Defeatism was spreading further along the Rhine as soldiers withdrawing from its western bank told of the flight of Nazi Party functionaries and the sea of white flags that had greeted the Americans in Neuss and Krefeld. They described their own powerlessness in the face of their enemies’ incredible firepower and control of the air. In Bochum, the local Party propaganda department conceded the hopelessness of dragooning workers to listen to set-piece speeches by uniformed Party officials. Instead, in mid-March it sent out thirty trained public speakers wearing plain clothes, to spread
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