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GRUESOME HARVEST The Costly Attempt To Exterminate The People of Germany By Ralph Franklin Keeling The Lord High
Executioners We thought we were coming to Germany as
liberators to free the German people from
dictatorship, to teach them the errors of their
ways, and to give them the benefits of our form of
democracy and free enterprise. Actually we accepted
at Potsdam a program which negated all of our
principles, which could sell our form of democracy
only in reverse. The Potsdam plan was made to order
for Soviet Russia, but not for free enterprise or
free democratic processes. Its very execution
requires totalitarianism of the kind the Soviets
are accustomed to, of the kind which, when the
Nazis were practicing it, so outraged us that we
fought a half trillion dollar war to eradicate it
from the earth. We first eliminated the German government, the
only instrumentality through which the German
people might take collective self-preservative
action and then substituted a system of military
absolutism, born not of free American institutions
or ideals, but of the absolutisms dominant at
Potsdam. Military absolutism was set up under the
following edict: Set up to function under the heads of this alien
military dictatorship is a complicated bureaucracy
headed by a hierarchy of descending Caesars,
forming a neat replica of the authoritarian
apparatus employed by both the Soviets and
Nazis. This dictatorship, as we have seen, has as its
purpose not the resuscitation and rehabilitation of
the fallen Reich, but rather its repression and the
erection of barriers to recovery. With hundreds of
thousands of heavily armed occupation troops behind
it, the alien dictatorship was also prepared to
prevent resistance by the Germans as they saw the
ground prepared for their extermination by their
being thrown on their own, and forbidden outside
assistance while the necessary means for their
survival were destroyed. It has dropped a
soundproof iron curtain down around its victims,
virtually cutting off intercourse with the outside
world, ostensibly to prevent contamination of other
nations by Nazi ideas, but also to prevent the
anguished cries of the German women and children
from reaching and disturbing others while the
gruesome program was carried into effect. As the death noose tightened about them, the
Germans were to be made to believe they are
entirely to blame for their dilemma. Even the
inevitable economic collapse must be laid at the
door of German administrators. They must be made to
spring their own trap door. Potsdam says: This was the craven way we were to bring self
government to the Germans. We no doubt hoped, for example, that by turning
denazification over to so-called "German"
prosecutors and courts set up and operating under
our mandate we could make the Germans blame
themselves for the deleterious effects. We have said it is democratic to make the
Germans conduct their own purge, which is
tantamount to accepting the Russian purges as
democratic. But those purges were at least Russian
affairs. The German purge machinery is operated by
Communists and radical Marxist Socialists placed in
office by an alien dictatorship and no more
representative of the Germans than Quisling's Nazi
government was of the Norwegians. The Germans know
full well that whatever our puppets do reflects our
will and dicta. If we should by any chance convince
them that this is what we mean by the democracy we
came to force upon them, we could hardly blame them
if they rejected it at the first opportunity. Our military government is anything but
democratic, except in the Russian sense. It is
headed by well-trained military men, competent to
carry out military tasks and orders received from
Washington prepared by politicians and
behind-the-scenes operators. Instead of a
democratic body representative of free Americans,
they are order takers, willing to carry out without
question whatever directive they receive from
above. They are identical in this respect with
Hitler's loyal hierarchy of lord high
executioners. Our troops of occupation have been splendid
young American boys, but for the most part raw,
inexperienced, teenage draftees who could be
expected neither to relish their job nor to
comprehend its exacting nature. The whole
experience has tended to corrupt and brutalize
them. As mentioned before, our use of a
disproportionate number of negro troops has helped
alienate the Germans and disgust our own
personnel. In conjunction with the military forces we have
sent over a corps of high salaried civilian
employees, consisting in large measure of people
who had failed the social and economic competition
at home, including in some cases broken down,
discharged officers who could not stand the rough
going of actual combat in France and Italy, or the
chagrin of having to return home as failures before
the war was over, but who now draw higher pay than
ever in their lives during peacetime before, and
who enjoy swelling arrogantly with self-assumed
importance before defeated but often more refined,
cultured, and substantial people caught under their
delegated authority. This motley crew for the most part has no
intimate knowledge of European and especially
German conditions, mores, problems, or history, but
was hastily recruited and superficially trained for
its extremely demanding mission. Although circumstances do not permit our body of
civilian employees as a whole to be representative
of the best there is in America, there are,
fortunately, some notable exceptions. Often at
great personal sacrifice, some very able,
well-informed, conscientious experts and
specialists have gone over and by their influence
and efforts helped to mitigate the difficult
situation. To these splendid products of our free
institutions must go the lion's share of credit for
whatever success AMG has achieved. For army men, if
they are competent as such, cannot be expected to
manage and perform major operations on a crippled
foreign economy and social system without creating
chaos. If the Army has proved unequal to the task
of running such relatively simple things as
railroads and mail order houses in America, it
surely must be unequal to the stupendous job given
it in Germany. Potsdam has imposed upon us a program which runs
counter to our fundamental convictions and
philosophy. The military men who head AMG generally
believe that the less government interferes with
business the better it is for everybody, except in
Germany. And they oppose collectivism
philosophically, except in Germany. Although they
fought a war to destroy dictatorship, they are
willing to serve as one themselves and to impose
almost complete control over the lives of
individual Germans. Nothing runs without their
permission. Zonal rule over the economic, political, and
cultural life of the German people, as commanded at
Potsdam, could be handled with a modicum of success
only by men with long experience in totalitarian
philosophy and methodology. And in this respect the
Russian zonal authorities enjoy a great advantage.
Whereas the rule which Potsdam orders is alien to
our background, training, and philosophy, it
conforms perfectly to Russian practice at home.
Such rule cannot bring free enterprise to Germany;
only some form of collectivist society could grow
up under it. These are points of cardinal importance in the
rivalry between Soviet Russia and the western
powers over ultimate control of the German
Reich. Many ardent supporters of Potsdam have become
greatly upset about Communist plans for taking over
the Reich. They have no right to be, because the
very first signature affixed to the document is
that of Joseph Stalin. The Russians, therefore,
have just as much right as we to lay down the
meaning of its loose provisions and undefined
terms. When Potsdam calls for democratization of
the Reich without specifying exactly what is meant
by "democracy," the Soviets have a perfect right to
insist that the order calls for German
communization. And this is but one of the
pernicious features of its "re-education"
program. Potsdam, in connection with denazification,
decrees that ousted Nazis "shall be replaced by
persons who by their political and moral qualities,
are deemed capable of assisting in developing
genuine democratic institutions in Germany." But no
hint is given as to what "genuine democratic
institutions" might be. It prohibits propagation of
national socialist ideas, without stating what they
are, and then provides that "German education shall
be so controlled as completely to eliminate Nazi
and militarist doctrines and to make possible the
successful development of democratic ideas," again
without definition. But forbidding propagation and discussion of one
political philosophy and forcing the public to
accept a different one held by those in the seats
of power is Nazi doctrine. It is also Communist
doctrine. And the Communists claim theirs is the
one and only genuine democracy. Political democracy, say the Bolsheviks, is
impossible over the long run without "economic
democracy," by which they mean abolition of private
ownership of property, the foundation of free
enterprise. But they call free enterprise fascism,
and defenders of the American system fascists. And
Nazism is a form of fascism. Denazification, in
Russian eyes, therefore, is tantamount to rooting
out our own system, along with all other private
property systems. The Bolsheviks call any country or party fascist
or Nazi if it takes or advocates measures to curb
the activities of Communist parties; those which
permit the Communists to go freely about their
business of destroying them and building a world
soviet union are denominated "democratic." Thus,
Potsdam qualifies as a "democratic" document. These facts were known, or should have been
known, by all the principals at Potsdam. When
Russia was permitted to sign the agreements without
a clear definition of what was meant by
"democracy," we were falling into a dangerous trap
from which we cannot escape, unless we simply
repudiate the agreements we signed. The whole thing
makes us look very stupid. If by democracy we meant our way of life
- free enterprise, private property, individual
liberties, the protections guaranteed in the Bill
of Rights, and government of, by, and for the
people - it should have been obvious to us from the
beginning that the program to establish democracy
by force was foredoomed to failure. We might
logically have hoped to wipe out Hitlerism by
Hitlerite methods, but we certainly could never
hope to establish our way of life that way. Our intolerance of Nazi political opinion,
however justified it may seem, is nevertheless the
opposite of democratic in the American sense. Our
determination to wipe out ideas by force is a
repudiation of democracy's most sacred tenets.
People who really believe in freedom of thought and
opinion do not use clubs on the debating platform.
We despised Hitler for burning books proscribed by
the Nazis, not because we were necessarily partial
toward the particular books involved, but as a
matter of principle. Yet we have ourselves violated
the principle, and adopted Hitlers, by burning the
Nazi books. In words we denounce Hitlerism; in
deeds we exonerate it! The impression has been given by prolonged
propaganda that national socialist tenets were
obviously evil and criminal, that they openly
called for aggressive war, for example, and
conquest of the world. This is not true. Like the
platform of any political party seeking support at
the polls, its planks appeared to be quite
innocuous. In fact, Nazism and its works were
praised by many foreign notables such as Lloyd
George and Winston Churchill. When polled, 51 per
cent of our own GI's, stationed in Germany, said
they believed Hitler "did the Reich a lot of good
before 1939," and 19 per cent of those questioned
believed "the Germans had some or a good deal of
justification for starting the war." - "It showed
large percentages of the soldiers ready to accept
German explanations and willing to absolve the mass
of Germans from responsibility for concentration
camp atrocities." - "29 per cent conceded they had
grown 'more favorable' toward their former enemies
since they had been in the country."[1] It was perfectly possible for honest,
intelligent, conscientious German citizens to be
party members and even enthusiasts. For us to
assume differently is merely to exhibit our
ignorance and gullibility for propaganda. Nazism
was wrong in many fundamental respects, and these
features should be exposed. The Germans should be
shown in principle where these ideas were wrong and
dangerous. They should be stated as general
principles to be opposed no matter who advances
them, even if they are communists. And the
operation should be discussion by free, uncensored
debate. Certainly, nothing can be gained by
treating the subjects as undiscussable. The Nazis were wrong in their invasion of the
schools and forcing elimination of certain ideas
and texts and acceptance of certain others. They
were wrong in principle. So are we, when we impose
our ideas and textbooks on the Germans. We are even
more so for being outsiders, whereas the Nazis were
at least German. The Nazis were wrong in their
strict censorship of the German press. And so are
we. We cannot create a free press in Germany
through rigid censorship and we look very foolish
when we try it. Persecution of people on account of their blood
is deplorable - whether practiced by the Germans or
against them. Persecution arises from hate and is
stirred by hatemongers. Walter Winchell has said we
must hate the Germans. "Let future German
generations see them [German monuments] and
find out what kind of blood they were born with,"
he wrote a year after Germany surrendered. "If they
can grow up among reminders of what it costs to be
a monster, maybe they'll work a little harder to
get back into the human race."[2] Likewise,
while Secretary of State Byrnes was appealing to
the Germans at Stuttgart, the information and
education department of the U.S. Army in the
European theatre was still calling for hatred
toward the German people. In a pamphlet it said:
"The feeling of pity for the Germans is very
similar to the psychological reaction we get toward
a pretty girl who murdered her father in cold
blood, owing to the reluctance to condemn one who
looks so nice and kind, as a murderess." The
Germans in their hate mongering were no more
unheedful of the Christian, "Love thine enemy." The German leaders applied the hideous and
indefensible doctrine of collective guilt against a
whole people whom they looked upon as deadly
enemies. This was one of their greatest crimes. We
have committed the same crime by applying the same
doctrine against all the people of Germany,
including unborn babies. Perhaps the reason we
forbid discussion of Nazism, fail to list its
features, and try to destroy it by force, goes back
to our having unconsciously accepted most of its
worst features since 1932, without knowing their
identity.[3] And so we go blithely on our way trying to stamp
out Nazism while practicing it ourselves. The very
stamping is Nazi like. We came as liberators to teach the Germans how
to enjoy self-government and political freedom. Yet
we have imposed our denazification decrees which so
frighten them that they refuse to take part in
politics for fear of the possible consequences
under our "democratic" control. We are trying to
teach them democracy, and yet we have so
circumscribed what they may teach that their
teachers, unless they are Communists, are afraid to
say anything. Politically, German leaders are not
permitted to speak freely, and even those in our
military government are afraid to say what they
think, for fear of the consequences. Because of our
undemocratic policies regarding freedom of the
press, which we preach while violating in practice,
the German press is operating in a vacuum.
Intellectual hunger in Germany is almost as acute
as physical hunger. On top of everything else, our system of justice
has become brutalized and highly discriminatory. We
have three separate bodies of laws, one for our
forces, one for displaced persons, and one for the
German population, and in none is there a serious
effort to make the punishment fit the crime. For
example, a frail, widowed, German mother of two
small children was sent to jail for five months for
having in her possession a parachute knife given
her as a trophy and remembrance by her husband just
before he was shot down over Britain.[4]
This is typical, not exceptional. It makes the
Germans shudder at "democratic justice." While we
preach law and order, we coddle and grant special
privileges to "displaced persons," who according to
AMG officers, have been responsible for 50 per cent
of the crimes in the American zone.[5] While preaching democracy we have installed
ourselves as an alien plutocracy, many of whose
members have found blackmarket operations and other
shady deals not beneath them. While the Germans
around them starve, wear rags, and live in hovels,
the American aristocrats live in often unaccustomed
ease and luxury. Their wives must be specially
marked to protect them from licentious advances;
they live in the finest homes from which they drove
the Germans; they swagger about in fine liveries
and gorge themselves on diets three times as great
as they allow the Germans, and allow "displaced
persons" diets twice as great. When we tell the
Germans their low rations are necessary because
food is so short, they naturally either think we
are lying to them or regard us as inhuman for
taking the lion's share of the short supplies while
they and their children starve. We have in many ways shown ourselves quite
callous to the sufferings of the conquered. The war
left in its wake countless numbers of war victims
with disabled bodies, some without arms, legs,
eyes, or otherwise disfigured. They and the
millions killed in battle or held as war prisoners
have millions of dependents, aged parents, wives
and children. In addition there are the hordes of
impoverished, suffering expellees from the east.
But the towering needs of all these millions of
helpless Germans have been a minor consideration to
the feeding and housing of displaced persons. Only
a little news comes from their loved ones held as
war prisoners in England, France, and other western
countries, none from Russia. Nor has the Allied
Control Council yet issued a full and detailed list
of either war casualties or war prisoners.
Thousands are still held in unnecessary, agonizing
suspense wondering whether fathers and brothers who
were in the war are still alive or dead. As one
German mother said, "Even a little sympathy would
help. I haven't heard from my son for more than a
year now. If I knew he were dead, I could get over
it." This is the way to teach democracy in reverse.
If the Germans are ever to become adherents, they
must do so voluntarily, through conviction, not
compulsion. By our behavior we are making it
impossible for them to gain the conviction. In the
light of what they are having to endure under our
control and because of our policies and weaknesses,
they will not easily conclude, as we wish them to,
that Hitlerism is uniquely brutal, oppressive, or
dishonest. One of the main difficulties is the fact that
our democracy is confronted by a paradox which
almost defies solution. Far from facing or solving
it, we have failed to notice it. And those whom we
wish to win to democratic principles see our
blindness and lose their respect for their would-be
teachers. We must sooner or later make up our minds
whether democracy can tolerate the spread of
democracy-destroying doctrines, and if not, how it
can stop them and still remain democracy. If what we are doing in Germany against Nazism
is right, then what we are doing here at home about
Communism is wrong. If we must stamp out Nazism
there, we must stamp out Communism here; if in the
name of democracy and freedom of opinion we can
tolerate dissemination of Communist doctrine and
treasonable Communist fifth column activities here,
we should treat Nazism with equal kindness over
there. For the one is just as bad as the other. Reference Notes: |