| weeks. =§ILYA EHRENBURG 4 MOSCOW. =e Deutsche Allgemeine mat Zeituns published an sie: by a certain Michel : izt entitled “A Greater “me.” In this article a | ean is out to prove to the Gus that they are not high- FB bbers but the guardians of Qj 2an culture. ert recently the Germans ths Cf lJebensraum for them scam Loday everything is sup- ee ted by the epithet “Huro- There is no word which more despicable and blas- Us coming from the lips of han fascist than the beau- [ame of Europe. The con- . which by dint of human Tum and labor was transformed : blossoming orchard has rained of blood by the Ger- ie recently they brazenly Nem 2 at the prisoner. Today E dlers assert that they are mm ly the saviors of prison- tome he wolf is shouting that Zuarding the sheep flock, =m25 of cities, devastation, f@> converted into barracks meen 1S€0nS, Savagry, ignorance, m8 > extinction—that is what * ny has brought to Europe. mei German jesters would ive the world believe that Germans are defending © against Great-—Britain and it is hard to suppress a —Goebbels protecting Euro- fculture from the heirs of peare, Himmler Saving "s freedom from the people Tformation Bulletin of Oviet Embassy in Washing- Vises that Mikhail Sholok- *aoted author and a Lieu- Colonel in the Red Army, a short leave n his small ck village on the Don after ing a contusion in a forced landing. has completed a third of 7 nGvel to be called “They Rat for Their Native Land.’ = 33 S Army guardsmen are shown attacking the enemy in les between the Russians and Nazis have been raging in this region for the past who created the Magna Charta. Who would dare to deny Britain's richest contribution to the trea- Sure store of Huropean culture? Just as ridiculous are the at- tempts to counterpose Russia to Europe. We saved the forefathers of contemporary Puropeans from the invasion of the Nomad hordes. We saved the grand- father of the idiotic Michel from Wapoleon’s “Greater Europe.” We are saving and will save our contemporaries—the children of Europe — from the jackboot of the German evil. In vain are the Germans try- ing to include the enslaved coun- tries into their concept of a “Greater Europe.” The Hitler- ites assert that the French, Czechs or Netherlanders cannot get along without German guar- dianship. The Fritz is perplexed. Why is it then that the robbed peoples do not thank him? Why the widows of men ordered to death do not greet him? 1 es A LETTER from France, the German George writes to Lieutenant Franz Herold, ‘France still slumbers and much effort will be required to awaken her. Last week three attempts were made at assassination, two of them near a ‘soldiers’ movie house.’ The wounded soldiers are in hospitals.” ... ~The blockhead ascribes the struggle against the invaders to Jack of consciousness. He is amazed that “slumbering” Ffenchmen are killing German soldiers. Another Fritz Prague: “Odd reports from people, these i New Sholokoy War Novel — Wone of the characters of his magnificent “Quiet Don” volumes appear in this new novel whch deals with the present war. Sholokhov’s own home was de- stroyed when the Nazis reached the Don at Veshenskaya, the au- thor’s village. “The Nazis ap- proached close to the village— only the Don separated us,’ Sho- lokhov said.“ But they failed to negotiate the water barrier.” the Kuban Valley. Fierce pe Czechs—they are ready to tear us to pieces.” ... The Germans shrug their shoulders; what strange prison- ers are these who hate their jail- ers? It is now two years that the Fuehrer’s “Greater Europe” has been unable to cope with the guerrillas of Yugoslavia. The struggle of the Franc Tireurs is rising in France, while in Africa half a million Frenchmen under the banners of the Republic are preparing to set foot on their native soil. HE Germans know now that they are alone and that no one will save them from retribu- tion. What are the Germans con- soling themseles with ? A “BHuro- pean ~ Wall.’ They took some suspiciously “neutral” journalists on a tour of the Atlantic coast, obligingly demonstrating to them their pillboxes. They want to convince, if not others, at least themselves that the _European coastline is protected by an in- surmountable wall. It is impossible to fortify the entire coast of Europe from Tromse to Pireus. And a place for the landing of troops will be chosen by the Allies and not by the Germans. | Ep the genuine Europe, is conducting an offensive war against Germany. It is the brigands who are obliged to de- fend themseles. For the time being they are resisting far from their lair. But it is not a ques- tion of miles. In the course of a few. weeks the Germans covered hundreds of miles from Aachen to Bordeaux, from HEidkunen to Luga. But despite their long months of effort, they could not pass 500 yards over the ruins of Stalingrad. The rout of the Germans in Tunisia is a notice: the war is knocking at the gates of Ger- Many. Germany is a besieged fortress. Of course, it is still very strong. Of course, the defenders of this fortress are capable of un- dertaking sallies. If the Fritz will now creep forward, it is sole- ly because there is no way back for him. Thus the flams of re- tribution are rising over Ger- many. Future--Not Futility J. B. S. Haldane writes on the value of scientific thought in reply to an apostle of futility. By J. B. S. HALDANE (Fellow of the Royal Society) LONDON. I HAVE just been reading Prof. G. H. Hardy’s “A Mathematician’s Apology,” in which he states the case for pure mathematics as a life work. He regards himself as essentially an artist, creating a peculiar kind of beauty, as a musical composer does. He be- lieves that his work has no prec- tical value. This is probably true today. But experience suggests that fifty or a hundred years lieves that his work has no prac- tical use, when much of our ex- isting applied mathemates is as out of date as that used by Drake for navigation. He then makes the remark- able statement that science in general is of no use except for specialists. “Tt is useful,” he writes, “to be tolerably quick at arithmetic. It is useful to know a little French and German, a little history and geography, per- haps even a little economics. But a little chemistry, physics, or physiology has no value at all in ordinary life. We know that the gas will burn without knowing its constitution; when our cars break down we take them to a garage; when our stomach is out of order, we go to a doctor or a drug store.” Foreign engineers who brought Over complicated machinery to the Soviet Union were often hor- rified because the workers in- Sisted on taking it to bits, even if it took a month to put it to- getber again. This meant a de- lay in starting production, but it meant that the workers were able to mend the machines if they went wrong, and often to improve on their design fairly quickly. Soviet intellectuals are mostly drawn from the ranks of the Manual workers, and proud to show that they are still capable of tackling skilled jobs. Clearly ‘Hangmen a society of this kind can switch over from peace to war, and will Switch over to peace again, much quicker than our own, quite apart from the fact that there are no landlords, capitalists and other vested interests to impede thesee changes, In that kind of society, if not in our own, a moderate acquaint- ance with science will be of prac- tical use to everybody. But scien- tific education also has a moral value. A child studies English literature, and learns what to write about Wordsworth in order to get a school certificate. He or she may think that Wordsworth was an intolerable old bore and humbug, but if his or her future depends on a certificate, this view must be kept dark. History does not do so either, though historians do their best to justify “good men but bad kings.” A scientific education, provided it is a real education with practical work in which the pupil gets a chance of makins mistakes, rubs it into you that good intentions are not enough; good technique is needed as well. This is why Marxism is rightly Called scientific socialism. It is based not merely on an analysis of the breakdown of capitalism, and what is needed to replace it, but om a study of how social changes actually do occur. Be- fore 1917 it had not had an ade- quate experimental test. But Lenin, Stalin, and their collaborators, have given it the test which every scientific theory requires, and it has proved to. worl in practice. No wonder that Marxism is spreading among scientists to an extent which alarms Many people. “No wonder also that reaction- aries imsist on the moral value of a classical education, that is to say an education in which the test of correctness is tradition, not experiment. They also do their best to make scientific edu- cation, especially in schools, fit into, the same mould, and some teachers succeed in making bot- any as dull as Latin grammar. Scientific education is largely useless unless it teaches one to make one’s own experiments and observations, and to trust in their results, and unless it is linked up with the actual prac- tice of industry, agriculture ,or medicine. If this is achieved, there is plenty of room for the literary and historic side of edu- cation, too. Also Die’ Superb War Film Hangmen Also Die—an Arnold Pressburger Production O* of the early scenes in Hangmen Also Die pictures a solitary man, running away. Soon you learn that this man has killed Heydrich, the hangman. But you learn some- thing else, too; you learn that this man is many men, his struggle, the struggle of all men who love freedom, and his act the act of an entire underground movement. In this alone lies the greatest strength of what critics are call- ing the greatest war picture ever made. There is none of the usual Hollywood superman stuff, the “hero” angle, where some one character is bigger, braver, hand- somer and cleverer than the rest. The struggle is not that of one individual, against another—or group of individuals. There is no glamorous blond to be saved from the clutches of death in the last reel. In Hangmen Also Die, no one man, but the entire peo- ple, play the role of the hero. The story of the film concerns the death of Heydrich, and the eventual end of a Czech quisling who, after coldly betraying the people jis himself betrayed. It tells, too, of the incomparable unity of the people, the so-called “little” people, the ordinary, law- abiding citizens, who prove their greatness by their unrelenting battle against the Nazis. The acting is of a consistently high standard. Brian WDonlevy, in a type of role that is new to him, is superb as the doctor who kills Heydrich. Alexander Fran- ach, as the Gestapo detective, Surpasses his portrayal of a Similar role in Joan of Paris, Gene Lockhart plays the quisling to perfection. « “Hangmen Also Die” has been described as “the sereen voice of all men of good will.” It is a true document of the people. ney