The Pittsburgh Press (November 16, 1944)
U.S. 1st and 9th Armies join four other armies in winter campaign
By J. Edward Murray, United Press staff writer
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Knock out Jap lookout station
By William B. Dickinson, United Press staff writer
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Disclosure of data to Germany charged
By Robert Taylor, Press Washington correspondent
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Slayer tells police he passed time between killings at horror movie
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Rumors offer variety from new attempt on Führer’s life to trip by plane or U-boat
London, England (UP) –
Two independent sources suggested today that Adolf Hitler, far from mad, ill or dead, has left by submarine or plane for Japan for a spectacular conference with his last major ally.
The theory was advanced by non-Spanish diplomatic circles in Madrid and by Willi Frischauer, Austrian author who has spent 20 years studying Hitler’s life, in a letter to the editor of The London Daily Herald.
Diplomatic circles in Madrid also relayed a report that Hitler fled Germany last week and had taken refuge in some neutral country, “unconfirmedly Argentina.”
Other unconfirmed and often conflicting reports from the continent dealing with Germany and the fate of Hitler asserted:
Another attempt has been made on Hitler’s life.
Germany intends to begin peace overtures through Lisbon soon.
Gestapo agents arrested 70,000 persons in suppressing a revolt in Munich led by bombing refugees and foreign slave workers.
Nine Russian slave workers were shot in Berlin on charges of killing a policeman and possessing great quantities of arms and ammunition.
Austrians have begun passive resistance against the Germans.
A new decree will be issued soon giving Gestapo chief Heinrich Himmler, apparently acting dictator of Germany, complete authority over the German Army and perhaps requiring the Army to take an oath of fidelity toward him.
Hitler’s bodyguards have been recalled from leave and have been forbidden to mix with civilians because of the spread of rumors over the Führer’s health.
Neither mad nor dead
Frischauer, in his letter to The Herald, said that 20 years of interpreting Hitler’s personality and politics convinced him that the Führer was neither mad nor dead.
Frischauer said:
Hitler, I suggest, perhaps in company with Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, is on his way to Japan to stage a spectacular east-west Axis meeting with the Mikado.
The emphasis on the German-Japanese alliance in recent Nazi proclamations points in this direction and so does the fact that the last time Hitler was photographed was in the company of Gen. Ōshima, Japan’s Ambassador to Berlin, who probably observed diplomatic custom by bidding Hitler farewell before the trip to Tokyo.
Sub trip suggested
Frischauer suggested that the trip to Tokyo could be made by submarine around the Cape of Good Hope or by plane over Russia or the polar region. He believed Hitler might try simultaneously to win over dissident Chinese forces to the Axis.
Almost simultaneously, a United Press dispatch arrived from Madrid reporting that non-Spanish diplomatic circles had heard that Hitler had taken off by plane either for Japan, refueling in Manchuria, or for Argentina, refueling at a secret base in West Africa.
Foreign diplomatic circles in Bern, Switzerland, said that Hitler’s eclipse should be attributed to a German desire to keep him out of the spotlight preparatory to a peace bid.
These circles said that Himmler had been given the task of maintaining order within Germany so that once peace maneuvers were underway, she would be in a position to negotiate on the basis that the German people were compact and orderly behind their leaders.
Washington (UP) –
The War Department announced today that U.S. Army casualties in France, the Lowlands and the German border region from the time of the invasion to Nov. 1 totaled 200,349.
Of these, 35,884 are listed as killed, 145,788 wounded, and 18,677 missing.
Casualties of the 7th Army, which landed in southern France, as well as the armies which came through northern France, are included in the total. U.S. Air Forces casualties are not included.
Total Army casualties of World War II through Oct. 28, were 437,356.
By Florence Fisher Parry
Maybe we have it coming to us – the extension of the war, I mean. It won’t do us any good now to say we were encouraged to live in this fool’s paradise. The bungling has been done and we were a party to it. We didn’t care enough; we didn’t fight hard enough here at home.
Now it’s snowing on the borders of Germany and her fortress defies death. Now on Leyte, thousands of Japs are returning, swarming up the beaches, bringing back to mind the silken warning of a Japanese general who said, after Pearl Harbor, “We are prepared to lose ten million men. How many,” he inquired of our American diplomat, “are you prepared to lose?”
How many American boys will it take to kill 10 million Japs? How many American boys will it take to destroy the last Nazi?
Gen. Eisenhower is too smart a man to say, as he did not so long ago, that if we tried hard enough, we could win the war in 1944. Now he knows. Now they all know. So pray pardon me if I get a little sick, if I turn away my eyes, when I hear of the hardships our American women endure in being deprived of their favorite brand of cigarettes, when I see the lines queue at cigar stands, mobs of women storming stores with less patience and self-control than that which is exercised by starving people in breadlines.
Purely a reflex
Not for a minute do I fool myself by underestimating the gnawing need for cigarettes which is felt by all who are now being deprived of their quota. The habit of smoking goes deep. A habitual smoker, when cut off from this habit, suffers not so much as an alcoholic suffers when deprived of liquor, but the two cravings were allied in that the indulgence builds up in the smoker, as well as in the drinker, a curious chain reflex urge, which, when thwarted, penalizes the nervous system.
It is this effect upon this reflex habit, rather than upon the physical organism of a habituee, that causes the craving. As all intelligent people know, the harmful effect of smoking is slight. It does purely superficial damage, and except in special cases, chiefly heart disease, is a comparatively harmless habit.
But to the degree that it enslaves a man or woman, chains him to the habit, makes him restless, nervous and miserable when denied its indulgence, it does become a serious, and yes, a harmful habit.
The present shortage, and the silly way smokers are reacting to it, proves this. It has also shown up the fact, long suspected, that women, because of their more complex nervous systems, suffer from the deprivation very much more acutely than men.
We can excuse men and women who are working at top speed in war work for smoking excessively; but I draw the line when it comes to idle women who are the greatest offenders of all and whose indulgence in smoking during the war has contributed largely to the present cigarette shortage.
Unwilling to sacrifice
I know only a few women who do not smoke and I testify: I have yet to meet a woman who has cut out or reduced her smoking voluntarily in order to alleviate a shortage that has become so serious that even our boys in combat are not able to get enough cigarettes.
And I say that this is shameful. If every woman in America were to take upon herself the sacrifice of going without cigarettes for one month, the shortage would dissolve.
What’s the matter of their giving up smoking? Or rationing themselves to one-half, one-third, one-fourth normal consumption? In the last war, smoking among women was not prevalent. Great tobacco companies only then were launching what proved to be one of the most brilliant advertising campaigns ever devised: a deliberate organized campaign to induce women to smoke.
I remember the first subtle, oblique overture. It was in the form of a great billboard. Two young lovers were sitting together on a hill in the moonlight. The boy was smoking a cigarette and the girl was leaning toward him saying, “Blow some my way.”
That was not long ago. Just about a quarter of a century ago. How successful this campaign for new customers worked is testified to today by millions upon millions of cigarette users among women and girls.
Thus are we made slaves of habit, a habit which even the challenge of war’s sacrifice cannot reform.
Union proposal calls for company action
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer
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Doubling of tax brings squabble
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New York (UP) –
Actress Ethel Barrymore, 65, spent a “more comfortable” night at Flower Hospital, her physicians said today.
The “First Lady of the American Theater,” suffering from influenza and lung congestion, had a temperature of 101 degrees, unchanged in the last 24 hours.
Chicago, Illinois –
A stone letter, supposed to have been written by King Entemena of Lagash 6,000 years ago, has been found and is in the hands of a Chicago collector.
Undersea raiders also bombard Jap-held Nicobar Island in Bay of Bengal
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New York (UP) –
Edwin F. Jaeckle, one of the principal sponsors of Governor Thomas E. Dewey’s presidential candidacy, today resigned as chairman of the Republican State Committee.
He declined to comment on his resignation beyond the brief statement made in his letter to vice chairman Jane Todd and made public at Republican state headquarters.
Mr. Jaeckle said he made his decision solely because his private law practice at Buffalo required more of his time.