conquest Wherever German soldiers, Ger
man police, German officials have gone
blight has fallen upon the works and the
spirit of man. It was not merely theft, as
when they raided the Louvre, or merely ra-
pine, as when they devastated the home of
Tolstoy, or merely, from the North Cape to
Athens torture and murder. 1t was always
and everywhere the theft, the rape, the tor
ture. the murder of the things or the persons
that stood for the highest hopes the noblest
Dreams the supreme achievements of Euro
pean civilization
They have had their successes: millions of
Jews and other people foully put to death;
millions of potential parents separated or
starved so that their children will never be
born: millions of old and young dead of war
produced, that is to say, Nazi-produced, dis
eases and privations; thousands of towns and
cities laid waste; continental wealth and re-
sources squandered that might have made the
coming generation Golden Age.
And now they say they will destroy Europe.
They say this in animal fury brought on by
the melting away of their power and the sure
doom that awaits them. But what is coming
is not the destruction of Europe The fighting
that must be done may pulverize more towns
and cities and grind the face of the earth
over many a mile of countryside. 1t is being
carried on, however, not to destroy Europe
but to prevent the destruction Of Europe. The
end of the Nazi power will be the rescue of
Europe and the revival of European civilza-
ton-New York Times.