Friday, 21 July

Fine, sun

Yesterday Hitler was nearly assassinated at his headquarters. The bomb exploded only six feet away from him. He was only slightly injured in his arm, but many senior officers in the headquarters of the General Staff were seriously wounded. Last night, Hitler personally made a broadcast to the German people, saying God saved him as he was not killed, and he has pursued all conspirators and caught them locally. Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg had been shot, and other conspirators committed suicide. In the speech Hitler warned people not to accept orders from any renegade organisations, and he admitted that the assassination was done by people in the military. In that case perhaps Germany will have greater changes internally.

In the past two weeks the American navy has been unceasingly bombarding Guam, and they landed yesterday. The Japanese army in the South Pacific area has been cut off. In all these islands there are probably about 200,000 troops, but they cannot get any supplies. Yesterday the 45,000 Japanese soldiers trapped in New Guinea attempted a massive breakout, but they were defeated. The American news said that this was enough to provoke suspicion between the enemy’s navy and army. I thought this was possible.

Committee member Hu told me that he learnt from the German woman staying in the same hotel as him (Her husband is a Hungarian working in the National Committee for a Free Germany.) that the Soviet Union used the surrendered German army officers as propaganda against the German army, and it has been quite effective. Probably all these military leaders hate Hitler, but they have different ideas about what Germany should be after the fall of Hitler.

The day before yesterday there was an article in Pravda strongly criticising Feuters’ military analysis. General Gof became the new military advisor to Hitler. According to Gof, Germany shouldn’t view the West war zone as the decisive battlefield for this war, as a matter of fact, the most dangerous line for the Germans is on the East line, and the Red Army will first try to occupy Berlin. Therefore for the soldiers, ammunition and tanks that Germany can utilise, it should use them in the war to stop the Soviet offensive. No wonder the Soviet people are discontented about such a prospect. Even viewed as an outsider, I exclaimed that Gof expressed such a selfish viewpoint but did not feel abashed. It is enough to reflect on the shameless attitude of the obsolete British conservatives.