Reading Eagle (June 7, 1944)
ON THE RECORD —
‘Assume a virtue’
By Dorothy Thompson
It is interesting to speculate why the Germans abandoned Rome. It is the first time in this war they have given up a major object without a real fight, or without destroying it. The stereotyped report has been, “Nothing of value has been left to the enemy.”
If we assume that the abandoning of Rome was simply a disengagement operation, we must ask whether it would have been more profitable for the enemy to have made more a prolonged defense of the Eternal City. That seems likely. In his last appeal before our troops entered Rome, Gen. Alexander told the Roman population to keep off the highways, as our troops would press urgently through Rome in the pursuit of the retreating enemy to the north. Knowing this, it would have been advantageous for the Germans to make a fortress out of every home, and to challenge us to destroy it.
That they did not do this may be due to another idea in the mind of Marshal Kesselring. On Saturday he transmitted to the Vatican a German proposal that both sides declare Rome an open city, promising that German troops would keep out of Rome if the Allied army would do the same. Had we accepted this proposition, Kesselring would have forestalled the use of Rome as a transit for the pursuit. But we did not even answer. Yet the Germans limited their resistance to small groups of snipers and minor skirmishes in the suburbs.
So, it was not military reasons that forced them to abandon Rome. And for once I believe we must accept the official German reason – that they wanted to spare Rome.
Seemingly, this explodes the picture we have in our minds of Nazism. As a matter of fact, the picture of Nazism is exploding. It is the most encouraging symptomatic sign in this war thus far, for it indicates the defeatism of the German Army.
We must not assume that here is an act of conversion. It is a matter of calculation. As long as they were certain of victory the Germans cared nothing for world public opinion. Victorious in Poland, they showed not the slightest respect for the religious and cultural institutions of that most Catholic of countries. They bombed Warsaw to bits to achieve more quickly what they could have accomplished without such destruction. They razed Czech villages – not alone Lidice – to the ground, simply as acts of wanton reprisal. They did saturation bombing over England in the so-called “Baedecker raids” against which they now protest in holy horror. They destroyed parts of Rotterdam after an armistice with Holland.
Furthermore, leading spokesmen of the Nazis have warned openly that, if threatened with defeat, they would unloose such destruction that all Europe would go down with them. Some months ago, people feared they would destroy Rome, carry off the Pope as prisoner, and fulfill the threats made when they were atop the world.
But that is not the way of bullies. Intolerable in victory, they begin discovering the instincts of gentlemen as defeat looms. This shows in their propaganda. At the beginning of this war, there was no talk of their being the saviors of Europe and the protectors of European culture. They were out for Lebensraum and domination. Now, to read the German newspapers, it is European integrity and culture for which alone they fight. They are even defending the Poles against the Russians! It is an odd way to defend Europe by first destroying her, but apparently, they agree with Emerson that “consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
Now, the Germans, confronting defeat, are apparently trying to balance the books more evenly on the crime record. Naturally, they show their most pious face toward the west – for two reasons. What they have done in the west is beyond explanation. They have never quite dared to show the same ruthlessness toward any eastern nation, as they have toward the Slavs and eastern Jews. This difference is in harmony with their racial theories which makes hierarchies of superior and inferior races.
In Hungary, they are still going on with it, deporting all the Jews and what dissident elements they can lay hands on.
Also, our own air warfare has caused great suffering in Europe and destroyed cultural monuments, whereas the Russian fight has left Europe unscathed. Balancing the books is, therefore, easier with the Western Allies than with Russia.
The Germans will one day argue the difference between the behavior of the German armies and the Nazi Party divisions. The atrocities in Hungary are being carried out by SS men. The planned extermination policies in the east were in the hands of the Gestapo. Rome was spared by the German Army. The German General Staff already knows that it will backfire if they attempt to whitewash party Nazis, and they prepare to differentiate.
Thus, the sparing of Rome is a political symptom of the first order. The German General Staff has taken notice of the advice of Hamlet, “Assume a virtue if you have it not.”