OFFICE OF STRATEGIC SERVICES                
 
                     OFFICIAL DISPATCH                      
 
 
FROM: Berne
 
TO: DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF STRATEGIC SERVICES
 
Ref. No. 250
 
 
                                                            
                          RECIEVED                          
 
 
by the Red Army must be an orgy of blood.  He trembles at the idea of
what the foreign workers and prisoners of war would do, when disorder
comes, and these millions of aliens are let lose to plunder and ravage
the cities and land.  He feels that the Allies will disarm Germany,
take away its riches, and give up its frontiers to bitter enemies.  The
soldiers at the front, the workers in the ammunition factories, and the
inhabitants of the bombed cities are holding out because they feel that
they have no choice, and their existence is at stake.
 
The Nazis are profitting by this state of mind for their own purposes.
They are spurring on national energy by painting the colors of defeat
in the blackest colors.  Berlin complains of the lack of effect of
German propaganda in foreign countries, ehich is attributed to the fact
that others are incapable of understanding the psychology of the
Germans.  It is also pointed out that foreign countries fail to realize
that the same propaganda satisfies the needs of the people within
Germany to an astonishing degree.  Mistakes have been made, of course,
and even the cleverest propaganda cannot cover up the facts, but, again
they still listen to him.
 
Germany's enemies have so far materially facilitated his task by
prosecuting the war in a non-political manner in certain respects.
Because they wish to forestall any legend of a stab in the back such as
was spread after the last war, they deliberately refrain from any
promises which might invite the the German people to give in.  They do
not even announce any concrete peace plan.  This may have its
advantages, but the price they pay is very high.  It took a catastrophe
last Summer to bring the internal opposition into the open.  Could that
opposition offer the German people a better peace than the Nazis? We
think not.  So far, the Allies have not offered the opposition any
serious encouragement.  On the contrary, they have again and again
welded together the people and the Nazis by statements published,
either out of indifference or with a purpose.  To take a recent
example, the Morgenthau plan gave Dr. Goebbels the best possible
chance.  He was able to prove to his countrymen, in black and white,
that the enemy planned the enslavement of Germany.  Goebbels handled
the Morgenthau statement in his own way.  The press described it as the
official policy of the British and Americans, but said nothing about
the criticism which the plan aroused in England or America.  In
general, the German propaganda deliberately exaggerated all statements
of this sort.
 
Of course, intelligent newspaper readers were soon aware of this trick,
but that did not calm their aaprehensions.  The conviction that Germany
had nothing to expect from defeat but oppresion and exploitation still
prevails, and that accounts for the fact that the Germans continue to
fight.  It is not a question of a regime, but of the homeland itself,
and to save that, every German is bound to obey the call, whether he be
Nazi or member of the opposition.