The Charlotte News

Monday, November 16, 1942

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page tells of the continuing thrust by the Allies into Tunisia, as reported by General Eisenhower. Rommel's panzer divisions were now spread out between Bengasi and El Algheila, still in retreat. A stiffening was predicted at Algheila. RAF raids hit Tunis and Bengasi. Rommel, himself, meanwhile, was reported to have gone to Munich to be chewed out by Hitler for his poor performance in retreating halfway across Africa.

General Eisenhower was reported to be itching to obtain passage from behind his desk to see more of the action on the front lines. A recent foray by airplane to examine the North African operations had nearly ended in his loss when the plane had engine trouble and nearly went down. The Allied Commander was said to have had the "longest work day", sixteen hours. He would need it over the ensuing 18 months to plan the Longest Day and all which would precede it.

In the first of a series of articles from Emil Ludwig, he reports that the Allies were fighting not only the Nazis and Hitler, but in fact the German people who had supported the regime from early in its tenure and were the sine qua non for its continued sustenance. It was true: a dictatorship cannot flourish for long anywhere, even one disposed to thuggery and violence as was the custom of the Nazis, without the active participation of the citizenry en masse. The Nazi Party was not simply an errant minority in Germany representing, as its initial vote into power in 1933, one-third of the popular will. It quickly burgeoned after coming to power to encompass the whims and fancies of the non-Jewish masses. Whether from fear of reprisal or ignorant dreams of joining the contemplated Nazi mastery of the world as routinely advertised, or both mixed together, the Nazi Party became, for all practical concerns, synonymous and coterminous with German life in the latter 1930's. It was not so much a dictatorship after a point somewhere around 1935 and the re-occupation of the Rhineland as it was a collaborative effort to deny reality.

The editorial column begins in "The Enemy" by suggesting that North Africa would be the first juncture in the war where the full complement of Allies, American and British, would meet in force the German Wehrmacht. The staging ground, it predicts, would be in Tunisia. The army with the best equipment and men would win. It forecasts victory for the Allies, one which would extend in time to German soil.

The piece foresaw the future in this instance with perfect clarity--as a bullet headed right for General Patton's nose which would be diverted in the last millisecond of its trajectory by the unerring vibrations of one exuberant emission of his vocal chords expended in cursing those Nazi sons-of-bitches back to the hell from whence the sons-of-bitches derived. --Even if the piece itself suggests the matter in more staid and less colorful terms and, as yet, without mention of General Patton's decisive role in the North African campaign come March. For the nonce, he was holding the fort in Morocco, still largely unknown to the American public. Yet, he was no desk man; nor was he a general content to fly over the scene of battle.

"Third Time" recalls the history of Tripoli, extending back to the time of its siege by Stephen Decatur in 1803 and 1815 to end the piratical attempt to collect fees for drawing fair trade winds through the Mediterranean--the scene in 1804 of the incident in which Reuben James was said to have interposed himself between the sword of a pirate and the breast of Stephen Decatur. Tripoli's importance now, says the piece, was as the probable locale where Rommel would attempt his last stand. In that, it was off in its crystal clarity.

"Jove Smiles" offers praise again for the stalwart Russian defense at Stalingrad and in the Caucasus, declaring that without it the British and Americans would not be in North Africa and the war likely would have been lost. For it was the Russians who held down the fort during the trying times between June, 1941 and November, 1942 while training and transport of American troops and pilots took place and Lend-Lease aid made the perilous journey across the Atlantic. For all the distrust of him by Americans and British alike, Josef Stalin, it concludes, was a great man in Russia.

We shall toast these Commie sons-of-bitches.

"The Late Hero" betides wistfully the passing from the scene of the estimable greatness which Erwin Rommel represented as the classic warrior on the open battlefield, the last of the old cavalrymen turned in the modern age to guiding tank battalions--put another way, the grand anachronism.

For ourselves, one fighting Nazi was no better than any other fighting Nazi. They were all dirty little Nazi sons-of-bitches.

Framed Edition

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