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trical gun" and as an "atomic" bomb It is significsnt that the number who regard it as a joke is far 
 
smaller than those who laugh at Vergeltung. The major weaknesses in the belief are the delay in 
 
its appearance and the large number of versions as to what it is.
 
B. STRENGTHS
 
     1.  Hopelessness of defeat.  One of the major factors making for a stronger morale than 
 
one might otherwise expect is the feeling on the part of the average German that he is now
 
fighting to save Germany from annihilation.  He is fighting as a German and, as noted above,
 
this tends to subordinate the whole Nazi question.  If there were some inkling of hope for a 
 
defeated Germany, the appeal to stop dying for Hitler might have more effect; at present,
 
however, the sense of doing his duty as a German is strong enough to put the disgust with the 
 
party, which many of them feel, definitely in the background.  Blaming the party for the
 
war also becomes compartatively unimportant to them.  What matters is that if Germany loses
 
the war she is done for.  A majority of the prisioners no