Gustav Hilger

“ Although the fact is obvious that the collapse of the Hitler regime in Germany was the result of a lost war, which was generated out of Nazi-ideology, the question still remains unanswered whether a totalitarian regime can also run aground without a military defeat. ”

“ The present domestic and foreign policy of the Soviet Union every day presents new evidence that the Soviet Government has resumed her original aims. But the difference is that in former times the Soviet Union, when she was still weak, tried to spread her influence on world affairs by ideological means only, whereas new she feels herself strong enough to use also her military strength to push the world revolution forward at a given moment. ”

“ However, the foregoing statement, that even the worst and most criminal regime is able to subsist as long as it maintains adequate security organs and does not suffer a decisive military defeat, does not impair the fact that every totalitarian regime is bound to decompose because of its weak points and deficiencies. As regards Germany, the main weakness of the Nazi-regime was that it would have been in a position to fulfill the promises through which it came into power only after a successful war. ”

“ As regards the spiritual sphere, the Soviet Government in former years paid great esteem to the high standard of foreign science and induced Soviet scientists to make use of its achievements. Nowadays, the Soviet. Union displays not only a distinct presumption but even a hostile attitude toward foreign science. Moreover, since the Soviet Government is afraid that Soviet scientists might fall under the influence of bourgeois ideas or techniques, those scientists are forbidden to communicate with their colleagues abroad or to publish foreign scientific works at home. ”

“ Nevertheless, there is the prospect that, in the course of time, all the above-mentioned circumstances will weaken the Soviet Union to such a degree that she will cease being an immediate danger to the non-Communist world. ”

“ The Soviet people's disappointment is all the greater for, in the meantime, many Russians have been able to obtain personal knowledge of living conditions in the so-called capitalist states and have been deeply impressed by the feet that they were not so bad as they had been described by Soviet propaganda. ”

“ Moscow-inspired Communism, if Hitler had not succeeded in capturing the imagination of the masses by more palpable promises than those offered by the Marx–Lenin doctrine.
Hitler's road to power was paved by promises, all of which risked the danger of future mar. Nevertheless, many of the German people were taken in by those promises because, being in a wretched position, they were not able to realize that danger, much less to weigh its consequences. Those promises were the following:
Hitler promised the German people that he would abolish unemployment once and for all. ”

“ Those promises were given at a moment when the German people were driven to despair by the situation prevailing in the country. Therefore, the Germans readily accepted every criticism of the existing regime and were prone to regard any change whatsoever as a deliverance. The bourgeois parties in Germany were too weak and ineffectual to offer the people a constructive way out of the difficulties created by the threat which an army of 7 million unemployed represented to Germany in 1933. ”

“ Only after human cessions have clamed down and emotional repercussions have given way to rational judgment will historians and politicians come to representations and conclusions which will stand against the criticism of posterity. ”

“ Nevertheless, it can be taken as certain that among the members of the Politbureau there are those who consider peaceful understanding with the Western Powers both necessary and possible and others who loathe every dealing with the outer world and urge an armed showdown. ”