UNIVERSITY
OF THE PACIFIC
Stockton, California
1851
Gift of
Mr. and Mrs. Roy D. Whitlow,
B.J. Whitlow and Gail V.Hayes
In Memory of
Maynard D. Whitlow
I
-
From the collection of the
m
Prelinger
v Jjibrary
San Francisco, California
2006
WHAT TO DO WITH GERMANY
OTHER BOOKS BY AUTHOR
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NEW COURTS OF INDUSTRY
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What To Do
With Germany
by
LOUIS NIZER
CHICAGO • NEW YORK
L. I B R A R Y !|
JAN 1 8 1967
' UNIVERSITY OF THE PACIFIC
COPYRIGHT 1944 BY LOUIS NIZER
All Rights reserved. No portion of this book may
be printed without permission of the publishers
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
SECOND PRINTING
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FOREWORD 1
CHAPTER I
MEDICINES WITHOUT CURE 3
1. Extermination and Sterilization 3
2. Breeding, a Mendelian Theory 6
3. Political Dismemberment 7
4. Compulsory Migration 9
Justice — Not Sentimentality or Cruelty 10
CHAPTER II
WHO is RESPONSIBLE? 12
Another Scrap of Paper 15
Caesar and Tacitus Report on Nazism 18
Earlier German Fuehrers 23
Gangsterism in Intellectual Garb 26
Race and Murder Become a Philosophy 30
Paganism Adopts Music 39
A German Nostradamus Speaks 42
Hitler's Inheritance 47
Lightning Struck Twice 52
CHAPTER III
PUNISHMENT 55
The Common Sense of International Law 56
The World Undertakes a Task 64
The Previous Indictment 68
The American- Japanese "Axis" 73
The Judicial System Never Used 76
Germany Does a Houdini 79
German Courts Slap Several Wrists 88
Judgment Day 91
1. Occupation of Germany — Its Sovereignty
Suspended 91
2. Who Shall Be Punished 95
3. Asylum and Extradition 98
4. Is Obedience to a Command a Defense? 100
5. Practical Judicial Machinery for Punish-
ment 101
6. Property Courts with Criminal Jurisdic-
tion 104
7. Restitution by Labor 107
Weighting the Scales of Justice 108
CHAPTER IV
CUTTING SAMSON'S HAIR 110
German Industry Plots a War 111
The Axis Is Founded Long Before Hitler 115
The Americas Are Invaded 116
Industry and Espionage 120
The Cartel, a Secret Weapon 124
A Fifty Billion Dollar Haul 127
Title By Hold-Up 128
The Business High Command 131
The Reparations Fraud 132
Economic Disarmament 136
Iron and Rye 139
The Quality of Mercy 140
International Economic Control of Germany 141
Economic Isolation Is Also Bankrupt 144
Filling the Stomach Before the Mind 148
CHAPTER V
EDUCATING CAIN 149
"The Most Important Fact of the Last Half Cen-
tury" 151
Self Education After World War I 153
The Devil's Brew 155
The Physician Is Not a Trespasser 164
The Teutonic Plague 167
The International University 168
Invading the German Mind 171
CHAPTER VI
TOMORROW THE WORLD 177
The Mysticism of Sovereignty 177
Regional Federalism 181
Forever Hold Jour Peace 186
CHAPTER VII
No MORE YESTERDAYS 188
Program Summarized 191
Punishment 191
Economic Program 192
Educational Program 197
Harvesting the Peace 199
APPENDIX
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Chapter I 205
Chapter II 206
Chapter III 208
Chapter IV 210
Chapter V 211
Chapter VI 212
Chapter VII 213
WHAT TO DO WITH GERMANY
FOREWORD
"Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war",
wrote John Milton.
The great tragedy of the twentieth century is that
peace has suffered defeats even after wars have been won
for her. In 1918 an agonized world laid down its guns.
Peace was here, but we turned our backs on her as though
she nourished herself, as though the same intense planning
and torrents of energy which win wars are not necessary
to maintain peace. The Germans were democratized, but
not made safe for democracy. We were smug about the
newly instituted Republic as though democracy were a
mere format of government instead of an expression of
the people's yearning for self-regulation. As a result,
within twenty years, the peace so dearly won had been
squandered. Only then did we discover that our unpre-
paredness for peace had made that period a prelude to
another war. And ironically enough we were unprepared
for that, too.
During a war there is no confusion of immediate objec-
tives. One must win — or perish. Where choice is thus
limited, the temptation to procrastinate and to compro-
mise is likewise diminished. There is a penalty of death
for error or even hesitancy. But peacemaking is leisurely.
It permits all the devices of indecision — commissions, com-
mittees, experiments, debates.
The day is approaching when another chance, perhaps
the last chance, will be given to us to win a renowned vic-
tory for peace. On that day word that the war has ended
will be flashed around the world and will be echoed by glee-
ful church bells and hysterical whistles. Millions of hearts
will stop for a second in solemn prayer. Then a wave
of ecstacy will sweep across the world. Emotional riots
will break out everywhere. Hundreds of New Year cele-
brations will be crowded into one night of delirious joy.
Children, astonished by the madness of their parents, will
scream and dance in contagious imitation. Churches will
be crowded with worshipers too stirred to pray. Men in
fits of gratitude will indulge in philanthropic orgies.
Women, too pained to cry during the war, will learn to cry
with overwhelming joy. There will be bonfires in our
hearts and from them will ascend a wave of religious
gratitude to the heavens. Peace will be here. Peace!
We will go berserk with triumph and peace. And that will
be the most dangerous moment in all history !
Will we again waste the sacrifice of millions of people
because we are not prepared to think? Will we simply
rearrange our prejudices and reclothe our demagoguery?
Or will we, with knowledge of the causes of the disaster,
grimly set ourselves to the task of winning the peace and
preventing World War III now?
CHAPTER I
MEDICINES WITHOUT CURE
In the short span of twenty-five years the Germans
have erupted twice, dislocated all humanity, and forced
us to abandon peaceful pursuits. Judged by ordinary
criminal standards, her crimes are so great as to exceed
our concepts of punishment. This is a perplexing phenom-
enon. We know readily what to do with a truant boy
or with a vicious murderer. But what shall we do with
millions of murderers? Our rules for punishment dis-
integrate w^hen the criminal gang is a whole nation. For
this reason, the customary penalties for individual offenses
become inapplicable to mass crime.
1. Extermination and Sterilization
We still shudder at the hanging or eloctrocution of a
convicted murderer. But we lull our squeamish sensibil-
ities by citing the religious doctrine, "An eye for an eye — "
and justify the punishment as a deterrent to others. But
what shall we say of the proposed extension of this doc-
trine to an extermination of the entire German people!
A dozen resistant reasons instantly spring to mind.
"The entire German people is not responsible; one can't
convict a whole people" — "such punishment apes the ab-
normal cruelty of the condemned and makes us his
imitators"— "you can't kill 80 millions"— "it would create
another crisis in Europe to wipe out one of its largest
and most efficient populations" — etc., etc.
The French were accustomed to saying, "We must
destroy Germany or make peace with her — and to destroy
her is an absurdity." But as the French have since
learned, it is not easy to make peace with her.
Others, stirred to consuming hatred by German brutal-
ities, suggest that they be destroyed as a race by eugenic
sterilization.
They argue that if compulsory serum treatments are
justified by their benefits to the community, sterilization
of the German people might similarly be considered a pro-
tective measure to immunize the world forever against the
virus of Germanism. They point out that the surgical
procedure is simple, painless and does not even deprive
the patient of normal instincts, or their gratification.
Vasectomy, the operation on the male, simply requires
a slight incision since the sperm duct lies just beneath
the skin. The operation takes only ten minutes to per-
form and the patient may resume work immediately after-
wards. Ligation of the fallopian tubes, the operation
which renders the female sterile, is more difficult but not
much more dangerous.
There are about 50 million German men and women
within the procreation ages, and it is estimated that
twenty thousand surgeons performing about twenty-five
operations daily could sterilize the entire male population
of Germany within three months and the entire female
population in less than three years. At the normal death
rate of two per cent per annum or one and a half million
people yearly, the German people would practically dis-
appear within two generations.
We reject this proposal but not because of German pro-
tests. They have forfeited all right to protest, for they
themselves set this precedent. It is estimated that in
Germany 300,000 people have been sterilized and in Poland
700,000 people. They have not been beyond the abolition
of education so as to make populations slave-fit, the
physical and mental corruption of the masses by porno-
graphic and drug incitation, and the systematic extermina-
tion of whole peoples.
So we will not heed the voice of Nazi protest. Too
often have they claimed protection by hypocritical resort
to the moral and ethical inhibitions of their enemies, which
they themselves scorn as contemptible weakness. But our
own consciences cannot be easily stilled if we resort to
unmoral retaliation. If a world of justice is to be built
revenge must be avoided. For in its wake are thousands
of injustices and the lingering hatreds which are the devils
of the future. Would not the innocent be punished with
the guilty? When would the penalty cease? Would not
the present generation of German children, dispersed
throughout the world, defeat the purpose?
Above all, religious and ethical concepts deprive us of
the will to abolish a people. The horror of scientific
mutilation is stronger than all the cold justification which
logic can marshal. For though inhumanity begets in-
humanity, we are ashamed of the offspring. The moral
restraints upon us are the residue of centuries of slow
civilizing processes. We need not be ashamed of them.
Let us direct them into channels which will strengthen
the regard for such values.
We must not emulate the abnormal even in wreaking
vengeance upon them — certainly not in constructing a
world of justice. The measuring yardstick of appropriate
penalty must accord with common religious and ethical
concepts. A program of compulsory eugenic sterilization
or wholesale executions would arouse violent dissents in
religious and other circles and breed new disunity among
the victors. It would martyrize Germans who would, of
course, rebel en masse. Unless there were universal con-
fidence in the justice of the remedy, it would fail as a prac-
tical measure. Moral sanction must precede physical
application.
Furthermore, sterilization might solve the German
problem for future generations but it would constitute no
present solution. To safeguard posterity is admirable but
there is a more immediate duty to ourselves and our
children.
We must forego the solution of sterilization.
Such abnegation is far from misplaced sentiment. We
shall see that there are methods available for stern pun-
ishment. At present it is enough to conclude that capital
punishment or sterilization for millions of people is im-
practicable, and violates those moral precepts which limit
even legalized murder.
2. Breeding, A Mendelian Theory
Nor can we accept the suggestion of Professor Earnest
A. Hooton, anthropologist of Harvard University, that
we breed German aggressiveness out of its people. He
would force the bulk of the present German army to work
as labor units in devastated areas for a period of 20 years
or more. Single men would be permitted to marry only
women living in these areas. By such outbreeding he
would reduce the birthrate of "pure Germans" and neutral-
ize aggressiveness.
The theory of race purity is no more valid when turned
against the Nazis than when offered by them against
others. Aggressiveness is not a biological trait. At one
time in history the Dutch and Turks were aggressors.
Today they are peaceful. The eugenic solution ignores the
6
educational, economic and social conditioning which affect
a people's traits.
3. Political Dismemberment
What, then, of other remedies? Shall we slice German y
into many segments and by such dismemberment inflict
capital punishment on her nationhood rather than on her
people? The suggestion is enticing and has already re-
ceived wide consideration. It rests upon the assumption
that the recuperative powers of the German people will be
stunted if Germany is divided into small or minority
groups. Germany originally consisted of many separate
States differing in culture, origin and language.* One by
one they were conquered by the Prussians. Many believe
that dismemberment of the Reich into its original units
might revive their national and ethnological differences.
Thus hatred for the Prussians might be sowed among the
Germans themselves.
But such a partition might well give added incentive to
the extreme nationalism which permeates Teutonic peo-
ples. German unity has been one of the most successful
propaganda arguments of Pan-Germanism since the nine-
teenth century. Philosophers like Fichte and Hegel ad-
vocated it.
* It is often overlooked that Germany is composed of two elements
which differ racially and culturally. The original German tribes, who
were influenced by Western civilization early in their history, lived in
the Western and Southern parts of present-day Germany. The in-
habitants of the territory east of the River Elbe, however, were Slavic
in origin and tongue. These Slavic groups were conquered and en-
slaved 700 years ago by German knights whose descendants are the
Junkers of today. They lost their cultural heritage slowly and, in
fact, there is, within fifty miles of Berlin, a large group (300,000) which
still retains its Slavic tongue. In the days of Frederick the Great, only
one-third of his "Prussians" spoke German. The balance remained
faithful to their Slavic languages. After Bismarck had created the
German Reich in 1870, the conflict continued between the Western
Germans and the Junkers. Bismarck wrote in his Memoirs that the
Prussians were hated by the Rhinelanders who called the Junkers.
"Spree-Kosacken" (Cossacks of the River Spree).
In 1866 Prussia became the predominant state in
Germany by virtue of her victory over Austria. The slogan
of the "unity of German blood" was exploited by Bis-
marck as the driving force for a new Pan-German effort.
He dissolved the former distinctions among Bavaria,
Prussia, Saxony, Wurtenberg and Hanover.
The separation, after the last war, of fragments of the
German people, as in Danzig and the Polish Corridor,
punished but did not weaken Germany. It decreased Ger-
many's population by a fractional per cent, but the same
policy toward Hungary, Austria and Bulgaria helped to
sow the dragon's teeth for the future.
The fanatical belief of the present generation in
German unity would make recourse to the old divisions an
impracticable device. It would be a mere invitation for
the Germans to wipe out the fictional boundary lines. After
previous defeats, they have been dismembered only to re-
group, their strength increased by the inspiration of a new
cohesion.
So popular with Germans is this notion of unity that it
has been cleverly exploited as an additional excuse for
world conquest. For in every country there are Germans,
and, according to the blood theory, they always remain
such. There are approximately 33 million Germans out-
side of the German Reich. Of the 15 million in the western
hemisphere, 10 million live in the United States. They can-
not, according to this theory, divest themselves of ex-
clusive loyalty to the German state even by acquiring
citizenship in another.
If nothing is done to eradicate this fundamentally cor-
rupt belief then mere segregation will be to no avail. In-
deed, it will provide the impetus for unity movements
which will plague the world. It will create a whole series
of minority problems. It will create economic barriers as
well as political intrigues.
8
Furthermore, division does not destroy or even suspend
German sovereignty. On the contrary, it creates many
smaller German sovereignties and to this extent multiplies
the problem. For each sovereignty will claim its own
police force, if not, indeed, its own army. We have seen
how German deception makes the two indistinguishable.
The proximity of the several small German nations would
add to the difficulty of preserving their separateness. It
would create economic and political problems for other
nations, for whom the divided entities would be real, while
for their own purposes the many Germanys could consider
the distinctions amongst them dissolved.
If we join segments of Germany to other surrounding
nations, then we Balkanize another virile portion of the
European continent, with all of the class and national
feuds magnified. Currencies, trade, political and military
alignments — all ascend to their old roles of devilment.
4. Compulsory Migration
Similarly unacceptable is the proposal that the Ger-
mans be shipped out of Germany to colonization areas.
This theory inclines to the belief that Germans being scat-
tered will be shorn of military power while preserving
their constructive abilities. Once more we need not heed
the horror of the Nazis at such extreme measures. It was
they who taught us that whole populations could be trans-
ported mercilessly — 500,000 Czechs were summarily moved
from Czechoslovakia to Germany; 4,320,000 Poles were
transported from their native land (after 900,000 had been
put to death). Nor had the Nazis any scruples about the
compulsory transmigration of 2,350,000 Frenchmen,
468,400 Dutchmen, 13,000 Norwegians, 532,000 Belgians,
60,000 Danes, all robbed of their possessions, driven from
their soil to other nations of foreign tongue and custom.
Ko, German protest against the colonization theory is the
least impressive of the arguments against it.
But virtually emptying the Central European basin
would not be a contribution to economic reconstruction.
Aside from the problems of allocation and compulsory
migration of at least fifty million people, what are the as-
surances for ultimate advantage to peace? This plan
might well be compared with that of eradicating a com-
municable disease by spreading its carriers thinly through-
out the world.
Psychologically, these proposals of segregation are
efforts to escape from the problem rather than solve it ; to
substitute the satisfaction of an extreme effort for a solu-
tion. Just as extermination is a vengeful remedy, so
political dismemberment and dispersion are escapist
devices.
Justice — Not Sentimentality or Cruelty
The surest sign of our not having thought the problem
through is the prevalence of the pat extremes commonly
advocated — "kill them" or "forgive and forget."
We must shun the maudlin theorist who suffers heart-
throbs for the meanest criminal and "his family" while
wagging a somber but unfeeling head for the victim be-
cause he "can no longer be restored to life anyway." In
the international sphere there is his counterpart — the
statesman who suggests that only complete foregiveness
will forestall military resurgence.
Justice would drop her scales and turn her blindfolded
head in shame if such incredible cruelties as our enemies
inflicted on the whole world were not punished. Swift, cer-
tain and appropriate penalties must be handed out. We
shall examine this subject later.
10
We must be stire that the new peace is not a mere
interim during which the Germans, unrepentant, prepare
another onslaught. If we are not wise enough to prevent
forever German resurgence, Der Tag is inevitable and our
sacrifices will have been in vain. We have never won until
we are assured that the attack will not recur.
No reliance can be placed on German "repentance" or
newborn realization of past error. No confidence can be
had in their self-reform, or in good-will bribed with
generosity.
Is tliere a solution for the German problem which will
remove its recurrent threat to world peace?
There i*.
11
CHAPTER II
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?
Are the German people or only their leaders to blame?
If only the leaders, then the prophylactic steps against
their militarism are comparatively simple. If the people,
then we must cope with millions of problems. Before any
consideration can be given to a proper solution of Ger-
manism, its magnitude and nature must be assayed.
All generalities suffer from the same defect. They are
too inclusive to be accurate. Therefore, it becomes impos-
sible to indict a whole people in the sense that every indi-
vidual is personally responsible. But we cannot reject
common responsibility simply because of individual in-
nocence. If no fact about a people could be stated unless
it had been unanimously established by them, then we
could never generalize about group conduct. We need not
therefore heed the objection that no general conclusions
can be drawn about the responsibility of the German
people. We do not hesitate to say that Italians are a
musical people though many of them are tonally deaf; or
that Scotchmen are thrifty, though among them are spend-
thrifts; or that Englishmen are phlegmatic, though they
have their share of excitable individuals; or that Ameri-
cans are an energetic, restless people, though there exist
among them innumerable sluggards. We have a right to
speak about the German people as such.
12
When we attribute faults to a whole people we refer
to the characteristics which identify a great majority of
them. We must not be deterred from the inquiry by ques-
tions about the five million Communists who voted in the
last pre-Hitler election, the four million German Catholics,
the six hundred thousand German Jews, and the eight
million Social Democrats.
In the last free Reichstag elections held in November,
1932, the Leftist groups mustered 13,231,650 votes. The
Rightist groups polled 22,035,235 votes. Such statistics
might give the impression that a large minority of Ger-
mans disapproved of Hitlerism and acted under duress.
But research into this important subject cannot be thus
summarily terminated. There was »the Kaiser before
Hitler, and Bismarck before the Kaiser and Frederick the
Great before Bismarck — indeed, two thousand years of
Germanism to account for. Under each ruler millions
of Germans fought fanatically, heroically, sacrificially.
Theirs was not conduct induced by compulsion. Theirs
was a will to execute a program and a readiness to die for
it. The vaunted efficiency of German aggression depends
on millions of little cogs acting in perfect coordination
which involuntary compliance could not possibly produce.
Preparation for military conquest requires enthusiastic
popular support and willingness to sacrifice. No sulky ad-
herence can suffice. Some great incentive, such as world
domination or, conversely, resistance to extinction, is
necessary. The Germans and Russians supply illustra-
tions of each. Germany, beginning in destitution and
defeat, built the most powerful attacking force in all his-
tory. For the greater part of a generation its people
denied itself necessities as well as luxuries to construct its
war monster. Does not such a mechanical and industrial
13
achievement indicate willing determination and co-opera
tion rather than obedience to a tyrant?
During the first World War it was generally accepted
in intelligent quarters that we had no quarrel with the
German people; that only their unprincipled leaders were
our enemies. Wilson made the classic statement of this
view: "We have no quarrel with the German people," he
said. "It was not upon their impulse that their govern-
ment acted in entering this war." His appeals were
directed to the German people as if they were merely op-
pressed brothers whom we would free from their own over-
lords. In thus directing all responsibility for breaking
treaties and desecrating international law upon the de-
posed leaders, the German people were actually absolved
from blame. That they later considered the humiliation
of their leaders their own is a significant commentary.
We shall see that they went so far as to sabotage the
punishment provisions of the Versailles Treaty in a
desperate effort to protect the very men who, we insisted,
had enslaved them.
All the powers of the German democracy were
exerted on behalf of its military caste. The French
in 1871 exiled their monarch and his family permanently.
The Germans, by plebiscite, voted millions to their
deserting Kaiser. And in three democratic elections
they designated Hindenburg as President — Hindenburg,
who was an avowed monarchist, whose sole claim to
their affection was that he had been a field marshal. As
the regularly chosen President, he legally appointed Hitler
Chancellor. At that time the Nazi Party had won 288
seats in the Eeichstag and was the strongest in Germany.
This expression of the people, directly and through their
constitutional President, was made with the full knowl-
edge of Hitler's program as revealed in Mein Kampf. Thus
U
public opinion in Germany revealed itself even before
censorship and tyranny choked its voice.
Another Scrap of Paper
For many years, until Hitler's adoption of the same
theory made us wary, it was popularly accepted that the
Versailles Treaty was iniquitously severe. Here and there
were early dissents. One remembers the anecdote of
Marshal Foch submitting armistice terms to Count Brock-
dorff-Rantzau, who turned pale at their harshness and
stated that they exceeded all civilized standards. Foch
then advised him that he had the real terms in his other
pocket, but that he had submitted a copy of the German
terms which had been prepared in anticipation of victory,
and which had fallen into the hands of the French secret
service. The veracity of the point was illustrated by the
Carthaginian terms laid down to the Russians at Brest-
Litovsk in 1917, to the French in the railway car at Com-
piegne in 1940, and by the Germans' general inhumanity
toward conquered nations.
The Versailles Treaty has been branded as being either
too severe or too generous. Actually it was not the cause
or inciter of the next war. Too much has been attributed
to this document, which, by German standards, was merely
a piece of paper not to be taken seriously except as a con-
venient pretext of "oppression."
Germans would have been more impressed by a pitiless
victor than by a charitable one. Their respect would have
grown for a harsh enemy as their respect was devotedly
given to their own autocrats in direct proportion to the
cruelties these autocrats inflicted. A softer peace, in the
opinion of Emil Ludwig, would not have prevented Hitler
15
but would have caused him to come five or ten years
sooner.*
Is it any wonder that generosity failed as an inter-
national policy? Aside from its sheer military and prac-
tical inefficacy, it ignored the abnormal national psychol-
ogy of the Germans, which makes them contemptuous of
tolerance and respectful of brutality.
The Versailles Treaty would have been violated irre-
spective of its terms unless the age-old German program
of world conquest had been destroyed. That is the bald
fact. The onus may not be placed upon the Treaty which,
for all its faults, was a humane Christian document com-
pared with demonstrated Nazi impositions upon the con-
quered. It must be placed upon the inability of the treaty
designers to recognize that formulation of rules was in-
sufficient; that root causes of German perfidy must be
discovered and dealt with if reform is to be effected; that
a prescription without proper diagnosis is meaningless
even though written in imposing medical terms.
*In this respect there is a natural affinity between the Japanese and
the Germans. In 1862 an Englishman. H. L. Richardson, who refused
to yield the sidewalk to a Japanese officer, was slain. The English sent
several battleships to Kagoshima and shelled it to smithereens. Europe
was horrified by this retaliatory measure. Even the English nervously
awaited the angry reaction of the Japanese and took special defense
precautions. To their amazement, the Japanese not only offered profuse
apologies and paid indemnity but responded with profoundly respectful
overtures to the English, and for the first time expressed open admira-
tion for them.
To the Japanese, the remorseless avenging of a wrong is the highest
symbol of honor. English retaliation by brutal force was, to the Jap-
anese, an impressive demonstration of high character. Had the English
written polite notes of protest, the Japanese would have had nothing
but contempt for their weakness in not avenging an insult.
In spite of this object lesson in Eastern psychology, England and
the United States continued in later years to mollify Japanese public
opinion bv generous overtures. Guam must not be fortified lest it offend
Japanese sensibilities. Japanese aggressions and horrors in China must
receive only polite slaps on the wrist. In the meantime, steel and iron
and gasoline must be shipped to Japan lest she be irritated by our dis-
approval.
16
The Versailles Treaty permitted the Germans to choose
their own leaders. And fourteen years later they were
heiling Hitler! Granted that distressful circumstances
conditioned them for demagoguery, is it not curious that
they followed, not the appeal of a more secure and pros-
perous life, but rather the promise of world domination?
How recurrent is this theme in German history! Was
Nazism a coincidence or the fulfillment of age-old German
dreams, philosophically and systematically inculcated into
German consciousness for centuries?
The peoples of the world now instinctively sense the
answer. Though they have not traced down in laborious
research the course of German history and its abnormal
mission for conquering the world, their attitude towards
the German people has changed. Common sense, which
is the ordinary man's erudition, informs him that no
people can be innocent who have twice in one generation
burst forth in aggression against all their neighbors, near
and far. How is it that one spot on the surface of the
earth, no larger than Texas, should so persistently explode
and ravage the world?
And what were the toasts, the slogans, the anthems,
the battle cries of this people? "Der Tag" — when Germany
will rule the world. "Deutschland uber Alles". "Tomor-
row we will rule the world." "The destiny of Germany is
to rule the world." Rule the world! Rule the world! No
people who can thrill to such a mission are innocent vic-
tims of wicked leaders.
At the beginning of the second World War, the leaders
of the democracies still spoke with extereme caution about
"the German people." But as German ruthlessness as-
serted itself, important statesmen began to express their
belief in the responsibility of the German people.
17
Not for the purpose of mere indictment, but with the
view of isolating the germ, the better to prescribe the
remedy, let us examine the historical background of Ger-
man chauvinism. Nazism is no new theory born out of the
inequities of the Versailles Treaty, or because of economic
distress. It is an expression of German aspirations voiced
through the centuries.
Caesar and Tacitus Report on Nazism
The Germans in defeat, even in Caesar's day as he re-
ported, had reason to fear the "general hatred of the
Germans" and to resort to the distinction between the
people and their leaders.
Caesar wrote : "Their whole life is composed of hunting
expeditions and military pursuits; from early boyhood
they are zealous for toil and hardship. Those who remain
longest in chastity win greatest praise among their kin-
dred; some think that stature, some that strength and
sinew are fortified thereby. Further they deem it a most
disgraceful thing to have had knowledge of a woman before
the twentieth year."
Psychiatrists will find in this observation fruitful
material for their studies of the root causes of German
sadism and of the inferiority complex which seeks to ex-
press itself through conquest and domination. The well-
known tendencies in Germany towards homosexuality
became public knowledge when Hitler justified his
purge of Roehm and his adherents on the ground that
they had been guilty of practices of degradation which
corrupted the governing circles. Hitler's and Hess' own
"aestheticism," Goering's abnormal practices (as deter-
mined by a Swiss court), and the evil conduct of the
Streichers and other Nazi leaders, fit well into the charac-
teristic pattern of bestiality. The study of psychotic be-
18
havior is still in the exploratory stages, but Caesar's report
on the training begun ages ago by the German people to
deny and invert normal instincts as part of the tribal
custom may be a significant clue to sick German conduct.
Is it possible that German cruelty and blood lust is
traceable to sexual inhibitions? Is there significance in
the pornographic tendencies of the Germans fed by such
official documents as Streicher's Stuermerf These and
similar questions we leave to the reflection of experts in
a domain of medicine still elusive and challenging.
More certain is the conclusion that the Germans made
these sacrifices to gain strength and stature for "military
pursuits."
Caesar, who as a dictator had no high ethical standards,
was reporting rather than moralizing when he continued
with these observations:
"For agriculture they have no zeal, and the greater
part of their food consists of milk, cheese and flesh. No
man has a definite quantity of land or estate of his own;
the magistrates and chiefs every year assign to tribes and
clans that have assembled together as much land and in
such place as seems good to them, and compel the tenants
after a year to pass on elsewhere. They adduce many
reasons for that practice — the fear that they may be
tempted by continuous association to substitute agricul-
ture for their warrior zeal; . . . Their states account it
the highest praise by devastating their borders to have
areas of wilderness as wide as possible around them. They
think it the true sign of valor when the neighbors are
driven to retire from their lands and no man dares to
settle near, and at the same time they believe they will
be safer thereby, having removed all fear of a sudden
inroad. . . . Acts of brigandage committed outside the
borders of each several state involve no disgrace ; in fact,
19
they affirm that such are committed in order to practice
the young men and to diminish sloth. And when any of
the chiefs has said in public assembly that he will be
leader, 'Let those who will follow declare it', then all who
approve the cause and the man rise together to his service
and promise their own assistance, and win the general
praise of the people. Any of them who have not followed,
after promise, are reckoned as deserters and traitors."
Caesar's keen reporting is confirmed by centuries of
experience. We shall see how the Germans' fear of agri-
culture lest it diminish "their warrior zeal" affected their
national development. Of course, the program of "dev-
astating their borders" and committing "acts of brigand-
age" has remained a constant aspiration of the Germans.
Most striking is the selection of a leader, the oath to fol-
low him blindly, and the ritual of obedience. All who dis-
agree are traitors. Is not this self-appointed, self-
annointed leadership and blind fealty a description of
Hitlerism? It is to precisely this tradition in German
history that the Nazi leaders have appealed.
Always in German history the inverted pyramid has
been the governing form. All authority rests on the apex.
In primitive days the leader was the foremost warrior or
huntsman. Often his son or grandson succeeded him.
Later he was designated King or Duke, but at all times the
people swore solemn loyalty and offered sacrifices to him
under their ancient oaks. All independent thought was
surrendered. The leader's word was final, even if it re-
quired treachery and dishonesty. The common denomina-
tor of all leaders was that they were warriors. Political
rule was based upon the ability to wage war. Perhaps it
was not extraordinary in the dark age of Caesar, but its
persistence, unchanged through the many centuries, is a
20
meaningful phenomenon. Five hundred years after the
revolt in Athens, and after social revolution had sent its
civilizing streams through the Mediterranean, the Ger-
mans were still blindly following their leaders.
About a century later, Tacitus, in his famous De
Germania took sight again of German tendencies. Had
they changed? He writes: "Without being armed they
transact nothing, whether of public or private concern-
ment. The Princes fight for victory; for the Prince his
followers fight. Many of the young nobility, when their
own community comes to languish in its vigor by long
peace and inactivity, betake themselves through impatience
to other states which then prove to be in war. In addition
to the fact that this people cannot brook repose, and that by
perilous adventures they more quickly blazon their fame,
they require violence and war to support their huge train
of retainers. They demand and enjoy their war-horses and
victorious javelins dyed in the blood of their enemies. In
the place of pay, they are supplied with a daily table and
repasts; though grossly prepared, yet very profuse. For
maintaining such liberality and munificence, a fund is fur-
nished by continual wars and plunder. Nor can you as
easily persuade them to cultivate the ground, or to await
the return of the seasons and produce of the year, as to
provoke the foe and risk wounds and death; since they
account it stupid and spiritless to acquire by their sweat
what they can gain by their blood."
The cause of such consistent conduct is less significant
than the effect. They still transact nothing without being
armed. They still consider it stupid to acquire by their
sweat what they can gain by their blood. They still seek
wealth from plunder. Arid though the javelin dyed in the
blood of their enemies is outmoded, symbolically they stil]
"demand and enjoy it."
21
The military staffs of the United Nations, astonished
by the daring gambles taken by German generals, may
gain some understanding from Tacitus' humorous observa-
tion : "What is marvellous, playing at dice is one of their
most serious employments ; and even sober, they are game-
sters ; nay, so desperately do they venture upon the chance
of winning or losing, that when their whole substance is
played away, they stake their liberty and their persons
upon one and the last throw."
The. Blitzkrieg, despite its meticulous, detailed plan-
ning, is an all or nothing strategy. Lines of communica-
tion are disregarded for the infiltrating tanks which dash
to the enemy's rear. Either disorganization and terror
result, or the gamble is lost. That is why the word "time-
table" became the key word in Nazi tactics. And that is
why the United Nations recognized the inestimable value
of delay. It not only afforded opportunity for preparation,
but it upset the schedule of winning all in one blow, and
therefore made possible losing all in many blows. Goebbels
unwittingly echoed Tacitus when he said "We will either
conquer the world or if we have to go out, we will slam
the door so hard the universe will collapse." Also, this
gambler's instinct nourishes complete ruthlessness. If the
alternative is nothing, what is to be gained by observing
the rules of international law or the dictates of common
humanity? The desperate gambler who contemplates
suicide as the end of misfortune need not concern himself
with the players' opinion of his honesty or sportsmanship.
How true it is that the Germans staked their "liberty and
their persons upon one and the last throw!" They were
willing to sacrifice their freedom in advance so that they
could win the game of world conquest. Truculently they
strode across Europe, enjoying their temporary triumphs
in the illusion that they were to be the master race for
22
"one thousand years to come." Losing has never deterred
them from playing the hideous game of war. They are
inveterate gamblers.
The Germans crushed Latin civilization at the battle
of Adrianople in 378. Almost sixteen hundred years later
they overran France. History, too, is global, and the
endless treading of man often finds him in the same
spot. Caesar's description of the Gauls (French) after
their defeat by the Germans is a glove-fitting commentary
upon Vichy. He writes: "Now there was a time in the
past when the Gauls were superior in valor to the Ger-
mans and made aggressive war upon them, and because of
the number of their people and the lack of land they sent
colonies across the Rhine. . . . Little by little the Gauls
have grown accustomed to defeat, and after being con-
quered in many battles they do not even compare them-
selves in point of valor with the Germans."
Here is the tragedy of France, from the soft and lux-
urious life before battle to the fawning obeisance after
defeat.
The Teuton invaders made war their occupation.
Wherever they tread, culture withered and died. They
sacked Paris, Arras, Eheims, Amiens, Tours, Bordeaux
and dozens of other cities which have been visited by their
descendant criminals repeatedly in later generations. The
very word "vandalism" was coined to describe German
savagery, and the word "war" stems from the Old High
German "werra" — to embroil, to confuse.
Earlier German Fuehrers
Four centuries after Adrianople, Charlemagne con-
tinued the German tradition.
Other leaders had waged war because "from their youth
up war is their passion." Plunder and the gratification
of conquest were the driving force. But Charlemagne de-
creed an objective. It was not modest. He sought to
conquer the world, a refrain which has since run through
German existence with maddening and devastating per-
sistence. He fought a war every year. His brilliant gifts
were devoted to annihilating his neighbors and robbing
them of their possessions. Germans followed him with
fanatical devotion for the same principles which inspired
them to follow the Kaiser and Hitler in our generation.
In the twelfth century the leader was different but
the program was monotonously the same. Then it was
Frederick Barbarossa who scorned peace. The sole ques-
tion was whether the Italians or Slavs should be sub-
jugated. He chose the Slavs and waged war upon them
with frightful brutality. After victory, he forbade the use
of native Slav languages and passed severe regulations
against the Jews. Hitler canot lay claim to originality.
The consistent antecedents in German history establish
him as merely the latest of a long line of German bar-
barians.
Through the fourteenth century German infamy con-
tinued to assert itself. Froissart, the foremost historian
of his time, writes: "The Germans are covetous people
above all others. They have no pity if they have the upper
hand, and they are hard and cruel with their prisoners."
The doctrine of world conquest began to take on organ-
izational developments. The Hanseatic League organized
Germans in all other countries on the theory that their
loyalty was still due their German leader. The Auslands
Deutsche fifth-column activities of Hitler's regime are
merely an extended copy of an old German device. Once
more we find that the evils of the Nazis are not unique
constructions of a new movement but the persistent repeti-
tion of German behavior for centuries.
24
The temperature readings by historians, no matter of
what century, reveal always the same war fever. More
than four hundred years ago Machiavelli reports : "German
towns are at little or no expense in anything, but in laying
up military stores and making good their fortifications
... on holidays instead of other diversion, the Germans
are taught the use of weapons."
During the Thirty Years War of the seventeenth cen-
tury, the Germans were torn by internal feuds of petty
dynasties and quarreling princes. Their brutality in war
was undiminished. They overran Bohemia and persecuted
the Czech people with a ferocity exceeded only by the Nazi
legions. Thousands of hostages were shot. Torture and
terror walked hand in hand — the ubiquitous companions
of the German program. The sack of Magdeburg con-
stitutes one of the most barbaric and inhuman incidents in
the history of man. Some thirty thousand innocent people
were deliberately butchered. The Germans succeeded in
surpassing this atrocity by more recent efforts in Rotter-
dam and in Poland.
Fuehrers to express German war lust were never lack-
ing: Frederick Wilhelm, the Great Elector, who laid the
foundations of Prussian military despotism; the Soldier
King (father of Frederick the Great) described as one of
the "nastiest bullies who ever lived"; and then the pride
of all Germans, Frederick the Great. He harnessed his
gifts to avowed treachery and unscrupulousness. He once
said : "He is a fool, and that nation is a fool, who, having
the power to strike his enemy unawares, does not strike
and strike his deadliest." Frederick the Great destroyed
whatever freedom existed among his own followers and
moulded Prussia into a military autocracy whose sole aim
was war and conquest. Among his depredations was the
ravaging and partitioning of Poland in concert with an-
other Prussian, Catherine the Great of Russia.
25
Other nations have been guilty of territorial ag-
grandizement. England's imperialism built an empire.
Even the United States has isolated chapters in its history
of attacking the weak to aggrandize its borders. But
brutality and terrorization were not deliberate methods
sadistically enjoyed. Much more important, the processes
of civilization were never rejected as decadent and weak.
Dominion status, self-determination, the recognition of in-
dividual freedoms, took their places on the agenda of poli-
tical evolution. England is still the birthplace of the Magna
Carta. The United States voted freedom for the Filipinos
and gave a unique demonstration of international altruism
at the end of the last war. In these nations minorities'
rights are shielded and intolerance is a mob expression,
not a governmental policy. The Statue of Liberty and not
the "mailed fist" is the symbol which appeals to the masses.
Demagogues, even in times of economic distress, achieve
only limited popularity and sooner or later the healthy
common sense of the people rejects them and they disap-
pear from the public scene. No one would now succeed
politically who offered a program of future wars or who
sought to appeal to the lust for conquest by pointing out
what easy prey undefended South America would be. The
Good Neighbor policy is found to be a vote-catching slogan.
Can anyone, in the light of German history, conceive this
to be similarly true of the German people?
Gangsterism in Intellectual Garb
While state and religion are separated in the democ-
racies, there is a unity of Christian ethics. The virtues of
kindness, honesty, loyalty and peace are universally ac-
cepted. In few countries could militarism be adopted as
a state creed as it was in Germany, without immediately
disastrous consequences to the government. There are in
26
dividual Christian martyrs in Germany, but the people do
not express their revulsion. If the destruction of religion
is essential to the program of world conquest, then even
religion, the profoundest of human emotions, is yielded up
by great masses of Germans as a willing sacrifice. We can
weigh right and wrong only in scales of an accepted stand-
ard. But weights are meaningless where the standards are
reversed and we encounter a double set of morals. In the
Nazi and Fascist world, where lying is a virtue as well as a
practical weapon ; where treachery and treaty-breaking are
admirable devices for national achievement; where im-
morality is required in the interest of building a populous
soldier state; where mercy and kindness are despicable
weaknesses; where science is evil if it searches for truth
and scholarly if it aids the theories of party heads ; where
education is a dangerous development in men who should
blindly obey their rulers in ignorance; where death on the
battlefield is the highest achievement and hope of man ; in
such a world of curved distorted mirrors, what purpose is
there in pointing out a speck of dust which obscures a
clearer view?
The Germans have developed a philosophy which makes
a religion of war and a cult of mass murder. They con-
sider it their mission to subjugate all other peoples to
slavery. They exclude the doctrines of the sacredness of
human life and liberty and substitute for it the ideal
of war. The unique phenomenon of Germanism is that
its conspiracy against world peace is not mere gangster-
ism or nihilism. It is an intellectual movement, if you
please. It is supported by a philosophy carefully devised,
nurtured and inculcated into every citizen. This philosophy
has been developed by some of its most brilliant minds
and appears in the most profoundly written treatises. The
great error which still persists among the democracies
27
is that Nazism is the expression of the dregs of German
life. Unfortunately, this is not true. It is the actual
execution of a program prescribed by German intellec-
tuals. This cannot be denied for it is the confession of
Germans themselves, set forth in the permanence of in-
numerable tracts, books and articles. Every German is
familiar with them and was long before Hitler was born.
There could be, and was, anti-Semitism in other coun-
tries. It was the expression of ignorance and dark
prejudice. The illiterate mujik of Russia was the typical
example. But only in Germany could there be cultural
anti-Semitism. Only in Germany could a great artist
like Wagner immerse his talent in blood lust and supply
an emotional incitation to German mass murder. The
significance lies not in some particular theory, but in the
association of cultural and intellectual thinking in Ger-
many with mob standards. Lynching is thus raised to the
level of national policy. It is then deified as a world
mission and becomes an international program. The
lowest common denominator of mob brutality is elevated
to a national ideal. Gangsterism puts on a uniform and
becomes patriotism. Racism goes to school and becomes
Weltanschauung. Unscrupulousness is clothed with phil-
osophy and becomes destiny. The whole admixture
becomes a cult for war. The end justifies the meanness.
Of course it was incomprehensible to the western world
that such corruption could be the accepted diet of an
apparently intelligent people. That is why the democracies
misconceived the true nature and meaning of Nazism.
They regarded it as a temporary evil, a passing phase in a
people captured by a gangster clique.
One still has a burning recollection of a newsreel scene
showing Chamberlain descending from a plane just re-
turned from Berchtesgarden and triumphantly waving a
rectangular piece of paper upon which was written Hitler's
personal promise to make no further aggressions. The
trusting people strewed flowers in his path and in front
of Daladier, too. But written in Hitler's book and in
dozens of German political works was the express state-
ment that promises may be broken by Germans whenever
it served the national interest. Deceit and treachery are
acknowledged national policies.
Actually, as we shall see, Nazism is but another name
for Pan-Germanism which was projected by the aristo-
cratic Junkers. The philosophy and drive were the same
and received the same fanatical devotion from the German
people. In the Kaiser's day Germany was prosperous.
It was determined to carry out its program of war.
"Germany," said the Kaiser, "like the spirit of Imperial
Rome, must expand and impose itself." In Hitler's day
Germany was poor. The program was the same. Rich
or poor, aristocrat or upstart, intellectual or ignoramus,
these people consider they have a mission of conquest.
Leaders are always available. Those who appeal to this
basest instinct of the German people are instantly assured
the most devoted following. The western world is well
aware of its inability to fathom the psychology of the
Japanese.* But in our very recognition that we do not
understand, there is some protection. The Germans, too,
have an unfathomable national psychology and paganism.
But they deceive us because in all other respects they
are Westerners and because we apply the standards to them
that we adhere to. Thus, we are not even alert to the
danger they represent. Indeed, to this day we are divided
*We have never fully understood their regard for their emperor as
the actual descendant of the Sun God, the ritual of hara-kiri, its com-
mon practice because of loss of face (the chauffeur who drives the
emperor and is delayed by a flat tire commits hara-kiri at the end of
the journey), the lack of regard for life in the East, and all its strange
customs.
29
as to their real intentions. It is difficult to believe thai
wrong is deliberately preached as right; that our virtues
are scorned by them as stupidity and weakness; and that
their vices are brazenly announced as national policy and
part of their divine mission. Yes, theirs is a German
conspiracy against world peace and against every free
man in any country. It is a conspiracy which has never
died with defeat. It is ingrained in the people and sus-
tains them in every dark period until Der Tag. Inter-
vals of enforced peace are but the opportunity to prepare
for a more horrendous attack, so overwhelming and brutal
that finally it will succeed and the world will be ruled
by Germans as masters who have fulfilled their destiny.
Lest this be deemed mere opinion, the most persuasive
evidence to establish the facts is available. It exists in
the writings of Germans who have become the philosoph-
ical heroes of the German people.
Race and Murder Become A Philosophy
Hegel, a follower of the noted German philosopher,
Fichte, was among the first to give German aberration
an intellectual base. He was a dreary teacher at Heidel-
berg, but he achieved national popularity when his book
Philosophy of History propounded the theory that human-
ity had finally come to manhood in the Germanic race.
This Weltanschauung was transmitted to whole genera-
tions of young Germans. The Pan-German League was
formed in 1894 with the specific program of world con-
quest. Its motto was the Great Elector's declaration:
"Remember you are a German!" The inevitable implica-
tion was every German's duty to join in the movement to
enslave the rest of mankind.
Then followed another German professor, Heinrich
von Treitschke, who has since been elevated by Germans
30
as the foremost philosopher of their program. He inter
preted Germanism as anti-Christianity. He brazenly
taught the doctrine of "might makes right." He en-
thralled the German people with his theory of the Ger-
man super-state, which would rule the universe. He
asserted that there were no individual rights and that
every person existed only for the State. Its will was the
only legitimate force and war was the best way in which
to assert it. He denied the sacredness of human life and
declared war was sublime because it ennobled man to "mur-
der without passion."
Treitschke became a popular hero in his day. It is
significant that he also captured the intellectuals. His
teachings were echoed in universities by avid disciples.
Education and culture consisted of such indoctrination.
Hitler, too, received support from German intellectuals,
who wrote volumes confirming the theory of Aryanism
and racial superiority. In weighing the responsibility of
the German people, it is peculiarly condemnatory that not
only their masses but the erudite among them shared the
same dream of world conquest.
Treitschke did not content himself with abstractions.
He gave specifications. "Germany must make it a duty
to employ traitors in the enemy state for its own inter-
ests." He declared that "every good German subject is a
latent, and when opportunity arises, an active, spy." As
for treaties, "they can and must be denounced by Ger-
many whenever the promise they hold becomes unprofit-
able to her." He denied the existence of international law
and order, or the validity of any covenants among nations.
He concluded that other nations constituted "a foreign
world, which cannot be reformed, but can only be over-
thrown."
That this was not irresponsible ranting is established
by the fact that the Pan-German League officially adopted
31
this program. By 1900 the League had fifty foreign asso-
ciations, all committed to the preparation for the eventual
holocaust. Thus there were planted in foreign nations,
organizations which could carry out the sinister designs
of Professor Treitschke which were adopted as State
policy. What was later to become known as the fifth
column was in existence long before the first World War.
The intellectual preparation for German dynamism
gathered momentum. In 1887 Nietzsche in his Geneoloyy
of Morals wrote: "When the instincts of a society ulti-
mately make it give up war and conquest, it is decadent;
it is ripe for democracy and the rule of shop-keepers . . ."
The aggressions of the Germans differ from those of
other peoples not only in their philosophical motivation
but in the artificial creation of a Master Race theory.
Count Arthur de Gobineau was the first modern writer
to propound the supremacy of Aryans. In his books, The
Inequality of Human Races and Moral and Intellectual
Diversity of Races, written in the nineteenth century, he
served to an eager German public pseudo-scientific trash
which they gobbled up. He contended that the strength of
a people depended upon the amount of Aryan blood which
it had preserved. His biology was as atrocious as his his-
tory but Germans disregarded all errors. He accepted
the Biblical divisions of men into three peoples: the sons
of Ham, Shem and Japheth. The first, he contended, was
absorbed by the African Negroes; the second "died out"
through racial intermixtures; while the third developed
into three branches. One branch settled in Persia and
became "Iranian Aryans", the second became the Greeks
and Romans, and the third and noblest of them all became
the "Germanic Aryans". Thus he forgot completely about
the yellow race ! The Aryans' first appearance in history,
wrote de Gobineau, began with the conquest of Babylon
by the Medes. They defeated the Hamites and the Semites,
and demonstrated immediately that the word "Aryan"
meant "honorable" and that an Aryan had superior in-
telligence and strength.
The fatuous notions of de Gobineau would not be
worth mention, were it not for the fact that they form the
basic racial ideology of the Germans, which Hitler simply
lifted and put into his book. He did not even contribute
the refinements of interpretation or development. This,
too, was done by predecessors. Houston Stewart Cham-
berlain, the son-in-law of Richard Wagner, translated
de Gobineau's theorizing into a semi-political program.
In his book, Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, he
reduced the vast complexity of human history to the
equation of race qualities. There were only "Teutonic"
and "anti-Teutonic" peoples. He "proved" that the Ger-
man or "Teuton" was the dominant factor in the growth
of civilization. The physical characteristics of the Teuton
were set forth. He was tall, fair and somewhat "carroty"
(the exact opposite of the leading Nazis who used this
ideology and adopted it as their own).
The Nazis found this racial theory so ingrained in
German consciousness that it made the surest demagogic
appeal. It was constantly exploited for purposes of
rabble-rousing and gave "philosophical justification" to
anti-Semitism. Alfred Rosenberg, "the race expert" of
the Nazi regime, has acknowledged the source of the Nazi
race doctrine. "It has been a truism for a long while,"
he wrote, "that all the Western States and their creative
values have been produced by the Germans. Houston
Stewart Chamberlain was the first one who drew the
necessary conclusions from this fact: 'if German blood
were to disappear from Europe . . . the entire culture
of the West would go with it . . .' Today we are con-
33
scions that we stand before a final decision of terrible
significance. Either we rise to an ennobled achievement
by a revival and purification of the ancient blood, thus
renewing our will to fight, or the very last Germanic West-
ern values of civilization and state discipline will be sub-
merged in the polluted human masses of the cities of the
world . . ."
We have seen the rantings of Treitschke and Nietzsche,
deemed innocuous theorizing by other nations, translated
into the two greatest blood-sheddings in history. The race
theory made its contribution to the mission of world con-
quest. Considered unscientific blabbering by learned men
in other nations, we have seen it applied first internally in
Germany and then by brutal war in an effort to give it
universal reality. The earliest Nazi declaration of racial
policy came in February, 1920, thirteen years before
Hitler's ascension to the Chancellory. The National So-
cialist Party proposed that none but those of German blood
should be citizens of the Nation. All others were to be
"guests" until they emigrated. On April 7, 1933, the Nazi
Reichstag enacted a statute providing that "officials who
are of non-Aryan descent are to be retired." These provi-
sions were, a short time later, made to apply to professions
and universities. In May, 1935, the new Conscription Law
provided that only "Aryans" were to be permitted in active
military service. It was decreed that a non- Aryan is one
who is descended from non-Aryan, particularly Jewish,
parents or grand-parents. It sufficed if one parent or one
grandparent was non-Aryan. The search for Jewish blood
was to be extended back to January 1, 1800, and a "racial
expert" was appointed to delve into the obscure pedigrees
of doubtful "Aryans" and answer all questions of hered-
ity. On September 15, 1935 the Party Congress at Nurem-
berg adopted decrees which limited citizenship to those "of
34
German or cognate blood" and who also conform to the
National Socialistic conception of loyalty to the State.
These decrees have not even the virtue of misguided
sincerity. For while the Germans adopted the racial
theory of de Gobineau and Houston Stewart Chamberlain,
they deliberately ignored certain conclusions of these very
authors which did not suit their sinister plans. Thus, de
Gobineau, while he extolled the superiority of the Aryan,
concluded that, by virtue of contamination with "inferior
races", there no longer was such a thing as a pure Aryan.
He declared pessimistically that the Aryan mission was
therefore at an end and could never be restored. But
Rosenberg, who, we have seen, is a devoted disciple of de
Gobineau, nevertheless writes in his My thus: "Today
there is rising a new belief, the myth of blood; the belief
that through blood the divine being of man is to be de-
fended ; the belief enshrined in the clearest knowledge that
Nordic blood represents the mystery which has overcome
and replaced the old sacraments." And Dr. Wilhelm Kus-
serow, a noted German author, as Vice-President of the
Nordic Faith Movement, prepared the Nordic Confession
of Faith which states: "We believe in the immortality
of Nordic man, in the inheritance of his kind, and in the
everlasting Nordic Soul as power of the divine on earth
and in the universe." Lest this be too abstruse, the explicit
statement is made: "Nordic man has a divine mission on
earth and he will exist as long as the world lasts."
Also de Gobineau paid grudging tribute to the real
achievements of the Jews and even admitted that the Negro
"element" had contributed to the development of the arts.
Though he disliked the Jews, he wrote, "The Jew is no
enemy of Teutonic civilization and culture."
Such is the mental dishonesty of the Nazis that they
suppressed these tenets of their own idolized prophets.
35
Anything that did not aid in moulding a war spirit must
be sidetracked. Nor is this tendency to distort text at-
tributable solely to the ignorant. Once more we find the
intellectual circles, the professors of German universities,
lending themselves to such methods. For example, the
theories of Chamberlain gave rise to a whole series of
interpretative and expanded works by learned men. Yet
they, too, chose to ignore Chamberlain's broad definition
of "Teutons" as including the English, Celts and the
Scandinavians. Indeed, he even considered the French
Teutonic because they were a people of Northern Europe,
and he called the Russians "at least half Teutonic." By
such broad inclusion Chamberlain diluted his own un-
scientific conclusions to meaninglessness. It is significant
that the Nazis' own Nuremberg laws abandoned the word
"Aryan" and substituted for it "German." Also "Jew"
was used instead of non-Aryan. It was provided that a
"Jew" was forbidden to marry a "German." "Jewish"
households were forbidden to hire "German" servant girls.
Chamberlain's thesis included doctrines which would land
him posthaste in a concentration camp if he were alive to
tread the soil whose "race" benefactor he was. For he
contended that the Magna Carta of 1215 was a development
of German ideas. "Whoever," he wrote, "runs counter to
this [liberty of Magna Carta] is a criminal even if he
wear a crown." But de Gobineau and Chamberlain re-
mained the apostles of the German racial theories even in
their frantic efforts to prove that Jesus was not a Jew.
Once more we find that Mein Kampf is no original
work. It reveals itself as a puerile anthology of theories
absorbed and accepted by Germans before Hitler was born.
The race theories in Mein Kampf are mere paraphrases
of de Gobineau and Chamberlain. It states : "Human cul-
ture and civilization on this earth are inseparably bound
36
np with the existence of the Aryan. By his extinction or
decline the dark veils of an uncultured age will descend
once more." Also, "The Aryan Man alone is the founder
of a higher humanity itself and consequently represents
. . . the Prometheus of mankind ... It is the duty of the
national State to see to it that a history of the world is
eventually written in which the question of race occupies
the most prominent position."
The history thus to be written was to conform with
Chamberlain's political thesis, which surprisingly emerged
from an abstract "scientific" work, namely, that it is "the
most sacred duty of the Teutons ... to serve the Teutonic
cause . . . and seek not only to extend our empire farther
and farther over the surface of the globe and over the
power of nature, but above all unconditionally to subject
the inner world to ourselves by mercilessly overthrowing
and excluding those who are alien. ..."
The theme of world conquest and race supremacy runs
through the symphony of German hate and war plotting
as a persistent, repeated motif growing ever louder and
more maddening, until it reaches its furious climax. Then
blood flows all over Europe and other continents. Mil-
lions of German soldiers are once more on the march to
kill, ravage, and commit unmentionable atrocities so that
Deutschland may be tiber alles. The philosophical horns
contributing to the crescendo are many. Moeller Van
der Bruck, in Germany's Third Empire, writes: "We are
not thinking of the Europe of today, which is too con-
temptible to have any value. We are thinking of the
Europe of yesterday and whatever thereof may be sal-
vaged for tomorrow. We are thinking of the Germany
of all time, the Germany of a two-thousand years past,
the Germany of eternal present which dwells in the spirit
but must be secured in reality and can only so be politically
37
secured. The ape and tiger in man are threatening. The
shadow of Africa falls across Europe. It is our task to
be guardians on the threshold of values." And Oswald
Spengler, in Man and Technics, writes that man is a car-
nivorous animal : "That to such beasts as we, eternal peace
would be like intolerable boredom (taedium vitae) of Im-
perial Rome, and that pacifism is a silly dream."
Treitschke explains in Die Politik that since Ger-
many will never be able to understand the world, she
must conquer the world and reform it so that it will be
able to conform to German thought. Muller, Novalis,
Fichte, Johann Josef Gorres, all play the same tune.
The German people avidly listen to this martial music.
It stirs their emotions. They are hypnotized by it«
frenzy and they follow it with brutal boots. The theme
is recurrent through the ages of German development.
They are familiar with it, and the leader of the day is not
the inciting cause of their reactions. It is the tom-tom
which calls them and to which they devote their lives —
finally on the battlefield.
These facts have not been generally accepted in the
past because it appeared incredible that an apparently
civilized people should be in a constant state of agitation
for war.
Charles Francis Adams, the noted American historian,
emerged from the same state of incredulity, a chastened
man. He wrote: "Suspecting in my own case (that I
did not think like a German) I have of late confined my
reading on this topic almost exclusively to German
sources. I have been taking a course on Metzsche and
Treitschke, as also in the German Denkschrift, illumined
by excerpts from the German papers in this country and
the official utterances of Chancellor von Bethmann-
Hollweg. The result has been most disastrous. It has
utterly destroyed my capacity for judicial consideration.
I can only say that if what I find in those sources is a
capacity to think Germanically, I would rather cease
thinking at all. It is the absolute negation of everything
which in the past tended to the elevation of mankind,
and the installation in place thereof, of a system of thor-
ough dishonesty, emphasized by brutal stupidity. There
is a low cunning about it, too, which is to me in the last
degree repulsive."
Paganism Adopts Music
The war lust of the German people is composed not
only of a philosophy for conquest, but of a race theory to
justify it. There is an additional ingredient, one that
applies a mystical religious quality and transforms the
political movement into a fanatical pagan rite. Richard
Wagner did not invent this ingredient. It existed in the
folklore of the German people for many centuries. But
he gave it palatable and popular form in brilliant music
and story. To the rest of the world Wagner's operas were
merely artistic fantasy. To the Germans they were real-
ity, even if only unconscious.
Hitler has acknowledged his indebtedness to Wagner.
In Mein Kampf, he writes: "At the age of twelve I saw
the first opera of my life, Wagner's Lohengrin. I was
captivated at once. My youthful enthusiasm for the
master of Bayreuth knew no bounds. Again and again I
was drawn to his works. . ."
Opera is a popular tradition in Germany, and there is
an opera house in almost every German town. What were
these Germans attracted to? The pure art of Wagner's
genius, or the inspirational metapolitik of his legends?
The Ring is composed of three musical dramas and a
prologue. Wagner labored more than a quarter of a
39
century on this work. It contains all the mystical, pagan
elements of German antiquity which have been eagerly
accepted by the German people as the destiny they must
fulfill. Wotan is the typical Fuehrer. As the chief of
ancient Germanic gods, he makes his own law and is all
powerful. He strives constantly to increase his power.
Wotan deliberately disregards his pacts. He is depicted
as breaking his treaty with the giants, Fasolt and Fafner.
He depends on his cunning Chancellor, Loki, to relieve
him of his difficulties. Goebbels may well imagine him-
self the Loki to Hitler's Wotan. When Wotan must have
money, he obtains it by force. He captures the ruler of the
Mebelings and squeezes money from him as ransom. The
Jews have been cast in this role by the Nazis.
When Wotan must recapture the gold ring of all power,
he calls upon the most perfect of all heroes, his own grand-
son, Siegfried. Siegfried kills the dragon, but is later
killed by Hagen, a lust child, after which comes the twi-
light of the gods. Wagner conceived Siegfried as a grand-
son of a god, even though he was a man. German tendency
to interchange gods and men is a basic characteristic.
Kauschning reports Hitler saying to him : "Man has to be
passed and surpassed. Nietzsche did, it is true, realize
something of this, in his way. He went so far as to
recognize the superman as a new biological variety. But
he was not too sure of it. Man is becoming God — that is
the simple fact. Man is God in the making." Spoken by
someone with ethical concepts, this might be deemed a
noble symbolism. Spoken by a German with a "mission",
it has all of the ominous mysticism which drives this
people to kill. Words take on significance from their ut-
terers. Your dearest friend or a notorious gangster may
insist that "you take a ride." A pleasant trip or im-
minent death lurks behind the words. Psychologically,
40
the indiscriminate association by the Germans of them-
selves with gods is the creation of cult above law and
decency. By creating another plane of power, they shed
the last vestiges of conscience and civilization which
might restrain them. Shielded by the darkness of mystic-
ism they plunder and kill with fewer inhibitions. And
their claim to race superiority affords them the pretense
that they are benefiting rather than destroying civilization.
Another Wagnerian concept is the stab in the back,
which finally defeats the Hero. Germany, according to
this symbol, can never be conquered on the battlefield.
But some explanation for its repeated defeats must be
offered, and Wagner has constructed a classic one. Why,
she is stabbed in the back! Of course by ever present
Hagens, who are usually designated as Jews — the lust-
child symbol being intended to designate impurity of
blood. Not only Hitler, but the generals and the masses
of German people insist that they won the first World
War on the battlefields, only to be "stabbed in the back"
at home. German acceptance of this alibi reconciled for
them their belief in the superiority of the German race
with the humiliating defeat they had nevertheless sus-
tained. These are no mere psychological reflections. They
are the stuff of which a third and fourth World War will
be made by the Germans, if we do not really understand
them and this time take adequate preventive steps.
Wagner's romanticism has been swallowed in whole
draughts by the German people. Hitler, who despised the
common people but was sensitive to their susceptibilities,
included Wagnerism in his patched-up program. He plagi-
arized from Wagner the "heil" of the salute, the National
Socialist battle slogan, "German Awake!" and called the
western line of forts, the Siegfried Line. In Mein Kampf,
he writes about the Nazi party that "out of its flames was
41
bound to come the sword which was to regain the freedom
of the German Siegfried."
German war lust is thus based not only on the spurious
profundity of war philosophy, and racial superiority, but
upon the revival of pagan epics. What was at first a
base combative instinct flourished through philosophical,
scientific and then mystical stages into a full flowered re-
ligious-political program of world conquest. Nietzsche
wrote the new German Biblical creed : "Ye have heard how
in old times it was said, Blessed are the meek, for they
shall inherit the earth, but I say unto you, Blessed are
the valiant, for they shall make the earth their throne.
And ye have heard man say, Blessed are the poor in spirit ;
but I say unto you, Blessed are the great in soul and the
free in spirit, for they shall enter into Valhalla. And ye
have heard men say, Blessed are the peacemakers; but I
say unto you, Blessed are the warmakers, for they shall be
called, if not the children of Jahva, the children of Odin,
who is greater than Jahva. "
A German Nostradamus Speaks
One of their own truly wise men, Heinrich Heine, saw
the storm approaching. Since he preceded Wanner, his
analysis of the "philosophy of nature" which Wagner
epitomized, is truly remarkable. His predictions of the
coming wars to be waged by a mad German people are
prophetic. We may well consider him the Nostradamus
of the nineteenth century. Indeed, he is not half as mysti-
cal and obscure as Nostradamus. Listen to him. In 1834,
in his History and Philosophy in Germany, Heine wrote:
"The philosopher of nature will be terrible because he will
appear in alliance with the primitive powers of nature,
able to evoke the demonaic energies of old German Pan-
theism— doing which there will awake in him that battle-
42
madness which we find among the ancient Teutonic races
who fought neither to kill nor conquer, but for the very
love of fighting itself. It is the fairest merit of Christian-
ity that it somewhat mitigated that brutal German gan-
dium certaminis or joy of battle, but it could not destroy
it, and should that subduing talisman, the Cross, break,
then will come crashing and roaring forth the wild mad-
ness of the old champions, the insane berserker rage, of
which Northern poets say and sing. That talisman is
brittle, and the day will come when it will pitifully break.
The old stone gods will rise from long forgotten ruin, and
rub the dust of a thousand years from their eyes, and
Thor, leaping to life with his giant hammer, will smash
the Gothic cathedrals I"
This is an accurate prediction of an anti-Christian
movement to be launched by the Germans in preparation
for the return of German paganism. Only by subduing
Christianity could the Germans launch their campaign of
complete paganism. Their attacks upon the Jews served a
quadruple purpose. They provided a characteristically
brutal outlet for the race theory; they afforded a Hagen
against whom revenge could be taken for an imagined stab
in the back ; they gave an opportunity for plunder and rob-
bery, which was later to be extended to whole nations ; but
most important, they were an attack on orthodox religion.
In this instance the Nazis shrewdly picked the most vulner-
able sector, for they counted on Christians to be dulled by
their own prejudices into not recognizing that this was the
beginning of an offensive against them. The sameness of
German tactics whether in the military, political or
psychological domains, should make them transparently
clear. Yet such was our intellectual astigmatism that
we failed to observe the obvious. Germany's religious
attacks could well be described in its military terms. First
43
came the Schwerpunkt, the opening thrust, against the
Jews. Then through the opening wedge, new offensives
were launched, the Aufrollen of military strategy against
Catholics and Protestants. Or it might be described as the
simple political strategem of conquering one by one. To
achieve this result, it was necessary to prevent unity of
resistance among the religions to be attacked. A typical
illustration of such religious fifth columning was the plan
of Hasse and Schoenerer (of the Pan-German League) to
ripen Austria for German conquest as early as 1898 by
breaking the Austrian-Catholic bond. The strategy was
typically circuitous. First a frightful anti-Semitic cam-
paign was organized, headed by some renegade "Catho-
lics". Then Schoenerer and Hasse suddenly turned these
hatreds against the Catholics themselves. Pseudo-
evangelical German clergymen were imported from Ger-
many, who railed against Catholics under the slogan of a
"free from Rome" movement and "No Popery".
The Nazi campaign against the Jews similarly revealed
itself finally as an attack against all Christianity. The
identity of Judeo-Christian ethics was fully exploited. Of
course there is such an identity, as there is indeed among
all religions. Having been conditioned to identify Judaism
with corruption, the Germans found the proof that
Christianity is of Jewish origin, conclusive proof of the
corruption of Christianity. Nazi girls have added an un-
seemly vulgarity to the program. The League of German
Maidens has adopted the song:
"We've given up the Christian line,
For Christ was just a Jewish swine.
As for his mother — what a shame
Cohn was the lady's real name."
Despite the ineradicable impress of religious convictions,
the Nazis succeeded in tearing away Catholic children
44
from their religions schools and subjecting them to the
infection of Nazism. They succeeded in damming the
Protestant protest and conforming the masses of Ger-
mans to the creeds of German antiquity. Bishops issued
brave pronunciamentos. Pastors of all religions martyred
themselves, but the religious revolt which would have
flared to uncontrollable flames in almost any other coun-
try, machine guns or no, was lacking. The profoundest of
all human feelings has in the past ofttimes stirred revolt,
occasionally in the very armies intended to suppress it.
But in Germany anti-Christianity has been one of the
least troublesome of the governmental planks. The talis-
man, predicted Heine, would be brittle and the old stone
gods of war would rise. So they did. Our modern Nostra-
damus, with unfailing accuracy, foresaw the consequences.
"And laugh not", he wrote, "at my advice. The advice
of a dreamer who warns you against the Kanteans, Fich-
teans and the philosophers of Nature, nor at the fantast
who awaits in the world of things to be seen that which
has been before in the world of shadows. Thought goes
before the deed as lightning before the thunder. German
thunder is indeed German, and not in a hurry, and it comes
rolling slowly onward ; but come it will, and when ye hear
the crash as naught ever crashed before in the whole history
of the world, then know that der Deutsche Donner, our
German Thunder, has at last hit the mark. At that sound
the eagles will fall dead from on high, the lions in remotest
deserts in Africa will draw in their tails and creep into
their royal caves. There will be played in Germany a
drama compared to which the French Revolution will be
only an innocent child . . ."
When Heine wrote these words, Germany was still
divided. She was politically powerless. A handful of
university professors was teaching small groups the
philosophy of conquest and racism. Yet with a sure in-
45
sight into the tendencies of the German masses, he knew
that this was preparation for the slow but terrible German
thunders. Other peoples then, and later, minimized the
danger. The French were not concerned with a Germany
split by internal feudal conflicts. Heine warned them:
"You have more to fear from Germany set free than from
all the Holy Alliance with all the Croats and Cossacks . . .
We do not hate one another for external trifles, like you,
as, for instance, ruffled vanity, or an epigram, or a visiting
card not returned. No, we hate in our enemies the deepest,
the most essential part in them — that is, thought itself."
Those who are apt in the interpretation of prophecies
might see in the clause "eagles will fall dead from on high"
reference to the awesome aerial conflict one hundred and
six years later, and in the phrase "lions in the remotest
deserts of Africa will draw in their tails" a prediction of
the Libyan campaigns. But more important is Heine's
recognition that Germans hated thought itself and would
some day attempt to demonstrate the power of sheer bar-
barism over intellectualism. His statement that German
thunder will make the French Revolution appear like "an
innocent child" is filled with significance. The French
Revolution like the Nazi Revolution was prepared by
philosophers, but Voltaire, Rousseau and Diderot were
humanitarians, and their philosophy sought to liberate
the masses. The same aspirations for liberty, equality and
fraternity were voiced by Locke, Heine and many others.
German philosophers, however, sought to enslave the
people. German philosophy is sui generis. It is derived
from barbarism, polished and made more dangerous by
Kultur. It remains, however, the tooth-and-claw phil-
osophy, modernized with airplane teeth and tank claws.
The centuries have not altered it. The evolution of man,
which developed his spiritual qualities, has been resisted
by the Germans.
46
Hitler's Inheritance
Hitler did not create a new movement. He inherited
an old one — as old as the German people. He did not write
a new program. He collated the planks of Pan-Germanism,
which anteceded him by many generations. He did not
evolve a military plan. He followed the Prussian text for
conquest, revised technically by the lessons the military
caste had received in each succeeding war. He did not
devise a time table or a method. They were publicly
printed by other Germans decades ago. So devoted were
the German people to the ideal of world conquest that
books flourished which prophesied the manner in which
this national obsession was to be fulfilled. Many predic-
tions were written in the present tense to thrill the reader
with a sense of reality. For example, in 1900, the book
Grossdeutschland und Mitteleuropa um das Jahr 1950
foresaw the triumphant day as falling in 1950 : "All Ger-
mans have been united, Holland enters the German union ;
in Belgium, the Flemings grow in power and because the
French element causes increasing trouble, Germany is
obliged to intervene. . . . Maybe the French will fight,
in which case all Belgium will be annexed and incor-
porated in the German World Empire ... in the year
1950 Great World Germany will possess a population of
two hundred millions. Everybody is happy because all the
Germans are now united and are ruling the world !"
Another author foresaw a much earlier triumph. In
Germania Triumphans he writes: "Around about 1915
the whole world starts trembling. Two great states take
action in self-defense, America and Russia. America pro-
claims aloud the doctrine of Pan-America. Russia con-
cludes customs treaties with Turkey, Persia and China".
The war is described, including the prediction that "the
United States, declining to give way, the German,
47
Italian, and French navies mobilize and set sail for
America. The American navy is destroyed. On land, the
German armies made short work of the American mer-
cenaries. Under the brilliant leadership of the German
Leader, the Germans were everywhere victorious. On sea
the German ships, guns and men showed their superiority
over the English, who were regularly defeated. German
discipline, courage and skill made the German navy in-
vincible. The British navy was destroyed. Invaded, the
English offered but a half-hearted resistance. The German
and Italian soldiers seized London. England and America
were defeated. Peace was concluded." Even the details of
the peace terms were not omitted. They include, among
many other provisions, Germany's acquisition of Mexico,
and of almost all South America, with a few morsels for
Italy.
This day-dreaming literature abounded in Germany at
all times and was accepted by the German people with a
mixture of enthusiasm and matter-of-factness. Maps were
not limited in Germany to their customary purposes. They
were geographical predictions of how the world would
look when the glorious day of German world domination
arrived. Just as authors vied with each other to predict
the precise nature of the "German thunder," when finally
it would be heard, so map makers competed to give visual
demonstrations of Der Tag. In this profuse literature
will be found substantially all the strategy, tactics and
even the sequence later adopted by the Nazis; detailed
descriptions of how Norway would be conquered by sur-
prise— German soldiers hiding in freighters which moved
innocently into the ports; how Denmark and Holland
would be pounced upon to protect the right flank, before
armies moved into Belgium and France ; how a non-aggres-
sion pact would be made with Russia to immobolize her
48
until France had been destroyed, and then how Kussia
would be attacked without warning — this and much more,
even to the details of so-called timing, was written before
Hitler was born.
One of the excerpts quoted was written in 1895. Yet the
author speaks of "the brilliant leadership of the German
Leader." The fuehrership principle was always accepted
in Germany. There is an anxiety to be blindly obedient
which amazes other people. The German is ready to sub-
jugate himself to achieve his mission. A people which
despises the liberty of others learns to consider liberty a
vice for itself.
So Hitler even inherited a worshipful, unquestioning
acquiescence. In this instance the tradition of fealty re-
ceived more than the usual test. He was not a domineer-
ing Prussian, whose curved, defiant mustache bespoke
power through ruthlessness. That would have appealed to
the people. He was not a trained military scientist, whose
education fitted him for the task of conquest. That would
have inspired respect and admiration. He was not an
imposing figure, fitting the Wagnerian symbol of Her-
culean Aryanism. That would have stirred pride in the
German heart. No, he was an hysterical, ignorant, funny-
looking little man, who spoke bad German and was laughed
at and scorned when he ranted ineffectually in Munich
beer halls. Genius has since been attributed to him be-
cause of the successful conquests by the Germany army.
But these evil achievements were due to an efficient Gen-
eral Staff, which never ceased to exist even after the first
World War.
Hitler inherited that General Staff and also an efficient
army secretly trained in "Sport Clubs" and "Athletic
Organizations." Above all, let credit be given where
it is due — the German military successes were achieved
49
by the perfect soldiery of millions of eager Germans ful-
filling their world mission. Since total war requires that
the entire civilian population serve on the home front,
credit should likewise be given to the millions of Ger-
man men and women and children who fanatically con-
sidered it a privilege to contribute to Der Tag. One of
the reasons for German military success is that warfare
has developed so that not only armies, but populations
down to boys and girls in their teens play an important
role in the horrible game. Automatically this has been
a great advantage to the Germans. For while other popu-
lations have responded only when brutally attacked, the
German people needed no other incentive than the oppor-
tunity to conquer.
Though the German people would probably consider
their soldierly qualities a great compliment, we can weigh
them soberly in the scales of responsibility. These are
the attributes of German aggression: eagerness for war,
valor and blind obedience, and long-planned military effi-
ciency. They are often mistaken for the genius of Hitler.
Germans would have achieved the same, or possibly better,
military results under another leader. They almost suc-
ceeded for the Kaiser, who has not been considered a
genius, and they succeeded for Bismarck. Hitler contrib-
uted very little to the German Drang.
When the substantial forces which preached isolation-
ism in the United States are estimated in the light of
Hitler's arrogance, one shudders to think what might
have happened if the German Fuehrer had spoken with
diplomatic correctness, disguising his brutality with Mach-
iavellian explanations, and lulling our senses with compli-
ments and assurances.
Suppose he had cleverly respected the Christian Church
and given lip service to its ideals? Suppose he had elim-
50
inated or at least delayed the pogroms? Suppose he had
concocted incidents with the nations he attacked (as the
Marco Polo bridge incident was created ) ? Might we not
have been so deceived and divided that the Lease-Lend Act
which saved England would not have been possible? Might
we not have failed to enact military conscription before
we were attacked? Might we not have refused to become
the arsenal of democracy? Suppose Hitler had possessed
an infinitesimal part of Napoleon's, or even Frederick the
Great's, administrative capacity, he might have created a
"new order" in the conquered territories, which might
have given the semblance of security, peace, and a little
justice. Then millions of exhausted, disillusioned people
might have accepted their conqueror and eased his prob-
lems. Instead, his one-track mind, devoted to butchery
and terrorism, fanned the dying embers of resistance, so
that constant revolution and anarchy burned the heels of
the oppressor.
Hitler's interference with the General Staff has re-
sulted in military disasters. Notable instances were his
insistence on attacking Moscow late in 1941, when his mili-
tary advisers warned that a winter line should be stabil-
ized, and his decision to attack Stalingrad in 1942, against
his generals' advice that this would be too costly and that,
instead, a continued attack in the Caucasus was indicated
by military science. Originally Hitler was somewhat
deferential towards the trained General Staff. But as
victories were turned into hysterical propaganda for his
genius, he yielded to self-deception and actually made
the ludicrous announcement, in removing General von
Brauchitsch, that henceforth his intuition would direct the
Russian campaign.
Some day, from the vantage point of historical per-
spective, we may find that the German plot against the
51
world failed by only a fraction, and that the egomaniacal
stupidity of Hitler defeated a movement so thoroughly
prepared and devotedly executed by the German people
that intelligent leadership might have crowned it with
success.
Lightning Struck Twice
Never again must we be deluded into misplacing re-
sponsibility for German aggression. It is not the leader
of the day, whether he be Charlemagne, Barbarossa, Fred-
erick Wilhelm, the Great Elector, Frederick the Great,
Bismarck, the Kaiser or Hitler, who wages war against
mankind. It is the German people. Conditioned by cen-
turies of false indoctrination — of a mad philosophy, of an
absurd "soil-blood" racial theory, of a mystical paganism,
the German people have ever been arch-conspirators
against civilization. They have deliberately plotted to
destroy it and subdue all mankind to serfdom. They have
given their brains, their energies and their very lives
through the centuries in fanatical devotion to this task.
They have used inhuman and sadistic methods to achieve
their psychotic national desires. They have ignored all
civilized standards and restraints, and have made barbar-
ism an ideal. They have distorted nationalism into a
ritual of international murder.
This is the greatest indictment of a people in all his-
tory. But it is the truth. Unless we recognize it as such,
we will be unable to cope with the German problem — and
that problem has been, and will continue to be, the greatest
threat to future peace. For defeat will not deter the Ger-
mans from their determined criminality. They will force
war upon the world again and again. Each succeeding
effort comes frighteningly closer to success. The next
slaughter, inflicted by rabid, wild-eyed Nazi youths grown
62
to manhood, may actually blow out the light of civiliza-
tion forever. We dare not fail the peace this time, and
the first step in our precautions must be a clear, unflinch-
ing realization that the problem is the German people, and
that they include, and are not to be separated from, their
leaders and their military caste.
Once this bitter fact is recognized, we can give proper
values to the exceptions. The most generous view is that
the individual German is quite normal in his ethical out-
look, but that en masse he is welded into an evil machine.
Goethe said : "I have often felt a bitter pang at the thought
of the German people so estimable as individuals and so
wretched in the whole." This schizophrenic national trait
makes the German think that Germany is all, and every
individual, nothing.
Another explanation for the phenomenon of national
bestiality in a people which has produced Lessing, Schil-
ler, Kant, Beethoven, Holderlin and Goethe, is that the
great spirits among them have never influenced the gov-
ernment or the masses. Certainly they were not national-
ists. Klaus Mann has written that they were great
Europeans who considered it beneath their dignity to be
concerned with social problems and necessities. Emil Lud-
wig, while conceding that the intellectual leaders ap-
plauded the conquests of the Kaiser and provided him with
a philosophy to support his invasion, blames it all on the
German admiration for violence and respect for uniforms.
But he, too, contends for the noble exception and illustrates
it by a two-tier bus, the upper passengers having a broad
view but having no control of the direction below.
Whether the intellectual in Germany has merely forfeited
his rights, or whether he, too, finds the wine of national
conquest too heady, does not alter the conclusion.
53
We shall not consider every German a vicious repre-
sentative of his nation's corruptness. Indeed, we shall
call upon the decent elements of that people to aid in a
just reconstruction. We shall see that they have much to
contribute. We shall neither persecute the innocent indi-
vidual, nor absolve the German masses because of the
exceptions. We will not gamble upon their reformation,
nor make that reformation impossible by reciprocal brutal-
ity. Since we do not share their racial theory, we will
not turn it against them, and conclude that they are a
corrupt people in their very blood and beyond the possibil-
ity of redemption.
What, then, shall we do with the German people? The
answer requires consideration of four problems. First,
punishment of the violators of International Law and the
dictates of humanity. Second, the prophylactic precau-
tions against the recurrence of German militarism. Third,
an economic and financial policy of reconstruction. Fourth,
eradication (by education) of the poisonous doctrines of
Pan-Germanism, so that Germany may safely join the
community of civilized nations.
These will be considered in turn.
54
CHAPTER III
PUNISHMENT
A civil wrong merely disturbs an individual. A crime
is of concern to all citizens and endangers their safety —
no matter how vicariously. The assaulter is a threat to all
citizens, not to the particular victim alone. That is why
the community prosecutes.
This principle is magnified by international relations.
Elihu Root pointed out that breaches of International
Law were erroneously treated as if they concerned only
the particular nation upon which the injury was inflicted
and the nation inflicting it. He proposed that each
nation should have the right to protest against violations
of the laws of war, even though the lives and property of
its own nationals had not been directly affected. In no
other manner could there be developed "a real public
opinion of the world responding to the duty of preserving
the law inviolate."
A violation of International Law is a crime against
all the peoples of the world. The immediate victims are
not the only peoples who have a right to demand justice.
In the realm of international relations we must have
the strength to decree just punishment to the unjust, par-
ticularly when their wickedness has exceeded all concepts
of horrifying brutality of which the mind is capable. Let
no voice, confused by good intentions, be heeded which ad-
vises us to cast down the sword of justice after we have
been mutilated by the sword of conquest. The whole world
55
demands punishment, legally administered, and commen-
surate with the crime of each individual.
No finely spun arguments about the endlessness of hate
must deter us from our duty. Justice requires punish-
ment. "It is as expedient," said Plato, "that a wicked
man be punished as that a sick man be cured by a physi-
cian; for all chastisement is a kind of medicine." If the
criminal hates his sentence, let him remember that at
least it was legally imposed on proper proof of guilt. His
victims were innocently butchered. Yes, often for no
other reason than that they were fine men of intellectual
capacity or of courageous revulsion to barbarity.
We recognize the necessity of feudlessness in society.
We shall deal with the constructive plans for develop-
ing international relationships freed from the hunger
of lingering revenge. But no hopes for a brotherly society
can be realized by ignoring hideous crimes in the hope of
appealing to the criminal's good will. Such a program
would be an unforgettable injustice to the survivors of
the German terror. They can hate, too, and they would
hate with all the bitterness of disillusionment as well as
betrayal, if penalties were not imposed on the wrong-
doers.
If penalties are to be meted out to the guilty, they
must be in accordance with law. Otherwise they become
mere retaliation and lose their full moral impress.
This instantly brings us to the realm of International
Law, a subject of such mysterious and intangible propor-
tions to the lawyer as well as to the common man that it
is shrouded in pedantic obscurantism.
The Common Sense of International Law
Domestic law, as distinguished from International
Law, is the crystallization of common sense filtered and
56
purified by centuries of experience. It aids us in main-
taining order with justice, in a complex society. Each na-
tion enacts statutes expressing its laws and endeavoring
thereby to give fair notice to its citizens of what they may
or may not do.
Laws grow in number as the wisdom of the times
determines what is just and unjust in a developing society.
Since infinite varieties of situations arise, which statutes
cannot foresee or provide for, courts endeavor by rea-
sonable interpretation to apply the laws to each variation.
Thus there grows up a body of common law. In sovereign
states, statutes and interpretive or judge-made laws con-
stantly develop. The law is therefore not a static thing
but a dynamic growth adjusting itself to the necessities
of society. It expresses the rules under which that society
lives.
International Law has no different objective. But
there is no international society of nations, and no inter-
national sovereign state. Consequently, there are no
statutes enacted by an international legislature. More
important, there are no international courts which consti-
tute a compulsory forum for disputes. Finally, there is
no international enforcement agency to give practical
meaning to international rights and duties.
Yet International Law has existed for centuries. What
then is it? It is the customs and usages which have grown
up among nations in their dealings with one another.
It is often expressed in treaties, which are international
contracts setting forth the intentions of sovereign states
rather than mere private parties. Sometimes it is expressed
in international conventions assembled for the very pur-
pose of codifying the rules of international intercourse.
Sometimes it is found in recognized treatises. Whatever
its source, it derives from the need for definite rules of
57
conduct to guide international as well as domestic rela-
tions.
The most important founts of International Law are
those pacts among nations which sought to outlaw war
as a means of determining disputes. Notable amongst these
was the Pact of Paris, more commonly known as the
Briand-Kellogg Pact of 1928. Fifteen nations, including
Germany, Japan and Italy, signed the Pact at its incep-
tion, and by January 1929, twenty-one nations had ratified
the agreement, solemnly declaring "that they condemn re-
course to war for the solution of international contro-
versies, and renounce it as an instrument of national policy
in their relations with one another."
Of course, the Covenant of the League of Nations,
signed by fifty-seven nations, again including Germany,
had made similar resolve. Also, the Statute of the Per-
manent Court of International Justice and the Protocol
ratified by forty-nine nations was in aid of this policy
of peaceful determination of disputes.
These various agreements automatically became bind-
ing tenets of International Law. As Dr. Baye, a delegate
said, "The state which in contravention of the Pact of
Paris begins a war must be branded as an offender against
the Law of Nations, as a criminal against humanity."
Hitler, after his rise to power, ratified these commit-
ments of Germany. The Four Power Pact, otherwise
called the Pact of Eome entered into on July 7, 1933
by Hitler's Germany, Great Britain, France and Italy
recites in its preamble :
"Faithful to the obligations which they have assumed
by virtue of the Covenant of the League of Nations, the
Locarno Treaties and the Briand-Kellogg Pact, and taking
into account that declaration of the renunciation of force,
the principle of which was proclaimed in the declaration
58
signed at Geneva on December 11, 1932, by their delegates
at the Disarmament Conference and adopted on March 2,
1933, by the Political Commission of that conference. . . ."
Furthermore the German-Polish Pact of Non-Aggres-
sion was entered into on January 26, 1934. In this the
Briand-Kellogg Pact was set forth at length. Hitler ex-
pressly referred to the Pact which had become the most
important post-war provision of International Law. He
specifically incorporated this treaty and its terms in his
pact with Poland.
By subsequent ratification these resolutions became
more deeply imbedded in International Law. In Septem-
ber, 1934, the International Law Association, meeting in
Budapest, adopted Articles of Interpretation of the
Briand-Kellogg Pact. It declared that a nation which vio-
lated the provision outlawing war would be "an offender
against the Law of Nations."
Thus we are not dealing with some prior concept of
International Law which the Nazis might reject because
it antedated them. There is no room for contention as to
the binding nature of international agreements which have
been formally and voluntarily accepted. The Budapest
Articles of Interpretation of 1934 declared that "A signa-
tory state cannot by denunciation or non-observance of
the Pact release itself from its obligations thereunder" and
further "that a signatory state which threatens resort to
armed force for the solution of an international dispute
or conflict is guilty of a violation of the Pact." Such an in-
terpretation merely codified common sense. If a party to
a contract could cancel it by breach, then contracts would
be valueless. They would cease to be binding whenever it
no longer suited one of the parties to comply. The whole
purpose of agreement would be destroyed. It would no
longer be dishonorable to break one's word, for the very
59
act of bad faith would be declared to be the annulment of
the agreement.
We conclude, then, that Germany, was bound by In-
ternational Law not to make war. But in addition, as
we shall see, it was also bound to comply with certain
rules if it did, illegally, declare war.
Unfortunately, the relationships between nations are
not always peaceful, and war affects neutrals as well as
belligerents. Thus there was need for some codification of
the rules which should apply between belligerents, and
between belligerents and neutral nations. This has become
one of the chief functions of International Law: the de-
termination of the rules of war.
At first blush, it would appear to be mere scholasticism
to make rules as to how men may or may not kill each
other. But such laws have a function as a restraint upon
barbarism, even if they appear to sanction killing when
done in accordance with rules.
One may be opposed to the brutality of prize fights and
yet recognize the value of the Queensbury rules. Inter-
national Law, as it applies to war, is the aspiration of
mankind that even in battle not all concepts of mercy
and gallantry will be abandoned. It ultilizes the con-
science of mankind as a restraint upon animalism. It
seeks to canalize world opinion so that it may exert
pressure upon the warrior to limit his depredations and
to respect even in warfare some of the religious and moral
precepts to which civilization clings.
Exact statements of these Rules of War are to be
found in the Geneva Conventions of 1864, 1906 and 1929,
the International Convention relative to the Treatment of
Prisoners of War in 1929, and the Hague Conventions of
1899 and 1907. The Hague Convention of 1907 imposed
numerous restrictions upon invading or occupying forces.
They must respect the laws in force in the country (Article
60
43), the religious convictions, family honor and lives and
private property of its inhabitants (Article 46). Pillage
is forbidden (Article 47). No general penalty, pecuniary
or otherwise, may be inflicted upon the population for the
acts of individuals (Article 50). The property of religi-
ous, charitable and educational institutions and objects
of art and science must be treated as private property
and may not be molested (Article 56).
The methods of combat are also restricted in the in-
terest of humanity. The Convention forbids a belligerent :
to employ poison or poisoned arms, to kill or wound by
treachery, to employ arms, projectiles and substances which
are calculated to cause unnecessary pain (Article 23).
Bombardment by naval forces of undefended towns is for-
bidden (Articles 1-6). The use of automatic submarine
contact mines is condemned because of their danger to in-
nocent vessels (Article 20). Discharging explosives "from
balloons" is similarly outlawed.
The provision forbidding forced labor by the civil
population in occupied districts dates back to the Brussels
Conference of 1874 and is now an accepted doctrine of In-
ternational Law. Another provision, firmly imbedded in
International Law, is that merchantmen may not be sunk
without previous visit and search and without placing the
passengers and crew of the vessel in safety. German
submarine warfare is brazen piratical practice, not an act
of war.
Thus we conclude that Germany was bound to obey
the Rules of War, a duty which fell upon every soldier,
officer and civilian of the Reich. What does this duty en-
tail? To what extent do the rules of International Law
condemn the individual German for his acts, once war has
been declared? He is immune only if he acts within the
rules prescribed for warfare. If he commits an act in vio-
lation of the laws of war, he is liable to trial and punish-
61
ment by the courts of the injured adversary. In 1880
the Institute of International Law expressly affirmed this
doctrine. Article 84 of its Manual of the Laws of War on
Land, adopted at Oxford that year, declared that "The
offending parties should be punished, after judicial hear-
ing, by the belligerent in whose hands they are." It was
further added that "offenders against the laws of war are
liable to the punishment specified in the penal or criminal
law."
Acts of pillage, incendiarism, rape, assassination, mal-
treatment of prisoners and similar violations of the rules
of Avar are crimes. The soldiers who commit them are not
immune because they were committed in the course of war.
Acts of war, ordinarily crimes, are "legal" only if they
are committed in conformity to the rules of International
Law.
In the United States, the Supreme Court has held that
soldiers are not liable for acts done by them in accordance
with the usage of civilized warfare and by military au-
thority. (Dow v. Johnson, 100 U. S. 158; Freedland V.
Williams, 131 U. S. 405.) The negative proposition is
also true, that if soldiers have committed acts in violation
of these rules they are personally responsible.
The French Code of Military Justice provided that
"every individual who, in the zone of operations, despoils
a wounded, sick or dead soldier shall be punished by impris-
onment and every individual who commits violence on such
a soldier shall be put to death" (Article 249). Obviously
this referred not only to the French soldier but to any
enemy soldier who committed such a crime.
The American Basic Field Manual "Rules of Land
Warfare" (1914) provide punishment for acts of pillage
and maltreatment of wounded (Article 112), for inten-
tionally injuring or killing an enemy already disabled,
etc. These rules apply equally to soldiers of the Army of
62
the United States and to an enemy captured after having
committed the misdeed.
The British Manual of Military Law has similar pro-
visions.
Germany fully recognized the validity of these stand-
ards, and she may not now contend that they are not bind-
ing on her. The German Kriegsbrauch im Landkriege
declares that the inhabitants of occupied territory must
not be injured in life, limb, honor or freedom; that every
unlawful killing, every bodily injury due to fraud or negli-
gence, every insult, every disturbance of domestic peace,
every attack on family, honor or morality, and generally,
every unlawful act of violence is punishable as though it
had been committed against the inhabitants of Germany.
The code prohibits all destruction, devastation, burning
and ravaging of the enemy's country, and declares that
the soldier who does such acts is "an offender according
to the appropriate law." It also declares that the seizure
and carrying away of money, jewelry, and other objects of
value is criminal theft and punishable as such.
When at the Hague Conference of 1907 rules were be-
ing formulated with regard to automatic submarine con-
tact mines, the German Chief Delegate, Baron Adolf
Marschall von Bieberstein delivered himself as follows:
"A belligerent who lays mines assumes a very heavy re-
sponsibility towards neutrals and shipping. On that point
we are all agreed. No one will resort to such means un-
less for military reasons of an absolutely urgent character.
But military acts are not governed solely by principles of
International Law. There are other factors: conscience,
good sense, and the sentiment of duty imposed by prin-
ciples of humanity will be the surest guides to the conduct
of sailors, and will constitute the most effective guaranty
against abuses. The officers of the German Navy, I em-
phatically affirm, will always fulfill in the strictest manner
63
the duties which emanate from the unwritten law of
humanity and civilization."
This statement is a recognition of those principles of
International Law which are not reduced to written stat-
utes, but which derive their force from the dictates of
"humanity and civilization."
It has been charged that "International Law is filmy,
gauzy, founded upon precedent and without certainty, de-
cision or definiteness," but the discerning will see the
definiteness and grandeur of moral codes which have
grown with the development of civilization.
The civilized world intends to indict and convict the
Germans for their violations of International Law. In
the words of the Moscow Declaration issued by President
Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill and Premier Stalin
on November 1, 1943 :
"At the time of granting of any armistice to any gov-
ernment which may be set up in Germany, those German
officers and men and members of the Nazi party who have
been responsible for or have taken a consenting part in
the above atrocities, massacres and executions will be sent
back to the countries in which their abominable deeds were
done in order that they may be judged and punished ac-
cording to the laws of these liberated countries and of the
free governments which will be erected therein. . . . Let
those who have hitherto not imbued their hands with
innocent blood beware lest they join the ranks of the
guilty, for most assuredly the three Allied powers will
pursue them to the uttermost ends of the earth and will
deliver them to their accusers in order that justice may
be done."
The World Undertakes a Task
Similar determination and brave words were not
enough in 1918. Then, too, the whole world demanded
64
punishment. French women presented the following reso-
lution to the Peace Conference:
"In violation of the primitive law of humanity, thou-
sands of women and girls, even children, of all social con-
ditions have been systematically torn from their families
and submitted to inhuman tortures and treated as slaves.
With broken and bleeding hearts, we women of France
and the Allied countries come before the Peace Congress
to ask justice in the name of our martyred sisters. To
prevent a recurrence of similar atrocities, we ask that
those who have directed them and ordered them may be
condemned as criminals."
A foremost French author who compiled a list of in-
ternational crimes concluded : "Probably there is no senti-
ment more generally prevailing in the world today than
the demand for the punishment of those who fought the
most atrocious war in history in the most atrocious way."
A legal report by distinguished French professors of
International Law (Ferdinand Larnaude, Dean of the
Paris Law Faculty, and Dr. A. G. de Lapradelle, Professor
of International Law on the same Faculty) listed the
crimes of the Germans, thus giving scholarly basis to
the outcries of the peoples of the ravaged nations. For
example, they cited a letter from the Kaiser to the Em-
peror of Austria, which, as part of the diplomatic archives,
fell into the hands of the Allies. The Kaiser wrote :
"My soul is torn asunder, but everything must be put
to fire and blood. The throats of men and women, chil-
dren and the aged must be cut and not a tree nor a house
left standing.
"With such methods of terror, which alone can strike
so degenerate a people as the French, the war will finish
before two months, while if I use humanitarian methods,
65
it may prolong for years. Despite all my repugnance, I
have had to choose the first system."
Here is the familiar hypocrisy of the Germans justify-
ing barbarism on grounds of mercy. The Nazis have ex-
tended it with the addendum that those who do not accept
enslavement and defeat are responsible for the disturbance
of the peace which results from their resistance. Thus all
victims are warmongers. The Germans seek and wish
peace. They are compelled to slay if their superiority is
not acknowledged with bowed head.
Clemenceau in his speech of acceptance of the Presi-
dency of the Peace Conference said :
"I come now to the order of the day. The first ques-
tion is as follows: 'The responsibility of the authors of
the war!' The second is thus expressed: 'Penalties for
crimes committed during the war.' We beg of you to
begin by examining the question as to the responsibility
of the authors of the war. I do not need to set forth our
reasons for this. If we wish to establish justice in the
world we can do so now, for we have won victory and can
impose the penalties demanded by justice. We shall in-
sist on the imposition of penalties on the authors of the
abominable crimes committed during the war."
Overwhelming public opinion beat upon the Peace Con-
ference, demanding punishment of the guilty. The Peace
Conference acted, but its extensive steps to set up tribun-
als and mete out punishment ended in a complete fiasco.
Why did the efforts of so many brilliant men to com-
ply with these demands for simple justice go awry? It
is important to analyze this failure in order to reach wiser
decisions today. We will be aided in finding the correct
road by observing the by-paths of confusion which our
66
predecessors followed. Rarely in the realm of political
science is so rich an opportunity afforded to learn from
past history. Then as now the Germans were the offenders,
against almost the entire world. Then as now their out-
rages were admitted, though they were child's play com-
pared with Nazi thoroughness and sadism. Then as now
the world dreamed of a permanent peace and was desirous
of making all possible concessions to achieve it — except
surrender the right to punish for the criminal acts.
The Versailles Conference began brilliantly. It was
the first treaty of peace in which an attempt was made by
the victorious belligerents to enforce against a defeated
adversary the principle of individual responsibility for
crimes committed during war. It formally declared that
individuals belonging to armed forces of the adversary, as
well as enemy civil functionaries, were responsible under
military law for violations of International Law. Article
228 of the Treaty stated that Germany recognized "the
right of the Allied and Associated Powers to bring before
military tribunals persons accused of having committed
acts in violation of the laws and customs of war." Also :
"Such persons shall, if found guilty, be sentenced to pun-
ishment laid down by law. This provision will apply not-
withstanding any proceedings or prosecution before a
tribunal in Germany or the territory of her Allies."
Further, the Treaty required Germany to surrender to
the Allied and Associated Powers all persons accused of
having committed an act in violation of the laws and cus-
toms of war and to furnish "all documents and informa-
tion of every kind, the production of which may be neces-
sary to the full knowledge of the incriminating facts, the
discovery of offenders, and the just appreciation of re-
sponsibility" (Article 230). Identical provisions were con-
tained in the Allies' treaty with Austria (Articles 173,
175).
67
The Previous Indictment
A commission appointed by the Peace Conference made
an elaborate report on four subjects: (1) the responsibility
of the authors of the war; (2) the breaches of the laws
and customs of war; (3) the degree of responsibility for
these crimes attaching to particular members of the enemy
forces; (4) the constitution and procedure of a tribunal
appropriate for the trial of these offenses.
The commission unanimously reported that "the war
was premeditated by the Central Powers, together with
their allies, Turkey and Bulgaria, and was the result of
acts deliberately committed in order to make it unavoid-
able."
In support of this conclusion were cited, among other
evidence, decoded confidential documents which had come
into the Allies' possession from the Austrian official ar-
chives. One was a report to the Austrian Government by
von Wiesner, the Austro-Hungarian agent sent to Sara-
jevo to investigate the assassination of Archduke Franz
Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and the
Duchess of Hohenberg, his morganatic wife. He wired:
"Cognizance on the part of the Serbian Government, par-
ticipation in the murderous assault, or in its preparation,
and supplying the weapons, proved by nothing, nor even
to be suspected. On the contrary there are indications
which cause this to be rejected."
Another official document referred to was the decoded
telegram of Count Szogyeny, Austrian ambassador at Ber-
lin, sent to the Minister of Foreign Affairs at Vienna:
"Here it is generally taken for granted that in case of a
possible refusal on the part of Serbia, our immediate dec-
laration of war will be coincident with military opera-
tions.
68
"Delay in beginning military operations is here con-
sidered as a great danger because of the intervention of
other Powers.
"We are urgently advised to proceed at once and to con-
front the world with a fait accompli"
The fear was not of military intervention but lest over-
tures for peaceful adjustment be made. This appears in
the production of a deciphered telegram marked "strictly
confidential", sent by the Austrian Ambassador at Berlin
to his own government the day before war was declared.
The material portion read:
"The Secretary of State informed me very definitely
and in the strictest of confidence that in the near future
possible proposals for mediation on the part of England
would be brought to Your Excellency's knowledge by the
German Government.
"The German Government gives its most bending assur-
ance that it does not in any way associate itself with the
proposals; on the contrary, it is absolutely opposed to
their consideration and only transmits them in compliance
with the English request."
The English proposal had been telegraphed by Sir
Edward Grey, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs> to
Sir William Edward Goschen, British Ambassador at Ber-
lin. It read: "If the peace of Europe can be preserved,
and the present crisis safely passed, my own endeavour
will be to promote some arrangement to which Germany
could be a party, by which she could be assured that no
aggressive or hostile policy would be pursued against her
or her Allies by France, Russia, and ourselves, jointly or
separately."
It is unnecessary to dwell upon the analogy between
these incidents and the frantic appeals a quarter of a cen-
tury later by a humiliated English Prime Minister and a
60
President of the United States, to Hitler to preserve peace
and thus gain the "undying gratitude of all mankind."
The Commission reported separately on Belgium and
Luxemburg and reached the conclusion that the neutrality
of both of these countries had been deliberately violated.
It unanimously reported that "Germany, in agreement
with Austria-Hungary, deliberately worked to defeat all
the many conciliatory proposals made by the Entente
Powers and their repeated efforts to avoid war." The con-
clusion was inevitable, and grandiosely stated that these
acts should be condemned in no uncertain terms and that
their perpetrators should be held up to the "execration"
of mankind.
In the course of their findings concerning breaches
of law and customs of war, the Commission gathered au-
thoritative data from high sources. Reports were made by
Lord Bryce of the British Commission and by many other
distinguished scholars and jurists. There was no disagree-
ment concerning the facts established. The Report unani-
mously stated :
"Violations of the rights of combatants, of the rights
of civilians, . . . are multiplied in this list of the most
cruel practices which primitive barbarism, aided by all
the resources of modern science, could devise for the execu-
tion of a system of terrorism carefully planned and car-
ried out to the end. Not even prisoners, or wounded, or
women or children have been respected by belligerents who
deliberately sought to strike terror into every heart for the
purpose of repressing all resistance. Murders and mas-
sacres, tortures, shields formed of living human beings,
collective penalties, the arrest and execution of hostages,
the requisitioning of services for military purposes, the
arbitrary destruction of public and private property, the
aerial bombardment of open towns without there being any
70
regular siege, the destruction of merchant ships without
previous visit and without any precautions for the safety
of passengers and crew, the massacre of prisoners, attacks
on hospital ships, the poisoning of springs and wells, out-
rages and profanation without regard for religion or the
honor of individuals, the issue of counterfeit money re-
ported by the Polish Government, the methodical and de-
liberate destruction of industries with no other object than
to promote German economic supremacy after the war,
constitute the most striking list of crimes that has ever
been drawn up to the eternal shame of those who com-
mitted them. The facts are established. They are numer-
ous and so vouched for that they admit of no doubt and
cry for justice."
Are these not familiar echoes? How precise the repeti-
tion! In 1919 a Special Commission was appointed to
classify proof and data under certain headings. Such is
the consistency of the Hun that they may be listed here
since they are unchanged and remain as appropriate at
the end of the second World War as at the end of the
first. The list of thirty- two crimes charged is :
1) Murders and massacres; systematic terrorism.
2) Putting hostages to death.
3) Torture of civilians.
4) Deliberate starvation of civilians.
5) Kape.
6) Abduction of girls and women for the purpose of
enforced prostitution.
7) Deportation of civilians.
8) Internment of civilians under inhuman conditions.
9) Forced labor of civilians in connection with the
military operations of the enemy.
71
10) Usurpation of sovereignty during military occupa-
tion.
11) Compulsory enlistment of soldiers among the in-
habitants of occupied territory.
12) Attempts to denationalize the inhabitants' occu
pied territory.
13) Pillage.
14) Confiscation of property.
15) Exaction of illegitimate or of exorbitant contri-
butions and requisitions.
16) Debasement of the currency, and issue of spurious
currency.
17) Imposition of collective penalties.
18) Wanton devastation and destruction of property.
19) Deliberate bombardment of undefended places.
20) Wanton destruction of religious, charitable, edu-
cational and historic buildings and monuments.
21) Destruction of merchant ships and passenger ves-
sels without warning and without provision for
the safety of passenger or crew.
22) Destruction of fishing boats and of relief ships.
23) Deliberate bombardment of hospitals.
24) Attack on and destruction of hospital ships.
25) Breach of other rules relating to the Red Cross.
26) Use of deleterious and asphyxiating gases.
27) Use of explosive^ or expanding bullets, and other
inhuman appliances.
28) Directions to give no quarter.
29 ) Ill-treatment of wounded and prisoners of war.
30) Employment of prisoners of war on unauthorized
works.
72
31) Misuse of flags of truce.
32) Poisoning wells.
Here, then, was unanimity on the subject of German
criminality. The Commission recommended that the
guilty be punished.
The American- Japanese "Axis"
American representatives vigorously dissented from
the procedure suggested by the Commission to punish the
violations. Their sole comrades in dissent were the Jap-
anese. They found it necessary to submit a lengthy
memorandum of their minority views. Robert Lansing and
James Brown Scott, who wrote this memorandum, sought
eloquently to diminish the friction which had arisen from
the conflict in opinion. ". . . we desire to express our
high appreciation", they wrote, "of the conciliatory and
considerate spirit manifested by our colleagues through-
out the many and protracted sessions of the Commission.
From the first of these, there was an earnest purpose
shown to compose the difference which existed, to find a
formula acceptable to all, and to render, if possible, a
unanimous report. That this purpose failed was not be-
cause of want of effort on the part of this Commission.
It failed because, after all the proposed means of adjust-
ment had been tested with frank and open minds, no
practicable way could be found to harmonize the differ-
ence without an abandonment of principles which were
fundamental. This the representatives of the United
States could not do and they could not expect it of others."
What were the differences which could not be adjusted
without abandonment of principles? And what were the
principles involved? An analysis of this struggle and the
opportunity, not available to the contestants, to test their
73
theories pragmatically in the light of subsequent history,
will point to certain definite conclusions about the proper
solution today.
American delegates objected to the following language :
". . . all persons belonging to enemy countries, however
high their position may have been, without distinction of
rank, including chiefs of states, who have been guilty of
offenses against the laws and customs of war or the laws
of humanity, are liable to criminal prosecution."
They contended that the laws of humanity were too
uncertain to be the basis of criminal prosecution. The
laws and customs of war, they admitted, were sufficiently
certain. They were to be found "in books of authority and
in the practice of nations." But they balked at the legal
prosecution of "chiefs of state" whose responsibility had
never before been established in municipal or international
law, and "for which no precedents are to be found in the
modern practice of nations."
They were particularly solicitous about not bringing
the ex-Kaiser to criminal trial. They contended that a
chief executive, whether he be called emperor, king, or
kaiser, is not responsible for breaches of law. He is an-
swerable "not to the judicial, but to the political authority
of his country." They relied on Chief Justice Marshall's
decision in the early case of Schooner Exchange v. McFad-
don and Others, 7 Cranch. 116, decided in 1812, in which
a sovereign was held to be exempt from judicial process.
What they overlooked was that the doctrine of im-
munity of heads and ex-heads of state from the jurisdic-
tion of foreign courts (de Haber v. Queen of Portugal, 17
Q. B. 171 ; Hatch v. Baez, 7 Hun. 596 ; Underhill v. Her-
nandez, 168 U. S. 250), is not a binding doctrine of Inter-
national Law. It is merely a voluntary rule of interna-
tional comity and public policy and is intended to prevent
the courts of one state from interfering with another
74
country's sovereign in the discharge of his duties. It was
not intended to shield heads of states from punishment for
crimes against the rights of other nations. No authority
states that an abdicated or deposed chief of state can not
be arraigned before an international tribunal for high
crimes committed by him against other nations while he
was in power.
The Peace Conference having set a new precedent in
asserting personal responsibility for individual offend-
ers against the laws of war, of what consequence was
the objection that there was no precedent for punishing
such a violator who happened to be an ex-head of state?
It is an elementary principle of democracy that no man,
however high his station, is above the law. Heads of
state who permit, approve and even encourage the com-
mission of crimes by their subordinates, are equally guilty
with them and cannot take refuge in a plea of immunity
intended to shield them from their crimes.
The American and Japanese dissent was unjustified.
It was nothing but legal dilettantism to distinguish be-
tween legal and moral crimes and to profess helplessness
to deal with the latter. True, the crimes committed were
unprecedented. Do they derive immunity from that very
fact? Are we so devoid of conscientious resourcefulness
that we are unable to punish a crime so heinous that it
was never committed before? Precedents are valuable
guide posts, but they are not more important than the
road, and roads may be constructed to a necessary objec-
tive without them. It is distorted emphasis to consider
precedent more important than justice. Prior experience
merely advises us how others applied their wisdom. Often
it is a comfort ; sometimes it does nothing more than reveal
error and encourage us to seek the right conclusion. If
lack of precedent paralyzed our intellectual initiative,
there would be no common law, for at some point each rule
76
adopted was a pioneering effort to be tested by subsequent,
not prior, experience.
It is not without ironic significance that the dissenting
Americans found support from the two Japanese members
of the commission who doubted that offenders against the
laws of war, belonging to the forces of an adversary, could
be tried before a court constituted of opposing belligerents.
We may wonder today whether the Japanese shared the
refined moral view of the Americans or whether their
agreement in dissent revealed the lack of true moral in-
dignation against the world's greatest crimes.
The Judicial System Never Used
Despite the disagreement of the American and Japan-
ese, the Peace Conference adopted the majority report of
the Commission that there was no reason why rank, how-
ever exalted, should "in any circumstances protect the
holder of it from responsibility when that responsibility
has been established before a properly constituted tri-
bunal. This extends even to the heads of states." All
offenses against "the laws and customs of war or the laws
of humanity are liable to prosecution."
As to the acts which provoked the war, a distinction
was made. These were not made the object of criminal
proceedings, but a special court was organized to fix re-
sponsibility. Art. 227 of the Treaty provided:
"The Allied and Associated Powers publicly arraign
William II of Hohenzollern, formerly German Emperor,
for a supreme offence against international morality and
the sanctity of treaties. A special tribunal will be con-
stituted to try the accused, thereby assuring him the guar-
antees essential to the right of defense. It will be com-
posed of five judges, one appointed by each of the following
Powers: namely the United States of America, Great
76
Britain, France, Italy and Japan. In its decision the
tribunal will be guided by the highest motives of inter-
national policy, with a view to vindicating the solemn
obligations of international undertakings and the validity
of international morality. It will be its duty to fix the
punishment which it considers should be imposed. The
Allied and Associated Powers will address a request to
the government of the Netherlands for the surrender to
them of the ex-Emperor in order that he may be put on
trial."
The request was made. The Dutch Government refused
to surrender the ex-Kaiser. "This Government," it stated
in its reply, "cannot admit any other duty than that im-
posed upon it by the laws of the Kingdom and national
tradition". According to this tradition "Holland has al-
ways been regarded as a refuge for the vanquished in in-
ternational conflicts" and the government could not refuse
"to the former Emperor the benefit of the laws and this
tradition" and thus "betray the faith of those who have
confided themselves to their free institutions." Holland
refused to betray the faith of the Kaiser. Shades of Rot-
terdam !
As a result of Holland's solicitude for the Kaiser, the
special court designated to fix responsibility for the war
and the breach of treaty never met. It found itself with-
out any defendant to prosecute.
Another juristic mechanism to punish those who had
violated International Law was the authorization to each
country to try before its own military or civil courts any
prisoner who was charged with an offense.
Where the offender had not been captured, or where the
violation affected several nations (such as maltreatment
of prisoners of different nationalities herded into one
77
camp) a special High Tribunal was created to try them.
It was composed of twenty-two judges, three each ap-
pointed by the United States, the British Empire, France,
Italy and Japan and one each appointed by Belgium,
Greece, Poland, Portugal, Kumania, Serbia and Czecho-
slovakia. The law to be applied by the tribunal was to be
"the principles of the law of nations as they result from
the usages established among civilized peoples, from the
laws of humanity and from the dictates of public con-
science." The High Tribunal had the power to impose such
punishment as the courts of the accusing nation or the
courts of the prisoner's nation, could have meted out. It
was to determine its own procedure and could sit in divi-
sions of not less than five members. A Prosecuting Com-
mission of five members was appointed to select and try
cases, upon the request of any nation. It was composed
of one appointee from each of the governments of the
United States, the British Empire, France, Italy and
Japan. Other Allied governments had the right to dele-
gate a representative to assist the Prosecuting Commis-
sion. A national court, that is, the military or civil court
of any nation, was not permitted to prosecute any prisoner
who had been selected by the Prosecuting Commission for
trial before the High Tribunal. It was specifically pro-
vided that no trial or sentence by a court of a defeated
enemy could bar trial by an Allied national court or by the
High Tribunal.
This was the elaborate machinery set up to punish the
German offenders. It was thorough and practical. The
manner in which it was sabotaged constitutes one of the
great betrayals in history. Mountains of dead had been
piled up so that free men could have control over a just
peace. But the men to whom the responsibility was en-
trusted were unable to live up to it. They were out-
manoeuvered, deceived and blocked by the defeated. The
78
result was unrequited infamy. The most costly victory
on the battlefield in all history was nullified by a skillful
obstructive campaign during peace. This story affords an
object lesson which must be fully studied and appreciated
if the peace is not to be lost again. However, more is to
be learned than mere avoidance of the repeated betrayal of
justice. There is revealed in this historic evasion the
intrinsic character and tendencies of the German people,
as well as of their criminal overlords.
Germany Does a Houdini
German avoidance of punishment began by encourag-
ing the view (held in certain Allied quarters) that the
German people felt deeply aggrieved by the outrageous
conduct of their leaders and that they were anxious to pun-
ish them. It was pointed out that the German people, too,
had suffered under the compulsion of Prussian militarism.
Germany had been reduced to its plight by the avarice of
its militarists. There was a unity of interest between the
Allied peoples and the German people in seeing that
justice was done and the guilty punished. Indeed, it was
argued that the German people had a special stake in car-
rying out the penalty clauses, for the distinction between
the rulers and the people would thereby be established. In
placing responsibility on the former, the latter would be
absolved. Credibility was given to this by some public
statements in Germany. Dr. Hans Delbruck and other
conservative politicians appealed to the German govern-
ment to appoint a committee of impartial men, including
prominent neutrals, to investigate accusations of breaches
of International Law by Germany during the war. These
appeals demanded that the inquiry be conducted regard-
less of the rank or dignity of the accused persons so that
"the German people may be able to clear its conscience.''
79
A German State Tribunal was organized. It was in
the nature of a parliamentary committee to establish the
war guilt. The first session was held in Berlin. Count
Johann-Heinrich A. von Bernstorff appeared as a witness
and testified, among other things, how the German Em-
peror disdained the peace offer of President Wilson. Beth-
mann-Hollweg, who was the German Chancellor at the
time of the invasion of Belgium, testified evasively. Other
witnesses, like von Kapelle and von Koch, were examined
concerning the submarine warfare. The German National
Party leader, Helferrich, appeared before the Tribunal,
openly praised the old regime, and assailed President Wil-
son. He refused to answer questions by a Deputy, was
fined for contempt, but persisted in his contumacy.
When Hindenburg was invited to appear, many na-
tionalists protested and Pan-German students objected to
his appearing before the Committee. Finally, a list of
questions was prepared and sent to Hindenburg. Then he
appeared. An adoring audience strewed flowers in his
path. This was the manner in which the German people
expressed their feelings about their "criminal betrayers".
That this was no demonstration by a personal coterie is
established by Hindenburg's subsequent election as Presi-
dent of the Republic. He testified that he had urged the
institution and continuance of the U-boat war and took
this occasion to plant the lie that the Germans had not
been defeated militarily but that a knife of betrayal had
been plunged into Germany's back at home, while her
soldiers were still victorious in the field. The Committee,
embarrassed and confused by finding defendants who de-
fiantly confessed guilt, ordered a secret session. The Tribu-
nal then adjourned and never met again.
Hjalmar Branting, writing for the Swedish newspaper,
Social Demokraten, rightly called the proceedings of
this parliamentary investigating committee a "parody."
80
The Commission took flight into adjournment, after stand-
ing, humbly bowing, before its pre-revolutionary masters.
It had not dared call important witnesses, including the
Kaiser. Indeed, the German Peace Envoy, Schucking, in
an interview in the New Zuerichcr Zeitung, said: "I am
astonished that the idea of prosecuting former Emperor
William and his generals is seriously entertained."
Branting wrote, "Everything indicates that the old
spirit is raising its head more impudently than ever. We
can hear beforehand the furious protests echoing through
the German press when the Allies some day tire of this
farce and demand extradition of the culprits for a real
trial by a real investigating committee which will stand
before humanity as a moral judge to brand those guilty
according to each one's part in the most terrible disaster
that has ever befallen humanity in civilized times."
This first attempt by the Germans to draw the teeth
from the Allied program was too inept to succeed. German
awe for its own leaders intervened to defeat the effort.
Timorous adjournment could not be held out as self-
regulation, which would make Allied interposition unneces-
sary.
The Allies were aroused by the German people's solici-
tude for their militarists. They organized the tribunals
provided for by the Versailles Treaty. They demanded
the extradition of those accused of war crimes. In the
meantime the United States Senate had rejected the
Peace Treaty. Instantly the Berlin Foreign Office declared
that this rejection justified Germany's repudiation of the
criminal-trial clauses in the Treaty and demanded that
concessions be made by the Allies. This repercussion
from American isolationism in 1919 has never been suf-
ficiently studied. The German Republic, newly born,
pounced upon the division in its enemies' ranks and, even
81
in defeat, launched an offensive, as its successor so fre-
quently did fourteen years later. It was a diplomatic
offensive designed, not to give relief to the suffering Ger-
man people, but to shield the officials and heartless army
officers of the "prior" regime from punishment.
Encouraged by the popular resentment in Germany
against the Allied demand, Baron von Lersner, German
representative at the Peace Conference, declined to deliver
the Allies' extradition request to his government in
Berlin. Clemenceau's reply to von Lersner's refusal is
an extraordinary mixture of incredulity at German incor-
rigibility and of instructive insight into German inconsist-
ency. He wrote, "The Germans themselves do not deny that
numerous crimes have been committed and that universal
morality would be seriously injured if these crimes, whose
authors are known, remain unpunished. Any human being
going through the northern regions of France, as well as
into Belguim, and also seeing with his own eyes these
provinces systematically ravaged, with all industrial
establishments leveled to the ground, dwellings reduced
to dust by savage methods, all the fruit trees sawed within
a meter of the ground, mines blown up and filled with
water, human work of entire centuries spitefully anni-
hilated, cannot understand Germany's hesitation to con-
sent to the reparation for her crimes.
"If the same impartial observers then heard from the
mouths of the inhabitants the tale of the treatment to
which they had been subjected for four years and the vio-
lences and the abominable constraints imposed upon
young girls brutally separated from their families, he
would be unable to restrain his indignation in face of the
attitude of Germany and the arrogant tone of your letters.
"As to the Allies, they are profoundly surprised to see
that German public opinion, even at the present time, is
82
so unconscious of its responsibilities as not itself to ask,
for the just punishment of crimes committed, and that
among the criminals there seems to be neither sufficient
courage nor patriotism to come forward for trial as they
have deserved, to defend their conduct and to facilitate
for their country the fulfillment of its obligation.
"Until the German conscience understands, like that
of the whole world, that wrong must be righted and crim-
inals punished, Germany must not expect to enter the
communion of nations nor obtain from the Allies forget-
fulness of her crimes.
Although it was announced by M. Ignace, Under Secre-
tary of the French Ministry of Justice, that there was not
the slightest disposition on the part of the Allies to
weaken in their demands for the surrender of the accused
Germans and that "all of the guilty ones will pay quickly
wherever they are and whoever they are," German defiance
had its effect. The list of accused was reduced to only
fifteen hundred names, although tens of thousands should
have been dealt with.
Baron von Lersner again defied the Allies and sub-
mitted a memorandum stating that the German National
Assembly had passed a law providing that Germans
accused of war crimes should be tried only in German
courts. The British and French representatives rejected
the memorandum and announced that the trials would be
held in Paris and in Lille.
The Germans then indulged in a series of delaying
actions. They kept the demand for extradition in the
discussion stage while refusing to comply. In the mean-
time, carefully arranged popular demonstrations were
held within Germany, thus reversing the procedure and
putting pressure on the Allies. In January 5, 1920, a
Pan-German conference was held in Berlin, at which there
83
was an open demonstration against extradition. Chancellor
Scheidemann predicted that Germany would conduct the
trials, and that the Allies "would calm themselves."
The Council of Ambassadors in London sought to over-
come Baron von Lersner's refusal to submit the demand
formally, by sending it directly to Berlin. The demands
were transmitted through the various Embassies of the
Allies situated in Berlin. By this time the list of accused
had shrunk to 896. England demanded the trial of only
97 persons, Belgium 334, France 334, Italy 29, Poland
57, and Rumania, 41. Among the accused were Generals
Hindenberg, Ludendorff and von Mackensen, Prince
Rupprecht of Bavaria, the Duke of Wtirtenburg, ex-Chan-
cellor von Bethmann-Hollweg, and a number of admirals,
including von Tirpitz. It included General Stenger, who
had issued written orders directing his soldiers not to
take prisoners, but to kill all captives.
The restricted nature of this list made it virtually a
demand for a token demonstration of "punishment." The
outrages committed ranged in the tens of thousands. Yet
fewer than 900 men in Germany out of a population of
60 million and an army of twelve million were to be
extradited. Obviously, the Allies were endeavoring to
make submission by Germany as painless as possible.
Almost without exception, those listed were bitter mili-
tarists, chiefly of the Prussian military caste. These men
were supposed to be hated by the simple and kindly Ger-
man people. They were supposed to be the cruel over-lords
who had brought the unwitting, undesigning masses of
Germans to their misery.
One would expect that it would be popular in Germany
to wreak vengeance on its betrayers. Ordinarily a
depressed people is avid for a victim. Revolutionary
groups count on the burning desire for revenge against
84
the prior ruling forces. Therefore, even if the German
nationalistic leaders had not been as guilty as they were,
one would not expect that compassion would flow to them
from the people they had led to defeat. Despite all fine
distinctions between the German people and their leaders,
the German Republic, voicing the sentiments of the com-
mon man in Germany remained loyal to those very leaders.
The Republic continued to sacrifice its own interests, not
to improve its lot, by shielding the sacrosanct reputations
and persons of the generals.
Socialist Minister Noske announced in reply to the
demand for extradition, now formally submitted, that
surrender was impossible. Chancellor Bauer echoed the
same sentiment. The German Council of Ministers met
and decided to refuse the demand for extradition. The
German Officers Association called the nation to defiance.
University students in Berlin opposed surrender. They
held a formal banquet to proclaim their opposition.
The Germans not only acted as if they were victors,
diplomatically challenging other nations, but revealed a
complete misconception of the issue at stake. They inter-
preted the demand for extradition not as an insistence
for the punishment of guilt, but rather as a symbolic
humiliation.
The German Crown Prince therefore sent a cable to
President Wilson declaring his willingness to substitute
himself in place of the 896 persons listed for extradition.
The hostage idea in reverse! To the Germans it would
be no miscarriage of justice if hundreds of guilty went
free and one presumably innocent man was condemned.
It would martyrize the hero and change the symbolism
from humiliation to glorious sacrifice. If the Crown
Prince himself was guilty of the violation of International
Law, his punishment ought not to absolve 895 others.
85
If h« were innocent, his immolation would constitute
injustice rather than justice. Even if it were conceivable
to engage in bargains in justice, the transaction was
rather top-heavy. No reply was sent to the Crown Prince's
cable.
Lest it be considered a libel upon the German people
to say that their loyalties to militarist leaders never wav-
ered, we need only trace their own conduct. Even the
processes of democracy were utilized to express opposition
to the punishment clauses of the Treaty. The German gov-
ernment formally submitted its recommendations to the
German National Assembly in Weimar. The voice of the
people was thus permitted to express itself through its
newly elected legislature. It was a new voice, but the echo
of unreasonable nationalistic pride was the same. The
National Assembly voted to support the government's po-
sition against extradition. Minister Noske reaffirmed that
neither he nor anyone else would order an arrest for the
purpose of extradition.
As a sop to the A] lies, and in a further effort to devital-
ize their insistence upon their rights, the Attorney General
at Leipzig was ordered to investigate complaints against
persons accused of crimes and to arrange for their trials.
The program of sabotage continued with all the effi-
ciency and artfulness of which the Germans are capable.
Envoys were continually sent to Paris and London with
varying schemes of compromise. Every conceivable sug-
gestion was put forward except compliance with the
Treaty which Germany had signed only a short time pre-'
viously. Allied statesmen were kept in constant turmoil
while the debates were deliberately prolonged.
In the meantime, Germany resorted to unscrupulous
pressure behind the scenes. It annulled the German-Bel-
gian financial agreement because of Belgium's participa-
86
tion in the extradition demands. Thus Germany, even in
defeat, was punishing rather than being punished.
The Allies were faced with the necessity of using force
to extradite the guilty culprits. Many of them had mean-
while fled to Switzerland and Holland. They fled, not
from the wrath of the German people, but in connivance
with them against their old enemies. Admiral von
Kapelle, one of the accused, brazenly announced his arrival
in Davos, Switzerland. It was a deliberate nose-thumbing
gesture at the Allies and swelled the German heart with
delight and relief.
Everywhere in Allied circles there were strong groups
preaching caution and avoidance of conflict. The Allies
surrendered. Their reply to the German note of January
25, 1920 was that they accepted the proposal to have Ger-
many itself try the criminals at Leipzig!
In an article which he wrote later for the archives of
German history, von Lersner concludes with a Wagnerian
trumpet note : "This first great demand which the Entente
Governments imposed on us by virtue of the Diktat von
Versailles was shattered, like glass upon a stone, against
the unity of the German people."
The German government then shrewdly eased the sit-
uation for the Allies. Announcement was made that the
German government intended vigorously to prosecute
every man on the extradition list against whom there was
prima facie evidence of the commission of a crime. The
National Assembly enacted a bill to organize the trials in
Germany. Seven judges were designated. The Minister
of Justice announced that he would arrest any defendant
who was refractory. The German press, however, ex-
plained to the people that there really was no intention
on the part of the government to yield. The Nationalist
Deutsche Zeitung in Berlin explained that the Allies
merely desired a few "sample convictions" and that the
87
trial of a few men would be sufficient. Thus, the list of
thousands, which had shrunk to 1500 and then to 896,
dwindled to 14.
German Courts Slap Several Wrists
The German prosecutor advised the Allies that he had
difficulty in obtaining evidence. The Allies undertook to
prepare seven cases. Preliminary examinations were con-
ducted in France and Belgium; depositions were taken in
London. Witnesses were collected from across the seas
and brought to Leipzig. The trials began two and one-
half years after the war ended. Only four of these seven
defendants were tried.
The Oberreichsanwalt (public prosecutor) was "un-
able" to find the three others against whom the Allies had
prepared evidence. One, U-boat Commander Patzig, was in
Danzig, but his address "was unknown." Another, Trinke,
had become a resident of Poland, and Lieutenant-Com-
mander Werner, they said, could not be traced.
Lieutenants Ludwig Dithmar and John Boldt, sub-
ordinates of Patzig, were put on trial for sinking without
warning the British hospital ship, Llandovery Castle, and
then firing on and sinking its life-boats, killing 234
wounded passengers. They were found guilty and sen-
tenced to four years imprisonment. Boldt was held at
Holstenplatz, a house of detention at Hamburg, where
ordinarily only indicted, not convicted, prisoners are kept.
He was permitted a private room, communication with the
outside world, and civilian clothes. He promptly "escaped"
and was taken by accessories to safety across the Dutch
frontier. The other prisoner convicted for the U-boat
atrocity also mysteriously "escaped."
Another trial was that of Captain Emil Miller, who
was charged with inflicting sadistic cruelties on numerous
88
prisoners and with maintaining such atrocious prison con-
ditions that hundreds of prisoners died. The Leipzig
Court found:
"The accused admits that he liked, as soon as he ap-
peared at roll-call, to ride quickly up the ranks. The pris-
oners scattered on all sides and many who could not get
out of the way quickly were thrown down by the horse.
The accused once struck Drewcock at roll-call across his
wounded knee with his riding cane so hard that an abscess
developed and later had to be cut. The accused could not
have foreseen this for the wounds on Drewcock's knee were
not visible to him. According to the statement of the wit-
ness Lovegrove, the accused once saw two sick men lying
down; they were so weak they could not stand up before
him, and were groaning pitifully. But the accused is said
to have got angry and impatient and to have kicked them.
There is a possibility that the accused did not wish to hurt
the men, whose sickness he apparently did not yet believe
to be real, but that he only wished to secure that his order
to get up was immediately obeyed."
For the sixteen offenses of which he was found guilty
Captain Miller was sentenced to a total of six months im-
prisonment.
General Stenger, commander of the 58th Brigade, was
tried on charges that he had ordered the massacre of
wounded war prisoners. His order dated August 26, 1914
was presented to the court. It read :
"(a) Beginning with today, no more prisoners will be
taken. All prisoners, whether wounded or not, must be
destroyed ;
"(b) All prisoners will be massacred; the wounded,
whether armed or not, massacred; even men captured in
89
large or organized units will be massacred. Behind us,
no enemy must remain alive."
Nevertheless, Stenger was acquitted. The German
Major who executed his orders was convicted for "mis-
interpreting" them.
The few others who appeared for trial sobbed about
their patriotism, and were instantly acquitted.
The French and English observers who attended the
first trials withdrew. They reported the bad faith in which
the proceedings were being conducted. The Allied com-
mission sent bitter memoranda objecting to the procedure.
But German "justice" took its course.
The trials in the Supreme Couat at Leipzig were a farce.
From hundreds of thousands of offenders, the Allies had
drawn a list of only 1500, subsequently reduced to 896.
None of the chief figures was even molested. Of those
tried, a few were convicted and received preposterously
light sentences. In most instances even these were not
served.
It had been argued by the Germans that it was unfair
for the former enemy to conduct these trials, even though
the courts were to be constituted of internationally known
jurists. In view of the attitude of the German people,
the trials conducted by themselves were equivalent to the
criminals setting up their own tribunals and prosecuting
themselves. When the Allies protested, the German Repub-
lic brazenly demanded more concessions. It even sent a
note to Lloyd George demanding that Germans held by
the Allies be surrendered for trial in the German courts !
Such is the record of German evasion and bad faith.
The sonorous and extensive reports by the various com-
missions of the Versailles Conference concerning punish-
ment; the establishment of a Special Tribunal to try the
Kaiser and other responsible leaders; the debates which
90
raged furiously for years about the principles involved,
all seem pretty ludicrous in the light of the record. The
Germans, defeated and helpless, succeeded in nullifying
one of the most important clauses of the Treaty, and the
process began within a week after their delegates had
solemnly signed it. This circumvention was practiced by
the German Eepublic. The "democratic" forces which
were in power conspired with the Junkers to prevent any
punishment of those who had betrayed Germany.
This history provides a clear answer to the not incon-
siderable body of opinion today that the Germans should be
permitted to punish their own; that only such a self-
purge would be devoid of nationalistic incitation against
"foreign intervention."
On the contrary, the United Nations must adjudge the
guilt and impose the punishment. They must eradicate
completely those elements which not only planned and
waged the last war, but which will constitute the bridge
between defeat and a third World War.
Judgment Day
How this shall be done becomes clearer if we under-
stand our previous failure. Wide avenues of choice are
narrowed by the lessons of history. Its wisdom shuts off
many by-paths and directs us down the following program-
matic road:
1. Occupation of Germany — Its Sovereignty Suspended
There will be as many national and international mili-
tary and civil courts as will be needed to try promptly the
hundreds of thousands of German offenders in all parts of
the world. But the prosecuting authorities will not be
able to bring to justice every one of the many millions who
will be guilty. This fact should be faced realistically. It
91
is true of criminal procedure even in ordinary times. Not
every offender is indicted and tried. To a certain extent,
law enforcement is symbolic. The punishment of the most
important criminals and a fair proportion of others is
intended to act as a deterrent, and to discourage those who
measure their conduct by the possibilities of punishment
rather than by social obligation. So, in the international
realm, not every German who has violated the rules of
International Law will receive his just deserts. The people
as a whole must be taken into "protective custody," to use
a German expression in its sincere sense. We have dealt
at length with the responsibility of the German people,
not in the individual sense, but as a group. They, and not
merely their leaders, are the cause of the slaughter. We
have previously resolved not to permit the exceptions to
blind us to this fact. They, exceptions and all, cannot be
trusted to preserve the peace. Their state, the corporate
entity through which they have acted, must be dissolved.
Their nationhood must be forfeited until such time as they
demonstrate their reform by the acceptance of civilized
standards. In short, German sovereignity must be sus-
pended. The country must be completely occupied by the
forces of the United Nations.
Those who fear that the burdens of occupation will be
too heavy upon the victors may take comfort from the fact
that the Allied Military Government has performed its
functions heretofore with ease as well as efficiency. In the
beginning, the occupation of Germany will involve its
investment by large military forces. But as the disarma-
ment and other features of the peace program, which we
will discuss later, are being effectuated, the police control
will dwindle to token proportions. Germany's terror of
internal chaos, and the consequences to the safety of its
people as well as its self-interest in a reduction of occupa-
tion costs, may result in co-operation not at present en-
92
visaged. Psychologically, a complete occupation is a
necessary prerequisite to the educational program later
to be discussed. The best answer to the myth of in-
vincibility must be so conclusive a demonstration of defeat
that spurious contentions about the "undefeated German
Armies" can never again be made. By any criterion, the
burdens of a prolonged occupation are a cheap price for
this contribution to peace.
Unlike German occupations, it will be benevolent and
friendly as well as firm. There will be no plundering,
mass executions or hostages. But we will not heed any
nationalistic protests about Germany's right to inde-
pendent action and sovereignty as a nation. The criminal
state may no more demand its freedom than the individual
criminal. Confinement is the result of its own conduct,
and a necessity for maintaining peace.
Thus at one fell swoop the many juristic concepts
which plagued the representatives at Versailles will be
removed. The American and Japanese minority report on
that occasion asserting the principle that a sovereign is
responsible only to his own people will not be possible
again. Having agreed to destroy Germany's statehood
for its crimes, we will not listen to quibbles about the
immunity of its ex-sovereign. Technical international
problems illustrated by the declaration Churchill was ob-
liged to make that Rudolph Hess is a prisoner of state,
because, if he were a prisoner of war, he would have to be
released when the war ended, will be avoided. There will
be no German government to refuse to turn over war crim-
inals, to conduct its own sham trials, to threaten smaller
nations with economic injury if they do not cooperate with
her against the victors, to receive loans while reparations
are unpaid, and, above all, to plan economically and mili-
tarily for the next try at world conquest. There being no
sovereignty, there would be no professional army of
93
100,000 men such as Germany was permitted last time, in
addition to a small navy. This implied assent to the
existence of a General Staff (and the perpetuation of the
warrior caste) would therefore not be given. At the end of
the first World War we dealt with the "new" German gov-
ernment, even though such recognition was in itself the
absolution of the German people from their responsibility !
There ought to be no peace treaty with Germany,
for treaties can be made only between two sovereign
states. The treaty should await Germany's emergence from
probation into statehood. Since it is not likely that Ger-
many, despite the program we shall discuss later, will have
learned to accept the standards of international good be-
havior for a long time, it may be contemplated that the
peace treaty will be suspended for ten or twenty years, or
perhaps more. Thus the evil will be avoided of settling
disputes while the flames of war still heat the passions, and
its smoke beclouds a historic perspective. It is now gen-
erally agreed among qualified observers of our last Peace
Conference that the procedure of solving the world's ills
under the pressure of time and national "lobbying" is in-
advisable. The whole atmosphere of a peace conference
immediately following a war is conducive to frayed
nerves, emotional instability, and make-shift arrange-
ments. Even the best advance planning cannot anticipate
the emergencies which will arise — for Europe may be torn
by a whole series of readjusting revolts with unforeseeable
consequences. Some of these upheavals and crises, which
would loom large in a close perspective, may be only the
minor convulsions preceding the birth of a new order, and
of no lasting consequence. Yet to provide immediate
permanent solution may be to sow the seeds of more ag-
gravating future crises. General military control under
an armistice and the gradual evolution of peace plans not
frozen in a peace treaty are preferable.
94
2. Who Shall Be Punished
Nazi group leaders must be the first to be punished.
Proof of their guilt is abundant. The armistice terms
should simply declare them guilty. It would be farcical to
try Hitler, Himmler, Goering, Streicher, Ley or other
mass murderers. They have written the evidence of their
guilt in blood on every pavement in Europe. The dossiers
of the United Nations are bulging with data of their un-
surpassed brutality. A trial tribunal should permit them
to be heard on the questions of proper identification and
the extent of the punishment, but no more.
As a Russian declaration states "All mankind already
is aware of the names and sanguinary crimes of the ring-
leaders of the criminal Hitlerite chain. . . . The Soviet
Government considers itself, as well as the governments
of all states . . . obliged to regard severe punishment of
these already unmasked ringleaders of the criminal Hit-
lerite gang as its urgent duty to innumerable widows and
orphans, relatives and kin of those innocent people who
have been brutally tortured to death and murdered on in-
structions of the criminals."
In addition to distinguished legal authority for the
needlessness of trials under such circumstances, there is
also international precedent. Napoleon was never tried.
By a formal convention among England, Austria, Prussia,
and Russia on August 2, 1815, he was declared to be their
common prisoner, to be permanently confined without
trial. The Prince Regent of England gave the reason in a
letter to Napoleon, in which he said this decision was
necessary in order not to give him "any further oppor-
tunity of disturbing the peace of Europe."
It may be contended by those finicky about judicial
propriety that no injury could come from a public trial
and that it would avoid criticism against the "absolutism"
95
of the procedure. However, International Law is still to
be molded on these critical problems, and it would have a
salutary effect if the rule adopted were suitable to the
heinousness of the offenses and the public anxiety for swift
and certain punishment. The enormity of the crimes an-
nounced by the criminals themselves and the existence of
millions of witnesses, make the requirement of proof an
empty formalism. Since the purpose of the procedure is
also to deter future international crime, any lumbering,
awkward ritual to prove the self-evident would only cause
contempt rather than respect for law. There is a point at
which solicitude for a possible innocent victim of a severe
rule becomes mawkish over-caution. We must be concerned
with the dictates of common sense.
The ordinary man and woman must feel the majesty of
law, the directness and practicability of its procedure, and
its avoidance of routine ceremony. Only then will the
thirst for retribution be directed into healthy legal chan-
nels. Otherwise, frustration may set in motion forces of
violence far more serious than any legal unorthodoxy.
However, whether the arch-criminals are tried in a
military or criminal court is a comparatively minor
point. Certainly their names and the charges against
them should be prepared in advance and included in the
very armistice provisions. Those condemned by name in
the armistice should include the Fuehrer, the members of
his cabinet, the Gauleiters, and the members of the High
Command, governors of the occupied regions, and the lead-
ing bureaucrats in the state, municipal and Nazi Party
organizations. These would number approximately five
thousand men. Death penalties should be demanded. This
would dispose of the commanding figures of the party and
government. The United Nations could then turn to the
lesser criminals.
96
Next, the leaders of German mass organizations should
be indicted and tried. The Gestapo and Labor Front have
about 75,000 such officials. In addition, there are about
75,000 subordinates who organized and taught the S. S.,
the Peasant Front and other such organizations. This
entire group of about 150,000 men were the whole-hearted
fanatical Nazis upon whom the ruling group relied. Death
penalties should be sought against each of them.
Every German officer above the rank of colonel, in-
cluding corresponding ranks in the Air Force and Navy,
every member of the Gestapo, S.S. officials, and members
of the German People's Court and of the German Reichs-
tag, should be indicted and tried.
Every German official, no matter how subordinate, who
at any time gave or performed orders for the execution of
hostages or the murder of conquered nationals, should be
indicted, tried, and the death penalty sought.
In addition, the armistice should provide for the com-
plete dissolution of the Officers Corps of the German army
as well as of the army itself. Those among them who have
violated any criminal or international law should be tried,
and appropriate severe penalties imposed.
Any administrator, no matter how subordinate, who
participated in the plunder of foreign countries, all di-
rectors of the German Steel Trust, of I. G. Farben or of
the other German cartels, who, as we shall see later, par-
ticipated in the conspiracy against world peace should be
indicted, and appropriate severe penalties imposed.
Irrespective of rank or position, every soldier or
civilian should be tried, against whom charges are filed
involving any violation of law.
It is only by such thorough methods that the backbone
of Nazism and Prussianism can be smashed and the dan-
ger of future aggression reduced.
97
3. Asylum and Extradition
There is no problem concerning those defendants who
are under the control of the United Nations. The armistice
should provide for their surrender for trial upon proper
demand. A serious problem will arise as to any accused
who has fled to a neutral state. This problem will assume
large proportions since Berne, Switzerland, is only half an
hour from Munich by plane. Malmo, Sweden, is only fif-
teen minutes from Stettin, and Spain is just across the
border from France. Once in a neutral country, Nazis
will claim the right of asylum, as the Kaiser claimed it
in 1918. Unless steps are taken now to prevent it, the
same immunity will ensue. There must be no sedentary,
reflective old age for the greatest disrupters in history.
Recently President Roosevelt and Prime Minister
Churchill appealed to neutral states not to harbor or
protect any war criminals. They were rebuffed on the
theory that the independence of action of the neutral state
must not be yielded to any foreign intervention. But the
matter must not rest there. It must be made clear to
Switzerland, Sweden, Turkey, Spain, Eire and the few
other potential havens of war criminals that the doctrine
of political asylum is not a rule of International Law. It
is a kind of international noblesse oblige, resting solely
in the discretion of the neutral and intended to shield the
politically oppressed. But to apply it to the Nazis, who
have destroyed so many neutral nations, would be a mis-
application of a humane rule. If it will aid in clarifying
this murky misconception among the neutral nations, there
may be cited the decision in the Federal Court of Germany
in 1926 (60 Entsch. in Strafsacher 202) which denied the
existence of any rule of International Law prohibiting the
extradition of political offenders. There is additional
legal authority to the same effect ("Harvard Research
98
on International Law", Encyclopedia of the Social
Sciences) (1935, p. 110).
Perhaps the position of the neutral states was in-
fluenced by the fact that the Nazis were still in power
when the President's appeal was addressed to them. Their
very assertion of independence might well indicate their
lack of it, since the Nazi beast breathed heavily upon their
necks. Perhaps they will change their minds when the
war criminal changes from hunter to quarry. However,
the matter should be pursued vigorously. Strong efforts
should be made to persuade the neutral nations to amend
their extradition treaties so that persons who have waged
a war of aggression or who have violated International
Law shall not be considered political refugees. If this
were done, they would be subject to extradition like any
other criminal. Small neutral nations should be too
anxious for the good-will of the United Nations and the
advantages of cooperative action to risk all for the sake of
a distorted rule. The moral force behind demand for
extradition will be quite real, because almost every neutral
country borders nations which have been outraged by the
Germans and which will be inflamed against a neighbor
that shields the guilty parties. Furthermore, any neutral
country harboring the criminals will also court the in-
ternal protest of its own citizens, for the peoples of the
world will have a common sympathy in this matter. If the
subject is treated firmly enough in advance, neutral
nations may seek to avoid embarrassment and may refuse
entry to the fugitives in the first instance. It may be that
one of the results of the total war will be that the offenders
will have no place to flee. By their very aggressions they
will have wiped out the asylum which might otherwise
be available to them.
99
4. Is Obedience to a Command a Defense f
The responsibility of soldiers for acts committed under
orders must be determined in advance. To what extent
should such a defense be considered valid?
Discipline is one of the recognized obligations of a
soldier. Ordinarily he may not refuse to obey under pain
of death or imprisonment. Acting under such compulsion,
should he be held responsible even for an illegal act?
There are some precedents. In 1915 a French council of
war sitting at Rennes, sentenced a German soldier to death
for pillage, incendiarism and assassination of wounded
soldiers on the field of battle. When arraigned before the
council, he pleaded the formal orders of his commander,
and he named the general from whom the order emanated
and the lieutenant who compelled him to execute it. The
court found him guilty nevertheless, and made a report of
these facts to the Minister of War, so that he might recom-
mend clemency if he desired to do so.
While proof of mere obedience should be considered as
mitigating punishment, it should not be deemed a com-
plete defense. It is an axiom of English and American
law, that the plea of "superior order" is no defense to an
illegal act. Chief Justice Marshall said it was the duty
of a soldier to execute the lawful orders of his superiors,
but that he was personally liable for the execution of an
illegal order (Little v. Barreme, 2 Cranch, 170). In a
later case the United States Supreme Court repudiated
the doctrine that an officer may take shelter under the plea
of a superior command. The court said, "Upon principle,
independent of the weight of judicial decision, it can never
be maintained that a military officer can justify himself
for doing an unlawful act by producing the order of his
superior" (Mitchell v. Harmony, 13 How. 115).
100
The law should not permit an offender to shift re-
sponsibility to his superior and entirely absolve himself.
One who commits a crime acts at his peril, irrespective of
orders, and we have seen that infractions of International
Law, even during war, are crimes. The profession of a
soldier is a hazardous one and the risk should include his
responsibility for an illegal act even when ordered to com-
mit it. To adopt any other view would lead to absurdity —
the successive shifting of responsibility from superior to
superior until every one was exculpated except the com-
mander-in-chief. The doctrine of constraint should not
absolve any person who has any share in the commission
of a criminal act during war. At most, it may affect the
degree, not the fact, of guilt.
5. Practical Judicial Machinery for Punishment
The large number of criminals to be tried and the
necessity for speed requires an extensive judicial system.
However, simplicity and expedition are most likely to be
achieved by the following plan :
The civilian and military courts of each nation should
have jurisdiction to punish all offences committed on its
territory. The law, procedure, and punishment would be
that existent in the country of trial. The accused would
come into the possession of the prosecuting nation either
by capture, or by transfer under the armistice provisions,
or by extradition. As we have seen, this is in accordance
with the well-established principle of International Law
that any nation may try an offender in its own courts if
he comes into its hands. For example, the American
Basic Field Manual, "Rules of Land Warfare," provides
specifically that the remedy to a belligerent for an injury
in violation of the "laws of war" is the "punishment of
captured individual offenders". Thus the great mass of
101
trials would be dispersed among the many aggrieved
nations. Their judicial systems (existing or reconsti-
tuted), including judges, prosecutors, statutes, and pro-
cedures, would be available. Their military courts would
be available to act in accordance with well-established
military principles. Their prison systems could be util-
ized and in the event of death penalties, their form of
capital punishment applied.
However, in addition to these national courts, other
tribunals must be created to try offenders whose crimes
were committed against nationals of several countries in
combination; for example, cruelties inflicted on prisoners
of several nations herded in one camp. There is also the
type of case where the offense was committed against
"stateless" persons, whose exact nationality is not cer-
tain. In the tragic events in which nations were snuffed
out over night, many such confusions exist.
Most important of all, there are the trials ( should it be
decided to proceed with the formality of trial, despite
their evident guilt) of prominent military and naval offi-
cials and civilian authorities who determined major
policies. This group would include heads of state and
their chief ministers. Their offenses transcend the juris-
diction of the courts of any one nation. Their crimes were
international in scope, and public indignation is also in-
ternational. Even if any one nation might properly obtain
jurisdiction over such an offender, it should yield to
an international court to be created. Humanity could
best express its dictates through such a forum. Nor is the
least advantage from an international court the joining
hands of all nations after the war to act concertedly in
dealing out justice.
Two kinds of international courts would be desirable.
Representatives from the existing national military tri-
bunals or commissions of the United Nations could be con-
102
stituted an International Military Tribunal. As many of
these courts could be quickly created as would be neces-
sary to deal with the large dockets. Acting as a final
appellate court and also as a court of original jurisdiction
for the trial of the most important offenders would
be an International Criminal Court especially desig-
nated for this purpose. The judges would be appointed
in the same manner as those chosen for the Permanent
Court of International Justice.* It would be desirable,
as has been recommended by Professor Sheldon Glueck,
that neutral nations be invited to designate repre-
sentatives on these international courts. In this way these
courts might best represent the conscience of all mankind.
Indeed, it would be fitting that several outstanding pro-
democratic jurists who were hounded out of Germany
or Italy should be appointed to this court as distinguished
citizens of the world and not as representatives of any
particular country.
Any of these international courts, whether military or
criminal, would have superseding jurisdiction. Its claim
to try an offender would take precedence over that of any
national court. Conversely, if a nation preferred for any
reason not to try any particular offenders, it could request
one of the international courts to accept jurisdiction.
A staff of prosecutors for the international courts
should be designated by the various countries which are
represented on the court. To these prosecutors should
*This court has had a distinguished record of service. More than
forty nations have at some time accepted the opportunity to submit their
disputes to this court. This obligation has usually been limited to a five-
year period but some acceptances have been for ten years or have had
no time limit. Between 1921 and 1934 there was a real approach toward
universal recognition of a duty to submit international disputes to
judicial settlement. This may be an encouraging precedent for those
who are so jealous of their nation's sovereignty that they shun coop-
eration even in an international court for the punishment of war crim-
inals.
103
be submitted as early as possible the confidential data of
the accusing governments or governments-in-exile, con-
cerning the guilt of the accused. The prosecutions would
proceed in advance to gather additional evidence and take
the depositions of witnesses who may not later be available.
In other words, the prosecutors and their efficient staffs
should be prepared to proceed promptly after the armistice
with as many trials as possible. Each nation should ap-
point special prosecuting commissions to gather evidence
for the hundreds of trials which it, rather than the inter-
national court, will conduct. Public defenders should be
provided for indigent prisoners.
The Provost-Marshals of the military forces of the
United Nations should designate police officials to arrest
and detain accused persons and to execute sentences
imposed. The jails, hospitals for insane and probationary
and parole facilities of the accusing country should be
used. Similarly, where there is conflict of law as between
nations, the law of the accusing nation should apply.
The armistice should provide that all evidence of guilt
shall be turned over to the international court and that
destruction if any such evidence must be made a serious
crime.
6. Property Courts with Criminal Jurisdiction
In addition to the criminal courts, special property
courts should be created to determine disputes involving
restitution of property. In the larger sense, this is an
economic problem and will be treated later as such. For
the present it will suffice to say that the Nazis robbed
Europe of property valued at the incomprehensible sum of
fifty billion dollars. As far as possible, these stolen goods
must be returned, either to their rightful owners, or if
they can no longer be determined, to the government of
104
the country from which they were removed. Each victim-
ized nation should appoint commissions to investigate
and gather evidence concerning the stolen property. The
secretion or destruction of such property or the refusal
to reveal its whereabouts, should be deemed a crime and
should be severely punished. The property courts should
have criminal jurisdiction for this purpose. Restitution
must be made, not only of ordinary chattels, such as money,
machinery, works of art, commercial and industrial goods,
cattle, and implements, but also of shares of stock or other
symbols of ownership no matter how intricate the transfer
and the disguises. Fortunately, the complexity of the
task has not discouraged an early effort to cope with it.
An Inter-Allied Information Committee in London re-
cently reported concerning the control of various enter-
prises obtained by German banks.*
*Thc Deutsche Bank controlled and administered directly or in-
directly:
Creditanstalt-Bankoverein of Vienna
Bohmische Union-Bank of Prague
Union-Bank of Bratislava
Kredit Bank of Sofia
Banka Commerciale Romana of Bucharest
Kroatischer Bankverein of Zagreb
Banque Nationale de Grece of Athens
H. Albert De Bary & Co. N.V. of Amsterdam
Deutsche Uberseeische Bank of Madrid
General-Bank Luxemburg A.G.
It also constitutes a significant trail that the Deutsche Bank has
its own branches in Katowice, Bielsko, Danzig, Gdynia, Lodz, Pozman,
Creozyn, Zoppot, Cracow, Lwow, Budapest and Brussels.
The Dresdner Bank controlled and administered directly or indirectly:
Landerbank A.G. of Vienna
Kommerzcalbank A.G. of Cracow
Ostbank A.G. of Poznan
Oberschlesische Diskontobank A.G. of Longshutte
Deutsche Handels-und Kredit Bank A.G. of Bratislava
Kroatische Landesbank A.G.
Societatea Bancara Romana of Bucharest
Handels-und Kreditbank A.G. of Riga
Banque d'Athenes of Athens
Societe Financiere Greco-Allemande
Wechelstube A.G. "Merkur"
105
Those in charge of economic warfare in England and
the United States have followed the changes in Continental
industry and have large files on German economic activi-
ties. These and other clues are available as to the ultimate
resting places of the plundered goods. German fanaticism
always stops short at one practical point. It envisages the
possibilities of defeat and cunningly plans to retain the
wherewithal for another try. Therefore, we shall examine
later the skillful organizations and devices adopted by the
Nazi to create the appearance of bona fide title to stolen
goods and to place as many obstacles in the path of in-
vestigation as possible.
There will be transfers of title galore, and interming-
ling with "valid purchases" in most cases. But loot is loot,
Ungarische Allgemeine Kreditbank
Bulgarische Handelsbank of Sofia
Kontinentale Bank of Brussels and Antwerp
Handelstrust West N.V. of Amsterdam Internationale Bank
The London Commission further reported that the Commerzbank
A.G. controlled and administered directly or indirectly:
Hansabank N.V. of Brussels
N.V. Ryinische Bank Mij.
Banque Commerciale de Grece
Branches at Pozman, Lodz, Cracow, Zakopane, Sosnowiec, and
Katowice, Riga, Tallinn
Rumanische Bank Anstalt
Bankverein "Agram" A.G.
Allgemeine Jugoslawische Bankverein
The London Commission further reported that the Berliner Handels-
gesellschaft controlled and administered directly or indirectly:
Banka Chrissoveloni S.A.R. of Bucharest
Badische Bank
The Handels-gesellschaft controlled the majority of Alsatian busi-
ness through the Allgemeine Elsassisch Bank-gesellschaft.
The report further stated that the Bank der Deutschen Arbeit con-
trolled and administered directly or indirectly:
Ostdeutsche Privatbank A.G. Danzig
Bank voor Nederlandasche Arbeit N.V. of Amsterdam
Westbank N.V. (Banque de Travail S.A.) of Brussels
Branches in Prague, Luxemburg, Metz, Strasbourg and Riga.
The Reichs Kredit-Gessellschaft controlled and administered directly
or indirectly the Rumansche Kredit-Bank of Bucharest.
106
and the legalistic masks of respectability should be swept
aside by the property courts with a firm hand. The prop-
erty of all German functionaries who have enriched them-
selves during the Nazi regime should be expropriated, and
if its ownership cannot be traced, it should become part of
a fund for substituted restitution pari passu to the Nazi's
victims in conquered territories. This will in some meas-
ure compensate for the loss of irreplaceable chattels.
7. Restitution by Labor
There remains one other form of restitution — labor.
The dissolution of the German Army, Schutzstaffel and
Sturm-Abteilung groups among others, will affect at
least four million men. Of these, hundreds of thousands
will have been sentenced to jail terms by national and in-
ternational courts. These sentences will range up to life
imprisonment. Jail sentences should be served in labor
battalions which will rebuild the devastated areas and help
in the resettlement of families driven from their homes.
Care must be taken to prevent too great an importa-
tion of labor, which may injure the country to be restored,
just as the flooding of German reparation goods after the
first World War injured the markets of the creditors. A
balance must be maintained between the proper assistance
required in the devastated areas and the unemployment
problem in the assisted nation. The controls for main-
taining such an equilibrium will be considered in the eco-
nomic program to be applied.
But subject to this limitation, it is obvious justice as
well as proper penalty that Germany should provide the
manpower to rehabilitate the territories she has wantonly
desolated. It was Frederich Froebel, the noted educator
and founder of the kindergarten system, who said that
children who destroyed other children's toys should be
107
made to replace them with their own. Mere verbal chas-
tisement is ineffective. The Germans have proceeded on
the theory that real wealth is labor and they should be
required to pay partly in that coinage.
Weighting the Scales of Justice
In the first World War, almost all of the eight million
dead were battle field casualties. In the Hitler war, it is
estimated that four million civilians have been killed by
ruthless race extermination squads, hostage executions,
and deliberate terroristic tactics as the Germans advanced.
No punishment can be deemed fully adequate for the
wrongs committed. But within the limits of the available
retributions as prescribed by humanity, and with due re-
gard for the educational and reform program to be applied
simultaneously with the penal provisions, these recom-
mendations have been made.
For the two objectives must always be kept in mind.
By forfeiting German sovereignty we punish her and pro-
tect ourselves, but we promise an end of the probationary
period and the restoration of Germany as an equal mem-
ber of the international family, if she reforms.
To eradicate her military clique down to its very
roots, we decree capital punishment for the most con-
scienceless murderers in history. At the same time we free
the German people from the leadership, subterranean or
openly avowed, which has encouraged its repeated orgies
of war lust.
By restitution in the form of property and labor, we
return to the victims some of the works ruthlessly stolen
or destroyed. At the same time, the German people will
be learning, too. They will learn the simple American
slogan that crime does not pay. Not only the enforced
108
surrender of loot, but the devastation of their own land
should have some sobering effect.
These punishment provisions cannot, however, in them-
selves, either fully protect us or constitute sufficient educa-
tional deterrents.
Much more must be done.
109
CHAPTER IV
CUTTING SAMSON'S HAIR
Economic justice will be due all the peoples of the
earth, whether they be citizens of large and powerful na-
tions, or small and weak ones; whether they be colonials
under international supervision awaiting self-determina-
tion ; whether they be erstwhile enemies ; yes, whether they
be Nazis or Japanese. The German people may be de-
prived of sovereignty, but not of food. Their preparation
for international cooperation must be founded on a healthy
economy. One cannot educate them to political democracy
while practicing economic autocracy against them. We
have seen that economic distress was not the cause of Hit-
lerism. Deeper, corrupt, super-national phobias drove the
German people.
But the community of nations must include the defeated
peoples on equal terms, in the economic peace or the
world's economic structure will suffer.
Such a policy can, however, readily be a prelude to
another tragedy. On the previous occasion the Germans
shrewdly exploited our desire for economic justice, to plot
another war.
Much can be learned from prior German perfidy. A
journey through some historical paths will make us
familiar with the terrain.
110
German Industry Plots a War
Germany declared war upon the world during its
republican regime. It was economic war, and therefore
not as shocking or discernible as the subsequent incur-
sions of panzer troops. But it was deliberate and pur-
poseful and unscrupulous — all trade-marks of German
efficiency. Its effectiveness was magnified in proportion
to the unawareness of the "victorious" nations. Even to
this day few appreciate the cunning of this economic war-
fare. In military attack, the element of surprise ends
with the visit of the first bombers. In economic attack,
the element of deception remains a constant ally. It is as
subtle as it is deadly.
As early as 1920, and probably before, the leading
German chemists and industrialists planned the second
World War. They had unlimited funds at their disposal,
hidden in Holland, Switzerland and the United States, in
the names of citizens of those countries. And they rightly
calculated that foreign investors would pour money into
Germany if it feigned inability to pay reparations.
Many of the German patents were seized in Britain
and the United States during the first World War. But
the Germans were little affected by this because they had
never properly revealed their patents, though this is re-
quired by international and national patent laws. Thus,
when, to cure syphilis, the United States attempted to
manufacture salvarsan from the German patent, it dis-
covered all too late that the formula was defective. Many
soldiers were poisoned. We had a similar experience
when we tried to make synthetic nitrates for explosives.
These German industrialists and chemists planned
Der Tag with their own weapons. Having a monopoly
of synthetic nitrogen, they planned to infiltrate into
foreign industry an economic fifth column which would
111
seize control of war industries. Karl Duisberg, the chief
chemist of the German Bayer Company, had prolonged
the first World War by his development of ersatz food
and clothes. Karl Bosch, chief chemist of the Badische
Anilin-und-Soda Fabrik, had invented chlorine poison gas,
snrpalite and yperite. Fritz Haber, head of the Kaiser
Wilhelm Institut, had discovered how to take nitrogen
out of the air. Synthetic nitrogen had served for both
explosives and fertilizer. These three veterans of the first
World War, together with many younger adherents,
plotted to recapture the dye and pharmaceutical markets.
The first step was to merge every important chemical firm
in Germany into one huge trust. The Germans with their
craving for polysyllabic names called it the "Interessenge-
meinschaft Farbenindustrie Aktien Gesellschaft". Then
branches were established throughout the world. It was
known in the United States as the I. G. Farben. In other
countries it bore other names. But it is no exaggeration
to say that this enormous enterprise, which obtained con-
trol of vital industries throughout the world, and acted
at the same time as the espionage center for the German
military clique, was as instrumental in conquering Europe
as the German army. And it antedated Hitler's ascent
by fourteen years.
Karl Duisberg became chairman of the Board of I. G.
Farben, Karl Bosch, its President. It encompassed not
only the chemical industries but also the heavy indus-
tries, such as steel and munitions. Therefore it included
representation of Adolf Kirdorf, czar of the German Coal
Trust, Krupp von Bohlen, Fritz Thyssen, Hjalmar Schacht,
Hugo Stinnes, Albert Voegler, director general of the
United Steel Works, and many others. The I. G. Farben
in a short while regained control of its former impressive
holdings in the United States. As it extended its Ameri-
can interests, it combined its various activities under the
112
innocuous name of the American I. G. Chemical Corpo-
ration. This later became known as the General Aniline
and Film Corporation.
The German industrialists planned not only to make
Germany self-sufficient for war, but also to prevent foreign
preparation, through extending their control into foreign
countries. They planned, if and when this work was com-
pleted, to destroy the German Kepublic and select some
suitable leader to execute their plans for world conquest.
Hitler was not even dreamed of as the Fuehrer ; and if he
had been proposed to the conspirators during this period,
he would undoubtedly have been scorned as a stupid and
neurotic scamp. It was only later, when his exciting
demagoguery, combined with the requisite gangsterlike un-
scrupulousness, had built a following, that he was financed
for bigger deeds. In the early stages of the industrial
and military conspiracy against civilization, Hitler was
ranting in a beer hall against big business and corpora-
tions, and demanding National Socialism. He was later
to be lifted by industrialists to a position of power, where
he could give vent to German aspiration for world con-
quest. He inherited a war machine. He did not build it.
Those who did build it combined arms preparation
with economic conquest.
The Versailles Peace Treaty had fixed the German
Army at no more than 100,000 officers and men. The
theory of this limitation was that such a force might be
necessary to preserve internal order.
But German bad faith took immediate command.
Krupp and Thyssen financed the Free Corps, the nucleus
of the army which was to conquer Europe. This was being
done in the very days of the German Republic. The in-
dustrial barons provided funds to von Schleicher, who or-
ganized the Black Reichswehr. It trained in secrecy.
They also financed Major Duesterberg, who organized the
113
Stahlhelm (Steel Helmets), the veterans of the first
World War. Von Schleicher became the financial conduit
for the Free Corps and its notorious leaders, Captains
Ehrhart and Schlageter. Those in the government who
would not join the conspiracy were terrorized. Chancellor
Friederich Ebert's liberal Minister of Finance, Mathias
Erzberger, leader of the Catholic Center Party, was assas-
sinated by the Free Corps. This Nazi method likewise
preceded the Nazis and Hitler.
Professor Major General Karl E. Nikolas Haushofer,
as early as 1925, was expounding the geopolitics of world
hegemony to the officers of the Black Reichswehr. The
development of a skilled general staff trained in newer
technique could be carried on secretly. But how was a
huge army to be trained in secret? The answer was the
sport camps and recreational centers throughout Ger-
many. The entire youth of Germany suddenly became
interested in physical culture and long hikes. Aviation
training was achieved through glider clubs. Thus the
prohibition against the construction of military planes
was circumvented. All this, too, preceded Hitler and the
Nazis.
Dr. Karl Joseph Wirth, new leader of the Catholic Cen-
ter Party and Chancellor of the Weimar Republic, boasted
openly that the real foundation for the German rearm-
ament had been already laid in the beginning of the
Weimar Republic and that Hitler only completed the work
which had been started:
"As to the rearmament of Germany, Hitler has only
continued the rearmament that had been prepared by the
Weimar Republic. I, myself, deserve great credit for this
preparation . . . The great difficulty was that our military
efforts had to be kept secret from the Allies. I, therefore,
always had to appear polite and harmless . . . When Hitler
114
came to power he no longer needed to concern himself
with the quality of the German Army but only with the
quantity. The real reorganization was our work." (Lu-
cerne Daily News, August 9, 1937)
The Axis Is Founded Long Before Hitler
In 1928 Germany successfully invaded the Orient in
its economic war. An agreement was entered into with
the Japanese government to take over its chemical indus-
try and train the Japanese in the manufacture of explo-
sives and light metals. Poison gases were included, and
under the tutelage of an I. G. Farben chemist were, and
are still, being manufactured at the Sumitomo Chemical
Co. plant at Wihima. Full agreement was also reached
with Japan concerning synthetic nitrogen, which involved
licenses to the Japanese trusts of Mitsui and Mitsubishi.
The Axis was forming long before Hitler.
In 1931 Mussolini desired a great Italian chemical
industry for war purposes. He needed the Farben pat-
ents and secret formulae. He was readily induced to
force the Italian firm of Montecatini to join the Farben
monopoly. This was achieved by the organization of the
Agenzia Chimiche Nazionali Associati to manufacture
all dyes, heavy chemicals and aluminum for Italy. Farben
took 49 per cent of the stock. Montecatini received 51 per
cent. But this was a typical German illusion. Actually
Germany dominated this company through its patent con-
trol. Italian industry had become just another plant for
I. G. Farben. It is to be noted again that this took place
in 1931. The Italian-German Axis was really formed
through economic arrangements prior to Hitler's ascent.
The purpose was preparation for war.
The reticent Karl Duisberg could not restrain his sense
of triumph. In a public speech in Munich on March 26,
115
1931, he said : "Only a solid economic block from Odessa
to Bordeaux will give Europe that economic backbone
which it needs in order to maintain its position in the
world."
Had the French government noticed the word "Bor-
deaux" or the Eussian government the word "Odessa",
they would have known the Germans' ultimate goal.
By 1932 I. G. Farben substantially controlled im-
portant European industry. Chiefly by means of price-
cutting policies the outstanding French firm, Etablisse-
ments Kuhlmann, was forced into alignment with I. G.
Farben in 1927. In 1929 I. G. Farben obtained con-
trol of the three largest chemical companies in Switz-
erland— the Ciba, the Gergy and the Sandoz companies.
It proportioned the manufacture of certain chemicals
among its international subsidiaries. Dyes were to be
made 5% by Switzerland, 5% by Italy, 8% by France
and 82% by Germany. The English chemical industry, too,
was forced to make market arrangements with I. G.
Farben. Similar control was obtained of the manufacture
of nitrogen. France and Chile, Germany's chief competi-
tors in this field, acquiesced (through a cartel) in quota
restrictions which favored Germany.
The attorney and representative of I. G. Farben in
France was Pierre Laval !
The Americas Are Invaded
I. G. Farben acquired 50% of the stock of the Grasselli
Dyestuff Corporation, the American company which had
obtained the I. G. Farben patents from the Federal Alien
Property Custodian. Soon Farben owned 100% of this
company. It had recaptured its patents. Then it changed
the Grasselli Company into the General Aniline and Film
Corporation. Similarly the American Bayer Company,
116
which had acquired the German Bayer patents from the
Alien Property Custodian, was absorbed and made an I. G.
Farben unit in the Sterling Products Corporation. These
companies were the main suppliers of the pharmaceutical
markets throughout Latin America. They were now in
German hands.
The infiltration of vital American industries continued,
— all this within five years after Germany's defeat and
when she was "unable" to pay reparations.
I. G. Farben had owned a substantial share of stock
in the Ford plant at Cologne, Germany. Edsel Ford owned
shares in the I. G. Farben organization (General Aniline
and Film Corp. ) in the United States. He became a direc-
tor of this company. This association, while innocent so
far as Ford was concerned, resulted in such anomalous
by-products as Fritz Kuhn, later the leader of the Nazi
Bund in the United States, being employed in this country
as a chemist in the Ford motor plant; Henry Ford receiv-
ing a Nazi medal; and his refusal to manufacture air-
plane motors for England.
Holding forth its patents for the manufacture of syn-
thetic gasoline as bait, I. G. Farben formed an association
with the Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey. This was
achieved through the medium of a new corporation called
Standard I. G. Company. Thereafter this company ac-
quired the International Hydrogenation Patents Company
Ltd., which controlled synthetic oil patents throughout
the rest of the world. Walter C. Teagle, Chairman of the
Board of Directors of the Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey,
became a director of General Aniline and Film Corpora-
tion. The annual business of General Aniline in the
United States alone exceeded ? 40,000,000.
German patent control through cartels extended to
vital and new materials essential to war. Under patent
117
arrangements with German firms, American companies
were obliged to exchange information. Thus we find that
important secrets concerning the production of synthetic
rubber were revealed by American concerns to Nazi Ger-
many, although they were concealed from the U. S. Navy
Department. And as late as Pearl Harbor, royalties on
aviation gasoline sold to the R. A. F. were put aside to be
paid to I. G. Farben after the war.
Strategic new materials were concealed from our
country. When a Nazi armored car was captured, chem-
ists discovered that it had been constructed from an
unknown metal alloy, lighter than aluminum and stronger
than steel. Only then did it become plain how Nazi
motorized forces had been able to extend their radius of
activities "abnormally". This and other alloys were made
from magnesium and beryllium. Beryllium is the most
remarkable of the light metals and cheap to produce. It is
lighter and stronger than magnesium. In the United
States, production of light metals was limited almost en-
tirely to aluminum. Yet magnesium is 50 per cent lighter
than aluminum, and aluminum is only one-third as heavy
as steel.
At the beginning of the second World War, Germany
was producing almost three quarters of the world's entire
output of magnesium. This was four times what the
United States produced, even though Germany had to pro
duce this metal from by-products, whereas our country had
better access to the natural raw material. How was the
German predominance obtained? By patent monopolies
which prevented or curbed the expansion of such new in-
dustries in the United States.
Mr. Andrew J. Gahagan, president of the Beryllium
Corporation of Pennsylvania, testified before the Truman
Committee of the United States Senate that his company,
which had through independent research attempted to de-
118
velop this metal, found a basic patent in a little known
corporation called Metal and Thermit Corporation. He
approached his "competitor" for a license. After three
years of negotiation, he discovered that it did not really
control the patent. Bather, it was owned by Siemens und
Halske, Germany's biggest electro-technical concern.
Gahagan went to Berlin and obtained a license, but under
such terms that the manufacture of beryllium in the
United States was limited to insignificant quantities.
In the same manner, international cartels gave Ger-
many advantages in the plastic field. It is not yet clear to
what extent plastics will replace iron, steel, cement and
wood. But many have predicted that we are about to
emerge industrially into the "plastic" era. Certain it is
that plastics have in many instances qualities superior to
wood, glass, porcelain, and other materials. Moreover, it
becomes possible to replace complicated machine-tool work
with simplified casting. Germany held basic patents for
plastics of strategic military importance and issued li-
censes in such a manner as to limit foreign production.
Monopoly, through cartel, was exploited to tempt Ameri-
can firms into these arrangements. For example, Plexiglas
is a new material with almost miraculous qualities. It is
a glasslike plastic but it does not splinter. It can be sawed
or carved like wood and can be treated like soft metal. Its
suitability for cockpit enclosures, transparent bomber
noses, gun turrets and windshields is obvious. It increases
the efficiency and safety of military planes.
When the war began, German planes were already
equipped with this material. The German firm of Kohm
and Haas A. G. held the basic patents. Subsequent evi-
dence before the Truman Committee revealed that there
was only one company in the United States producing this
strategic material. It was Rohm and Haas, Inc., of Phila-
delphia. The German and American firms had a world
119
monopoly on Plexiglas. By agreement between them, the
German firm was not permitted to sell in the United
States, but had the exclusive market for Europe, Africa
and Asia (excluding Japan). While the German firm
could not sell Plexiglas to the United States, it could sell
finished articles made of Plexiglas anywhere. In 1936
Imperial Chemical Industries of Great Britain received a
license under similar conditions.
I. G. Farben had a special agreement with Kohm and
Haas, Inc., whereby Farben agreed not to manufacture any
product similar to Plexiglas, while Kohm and Haas agreed
not to use their patents for articles which would be com-
petitive with Farben. The base of Plexiglas is methyl
methacrylate, a synthetic product, which can also be
utilized for production of artificial rubber, dyestuffs and
pharmaceutical articles. Thus, by virtue of the restrictive
arrangements concerning Plexiglas, Germany also limited
foreign production of artificial rubber and other war mate-
rials.
When the American government purchased Plexiglas, a
royalty of three per cent was paid to the German com-
pany. Koyalties for sales to Kusia were ten per cent.
Even after the war began in 1939, Germany continued
to do "business as usual" with Plexiglas. It arranged for
the American company to serve Germany's markets and
pay over the profits, minus an appropriate service charge.
The agreement expressly provided that "at the time when
we will be able again to sell to the aforementioned coun-
tries you will let us have copies of all bills, price arrange-
ments, etc. which are necessary for us in order to get back
into business again."
Industry and Espionage
Thus, irrespective of the outcome of the war, Germany
was planning a new start — not merely a commercial start,
120
but the control of strategic military materials for the next
effort at world domination. One cannot study the tactics
of Germany's economic war without the overwhelming con-
viction that she intends a continuity of effort until Der
Tag is achieved. Defeats are philosophically considered
merely the hard task-master by which experience and in-
formation are obtained for the ultimate successful effort.
Royalties were paid on Plexiglas to the German firm
even after enactment of the Lend-Lease Act. The reports
on sales to the United States and Canada served of course
as an easy index for the Luftwaffe as to the progress of the
manufacture of military airplanes in the United States.
I. G. Farben did not consider itself merely a great com-
mercial empire. It was part and parcel of the German
military conspiracy. Its representatives in the United
States became citizens here, and were surrounded socially
and otherwise with domestic respectability. This fitted
them all the better to become the espionage agents of Ger-
many. The F.B.I, struggled to uncover the sources of the
huge sums of money which flooded the United States and
South America with subversive propaganda. In 1934 Con-
gress fell upon a clue. In the course of an investigation
concerning Ivy Lee, a noted lobbyist, it was discovered
that he was on the payroll of I. G. Farben at a salary of
f 25,000 a year plus expenses. As part of his employment,
Lee had visited Germany and received direct instructions
from Goebbels. He spent millions of dollars in the United
States to spread Nazi propaganda. In this country, Lee
was paid through General Aniline, the Farben subsidiary.
Some payments came through the Farben holding company
of Switzerland — I. G. Chemie.
Every fifth-column agitator in the United States, no
matter how ignorant or low his estate, lived in comfort,
if not in luxury. Funds for scurrilous publications were
never lacking. The William Dudley Pelleys, the Joe Mc-
121
Williams, the Deatheridges, and other of their ilk pros-
pered. I. G. Farben was the financial arsenal of Fascism.
Finally, in the fall of 1941 Federal authorities com-
pleted their studies of the activities of Farben officials who
hid behind their American citizenship. A criminal indict-
ment was obtained against W. E. Weiss, a director of Gen-
eral Aniline and chairman of the board of that other
Farben subsidiary, Sterling Products. Also indicted were
A. E. Diebold of Sterling Products and a host of others,
leading figures in I. G. Farben. The charge was criminal
conspiracy. But Sterling Products succeeded in obtain-
ing a consent decree which dissolved the agreement be-
tween Sterling and I. G. Farben. The defendants were
fined a mere $26,000. An indictment was also obtained
against Kudolf Ilgner, one of the founders of American
Aniline, a brother of Max Ilgner of the Berlin office of
I. G. Farben. The charges involved the control of nitrogen
and other vital chemicals used in the manufacture of high
explosives and munitions in the United States. WTiile the
F.B.I, was pursuing its investigation, Ilgner ordered the
destruction of all his records which related to Farben
patents and royalties. He brazenly pleaded guilty to
ordering these records burned and was fined f 1000 !
In 1941 disclosures of Farben arrangements with
Standard Oil Company, whereby the world was allocated
into exclusive spheres for the use of synthetic oil patents,
caused little public excitement. Synthetic rubber patents
were also controlled by these two companies acting
through a subsidiary called Jasco, Inc. The Goodyear and
Goodrich Companies were stymied in their endeavor to
provide a synthetic rubber industry for national defense.
Even after Pearl Harbor, these companies could not ob-
tain licenses to use the Farben patents held by Jasco. Thus
the Nazis, through their American affiliate, reached into
122
the United States to prevent the production of rubber
while the Japs took the natural sources from us.
Although Great Britain, Belgium and Holland con-
fiscated Farben assets after the war began, the pretense
was long maintained in the United States that Parben was
an "American" enterprise owned either by Americans or
the neutral Swiss. Finally in October, 1941, President
Roosevelt intervened, and named Judge John E. Mack
president of General Aniline, replacing Dietrich A.
Schmitz ; and William C. Bullitt was appointed Chairman
of the Board to replace Wilhelm von Bath. In December,
1941, the Treasury agents took over complete supervision.
Three days later, Federal indictments were handed down
against the Farben companies and their officials for crim-
inal practices which allegedly had commenced in May,
1924. In February, 1942, Secretary of the Treasury Mor-
genthau took over 97 per cent of the Farben stock and thus
stopped the flow of money through subterranean channels
to Germany, and the equally dangerous financing of vicious
Nazi propaganda in this hemisphere. For Farben's activ-
ities were not limited to the United States. At the Latin-
American conference in Bio de Janeiro in January, 1941,
it was revealed that Farben representatives had combined
economic power and bold espionage with deadly effective-
ness.
In Ecuador, the Farben firm of Brueckmann & Co. of
Guayaquil, was headed by L. E. Brueckmann, the Nazi
consul. Several Nazi consular employees were Farben
representatives! The manager of Brueckmann's, Herr
Tetke and the treasurer, Herr Keperti, were the leading
Nazis in Ecuador.
The chief center of Nazi activities in Brazil were the
Farben firms of Allianca Commercial de Anilinas Ltda.,
and A. Quimica Bayer of Bio de Janeiro. Herr Hammers
123
was a ranking executive of Farben and a high member of
the Nazi secret service. Two other Farben-Nazi secret
service men were Herr Burmeister and Max Hahne.
In Chile the Farben-Nazi chiefs were Werner Siering,
Nazi Party secretary, who organized the Nazi intelligence
service in Chile.
In Peru, two Nazi secret service men were executives
of the Farben Compania General de Anilinas.
In Mexico, the Farben chief executive was Baron von
Humboldt, who represented the Gestapo in that country.
Farben maintained three leading firms in Mexico, which
were supplied by General Aniline and Sterling Products
from New York.
Similarly, Farben's commercial and political power
were predominant in Colombia, adjacent to the Panama
Canal, and in other Latin American countries.
The Cartel, a Secret Weapon
Nor was I. G. Farben the only industrial giant to serve
the German "mission". Another typical illustration of
world control through cartel monopoly is afforded in mili-
tary optical equipment. The Zeiss works in Germany are
the world's largest manufacturers of this essential war ma-
terial. Careful steps were taken to prevent American skill
from developing in this field. Bausch & Lomb, also Ger-
man, became Zeiss' exclusive agent in the United States.
Zeiss bought into this American firm. Then came the first
World War and the country was in such dire need of
military optical instruments that appeals were made to the
public for binoculars and other instruments. Under the
guidance of the Bureau of Standards, Bausch & Lomb and
other companies were encouraged to produce optical glass.
Despite this experience, when the war was ended, this
field was left to Bausch & Lomb, and that company in 1921
124
signed a 21-year contract with Zeiss. Thereby, Bausch &
Lomb obtained the United States as exclusive territory
for the manufacture and sale of military instruments.
Zeiss received the rest of the world. Bausch & Lomb paid
7 per cent royalty to Zeiss on all goods sold by it. Once
again, the iniquitous feature of an innocent royalty pay-
ment was that it enabled Germany to know exactly what
kinds of equipment and in what quantity the United States
was buying.
In 1935, Bausch & Lomb refused contracts with Britain
and France for $1,500,000 worth of military instruments.
Pains were taken to limit American output. Although
in 1918 Bausch & Lomb had produced 480,000 pounds of
optical glass, in 1940 it produced only 200,000 pounds. Its
remaining needs were filled by Zeiss. In other words,
Germany controlled the American supply, through its car-
tel arrangement with Bausch & Lomb.
Another illustration involves the Krupp works in Ger-
many. Tungsten carbide gives greater cutting power to
machine tools. It is called the martial diamond. In 1928,
the General Electric and Krupp pooled their patents on
this material. In 1936 they entered into a further agree-
ment, which gave General Electric exclusive control of the
United States market, and Krupp, the rest of the world.
General Electric agreed it would grant no further licenses
to manufacture tungsten carbide without Krupp's
approval.
The importance of this limitation may be gleaned from
the fact that in many machining operations tungsten car-
bide increases the rate of production 500 per cent. Yet in
1938 Germany had twenty times as much tungsten carbide
in use as the United States.
One of the reasons for our small production was Gen-
eral Electric's monopoly in this country, which permitted
it to limit production and fix prices without competition.
125
Thus, when Krupp's price was $90.60 a pound, General
Electric's was $407.70. When Krupp's price was $37.14,
General Electric's was $199.32.
When the second World War came, Germany, previ-
ously defeated, had succeeded in depriving the United
States of the large-scale use of the martial diamond.
These are not isolated instances of German scheming,
aided by American firms bribed by the grant of monopoly.
They were part and parcel of a deliberate German pro-
gram which was applied to aluminum, synthetic rubber,
quinine, atabrine and other important chemicals and
metals.
During the first World War the United States seized
12,000 German patents. Almost all of them illegally secre-
ted essential information, so that they were not genuine
patents. American ingenuity, which had been too long
under-estimated, found its own way. But Germany later
either directly reacquired its patents, or regained control
of them through cartel agreements.
Thus, in almost every instance where there was a cartel,
there was a military shortage in 1942.
American firms, whatever their financial ambitions, oper-
ated independently and not pursuant to governmental di-
rection. Indeed, very recently Vice-President Wallace
issued a statement on behalf of Ralph W. Gallagher, presi-
dent of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, after
the latter's visit to him, to the effect that there should be
no international cartels which hold prices above competi-
tive levels; that all international agreements should be
filed with the Federal government; that there should be
unrestricted licensing of patents at reasonable royalties;
and "that cartels which limit production, fix prices, divide
territory and limit technological developments are against
public policy and are inconsistent with our principles of
126
free enterprise." This is the enlightened voice of American
business as it is heard today.
The German firms, however, were instruments of the
State and their goal was ultimate military domination.
A Fifty Billion Dollar Haul
This discussion of German enterprises will aid in
grasping the elusive fact that German industry planned
and plotted with the army a military attack upon the
world. Their "vision" included the looting of Europe.
Both the war and the consequent international robbery
were achieved.
The Nazi army was probably the only one in the world
which had special economic units working in co-ordination
with its General Staff. Their function was to obtain re-
sources for the prosecution of the war. They were special
units of the army, scientifically trained in looting. This
department was called Wehrwirtschafts und Ruestungsamt
im Oberkommando der Wehrmacht or War Economy and
Armament Board of the High Command of the Armed
Forces, abbreviated to WiRil. In preparation for the in-
vasion of Poland the WiRil conducted an experiment on
an area in the Saar. The entire civilian population was
evacuated in a few hours. Then, in the abandoned vil-
lages and towns, units of the War Economy Staff entered
with trucks and tools. Trained mechanics dismantled
machine tools and other industrial machinery, while mili-
tary clerks made detailed inventory and tagged each ob-
ject. Three thousand railroad cars carried everything to
another location in the east. This was a preview of Ger-
many's subsequent program.
The Board of Economic Warfare of the United States
reports that the Germans have plundered Europe at the
rate of ten billion dollars a year. There has been a system-
127
atic removal of machinery, food, war material and cloth-
ing. The looting has extended from entire industries down
to garden tools and door hinges. Little has been left un-
touched. Laboratory and scientific equipment from Eu-
rope's greatest research institutes have been moved to
Germany. Horses, cattle, sheep and pigs have been con-
fiscated. Public galleries and private collections have
been stripped of art objects.
On April 25, 1941, the German High Command an-
nounced that 872 ships totalling some two million tons
had been seized in occupied harbors.
In Poland alone, public property valued at $2,900,-
000,000 was confiscated.
From France, the Germans acquired enough steel scrap
to cover their normal requirements for three and a half
years, plus oil reserves, copper, nickel, food, soap, shoes,
clothing, paper, razor blades and even toothpaste.
Trains commandeered to haul the loot were not re-
turned. From Czechoslovakia alone, the Germans got
more than $1,500,000,000 worth of military equipment.
They stole even the stocks of laundry in military hospitals.
Booty from Austria and Czechoslovakia was sent to south-
eastern Europe in exchange for foodstuffs and raw mate-
rials. Then these countries were invaded and the same
equipment was recaptured.
By the end of 1941 German robbery amounted to at
least 36 billion dollars ! In 1943 it exceeded 50 billion dol-
lars. Naples and Rome are recent additions to a record
of theft never equalled in all history.
Title By Hold-Up
Nor was this all. Having learned, as we shall soon
see, how to avoid reparation payments, the Germans knew
how to collect them. They levied "occupation costs" upon
128
France, payable at the rate of 400,000,000 francs a day.
Germany's actual occupation costs were 125,000,000 francs
a day. Germany used the balance of 275,000,000 francs a
day to "buy" at forced sale prices, every important indus-
trial plant in France.
In the first instance the fund to meet these occupation
costs was provided by credits advanced by the Bank of
France. But as the Germans used the money to buy
French securities and property, the former French owners,
having no other outlet for the funds, invested them in
Government bonds. This in turn enabled the Vichy gov-
ernment to make renewed payments to Germany. By
means of this Machiavellian cycle, France was despoiled
of real wealth and forced deeper into currency inflation.
In conquered territories, soldiers' banks were estab-
lished (Soldatenbanken). They were provided with spe-
cial army promissory notes called Reichskredit Kassen-
scheme or Reich Credit Office Notes, printed without any
backing. They were valid only in the country of issue.
Reichskredit notes issued for Belgium had no value in
France or even in Germany. The German authorities
fixed an arbitrary rate of exchange between these oc-
cupation marks and the currency of the occupied coun-
try. As soon as a complete inventory of stock piles
and assets had been made by the WiRu (until then all
commercial transactions were prohibited without the con-
sent of the military authorities), the Reichskredit notes
would be declared legal tender. Local banks were com-
pelled to accept them for local currency at the fixed rate.
Thus, when a German bought something in a French
shop with these marks, the owner exchanged them at his
regular bank for their corresponding value in francs. The
bank then exchanged these occupation notes for national
currency at the branches of the Bank of France. It, too,
was compelled to accept them. Since it could neither con-
129
vert these notes into German currency, nor use them in
any other country, the Bank of France was forced to ac-
cumulate them. They merely represented a growing debt
of the French government. Germany's debt, represented
by these notes, was thus transformed into France's debt.
In this way "purchases" were nothing but confiscation.
The goods went to Germany. The responsibility for pay-
ment remained that of the occupied country. Due to the
fixing of artificial exchange rates, the Germans even cre-
ated the illusion that they were paying high prices.
By these devices, Germany acquired, immediately after
occupation, two million tons of oil reserves in France
and Belgium, 300,000 tons of potatoes from Norway,
$10,000,000 worth of Danish bacon, butter and egg stocks
earmarked for the British market, and nine-tenths of Den-
mark's own butter reserves; 2,000,000 tons of wheat re-
serves (excluding France). From France alone the
Germans took food worth upwards of $900,000,000 and
$800,000,000 worth of machinery, textiles, metals, oil,
even feather-beds and kitchen spices. Every conquered
nation was stripped of its food stuffs, minerals, manu-
factured goods, and even of its industrial and commercial
enterprises. Furthermore, the national banks of the occu-
pied countries were compelled to issue more currency with
no other backing than the worthless German occupation
notes which they held in huge quantities. The result was
large-scale inflation, so that ultimately the local shop-
keeper had not only parted with his goods, but was unable
to buy anything with the inflated money he had received.
Every 41 days Germany collected — mostly in goods —
a sum equal to the one it was supposed to pay after the
first war as total reparation each year for World War
damages. Compared with the four and a half billion dol-
lars which Germany exacted each year from occupied
130
countries, the $234,000,000 it was finally asked to pay as
reparations under the Young Plan was a drop in the
bucket.
When the time for restitution comes we must under-
stand that Germany did not simply steal and loot. The
appearance of legal title by "purchase" was deliberately
created, for the Germans have always anticipated that
their effort at world domination may fail. To hedge
against defeat and prepare for another campaign, they
have deliberately given the appearance of legality to much
of their pillage.
The Business High Command
It is difficult to unravel the complex factors of German
scheming, and determine whether the industrial monarchs
of Germany contributed more than the Military High
Command to Germany's emergence from defeat to another
attack upon a peace-hungry world. Neither could have
acted without the other. Armies must be financed. Other
nations must be weakened by military insufficiency and
divisive propaganda. The insatiable German lust for
world domination pervaded its business lords no less than
its military clique. Significantly enough, the plans for
war were hatched and developed long before the appropri-
ate Nazi fanatics and madmen rose to give them hysterical
throat service.
Therefore in planning a just economy for Germany,
special attention must be given to the unique aspirations
of the German businessman. He seeks more than success
and prosperity. He considers himself an agent of Ger-
man destiny. He believes German inventiveness must be
utilized as a military weapon. He is a conspirator, not
an entrepreneur, and any unethical business practices of
jhis competitors in other countries pale into triviality when
131
compared with his program for slaughter and world booty.
There was totalitarian preparation for war in Germany
long before there was totalitarian war.
Just as the German High Command must be eradi-
cated so that it may not breed new military plans; just
as the munitions and "heavy" industries must be eradi-
cated so that they will not secretly again spawn the
weapons of annihilation; so the German international
"business" infiltrations which, through cartels and control
of strategic military materials, constitute an economic
fifth column lending its innocent facade to espionage and
sabotage, must be destroyed forever. Any plan for eco-
nomic justice which ignores these realities will be as futile
as the disarmament clauses of the Versailles Treaty. Ger-
man good faith must be entirely discounted. The power
to practice bad faith must be annihilated.
Before suggesting an affirmative program for German
economic reconstruction with proper safeguards, another
historical journey will be instructive. It is into the financial
and monetary realms, closely allied with economic plan-
ning.
The Reparations Fraud
To this day, Germany claims that she paid 31,875 mil-
lion dollars in reparations. At various times even Allied
experts accepted this estimate. Actually Germany paid
4,671 million dollars. The difference is accounted for by
Dr. Schacht's fraud in treating military losses as if they
were reparations. Thus he valued German colonies lost in
the war at 22.5 billion dollars. He added German state
property in the ceded territories, such as railway stations,
school buildings, government offices and highways. Ger-
many even included in "reparation payments" the cost of
German disarmament, the destruction of German
132
fortresses and the transformation of German industry
from war to peace production. Obviously this is a farcical
accounting procedure. The losses of the beaten aggressor
were claimed to be "reparations"!
It is true that Germany suffered from a severe infla-
tion. One dollar was equal to 4,200,000 marks. Never-
theless, the fact is that between 1924 and 1939 Germany's
real income was higher than in the years preceding the
war. The individual German was earning more in those
"years of want" than in the palmy days under William II.
Germany received in loans and credits from the Allies,
her "conquerors," 6,750 million dollars, a sum far in ex-
cess of what she ever paid. Yet during the very period of
these loans, while Germany's national income was 77 per
cent higher than in 1913, the Allies cancelled 17,100 mil-
lion dollars of German indebtedness, because of her alleged
poverty.
In consideration of these huge cancellations Germany
agreed to cease its constant plea for relief and to pay an-
nually |234,000,000— less than half of the Dawes Plan's
"normal" payments. Nevertheless within a year Hinden-
burg again appealed to President Hoover for relief and a
year's moratorium was granted. The next year reparation
payments were simply cancelled.
The commercial loans fared no better. Germany re-
ceived 5,355 million dollars in cash — and Hitler simply
kept it. Kept it? Actually these funds were utilized to
build another military machine.
The Allies were incredibly duped. Due to inflation in
1923, Germany's internal debt became practically non-
existent while Great Britain carried an internal debt of
31.5 billion dollars, and France, 250 billion francs, all this
apart from some 8,625 million dollars of war debts which
these two countries owed to the United States.
133
The victorious nations suffered under their obligations
while the vanquished obtained cancellations, loans and in-
vestments with which a new military machine was built.
Germany not only had the advantage of surreptitious mili-
tary construction under the guise of poverty, but the Allies,
while financing Germany, were actually unable to finance
their own armament program. Such is Germany's record
of cunning, deceit, and ruthlessness in the financial realm.
This financial skullduggery must not be repeated.
Of greater value than the monetary study in charting
our future course is an analysis of the reparation payments
in merchandise. Two main economic theories of reparation
existed after the last war. One was held by the French,
who insisted that Germany's failure to pay in gold was
due to bad faith and that sufficient pressure would compel
the Germans to pay. The other theory, advocated by the
English under the guidance of Professor John Maynard
Keynes' "dynamic solution," urged that German industry
be rehabilitated by the grant of large loans. This would
enable her to buy raw materials and modernize her pro-
duction equipment. Only a prosperous Germany, it was
argued, would be able to pay the reparations.
A compromise between the two theories was adopted.
Under the Dawes Plan a loan of 800 million gold marks
was made to the Reichsbank, secured by a mortgage on the
German National Railways and certain taxes. Germany
was thereafter to pay her reparations bill at the rate of
one billion gold marks a year, increasing to two and a half
billion in the fifth year. These payments, however, were
to be paid in part in manufactured goods or raw materials.
Germany immediately flooded the world markets with
goods. The Allied nations raised their trade barriers to
keep out the competing German goods. Germany refused
to be thus restrained. She resorted to dumping and sim-
ilar methods, thereby forcing a further revision in the
134
reparation payments. The Young Plan followed, again
substantially reducing Germany's payments, but requir-
ing that they be made in gold, not in merchandise.
Germany accepted the reduction but did not make the
required cash payments. Instead, she stopped all payments
of interest and principal on foreign loans, and simul-
taneously increased her exports by dumping. The cur-
rency and gold which she thereby acquired were not used
to pay reparations but were used to aid the rearmament
program.
During the playing of this financial farce Germany en-
gaged in ceaseless propaganda to the effect that without
access to raw materials she could not live. Actually, her
imports of raw materials far exceeded the pre-war rate
and for a smaller population. But they were absorbed by
armaments secretly being constructed. This propaganda
was amazingly effective with neutral nations and even
with former Allies. The Hoover moratorium was a typical
reaction.
These historical references are not merely recrimina-
tions. The same economic theories which led the experts
to their previous conclusions are still in favor in many
high quarters. The awareness of German deception may
be keener, but traditional beliefs concerning patents, trade,
tariffs, and reparations still persist. The lure of sympathy
for the masses of "innocent" Germans is not inconsider-
able. Nor will our resistive capacity be made firmer by the
numerous German organizations which will no doubt
assure us with all the emphasis of breast-beating that they
were always oppressed democrats performing the Nazi will
under compulsion. Victims of Hitlerism will gain author-
ity by their service in concentration camps, and undoubt-
edly many of them will be sincere. But behind this facade
will be plotters against world peace, whose reform and
democratic evangelism are only disguises to be worn until
135
the next drive for conquest. There must not be another.
For we must steel ourselves on the economic front as well
as on the political front, and extirpate the power to do
evil by methods which, though drastic, are imperative.
Economic Disarmament
It will not be sufficient to destroy the military caste.
Another can quickly arise. Germany's capacity to build
the tools for another war-machine must be permanently
removed. There must be complete industrial disarmament.
Perhaps we may call it "de-armament." To confiscate Ger-
many's existing weapons may actually be of advantage to
her. The confiscated equipment thus acquired by the
United Nations would soon become obsolete, while Ger-
many could plan a newer and more effective arsenal. The
reverse was true when Germany attacked. The democracies,
having been caught unprepared, built newer arms. When
they tooled for bombers, fighter planes or tanks, they had
the advantages of constant and speedy improvements in
models. Burdened by her early start, Germany was con-
structing obsolete models and feared to take time out to
completely overhaul her military machine. Thus, though
our quantity was greatly behind schedule, we often ap-
proached equality through quality.* Perhaps some moral
law of retribution came to the aid of civilization's cause
enabling us to punish those who prepared early, and to help
those whose unpreparedness revealed peaceful intent. We
must not stock ourselves with old weapons and permit the
*This is the explanation of the first triumph in the Battle of Britain
when Germany was at the very zenith of her power. She used bombing
planes not constructed for heavy loads but rather for auxiliary use
in support of tank and infantry forces. Britain used Spitfires specially
designed for their task. That was why so few British pilots were able
to earn so much for so many of us. The later models of Lancaster
and Flying Fortress demonstrated what Germany's bombers should
have been to be effective.
136
Germans surreptitiously to build a modern super- jugger-
naut. So in addition to confiscating her weapons, all
plants engaged in producing war material will have to
be stripped, and the factories demolished. This machinery
must be moved abroad or scrapped. All stocks of metal,
oil, and rubber in excess of current civilian requirements
should be removed, and the Germans should never be per-
mitted to accumulate stock piles of strategic materials.
But even more important, the machine tool, iron, steel,
aluminum, chemical, and other industries which provide
the possibility of reconstructing these plants must be re-
moved from German direction, either physically, or through
control of management. One method of control would be
to place the majority stock of these "heavy industries" in
trust with representatives of the United Nations. If, as
shall be explored later in this chapter, jurisdiction is con-
ferred upon an international body to cope with economic
problems, that organization could act as trustee. In either
event, German industry, which has been, and is, highly cen-
tralized, would be deprived of the opportunity of circum-
venting the disarmament provisions of any armistice.
No reliance can be had upon mere inspection of fac-
tories to determine whether they are really building
military equipment. The difficulty of unravelling German
industrial intrigue is too great. Moreover, the ardor for
investigation diminishes with time. Control of industrial
policy is essential. Industrial control at the source would
eliminate the danger of relaxed supervision. Like most
undramatic tasks, there is conscientious intensity in the
beginning and later the gradual bribery of boredom. We
must not, in so vital a matter, rely solely upon the fevered
alertness of early occupation days. The Germans could
operate the plants and have day-to-day supervision, but the
international trustees should have final power to approve
all personnel, contracts, investments, corporate finance,
137
and all foreign arrangements, whether by cartel or other-
wise. It would then be impossible for German indus-
trialists to establish, through foreign affiliates, an
espionage and sabotage organization under the guise of
business enterprise. The most dangerous form of the fifth
column would be eliminated.
Just as the object of a good physician is to prevent
rather than cure disease, so this industrial control would
stifle secret armament at its source. No longer would
it be necessary to unravel the illimitable complexities of
foreign subsidiaries; of contract associations; of corpora-
tions ostensibly owned by citizens of the resident country ;
of patents and licenses in their names; of deals to limit
production of strategic materials; of price-fixing; of ar-
rangements which aided German research and stymied
our own chemical ingenuity. No longer would the most
remarkable of German alchemies exist, in which lipstick
containers turn out to be cartridge shells, washing ma-
chines become anti-aircraft bases, telescopes become field
artillery, and moving vans grow up to be tanks.
Not the least advantage from such a program would be
the elimination of the demagogic solution of unemploy-
ment— namely, the building of armaments. Dictators have
often resorted to this artificial remedy for economic dis-
tress. It has served too many of their illegitimate plans
such as the creation of a military force to protect their own
regime and feed on others' ; the appeasement of the victims
of "capitalism" (though fascism is state capitalism with-
out social welfare) ; the glamor of military uniform, to
make gangsterism respectable; the esteem of the soldier's
profession with its assumption of patriotism. In three
years under Hitler, German unemployment was reduced
from six million to less than a million. In the fourth,
1937, Germany actually imported labor. If the world's
138
capacity to observe and interpret had not been crippled
by a curious sort of self -hypnosis, it would have seen and
understood in this simple fact that the storm of destruc-
tion was approaching.
Iron and Rye
Finally, economic disarmament must include agrarian
reform and the breaking up of the Prussian feudal estates.
In 1879 Bismarck announced his famous "compact of iron
and rye." This was a high protective policy which aligned
heavy industry and the feudal landowners against the mid-
dle classes. To justify this shift in political power, resort
was once more made to agrarian mysticism — the holiness
of German soil. This was contrasted with the "godless" So-
cial Democratic movement and the "Jewish" capitalist
traders. Thus, long before Hitler and the Nazis, the super-
stition of the superiority of German soil and blood was
offered to protect the Junkers, the landowning aristocratic
and military caste of Prussia.
Until a generation ago, there were really only two
classes in Prussia, the feudal estate-owners and the peas-
ants. This contributed to the German caste system, the
social cleavage, and the fanatical acceptance of au-
thority. This also explains the paternalism of Prussia.
In South Germany, where there was a wider distribution
of land under peasant proprietorship, the German Gemut-
lichkeit had an opportunity to develop.
The Junkers remained the ruling class throughout both
World Wars. It controlled legislation and joined with
Hitler to express Prussian arrogance towards the world.
This landowning class, the fanatical sponsors of super-na-
tionalism, must be smashed. It should not be permitted to
survive, as it did after the defeat of the Kaiser. Its privi-
leged economic position, based upon an arbitrary and
139
excessive protection of grain, wheat and rye, must be de-
stroyed. Its estates must be confiscated and distributed
to the peasants in small parcels. "Agrarian reform, redis-
tribution of the land, such as occurred in several Euro-
pean countries after the last war, is an essenital basis for
democracy and peaceful co-operation." (J. B. Condliffe,
Agenda for A Post-War World.)
It is significant that Germans who seek to wash the
curse off their land place special emphasis upon this re-
form. For example, Professor Einstein has written: "I
am convinced that a fresh aggression on the part of
Germany can be avoided only if the control of industry
on German soil is taken out of German hands, and the
large estates dispossessed and parcelled out."
The Quality of Mercy
Immediately after the armistice, the distressful condi-
tion of Europe will require a generous healing hand. Such
are the insanities of war that the greater the battle, the
more there is to rebuild; the more effective the blockade,
the more there are to feed. These are not our doing. The
civilized world practices killing and destruction only so
that these forces may not permanently be enthroned. But
reconstruction automatically includes the extension of
mercy even to the undeserving. It is estimated that
9,268,138 tons of concentrated foods will have to be sent to
Europe in the first six months after the armistice, if any
kind of order is to be maintained. Repayment can be
made by the recipients in the form of raw materials and
other products which the food-producing countries may
require. France, the Netherlands and Belgium, which will
require the greatest shipments, are fortunately in a posi-
tion to pay in gold and foreign exchange. Assuming,
however, that this aid becomes a "gift", we should not be
140
deterred. Even on selfish terms, and entirely apart from
humanitarian considerations, it will be cheaper than the
expensive block-busters we delivered free over Hamburg,
or the millions of tons of gasoline our jeeps consumed in
Africa, or the warship a day we have been constructing.
Compared with the billions of dollars it has cost to destroy
an evil order in Europe, the cost of restoring a decent order
is trivial. "The United States," wrote Walter Lippmann,
"has a very great interest in seeing that the liberated
continent goes back to work."
In Germany, children should be aided first, and pains
should be taken through the planting of the American,
British and other United Nations flags and the distribu-
tion of printed material, to advise them that it is the democ-
racies which bring them succor. For no opportunity
should be lost, as we shall soon see, to begin the re-educa-
tion as well as the disarmament of the German people.
It is a significant humanitarian fact that no phase of
post-war planning has advanced farther than the solution
of the food problem. Forty-four nations have already
signed the agreement for the establishment of a United
Nations Belief and Rehabilitation Administration.
International Economic Control of Germany
These are some of the prophylactic and relief measures
which must be taken. But the dynamic equilibrium be-
tween preventive measures and relief requires interna-
tional controls. After the last war we were caught in the
vortex of two opposing economic tides. One sought to pun-
ish Germany and make her pay. The other sought to aid
Germany and give her economic stability. We achieved
neither objective. It is small solace to the planners that
German deception intervened to turn all their economic
theories topsy-turvy.
141
The responsibility is ours to make it impossible for
German trickery again to seize the day. The task is
made more difficult by a whole series of dilemmas: we
must insist that Germany make restitution, which will
deprive her of illegally acquired wealth. Yet at the same
time we wish to avoid a German economic collapse which
would spread to the rest of Europe.
We desire to make Germans rebuild the areas they
devastated for this, too, is a form of restitution. Yet at
the same time we do not want German forced labor to
create unemployment problems in the rebuilt countries.
We wish to disarm Germany completely, thus relieving
her of enormous expense. Yet we do not wish to have our
industries burdened by the cost of maintaining armaments.
We desire to relieve the immediate distress in Germany.
Yet we do not wish to suffer the expense of perpetual
policing.
We intend that German reparations shall be paid. Yet
we must not risk her method of dumping merchandise on
our markets. These are but some of the economic conflicts.
The correct policy is clear in general terms : Germany
must pay to whatever extent she may be able, without in-
jury to her own or world economy. But only through in-
ternational control can these conflicts be successfully re-
solved. The ultimate goal must be the establishment of a
more stable order and a more co-operative trading system.
Details for such a plan cannot be fixed. It must be flexible.
It must be subject to constant supervision and readjust-
ment. That is why a supra-national economic body is
essential. Such a World Economic Commission would
prevent makeshift arrangements and desperate, last minute
Dawes, and Young Plans to deal with crises already in
existence. It could engineer the controls so as to keep
Germany's economy sufficiently healthy to make the max-
imum restitution. The imposition of arbitrary punitive
142
reparations is objectionable not because of any sympa-
thetic or sentimental reasons, but because they are uncol-
lectible. And in the course of non-collection, world
economy, a highly sensitive organism, would become dis-
located.
Under the close supervision of an international com-
mission, Germany's economic condition could be amelior-
ated and improved while at the same time she would be
obliged to make restitution. Leading economists, such as
Professor Eugene Staley, J. E. Meade, Professor P. E.
Corbett, Professor Edward H. Carr and Professor J. B.
Condliffe subscribe to this view. They believe that greater
wealth as well as reparations can be created by intelligent
co-ordination. Germany's standard of living has been so
low since Hitler's rise that it will be possible to improve it,
despite reparation and restitution. Under proper guid-
ance, Germany could produce beyond its increased needs
and use the surplus to repair the damage done.
Economic forces are so uncertain and at times so
surprising, their consequences so involved and unfore-
seeable, that static and definite plans to deal with them
are bound to be defective. A dynamic solution must be
sought, one that adjusts itself to progress. Who knows
what new industries will arise? Who knows what new
secrets advancing chemical knowledge will unfold? And
how can we judge in advance what newly developed mate-
rials or products will be required, or in what parts of the
world they will happen to be situated? Who can say what
new technological processes will have to be financed, and
whether it may not be advisable to exploit German effi-
ciency and skill along peaceful lines by setting up some of
these new industries in her midst for the benefit of world
economy as well as her own?
An international board of directors (similar to the
World Investment Commission and World Investment
143
Bank proposed by Professor Eugene Staley) to consider
these business opportunities, could bring them to fruition.
No supplanting of private enterprise is here contemplated.
On the contrary, it should be encouraged. Its initiative
and efficiency are not easily maintained by governmental
bodies. But the very power it generates must be chan-
neled in the interest of society. The controls in the
domestic sphere, such as anti-trust laws and taxation de-
vices, which we apply to protect the public interest, must
similarly be applied in the enlarged realm of international
economic activity. Abuse of strength is a self-destructive
tendency. Enlightened private enterprise is well aware
that it can best remain private when it conforms to social
restraint.
Economic Isolationism Is Also Bankrupt
Our attention to the German problem must not make
us forgetful of our primary concern for her victims.
But Germany is not an island unto herself. She is part
of the economic mainland. Epidemics of economic
disease cross national borders. Solution of the German
problem will help solve the world's problem. But the re-
lationship is bilateral. Complete solution of the German
dilemma requires the absence of international economic
anarchy. The responsibility is ours so to direct the eco-
nomic forces as to derive from them the greatest well-being
possible for all peoples, including the Germans. Isolation-
ism is no more feasible in the economic than in the political
realm.
There was a time when the free movement of goods
without controls was responsible for the greatest advance
in the standards of living the world has ever known ; and
this period was also the longest stretch of comparative
144
peace that man lias known. But developments and com-
plexities of growth have altered the situation.
There is a period in every town when traffic proceeds
most speedily if unhindered by direction. But with growth,
the "let-thein-ride" formula becomes dangerous. Traffic
lights and policemen must curb the flow of vehicles and
give them direction, or there are hopeless snarls and acci-
dents. Economic traffic is no different. It may come to a
standstill of depression in the very act of making haste.
Such chaos is avoidable by international co-operation.
Co-ordination can bring prosperity where unilateral
conduct leaves only depression. Technological progress
requires exchange of raw materials, and selfish national
restrictions only come back to plague those who apply
them.
Necessity has already compelled considerable regional
economic cooperation. There is the Inter-American Eco-
nomic and Financial Advisory Committee and Develop-
ment Commission. There is its plan for an Inter- American
Bank. Here the purpose has been to explore and develop
regional resources, to adjust labor supply to local require-
ments, and to secure capital for desirable enterprises.
The League of Nations' experts and many other econ-
omists saw the stupidities of economic anarchy. The
League raised loans for the relief of Austria and Hungary.
It sought to overcome the effects of rising tariffs by draft-
ing conventions for the simplification and publication of
customs rates. It warned of the dangers involved in im-
port and export prohibitions. But it had no power. It
could only study, report, advise and adjure.
In 1939 the League of Nations adopted a report pro-
viding that its economic activities should be separated
from its political activities. In other words the League
Council was to surrender jurisdiction, so that states not
belonging to the League could be invited to participate in
145
its economic activities. The directing body of the economic
section was to be made up of 24 state representatives and
eight non-governmental members. The League Assembly
appointed an organizing committee which met at The
Hague in February, 1940.
This suspended plan may well be lifted from cold
storage to serve as the nucleus of a supra-national organ-
ization to co-ordinate international economics. Fine pre-
cept is afforded by the International Labor Organization,
likewise voluntarily divorced from the League, and the
Bank of International Settlements. Under such a supra-
national economic authority a Central Bank could be es-
tablished, similar to the Federal Keserve Bank, with
power to raise or lower interest rates simultaneously in
all countries. Thus credit could be expanded or contracted
in accordance with the best interests of all nations. There
would be an "engineer" in charge of the project, and it
would not be permitted to run aimlessly. Exchange rates
could be stabilized and an international revolving fund
could be utilized to check the distress resulting from the
fluctuations of short-term credits.
Above all, quotas, tariffs and other restrictions on trade
could be controlled. Tariffs would be encouraged for in-
fant industries. The international body's jurisdiction
would include control of cartels, which could then be trans-
formed into instruments of international collaboration
instead of international conspiracy.
To those who may be more willing to accept a novel idea
after it has been partially tried and found to be practic-
able, reference is made to the Tripartite Agreement among
the United States, Great Britain, and France in Sep-
tember, 1936. Subsequently, Belgium, Holland and
Switzerland joined the pact. All agreed "to main-
tain the greatest possible equilibrium in the system of in-
146
ternational exchange and to avoid to the utmost extent the
creation of any disturbance of that system by national
monetary action." This agreement was effective, though of
course, it suffered from a limited scope.
None of this is starry-eyed idealism. It is the hard-
est common sense, and good business. The United Nations
have subscribed to the Atlantic Charter which provides :
m,
"Fourth : They will endeavor with due respect for their
existing obligations to farther the enjoyment by all states,
great or small, victor or vanquished, of access, on equal
terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world
which are needed for their economic prosperity;
Fifth : They desire to bring about the fullest collabora-
tion between all nations in the economic field with the
object of securing, for all, improved labor standards, eco-
nomic advancement and social security;"
But the Charter can be made effective only if it is imple-
mented by some supra-national machinery. Such inter-
national co-operation will ultimately be thought as com-
monplace as our long-standing association with the League
of Nations to prevent shipment of opium, to take measures
against the spread of dread diseases, and to encourage
economic research. While the United States shunned the
League, it became an active member of the International
Labor Organization and of the Bank for International
Settlements. As recently as November, 1941, thirty-two
nations met in conference in the United States under the
auspices of the International Labor Organization to dis-
cuss plans for economic and social reconstruction.
A similar body devoted to international economic prob-
lems is the real solution for a whole series of perplexing
problems, of which the German is only one.
147
Filling the Stomach Before the Mind
As the program evolves, it takes on the shape of a peace,
politically hard but economically generous. Economic jus-
tice necessarily includes the painful task of restitution,
and at least partial reparation. To absolve the German
people from this burden would constitute economic injus-
tice to the Russians, whose factories, dams and farms have
been mercilessly destroyed, and millions of whose citizens
have been forced into slave labor, and to the French,
Czechs, Poles, Yugoslavs, Dutch, and other victims of
German outrage. Foresight likewise requires that, in
lieu of revenge, practical steps be taken to prevent Ger-
many from ever again having the means to ravage the
world. Some of the measures to accomplish this end have
been outlined. Nevertheless the program envisions Ger-
many benefiting from an improved world economy and
learning that temporary loot is not the means to genuine
wealth; and that the price of military achievement is the
constant lowering of standards of living.
Those who write the peace must be gifted with the
righteousness which comes from a justified anger against
the immediate past, and a calm determination about the
long future. Combined the two can achieve that elusive
and unprecise concept, justice. The groundwork must be
laid in Germany itself, for a healthy economy, in which the
German disease will have less ground to fester and in
which our own efforts to make the probationary period
a successful one can best function. Economic conditioning
for the educational process is vital.
148
CHAPTER V
EDUCATING CAIN
"Men will be brutal," said Voltaire, "so long as they
believe absurdities."
The most charitable view which can be taken of per-
sistent German derangement in international conduct is
that her people have been conditioned by false teachings
for many generations. Germany's resort to a second World
War after having been beaten in her first assault, might
lead the impatient to declare her incurable — a case of "bad
blood." Such counsel of despair has been given by many
an author. One wrote: "This book as I stated at the out-
set, is written in the firm conviction that the menace will
remain and that there is no practical and certain way of
removing it." (Jack Cherry, Once and for All.) The Ger-
mans' own racial theories would support such a view.
Having enthroned the imperishable characteristics of
blood, soil and race, their own "qualities" might be deemed
ineradicable. Professor Karl A. Kuhn in his book, The
True Causes of War, wrote : "Must Kultur rear its domes
over mountains of corpses, oceans of tears, and the death
rattle of the conquered? Yes, it must! . . . The might
of the conqueror is the highest law of morality, be-
fore which the conquered must bow." Professor Werner
Sombart of Berlin University in his book, Hucksters and
Heroes, wrote: "War appears to us who are filled with
military zeal as in itself a holy thing, as the holiest thing
on earth."
149
Professor Adolf Lasson in Das Kulturideal ttnd dcr
Krieg, ante-dating Hitler by sixty-five years, wrote: "Be-
tween states there is only one force of right, the right of
the stronger. It is perfectly reasonable that wars should
arise between states.
"It is impossible that a state should commit a crime
. . . Not all the treaties in the world alter the fact that the
weak is always the prey of the stronger, whenever the lat-
ter desires and is able to assert this principle. As soon as
we consider states as intelligent entities, lawsuits between
them are seen to be capable of solution only by material
force.
"The state which is organized only for peace is not a
true state; the state reveals its whole significance only by
its preparations for war . . . Law is the friend of the
weak. War is a fundamental phenomenon in the life of
the state, and the preparation for it occupies a place of the
first importance in national life."
Plain speaking, — and quite discouraging for those who
recognize no inherited characteristics which differentiate
one human being from another. How ironically alluring
it would be to adopt the Nazis' own theories of unchange-
able blood stigma and declare them forever the pariahs of
society! What philosophical retribution it would be to
condemn them by their own standards and thus justify a
Carthaginian peace ! The murderer professes to be a scien-
tist and assures the court that he is incurable and beyond
redemption. Since he would impose death on innocents,
he agrees that no mercy should be exhibited to him. But
justice does not listen to him or his superstitions, for this
is no game of polemics, in which the victim may be trapped
by his logic.
We hold the race theory to be arrant nonsense. It is
no more valid for Aryans than for non-Aryans. Its thesis
that corruption lies in the blood stream is not worthy of
150
scientific disproof. How else could one explain that other
Germany, the Germany of Goethe, Lessing, Kant, Schiller,
and Beethoven, none of whom was a nationalist? There is
no "difference of gray matter and muscular tissue which
distinguishes a man born between such and such lines of
longitude and latitude from all other men, white, black,
brown or yellow." Sir Norman Angell, "Responsibility,
Punishment, Reparation" (The Dial, Dec. 28, 1918).
In the ninth century, Scandinavians were the war-like
Vikings of the sea. Today, they are exemplars of peace-
loving people.
No, there is hope for the Germans. They are born
as normal as any of us. What, then, is the explanation for
their psychopathic quest for world-rule?
"The Most Important Fact of the Last Half Century"
Experiments conducted with children show that, com-
pared with other animals, the human being has few in-
stincts and that they are the same for all, irrespective of
race. A child will have an instinctive fear of sudden loud
noises, of falling, of lack of support. It will not instinc-
tively fear any animal whether it be a snake, a crocodile or
another human being. Most of its fears and likes are the
result of conditioning from experience ; similarly, it has no
natural craving to kill another animal or to enslave it.
This, too, must be learned. The higher the stratum of the
animal kingdom, the lower the proportion of instincts. The
opportunity for learning is automatically increased. A frog
cannot learn as much as a mammal, such as a rat or dog,
and its behavior is governed by instinct to a much greater
degree. Man inherits the most highly evolved brain of
any animal in the world. It contains at birth few behavior
patterns. It is conditioned by learning; and therefore
151
man's behavior is plastic, being subject to improvement
through experience.
To look for the source of the German war-like "in-
stincts," which are not instincts at all, we must trace the
educational streams from which they have been drinking.
At the same time we can take comfort that purer water
may effect a cure. Though the task is difficult and fraught
with uncertainty, and though we may find resistance in
the patient, who is still under the influence of the poison-
ous draughts, there is at least the possibility of success.
Scientists are accustomed to years of painstaking experi-
ments with only a glimmer of hope that the trail is not
completely false. Can the political scientist hesitate be-
cause fulfillment is not assured?
Prior findings have been recorded, tracing the poison to
corrupted education. H. G. Wells has written, "It cannot
be too clearly stated it is the most important fact in
the history of the last half century, that the German
people was methodically indoctrinated with the idea of a
German world-predominance based on might and with
the theory that war was a necessary thing in life."
The key to German historical teaching is to be found
in Count Moltke's dictum: "Perpetual peace is a dream,
and it is not even a beautiful dream. War is an element
in the order of the world ordained by God. Without war
the world would stagnate and lose itself in materialism."
Nietzsche agreed. "It is mere illusion and pretty senti-
ment," he wrote, "to expect much (even anything at all)
from mankind if it forgets how to make war. As yet no
means are known which call so much into action as a great
war, that rough energy born of the damp, that deep im-
personality born of hatred, that conscience born of mur-
der and cold-bloodedness, that fervour born of effort in
the annihilation of the enemy, that proud indifference to
loss, to one's own existence, to that of one's fellows, that
152
earthquake-like soul-shaking which a people needs when
it is losing its vitality."
Self -Education After World War I
Even after the Hohenzollern dynasty fell in 1918, the
educational processes in Germany ran the usual course,
undisturbed.
Text-books and lectures, the embodiment of distilled
Pan-Germanism, remained the same. German secondary
schools and universities consisted of the same Gymna-
sium, the Realschule and Realgymnasium, and taught the
same courses.
Brave constitutional provisions were adopted, requiring
enlightened teaching, but, like the republic itself, they
were an experiment never taken seriously.
The constitution of the German Republic, adopted in
Weimar in 1919, stated (Section 148) :
"In every school the educational aims must be moral
training, education in citizenship, personal and vocational
efficiency and above all, the cultivation of German national
character and of the spirit of international reconciliation.
"In public school teaching care is to be taken not to
wound the feelings and susceptibilities of those holding
different opinions."
The Prussian teachers, particularly, found the "culti-
vation of German national character" and "the spirit of
international reconciliation" incompatible. When they
were required to teach Section 148, they commented to
their classes: "This is a very nice ideal and it may be
that some day in the future we can educate our youth in
such a spirit. As long, however, as French colored troops
are quartered on our German Rhine, we cannot even talk
about international reconciliation."
153
This incitation to hatred and revenge was given in the
guise of interpreting a constitutional provision on toler-
ance. The Prussian educational tradition which prevailed
in the German school system was "a deception practiced
for the bolder political.end of rearing the individual to be
part and parcel of an artificial and despotic system of
government, of training him to be either its instrument
or its slave, according to his social station." Samuel
Laing, Notes of a Traveller.
The plans for democratic self-government in the schools
fared badly under the republic. On April 2, 1920, the
State Education Department issued a regulation that the
pupils of all classes should, at the beginning of each year,
elect a speaker by a secret poll. The regulation fur-
ther provided that the speakers of the higher classes would
form an administrative body, a students' committee, and
that a general assembly of all students should be called
at regular intervals to discuss and regulate all matters
of interest to the student body. This well conceived ex-
periment in localized democracy was a complete failure.
The student bodies split up along racial lines, or indulged
in purely political arguments without doing any construc-
tive work on the administration of the school. The majority
of the students was anti-republican and anti-democratic.
They believed in the old-fashioned rule of absolute author-
ity, and deliberately sabotaged the provisions for self-
government in order to prove that they were ludicrous.
The democratic minority, believing in free speech even for
the enemies of their experiment, was unable to prevent
disturbances which made a mockery of self-government,
With endless rant the anti-democratic forces contended
that only fruitless talk and indecision can come from a
deliberating assembly. Insisting upon their democratic
right to be heard, they proved their point by their own
154
conduct. In this manner, throughout German schools, the
movement toward democratic self -discipline was sabotaged.
These scandalous exhibitions were enactments on a
tiny scale of what was happening in the larger political
sphere of the German Republic.
All this was beyond the ken of the German educational
administrators. Even teachers whose sympathies were with
the democratic provisions of the regulations, were unable
to cope with this hostility. The moral is that liberal regu-
lations, laws, or even constitutions, do not make a democ-
racy. It is not pronouncement of faiths, but practice of
them, which can make them a working reality. Education
must precede practice. The reverse process results in
the attainment of neither. Obviously, the problem cannot*
be left to the solution of the present school-masters. They
and their predecessors have betrayed the democratic faith.
They have been so steeped in the prussian tradition that
their loyalties have demanded the sabotage of the noblest
educational principle, teaching the truth. The Prussian
is distinguished by his loyalty to superiors and his obedi-
ence to duty, irrespective of sacrifice. His best qualities,
because of deluded motivation, are therefore arrayed
against us. One may as well trust the German High
Command to disarm Germany as to trust the teachers of
Germany to re-educate its youth.
The Devil's Brew
The enormity of the problem can only be fully com-
prehended by an examination of the educational system
which has developed under Hitler. It surpasses our worst
expectations.
The distortion of truth becomes a recognized pedagogic
device. It accelerates the inculcation of an insupportable
credo. Falsehood then becomes an ideal. Fiction sup-
155
plants fact so often that the mind rebels at elementary
truths in favor of familiar lies. The whole concoction of
mendacity is stirred with prejudice and hate, and thick-
ened by hypnotic repetition. It is really a devil's brew, to
unseat the mind and deprive it of all critical qualities. It
implants fanaticism and the desire to murder. Those who
cannot understand the relentless cruelty of the German
people marching off to kill and plunder, must study Ger-
man education, brought to its extreme perfection under
the Nazis. Their incredulity will disappear.
Mein Kampf sets forth the objective:
"The whole end of education in a people's state and
its crown, is found by burning into the heart and brain
of the youth entrusted to it an instinctive and compre-
hended sense of race ... It is the duty of a national
state to see to it that a history of the world is eventually
written in which the question of race shall occupy a pre-
dominant position . . . According to this plan, the cur-
riculum must be built up with this point of view. Accord-
ing to this plan, education must be so arranged that the
young person leaving school is not half pacifist, democrat
or what have you, but a complete German . . . The aim of
the education of women must be inflexibly that of the
future mother."
The fact that mis-education is the most important
weapon in the arsenal of war is frankly stated in Mein
Kampf:
"The question is not how we can manufacture arms.
Bather it is, how can we create the spirit which renders a
people capable of bearing arms? When this spirit dom-
inates a people, will-power finds a thousand ways, each of
which leads to a weapon."
With systematic thoroughness, the Nazis have distorted
the approach to every academic subject. A teachers' text-
156
book by Karl Alne advises that the teaching of history
"is a means of solving the political-historical task of the
people — the aim of instruction is preparation for the
battle for self-assertion of a people . . . The history of the
world is to be recorded from the racial point of view."
In the periodical, Nationalsozialistisches Bildungs-
wesen, Friedrich Freider writes: "History is the science
of political education. Present and future instruction in
history take cognizance of the fact that the aims are not so
much scientific as political," and he adds in italics: "The
ground for our teaching of history consists of nothing but
following the Fuehrer."
The official Nazi teachers' manual and guide, Erzie-
hung und Unterricht, gives the following directive:
"The main topic for the history teacher should be the
German nation with its Germanic characteristics and its
grandeur, its fateful struggle for inner and outer self-
expression.
"Out of the faith of the National Socialistic movement
in the future of the German nation has arisen a new under-
standing of the German past. History instruction must
be based on this living faith, it must fill our youth with
the realization that it belongs to a nation which of all
European nations has suffered longest and most severely
before it was unified, but which today can face the future
with confidence. This kind of instruction will open to our
youth the most noble aspect of our past, which, in turn,
will deepen our feeling of our own worthiness and our
greatness . . . The principles of race distinction teach us
not only to recognize the fundamental characteristics of
our nation, but offer the key to universal world history."
In other words, history is not a study of the past but
an artificial construction of events to justify the Nazi
present.
157
History is complemented by instruction in geopolitics,
which expounds theories as to how and why Germany must
rule the world.
The geography teacher is instructed by the official
teachers' guide that "we Germans must have our share of
the world and its treasures." Geography is called upon to
make real Germans and real National Socialists.
The teacher of North American geography is given a
special assignment. He must instruct his student that
"America is a country where changes of race and landscape
have been produced by immigrating Europeans, who have
come there because of economic reasons. The conditions
of the country before this migration, mixture of races and
the results, economic progress, economic exploitation, mass
production, overproduction, the Negro question, the prob-
lem of the yellow race on the west coast, the Indian ques-
tion are to be other topics for discussion."
The Nazi educated youth conceives of an American as
a demoralized, blood-polluted and enfeebled hybrid, en-
meshed in racial problems and incapable of decision.
The biology instructors are told by the teachers' guide
that "biology plays an important part in National So-
cialistic ideology . . . Biology is especially suited to destroy
the myth that man is primarily intellectual."
The chemistry teacher is directed to emphasize the im-
portance of military and aerial defense, and to reveal to
the young students how important it is that engineers,
laborers, and business men work together for a greater
Germany.
Even mathematics, the impartial science, is bent and
twisted by the Nazis. The teachers' guide advises: "The
dependence of this subject on race is obvious. It is char-
acteristic of the Nordic spirit that it conquered the great
realm of force with the creating hand as well as with the
158
pondering mind. The philosophical speculations of a
Copernicus, a Kepler, a Leibnitz, a Kant and a Gauss
have an ideological foundation placed on mathematics."
Occidental mathematics is described as "Aryan spirit-
ual property" and the "expression of the Nordic fighting
spirit," thus ignoring the fact that mathematics was de-
veloped originally by the Greeks and in the Middle Ages
by Arabs and Jews.
The smallest mathematics problem is turned into a
propaganda device. Children are requested to compute
how many Germans were lost through the Treaty of Ver-
sailles, or how many bombs an airplane can carry, or how
deep air-raid shelters should be.
Erziehung und Unterricht bluntly states that the Ger-
man school is part and parcel of National Socialistic order,
and that "it has the mission to mold the National Social-
istic being . . . The National Socialistic system of education
does not stem from a pedagogic theory, but is the result
of political conflicts and its laws ... It is therefore the
mission of the German schools to rear men and women who,
in true willingness to sacrifice all for nation and Fuehrer,
are able to lead a truly German life."
Every German child says "Heil Hitler" from fifty to
one hundred-fifty times a day. Every child belongs to at
least one Nazi organization, such as the Jungvolk or the
League of German Girls. A literal report (Patsy Ziemer,
Two Thousand and Ten Days of Hitler) of a typical his-
tory lesson includes the teacher's questions:
"Who is the most important and the most noble hu-
man being in the world today?"
The class screams in unison, "Der Fuehrer."
"What must we do to our Fuehrer?"
"We must love and revere him," they all shout.
159
"Why must every German girl thank God on her knees
every night?"
"Because he has given us the Fuehrer."
"Why has God given us the Fuehrer?"
"To save us."
"From what has the Fuehrer saved us?"
"From ruin."
"What else?"
"From Communism."
"From what else?"
"From the rest of the world."
"What is the Fuehrer?"
"He is the savior of Germany."
"Yes, the Fuehrer is our savior. He has made Ger-
many again strong and respected. He has made Germany
the most powerful nation, so that we can protect Germans
everywhere. What has he given us?"
"The strongest army in the world."
"What else?"
"The strongest air force."
"What must we do every night?"
"We must thank God for the Fuehrer."
"What is the greatest dream of every German girl?"
"To see the Fuehrer," the girls shout.
"What is an even greater dream than that?"
"To touch the Fuehrer's hand," boys and girls answer.
Having completed their history lesson, the children,
then proceed to the biology class. The textbook used in all
German grammar schools is The Nazi Primer. It pro-
claims the "unlikeness of man", and that the possession of
pure German blood is essential for admission into the com-
munity of German people. Then a complicated course
in biology and anthropology is summarized, and the Ger-
160
man racial theory established as scientific fact. The
Primer teaches:
There are six races in Europe, different not only
physically, but in mind and action ; Nordic, Phalic, West-
ern, Dinaric, Eastern and East Baltic.
Most of the Nordics are found in Germany but there
are also many in the other lands of Northern Europe, such
as Scotland, Sweden and Norway.
Nordics are outstanding in truthfulness and energy;
action, not talk, is the Nordic motto, and hence they are
predisposed to leadership by nature.
Closely related to the Nordic is the Phalic, inhabiting
chiefly Westphalia, Sweden and the Canary Islands; the
Phalic are better suited to be the driving force under the
leadership of the Nordics than for leadership themselves.
The Westerns predominate in England and France and
are different in soul qualities, are loquacious and excit-
able, and lack creative power.
The Dinaric race is somewhat similar to the Nordic
in soul qualities, is proud and brave, and is found in south-
west and central Germany.
Unfortunately, however, great thinking abilities are
not found in them.
The Eastern and East Baltic races are found in Hol-
land, the Baltics and parts of Italy and France, and their
histories show that they have always been unable to lead
themselves.
To prove the accuracy of all these teachings, the su-
periority of the Nordics and their mission to rule over in-
ferior races, the Primer cites the Mendelian theory of
heredity and applies it to the formation of races!
Having completed his biology lesson, the child then
proceeds to the courtyard. In doing so, he must pass
through various class rooms where he sees signs framed
161
on the walls. By order of the German Minister of Edu-
cation issued in 1934, each room must display such slogans
as : "The Ten Commandments are the deposit of the low-
est human instincts," "The people's state will have to
fight for its existence" and, "The final goal always to be
kept in mind in the education of a girl is that she is one
day to be a mother."
The courtyard is covered with sand so that it will al-
ways be dry for marching — marching!
The bottom layer of pseudo-scientific misinformation is
the most important, but it was not relied upon by the
Nazis nor by their predecessors for "fixing" the German
mind. Layer after layer of prejudice and falsehood is im-
posed upon this foundation in the higher schools, and
finally the brilliant polish of a typical German mentality is
supplied by the university professors. Learned men
prostitute the truth willingly in the service of the German
mission. The child, now grown up, is helplessly receptive,
and acquires the ultimate persuasion in every tenet of
falsehood. By such elaborate processes are human beings,
outwardly cultured and apparently normal, turned into
savages. Far worse than savages, they have the training
and efficiency which make them "backward" only in the
civilized sense, not in their organization or weapons.
The German child is molded into these barbaric pat-
terns before its sense of discrimination has been sufficiently
developed to protect it. The magnificent plastic quality
of the brain, which permits unlimited development, has
been exploited for evil doctrine. Not the least of German
crimes, and ranking with the enslavement of millions of
foreign workers, has been the mental enslavement of its
own youth. For here there is no resistance, no under-
ground. They wait for no invading army to set them free.
They are in that lowest state of slavery : contentment with
their own degradation. And this is the most dangerous of
162
all the Nazi works, for it cannot be undone by victory
alone. It is a self -perpetuating force of the Nazi horror, a
growing automaton which, when it attains full size, will
goose-step again, tramping the wheat fields and setting
cities aflame.
This poisonous conditioning of generation after genera-
tion of German minds is "the most important fact in the
history of the last half century." Disarmament has failed
chiefly because we have not recognized that "de-mentaliza-
tion," so to speak, must accompany it. The fanatical urge
to conquer sets in motion a whole chain of conspirational
acts against man's neighborliness. All crimes committed
in the name of Pan-Germanism are viewed by the criminals
as necessities of destiny. From such a perspective they
deem their brutal conduct nothing but the inevitable
stream of history, the wave of the future. Against such
mania, self-decorated with patriotism and "world-mission,"
it is futile to hurl moral preachments. Their education
has established another level of morality, which scorns our
own and is impervious to its nobility. Nor can appeals to
reason be indulged in, for reason has coagulated into
cruel concepts, which regard decency as weakness.
"If a subversive psychiatrist had set out to devise the
optimum system for impregnating the malleable young
mind with a paranoid set of values, he could have done no
better than to follow the typical curriculum of the German
Gymnasium. . . . That it should all culminate in the Nazi
Weltanschauung is no more astonishing than that a
vigorous apple-tree should bear fruit in due season." (Dr,
Richard Brickner, Is Germany Incurable?)
Merely to imprison and disarm the criminal will not
deprive him of his criminal urge. Indeed, it often grows
in intensity under imagined persecution, and while we dis-
avow revenge, he swears to exact it. All this does not de-
163
tract one whit from the necessity of punishing Germany,
depriving her of sovereignty, and making physically cer-
tain that she cannot arm again. But if we are to wel-
come her back into the society of nations, if we are to trust
her ever again to be a decent citizen of the world we must
deal with the deeper cause of her criminality, her mis-
education. It becomes our responsibility to cure the Ger-
man mind, not for its own sake, but for ours. Of course
we will not, in any event, risk the chance of another out-
burst of German fury. But it will make us all uneasy to
hold our hands ever upon hers in watchful restraint and to
post sentinels forever on her doorstep. Nor can the recon-
structed world of commerce and international interchange
of goods and ideas flourish as well while one of the im-
portant regions of the world, populated by 60,000,000 effec-
tives, is chained off with danger signs.
Germany must be mentally disarmed. Her educational
system must be dismantled and scrapped, along with her
munition plants. A new pedagogical plant must be con-
structed, whose product will be of peaceful nature, and con-
form to the normal standards of moral intercourse.
Any lesser resolve can lead only to the conclusion that
the criminal is incurable and therefore must be forever
confined or eradicated, his fields strewn with salt. The
task of rehabilitating German education is not an intru-
sion upon her rights, or an insult to her feelings. It is
the hand of medicine extending its cure to the protesting
patient, to protect her against her own fever, and to guard
the world against her foaming fury. It is better than the
strait-jacket.
The Physician Is Not a Trespasser
Every suggestion for the re-education of Germany has
evoked a storm of disapproval. The objectors accept the
164
necessity of the task but insist that it cannot be imposed
from without. Perhaps their view can best be expressed
in Browning's lines, " 'Tis an awkward thing to play with
souls, and matter enough to save one's own." The chal-
lenge is immediately hurled at the United States to explain
the illiteracy in its midst and to concern itself with its
own fascist rabble-rousers. It is contended that even if
German patriotism were not akin to religious fanaticism,
it would revolt against the imposition of a foreign culture.
The resentment against an "occupied" school system, it is
argued, would be at least as great as against an occupied
Rhine. All the usual arguments against education by com-
pulsion are advanced. This view sincerely holds that the
democratic Germans within Germany must undertake this
problem; that interference by the United Nations would
inflame the German youth and thus defeat its own purpose.
Some justify this inevitable resentment, and observe that
we would react no differently. Others regret it, but reach
the same conclusion.
It is the earmark of a difficult problem that any solu-
tion is open to criticism. But progress cannot wait for per-
fection, nor be unduly sensitive to chilling words. The
enormity of the problem, the danger it presents to world
peace, require firm action. The risk from a blind road is
often less than that from the journey not begun. For that
is what the solution of self-education comes to — no jour-
ney. There would be hundreds, perhaps thousands, of
German democrats who might qualify as teachers, but they
would be unable to overhaul the entire educational system
of a hostile nation. We have seen the sabotage methods
successfully employed by the "patriots" after the first
World War to make a farce of the trials of criminals, of
military disarmament and of democratic experiments in
education. Can we trust them again? Must we not pro-
165
tect the genuine democrats in Germany against their
enemies within?
The lessons from our past failure have special signifi-
cance because the conditions we will inherit now will be
worse a thousandfold. The corruption of the German mind
has been a continuous, consistent process for centuries. It
is the deepest tradition of a war-like people. But the
Nazis have accelerated the process, and tinged it with un-
wonted fanaticism. They have by their brazenness sub-
stituted the speedy methods of hysteria for the slow pace
of conviction. The Nazi youth oozes racial hatreds and
writhes in superman complexes. Patriotic democrats
would be regarded with as much enmity as representa-
tives of the United Nations. In weighing such considera-
tions there is little to choose between the betrayer at
home and the conqueror who invades the school. If thin
distinctions are to be evaluated, the corrupt Nazi youth
may have more respect for victors than for traitors.
The real point, however, is that we cannot rely on Ger-
man self -education any more than on German self-imposed
disarmament, or German self-rule generally. For one
thing is certain, if all historical experience is not to be
ignored, that a people must be conditioned and readied
for democracy, or its democratic constitution and elabo-
rate democratic forms will be ineffectual. The argument
for self-reform assumes that education is a tangential
problem, which can be trusted to well-meaning Germans.
It under-estimates the crucial nature of the problem. Here
we are striking at the very source of the "next" war. We
are reaching deep into the very origin of the infection
which continues to ooze its infecting poison throughout the
body politic. The cause of peace is at stake. If we fail at
the doorstep of the little schoolhouse, the millions of men
who were educated to death, and the billions of dollars
166
which were burned on the pyres of war, will have been
wasted. The extensive blue-prints for a peaceful world-
structure will be defective and the edifice will collapse at
the first tremors of new patriotic convulsions.
Quite understandably, there are many who challenge
our own cultural equipment to grapple with another
people's "soul." "Arrogance" — that is the accusation.
But there can be humility in undertaking the solution of
a great problem. It will not be the United States, Great
Britain or any other nation alone, which sends its educa-
tors into Germany. It will be the United Nations, acting,
let us hope, through some permanent supra-national coun-
cil, which will be charged with the duty. But even if the
auspices were less international, the objection would be
invalid. For there is no assumption of superiority in-
volved. This is not an Olympic contest in which the rela-
tive intelligence and education of respective populations
are tested.
There was less illiteracy in Germany than in any of
the United Nations. Its program of conquest required
extensive teaching and studying of other nations' weak-
nesses. Our task does not involve the three R's but the
very quality of German education.
The Teutonic Plague
There must be a reason for the persistent irrationality
of German conduct in international affairs. Having diag-
nosed its origin as biased pedagogy, we must determine
to set our best minds to work creating a better educa-
tional system; one devoted to the search for truth; one
which will make available to Germans forbidden postu-
lates, without which their minds have been unbalanced;
one which will inculcate respect for integrity, the ele-
mentary virtues of peace, kindliness, and decent consid-
167
eration for one's fellow man. If the program devised
is more effective than those existing in the democracies,
and the opportunity for improvement is of course great,
then we can adopt it, too, and learn while we teach. In
any event, one may as well disqualify a great surgeon be-
cause his gall bladder is bad, as to reject the democracies'
right to normalize the barbaric pedagogy of Germany be-
cause they have" ignorance among their own peoples.
There must be no hesitancy in accepting the burden.
It is our duty. It is as urgent as our "arrogance" in dis-
arming Germany, depriving her of sovereignty and plac-
ing her on probation. If nothing else, it is a self-protec-
tive measure. We must unwind the German so that he
will not spring at us again. It is a preventive and de-
fensive measure, and it derives the fullest justification
from its service to world peace. We shall send food but
we must feed the mind, too, with all the nourishing vita-
mins of a full democratic diet until the patient loses his
morbidity, his sullen ugliness and, in full mental compre-
hension, becomes a useful member of society.
The International University
The direct supervision of this vast and delicate under-
taking should be entrusted to an International University.
Such an institution could have many other functions,
though its creation would be justified if it performed only
this one. It should be established in some historically
neutral place, such as Switzerland. Its faculty should be
composed of the professors of leading universities, and of
others who have achieved international recognition in their
chosen field. The distinction of such an appointment, the
unlimited opportunities for service, and, last but also least,
the generous salaries which should be provided, will be
sufficient lure to attract the intellectual leaders of the
168
world. They must be men devoted to the international
ideal of peace and, while selected so far as possible with a
view to proportionate representation of the nations of
the world, they must be above the narrow prejudices of
nationalism. Here, in the academic sphere, where truth is
the only idol, we are more likely to achieve impartiality
than in the political realm. Such a university could truly
represent the nations of the world and act for them with-
out fear or political bias.
Both as to teacher and pupil, the university should be
open to all races and religions. The student body would
all be post-graduate; and in short time the pre-eminence of
such a university would attract the most promising young
men and women of all nations. The arts and sciences
could flourish here. But for our immediate purpose it
should be noted that text-books in all German universities,
particularly in history and politics, would require the
imprimatur of the International University. It would have
jurisdiction to accept, reject or revise all texts pro-
posed for German schools. If necessary, scholars could
be commissioned to write such texts. This might insure
the teaching of historical truths instead of the distorted
patriotic versions which often find their way into school
rooms. The impact of accurate historical teaching upon
the German mind would be great, because it would be a
direct answer to his training that war is noble and the
highest expression of man. To insure integrity, the student
would be encouraged to read and study the distorted works,
but only after the truth had been demonstrated to him. In
this way he would be trained in the processes of discrimi-
nation and develop a healthy skepticism towards his prior
convictions.
Courses in humanities, modern civilization, and phil-
osophy could be mapped out by the authorities of the
169
International University to meet the peculiar predisposi-
tion of the German youth. Democracy would be taught,
not as a political subject, but as a philosophy of the right
of man to determine how he shall be governed.
German literature would be taught with proper em-
phasis upon all the authors the Nazis disowned. For here
the German student could find real German greatness,
revered and admired by all the world. His national
pride could be legitimately catered to, and an effective
contrast presented between his former idols, detested by
humanity, and his new discoveries. Gradually it would
dawn upon the German student that the hope of National
Socialism to survive 1000 years was a futile boast un-
achieved by almost 990 years. But German greatness is
assured permanent recognition by the very literature
which he was forbidden to touch. He may sublimate his
intense nationalism in the discovery of new heroes, real
ones, who could not have stood so firmly and so long in the
world of letters, if their feet had been made of clay.
Experts of the university, gifted in the science of teach-
ing, would devise the courses, subject matter and methods
of Germany's schools with the purpose of inculcating a
healthy democratic spirit and a liberal culture. The most
brilliant educational administrators would be drafted to
tear down the strongest pillar of Prussianism and its latest
model, Nazism, and install a new and revised pedagogical
system. Obviously such men would have full understand-
ing of the sensitive psychological factors involved. German
teachers should be favored whenever qualified. Non-
German teachers would be selected from all the nations of
the world. With time, the Teachers' Training School of
the International University could return its most brilliant
German students to Germany as teachers. Through them
the international viewpoint and the democratic ideal would
percolate to the newer students. An ever strengthening
170
cycle of learning and tolerance would be created. Through
exchange scholarships and professorships, the restricted
vision of nationalism would be broadened to the inter-
national view.
While Germany would be the primary beneficiary of
such a program, all nations could well profit from it. Per-
haps German pride would be soothed by this fact. History
books might cease giving undue emphasis to military
campaigns, triumphs in war, and the hero worship of
generals. Such matters would take their proper places in
the recital of man's emergence from stupid belligerence
to peace. Wars would not be heralded as mighty achieve-
ments any more than duelists are praised for avenging an
insult by a sword thrust, or Indians for scalping their
enemies. School books might shift emphasis to the co-
operative activities* of nations such as the Universal
Postal Union and the International Telegraph Union.
Sweden and Norway fought three or four sanguinary wars
each century for a thousand years. Their governments ap-
pointed a commission of scholars to eliminate from their
respective text-books any reference which might hurt the
feelings of a Norwegian or Swede. Denmark and Sweden
then entered into the same arrangement. The resulting
good will is out of all proportion to the simplicity and
ease with which this understanding was effected.
Invading the German Mind
If we recognize the importance of educational reform,
the criticisms against international supervision will ap-
*If the prosaic must be glorified, let the story be told of how under
the Convention of 1929 the United States Government undertook to
protect the safety of life in the North Atlantic lanes, and how all the
rest of the Atlantic nations contribute to the cost of this ice patrol.
The United States pays 18% of the expenses, Norway 3% and the
United Kingdom 4Q%. Other nations bear 39%.
171
pear in proper perspective. Also, we will approach the
task with the imagination, originality and thoroughness
which the desperateness of the situation impels. One
must envision something more than improved curricula,
better texts, saner staffs. We must lavish upon the cam-
paign at least a fraction of the money and time which the
"High Command" spent on military operations. We must
employ all the ingenuity and resourcefulness of which
radio, motion pictures and skillful educational propa-
ganda are capable. It is the greatest and noblest task in
"public relations" ever posed, for it requires the extirpa-
tion of a whole people's frame of mind and the inculcation
of a new one.
The effort would not be limited to the blackboard. All
the forces of the arsenal for the invasion of the German
mind must be employed in this noble attack. The church
would be encouraged to recapture its lost flocks, for religi-
ous ideals are part of the reconditioning in decency which
the Germans must regain.
There is much to be undone. The slogan of the German
Faith Movement was "The cross must fall if Germany is
to live." The youth have been reared on Hitler's instruc-
tion that "conscience is a Jewish invention. It is a blemish
like circumcision" and Alfred Rosenberg's "Either Chris-
tian or German ! There is no 'Aryan Christ' and no Chris-
tian German. They are incompatible." Their religious
training has come from Bishop Muller who taught : "Mercy
is an un-German conception, with which we can have
nothing to do." And when the children marched they
sang obscene songs such as "Let Christ rot and the Hitler
youth march."
The eradication of pagan beliefs would be a step for-
ward in the healing process. The churches of all denomina-
tions would of course be pleased to co-operate, and resist-
172
ance to them is bound to be feeble among large sections of
the population.
The world's clergy would be invited to organize a cam-
paign against the modern heathen and his ungodly lust for
war.
"Christianity has not failed/' said Shaw. "It has never
been tried."
There is considerable truth in this epigrammatic exag-
geration. The churches would be invited to make their
professions of faith a live and practical program. A re-
ligious renaissance in Germany would be an essential ele-
ment in the psychiatric release of a tormented people which
transfers its torment to others.
The labor unions, reborn from the ashes of fascism,
should be valuable allies in the re-education program. Cer-
tainly they have a stake in the creation of a sane German
economy. Moreover, actual participation in union elec-
tions may help prepare German workers for the experience
of intelligent suffrage in a representative republic.
Education would be made compulsory for old and
young alike, but it would not always be confined to the
classroom. The enormous persuasive force of dramatic
presentation would be fully utilized. Motion pictures could
here reach their fullest maturity. The greatest writers,
producers and stars would, under the aegis of the Interna-
tional University, dramatize the unfathomable wickedness
of Nazism, and the beauty and simplicity of a Germany no
longer preoccupied with shooting, marching, shooting and
marching home — defeated. They would be commissioned
to create a German stage in the image of democracy. And
the radio, through entertainment and undisguised lecture,
would invade the home itself. No device for the undoing
of Nazi training would be ignored nor be beneath our earn-
est effort. The authors, dramatists, editors and publishers
173
would have to pass muster of the International Uni-
versity. This is consistent, for they are all educators. News
would be uncensored but at the beginning all non-demo-
cratic publications would be barred. After the German
mind had had an opportunity to be strengthened by new
ideals, it could be subjected to contrary views in the con-
fidence that it would reject the virus. In the course of
doing so, it would develop a greater immunity for the
future.
There would be extensive practice of democratic pro-
cedure. For democracy is not only a belief but a habit to
be acquired. School, community, city and national elec-
tions would be devised in the gradual preparation for self-
government. The intellectuals, the "better Germans," who,
according to their apologists, considered it beneath their
dignity to be concerned with social problems, and forfeited
the political field to others, must be induced to accept their
civic responsibility.
The educational process would pervade all Germany
and blanket her. All factories would be required to have
recess periods, during which simplified lectures on democ-
racy would be given to the workers. The personnel of
offices would have similar interludes. Citizenship could be
obtained only by earning an education certificate obtain-
able by any of alternative educational methods (not
excluding extensive correspondence courses) to be sanc-
tioned by the International University. Summer schools
would be organized everywhere, and part of all vacation
periods would be required to be spent in them.
Only when Germans had satisfied the distinguished
and impartial trustees of the International University
that they were ready for statehood, and were no longer a
menace to the world, would they be admitted to the family
of nations. The probation would then be over. It will be
174
up to the Germans to make that probationary period short.
In the ultimate sense of the word, their fate will be in their
own hands.
Every phase of this program will contribute towards
their emancipation. By depriving them of sovereignty we
will only have relieved them of the burdens of state for
which they are now unprepared. By punishing their war
criminals we will have removed the most violent and re-
vengeful in their midst, and thus have given them the free-
dom to reform without the relentless watchfulness of their
prior overseers. By economic relief and opportunity we
will have made it possible for them to make restitution and
pay reparations without exhaustion and collapse, which
their enormous obligations would ordinarily insure.
Also there will be their own great disillusionment to
aid them. The very extremism of Nazism, its absolute cer-
tainty in victory for the Herrenvolk, its assumption that
democracies are decadent and cannot fight — all this was
accepted as holy fact. Will their fall wake the Germans
from the nightmare they have been living? Convictions
achieved by psychotic logic often survive defeat and actu-
ally flourish in martyrdom. But may there not be some
point at which fanaticism and hysteria will be shocked into
extinction by defeat?
The psychiatrist confesses that he does not know the
cause of paranoia, but its symptoms are easily detectable.
They are grandiose mystic notions, a belief in destiny, an
exclusive personal right to satisfy ambitions, and a perse-
cution complex which justifies coldly calculated murder.
Dr. Richard Brickner (in Is Germany Incurable?) has
made a most persuasive diagnosis of German conduct as
mass paranoia with all the symptoms of megalomania,
sense of mission, fanatic violence and persecution. If the
analogy is to be pursued, the cure, in those instances where
175
it can be effected at all, is to utilize the "clear" area of
the personality, that which is not subject to paranoid de-
lusions, and to extend it over the paranoid area. In that
people, the pro-democratic Germans constitute the clear
area. By associating their beliefs with normal patriotism,
pride, and economic benefits, while removing from their
midst the most fanatical, we may gradually extend the
clear area to a controlling majority of Germans.
Nevertheless, having seen the depth of the rotten struc-
ture, we need have no illusions about the excavating prob-
lem and the difficulties of building a new democratic
edifice. There will be contemptuous compliance, sullen
inattention and bold defiance. But these moods will be
part of the problem, and must be treated by understanding
experts with detachment. By persistence and endless
repetition the masses of the Germans must be started on a
new tradition. Prussian training must be forever abol-
ished.
The German will have to learn that Der Tag is every-
one's day, that the warmth of the sun, the wheat from the
field, and joy of family and comradeship belong to all. In
sharing them, they are preserved for each of us.
176
CHAPTER VI
TOMORROW THE WORLD
Now the time has come to study the ever-widening cir-
cles. It should be observed that the plan for Germany en-
visioned, not without prayerful hope, an international
community. While theoretically the plan might be work-
able if it were applied by the group action of the victors,
it would be preferable if the supervision were supra-
national rather than merely national. For we have seen
that international co-operation is equally essential in the
economic, educational and political spheres.
The Mysticism of Sovereignty
What is the major obstacle to vesting authority in a
supra-national organization? It is the doctrine of sover-
eignty, which refuses to accede to the interests of inter-
national law and order.
Perhaps we shall learn from the extreme German
illustration that excessive nationalism and the full pre-
rogatives of sovereignty are not essential to a people's wel-
fare. Few topics are so ahead of the times as this. Its
unpopularity must therefore be taken for granted. But a
few reflections would not be amiss.
Originally it was difficult to divest the clans and the
families of their "sovereignty" and combine them into a
community. It took ages to persuade the clan of its new
177
loyalty to a larger group. Clan "patriotism" beat the
demagogic drums. "Shall we be subject to the will of
foreign groups? What about our family and our tradi-
tions?" But as society advanced and became more com-
plex, the necessity for the joint action of neighboring clans
overcame natural jealousies. The nation-state gradu-
ally came into existence and proceeded to develop the
doctrine of sovereignty. To a great extent this was done
in self-defense. It was a shield against the claims of the
Papacy and of the Holy Roman Empire. No outside di-
rection could be tolerated, argued the chiefs of state, be-
cause each nation had sovereign rights, which were
pre-eminent. It was a sort of Monroe Doctrine for the
independence of each political entity.
The nation-state then sought to overcome the friction
among its several groups by preaching patriotism and by
substituting national pride for group pride. This was a
useful device for unification. The United States employed
it after the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. But the virtues
of loyalty and love for country soon exceeded normal
bounds. Poets, orators, lawyers, and philosophers gilded
the lily until it blinded us. All sorts of mystical proper-
ties were claimed for sovereignty. It became a supreme
and ineffable being in itself. It developed its own will,
residing in a super-organism called the state. A nation
ceased to be merely an organization to carry on the busi-
ness of its citizens. It became an entity with its own des-
tiny, its own desires, as though it existed entirely apart
from its citizens. Nationalism became an ideal in itself, and
patriotism the fanatical devotion to it. A sort of religious
aura hovered over the subject and the consequent loyalty
depended on faith, not reason. "My country, right or
wrong, but my country!"
178
The Nazis of course developed nationalism to its ulti-
mate extent. The state became a sort of mythical god
which owned its subjects and exacted every conceivable
sacrifice for the service of its own "will." Nazism sought
only one loyalty, to replace all other loyalties. Its aspira-
tion was medieval unity of devotion without reservation.
The Nazi developed sovereignty into a Frankensteinian
monster, over which no person had control. It was merely
to be served blindly.
To a lesser degree, the notion of sovereignty as held
by the democracies is also an outworn extremism. For
a nation should not be an entity entirely independent
of external control. The rights of other nations should
be a restriction upon it. But the "theology" of sovereignty
denies this simple truth. It insists upon each state's om-
nipotence, which makes impossible any real co-opera-
tion in a supra-natioaal organization. None of the
members of the League of Nations would modify its
sovereignty to the slightest extent. Unanimous vote
was necessary for any important decision. In other
words, it was a voluntary society, without any real obli-
gation whatsoever on the part of its members. None would
whittle away the prerogatives of sovereignty. The United
States considered its sovereignty so sacrosanct that it
would not even risk the persuasion which might result
from League balloting. The Versailles Treaty constructed
new states, granting each its own untouchable sovereignty.
Since the League of Nations had no power to affect the
sovereignty of any state, the clash of nationalisms was
actually increased.
Today, the fact is that few activities of a state are
wholly confined within its frontiers. Each nation is in-
terdependent with other nations. There is no actual na-
tional independence in an industrial, commercial or finan-
179
cial sense. Forces beyond our borders determine our
health and economic condition. Even jurists are turn-
ing to a theory of international law built upon the legal
supremacy of the law of nations. "What cries out for un-
derstanding is that modern technology and business or-
ganization have woven humanity into a community. Man's
political organization still lags behind." (P. E. Corbett,
Post-War Worlds) We are approaching the new con-
cept gingerly, through Universal Telegraph and Postal
Unions, the International Bank of Settlement, the Per-
manent Court of International Justice and the Interna-
tional Labor Organization. But we are far from having
stripped the pretensions from the doctrine of sovereignty.
Some brilliant thinkers, like Walter Lippmann, pro-
pose a British- American alliance rather than an Inter-
national Society, in order to avoid relinquishing sov-
ereignty in the slightest degree. And when the nationalists
attack even such an alliance on the ground that our
sovereignty would be compromised, his answer is an apolo-
getic explanation that there would be "consultation" and,
therefore, there is likely to be "agreement" in each in-
stance. Our sovereignty, he assures us, will be unsullied.
Indeed, it will be preserved and strengthened by the ad-
vantages flowing from the pact. Thus it is proposed that
we go back to old-fashioned military alliances, with all
the acknowledged evils they present in inciting rival al-
liances, with all the consequent tug and pull of balances of
power, all to avoid tarnishing the bright luster of the sov-
ereignty doctrine. It does not matter that the alliance
proposed is wise and benevolent, nor that it may be the
first practical step toward a genuine association of na-
tions, to whose limited sphere of authority over interna-
tional peace all nations will be subordinated. The fact
remains that public opinion is still unprepared for the full
180
evolution of the state into the superstate, and that by-
paths must be cautiously taken, if the destination is to be
approached at all.
Patriotism, which is the affection for the great-
ness of one's nation is a natural as well as noble im-
pulse. It has, however, been distorted into chauvinism,
and derives its power from an exaggerated notion of sov-
ereignty. Sooner or later we will learn that, in our com-
plex world, the yielding of some of our sovereignty is es-
sential to the preservation of peace. Many nations know
now that in guarding their sovereignty too zealously, they
were left alone to be devoured by the ravenous German
wolf. The story of the collapse of collective security is
a tale of national prima donnas, too smug and self-suf-
ficient to cooperate.
There are undoubtedly many, very many, who would
view any restriction upon national sovereignty with out-
raged patriotism and who would spring to heroic pos-
tures ready to forfeit their lives for their misguided loyalty.
Such thalamism is the motive power for war. It is na-
tional emotion out of control. To those who cannot take
the first step of organization to peace, the second, that of
a supra-national police force, is of course even more of-
fensive. They calmly accept legal restraints upon the in-
dividual, but ascribe such different moral standards to
the state that it becomes superior to the application of
legal force. They can even swallow the resort to illegal
force called war. They sometimes preach its inevitability,
if not its necessity, but they are unable to conceive of
legal force applied to an offending nation.
Regional Federalism
The citizen of New York or California looks for security
not only to his state but to the nation. He cherishes his
181
national citizenship at least as much as his membership in
the state or local community. But the addition of another
loyalty, to a commonwealth of nations, seems to be a for-
bidding psychological transition.
The "logical" reasons offered by such opposition reveal
its bias. For example, much is made about "our boys
travelling to the far ends of the earth" to police some re-
gion, but no objection is made to the necessity, even dur-
ing peace, of a huge navy which constantly sends "our
boys" to remote waters. The professional soldier of an in-
ternational police force would accept travel as part of
his duty. Civilians would have a better chance of being
spared an unwanted trip, if there were an international
control and sufficient force to make control effective.
After all, the United States itself is a successful federa-
tion of states, among whom there was war only 80 years
ago. The Constitution, viewed in the light of the current
controversy, is an amazing document. The proud and
sovereign states, Virginia, New York and the rest, gave up
their inalienable rights to fight each other, wage trade wars,
and levy taxes on exports. The United States Supreme
Court in its jurisdiction over the controversies of sovereign
states is the first example of an international court in his-
tory. From this very limited precedent, others have pro-
posed broader experiments. Their hope is by gradualism
to reach a World Federation.
Lionel Curtis, in Civitas Dei, has proposed a grouping
of Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand. Clarence
Streit, in Union Now, urges a larger federation of 15
nations (the United States, Great Britain, Canada, France,
Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Nether-
lands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the
Union of South Africa). Most functions would be pre-
served for the individual nations, but citizenship, defense,
182
international trade, currency, and communications would
be controlled by the Union. A bicameral legislature, ex-
ecutive board, prime minister, cabinet and high court are
provided as the federal organs. The representation would
be based on population, in one house of the legislature, and
on a minimum-plus-population basis in the other branch
of the legislature.
These and other regional plans (such as Count Couden-
hove-Kalergi's) are the gropings of a distraught world
towards a goal not immediately obtainable. They are
to be distinguished from an international League of Na-
tions, which recognizes the absolute sovereignty of each
state, and is therefore unworkable. These proposals at
least envision a surrender of certain sovereign functions in
the interest of world peace. Their educational and psycho-
logical value is considerable, for the consideration of such
suggestions prepares public opinion for the new and shock-
ing idea. Patriotism may thereby discover that there is no
inconsistency between affection for one's country and alle-
giance to the constellation of states of which it is part.
Indeed, when one views the suffering which each country
is compelled to undergo periodically, the sacrifice of a por-
tion of sovereign exclusiveness is a cheap price to pay for
national security.
Lincoln once stated the case for that higher patriotism
which does not falter at an untried concept. "The dogmas
of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The
occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with
the occasion. As our case is new, so must bethink anew
and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then
we shall save our country."
Some have criticized regional federalism and have
urged the attainment of the ultimate step in one bold leap.
"A world federation or a world state is the feasible
183
political structure of a universal civilization. The less
mankind experiments with ersatz or artificial solutions of
regionalism, the sooner it will attain security and peace,"
wrote Nicholas Doman in The Coming Age of World Con-
trol. But in choosing between the possibility of complete
failure because of popular apprehensiveness, and partial
success, is not the latter the wiser course?
We may be sure that the evolution of international fed-
eration is gradually taking place. Dynastic wars brought
about monarchical states. National wars were instru-
mental in shaping national states. Now world wars are
accelerating the movement toward world-wide organiza-
tion.
The fierce flames of war make us stand at a distance
and hide from some of us the melting processes going on
within. Our attention is riveted on the battle and we may
not be aware that some of the instruments being forged
for combat will have utility in peace. The nationalist
jealousies of the military leaders and armies have been
overcome in an unprecedented manner. General Dwight
Eisenhower, General Douglas MacArthur and Lord Louis
Mountbatten command armies of many nations. Joint con-
ferences shape political and military plans. The traditional
military hierarchy, whose supreme authority stemmed
from nationalism, now is disciplined to international lead-
ership. This is an advance over the most difficult sector
of the entire front. It is an approach to the International
Police Force such as one would not have dared anticipate
ten years ago.
Similarly, regional political constellations are be-
ing formed, their orbit determined by the hazards of
war. Churchill during a war crisis offered to join
France and England into one nation. Similar trends are
observed in Scandinavia and in the Balkans. The Czech
184
and Polish governments in exile have discussed post-war
federation of their two nations. The Italians have pro-
posed a Latin bloc. The Pan-American community has
progressed through the Montevideo Conference in 1933,
the agreement at Buenos Aires in 1936, and the agreement
at Lima in 1938, all founded upon the system of settlement
of inter-American disputes devised in 1929. The settle-
ment of the Bolivia-Paraguay conflict by joint pressure
of the informal "federation" was an illustration of the
potential power of regional organization. In August,
1940, the President of the United States and the Prime
Minister of Canada made the Ogdensburg agreement, set-
ting up a Joint Defense Board for their two countries.
These are far from constitutional federations but they
indicate the pressure of historical development. Above
all other tendencies is the closely knit, unified conduct of
Great Britain and the United States, pooling economic re-
sources, armies, weapons, and political purpose in one
grand strategy. Together with China and Kussia, they
could well constitute the ties among the regional federa-
tions. Here too, the portents are favorable and in the
same direction. The "Big Four", the United States, Brit-
ain, Kussia and China recently revised the United Nations
Relief and Rehabilitation Administration to include
forty of their smaller colleagues. It created a policy-
making Council consisting of one member from each of
the nations ultimately participating in it, and a Central
Committee consisting of one representative of each of the
"Big Four". The Council will act by a majority vote of
all its members, big and little. It will appoint a Director
General on the unanimous recommendation of the Central
Committee. Between sessions of the Council, this Central
Committee "shall, when necessary, make policy decisions
of an emergency character," but all such decisions "shall
185
be open to reconsideration by the Council at any regular
session or at any special session."
Here is a fine structure for post-war organization. Its
massive lines and practical detail should comfort those
who fear that it will be impossible to translate into actu-
ality the wraith-like designs of unpracticed world archi-
tects.
Forever Hold Tour Peace
Thus the ideal of a world supra-national organization
can be perceived in the distance, even if dimly. Perhaps
the prophetic words written by Victor Hugo on the walls
of the Palais de Vosges in Paris will still come true, "I
am a party, a party which does not exist yet. A party of
revolution — civilization. This party will make the twenti-
eth century, out of which first the United States of Europe
and later the United States of the World will emerge."
The usual taunts will be hurled: "starry-eyed ideal-
ism," "visionary schemes," "impractical dreams" — and all
the worn-out cliches composed by those practical, hard-
headed men who have been unable to stop the world's
descent into the chasm of darkness. They are "experts",
thoroughly disqualified by the greatest failure in history.
They have lost the privilege of derisive criticism and
superior airs. In the test-tube of history, it was their
"realism" which proved to be starry-eyed and impracti-
cable. The torch which fell from their inept hands is
extinguished. We must light it again with courage and
daring. There is little to lose. We inherit from them a
desolate world, ravaged and wracked with agony. Their
feeble echoes which follow us with warnings of imprac-
ticability and impossibility are the last groans of defeat-
ism. We must not heed them. The world has always strug-
gled against the detractors of progress. Our valor in this
186
critical period of man's history must include a disregard
for these prophets of disaster. If the global slaughter-
house which they have created is "keeping one's feet on the
ground", we may well aspire to put our heads in the
clouds.
187
CHAPTER VII
WO MORE YESTERDAYS
Perhaps this chapter should have been the first. It is
an introduction — an introduction to peace for tomorrow.
But it is placed here because its considerations may be
most critically observed in such light as may be cast by
the preceding pages.
Three methods have been used in the search for a
solution to the German problem. First, we have proceeded
from analysis of particular situations to general conclu-
sions rather than vice versa. A prescription for world
peace was not devised and then applied to Germany.
Bather, the German problem has been studied, and from it
broader deductions have been made for world peace. This
method was adopted not only because Germany is a unique
and explosive element in world disequilibrium, but also
because, by limiting the original scope of inquiry, concen-
trated analysis was made possible. The temptation for
sweeping generalization was diminished. Specific problems
reared their troublesome heads and demanded attention.
A speck, sufficiently close to the eye, will shut out the stars.
Second, we have adopted the historical approach.
The Versailles Treaty, and German and Allied conduct
have been examined, to deduce the present recommenda-
tions. History may repeat itself, but it is rare for the
differentiating factors to be so few as in the case of the
188
two World Wars. By close examination of prior events
we are actually afforded the opportunity of hindsight as
to the future! Here, far more than in the ordinary case,
the study of history has not been merely an academic
indulgence. It has afforded a .prescience, to be eagerly
grasped by one confronted with the German enigma. That
is why so much attention has been lavished upon the events
of the past. Even the boldest and most original thinking
must be tempered by its lessons.
We saw how Germany, though manacled and appar-
ently tied hand and foot, performed a magical escape from
the war-guilt trials of the Versailles Treaty. Now that we
know about the fake knots and the loose handcuffs, the
jail will not be cheated again. We studied the fraudulent
bookkeeping entries of reparations, the secretion of assets,,
and the clever manipulations by which the disarmament
provisions were nullified. Our understanding makes this
deception no longer possible. Nor have we overlooked the
fact that, just as a corporation which commits a crime may
be dissolved and its charter forfeited, so a criminal nation
must lose its charter of sovereignty.
We have, like good probation officials, traced the case
history of the criminal and found a corrupt educational
background running back many generations. Now we
know that reform school is essential, and that particular
attention must be given to special curricula, adequate to
correct the inculcation of false moral principles. We have
realized that the educational program must be devised not
by local politicians but by academic authorities of the
highest standing — the International University.
Having observed that an environment of poverty and
hopelessness prevents a psychology of penitence and re-
form, we have provided for a favorable economic condi-
tioning of the defective. In all this, history has acted as
189
a sign-post pointing the direction — its inscriptions filled
with significant instruction.
Third, we have permitted the facts to shape the
recommendations, even if the results appeared incon-
sistent. Most peace plans for Germany fall into definite
categories. There is the so-called "sob-sister" plan preach-
ing generosity and forgiveness. At the other extreme is
the "kill them" plan with its "eye for an eye" philosophy.
But wisdom does not fall into prearranged classifications.
It has no concern with consistency. We have seen that
the Germans must be treated with severity insofar as
punishment, restitution, and preventive measures are
concerned, but with generosity in the economic sphere.
For education, neither method is appropriate. Paradoxi-
cally enough, in this realm there must be a severe appli-
cation of a generous principle. Life is not a contest
between "schools of thought" with a convenient decision
rendered at the end of the bout. I have endeavored to
permit the conclusions, as well as the chips, to fall where
they may, without regard to the unevenness of the pattern.
Good painters learn to be faithful to what they see.
The lines actually observed may seem impossible but the
net eft'ect, if one has the courage to draw them, is a proper
perspective. The amateur fears the apparent distortion
and "corrects" the line so that it will represent his knowl-
edge rather than his observation. His logic is sound but
his conclusion is false. This is often true in philosophical
planning. The proper solution for Germany may, accord-
ing to the logic of consistency, be either wrath or mercy.
Actually the lines are not to be drawn so neatly. They
curve and break irregularly as complex forces move them.
The suggested irregularities of the lines are not compro-
mises. They are true to observation. It is to be hoped
that the result is in perspective.
190
Program Summarized
The laborious struggle of man towards a happier ex-
istence has overcome many superstitions, prejudices and in-
justices. One nation, however, can seize civilization as it
climbs slowly upwards and drag it down through the cen-
turies to barbarism. Germany has chosen this pagan role
with a persistence and venom which has confounded all
men of good will. We resolve solemnly that she must not
do so again. We back that profound determination with a
program.
Punishment
Having determined where the responsibility rests, we
apply the sword of justice in all its measured impartial
fury.
First, we forfeit Germany's sovereignty as a nation, to
be restored if, and when, she ceases to be a menace to the
society of peoples. We have provided how that decision
shall be made.
Second, having punished the nation as an entity, we
punish her individual war criminals. For this purpose we
construct two kinds of courts. Those of each nation in
which the criminals may be found, or national courts
(military and criminal), will apply their own laws and
provide their own prosecutors, prisons, probation depart-
ments and insane institutions. The second kind is the
international court (with its criminal and military sub-
sidiaries) to act as a final appellate court and also to
try "sovereigns" and other important criminals. The
armistice itself will require the immediate surrender for
trial of all war criminals. Their names and the accusa-
tions against them will in many instances be annexed to
191
the armistice terms. Also all official documents and
evidentiary data mnst be produced intact.
Third, international commissions as well as national
commissions should gather the abundant data of crimi-
nality under the immediate direction of the prosecutors.
Fourth, we list bureaucratic groups of Pan-Germans
from which the officially organized brutality stemmed.
They must be the first to face an inexorable avenging jus-
tice. These, the upper crust of Nazism, the Leader, Cabinet
and Gauleiters, the High Command, the Gestapo, the
Sturm Abteilung, the Labor Front, the German Peoples'
Courts, the Schutzstaffel and others must be exterminated
according to law.
Fifth, we have recommended how certain troublesome
questions of International Law should be answered — such
as the defense that a superior officer's command was being
executed.
Sixth, we have proposed measures to prevent the guilty
from obtaining asylum in neutral countries.
Despite a most extensive judicial system constituted in
the Versailles Treaty Germany evaded any real punish-
ment. We have studied the ingenious methods which she
employed so successfully. Our program shuts the door to
such cunning. The Prussian war cult and its Nazi high
executioners must be destroyed. Justice demands it. Hope
for a better world requires it.
Economic Program
The punishment provisions spill over into the economic
realm. This is quite natural, since the complex forces of
society will not be confined to labeled compartments. Life
is stormy and unorthodox, and no respecter of the plan-
192
ner's well-carved designs. The economic program has two
main directions, one preventive and punitive, the other
affirmative.
The former is designed to disarm Germany economically
as well as militarily. It proposes :
First, that all plants and machinery which produce war
material be scrapped, removed or demolished.
Second, that the machine tool industry, steel mills,
power houses and important "heavy industries" be de-
stroyed or taken from German control. While physical
operation could be left to Germans, international trustees
should determine personnel of management, contracts, in-
vestments and foreign arrangements. There would be no
reliance upon mere "inspection." Control of policy itself
would be attained. No cartel arrangements could then be
made to restrict foreign production of vital materials. Nor
could fifth columns of sabotage and espionage be organized
under the respectable guise of business enterprise.
Third, that stocks of metals, oil or other strategic war
materials in excess of normal domestic consumption be re-
moved from the country and never replenished.
Fourth, that restitution be made of stolen property
wherever possible. We have analyzed the different methods
by which it was illegally obtained. They range from loot-
ing by military marauders called WiRti to the "acquisi-
tion of title" by devious frauds such as the Soldaten-
lanken. Through one form or another the Germans have
made the greatest haul in the history of banditry, almost
50 billion dollars.
Fifth, that property courts, with criminal jurisdiction
to punish recalcitrants, shall determine disputes over title
193
to property. The accumulations of the Nazis, no matter
in what form or country, will be confiscated and pooled
for restoration to the victims or their governments. The
devices for dressing these embezzlements with color of title
will be pierced. We have analyzed some of the fraudulent
methods which merely disguise the robberies.
Sixth, that reparations be paid in money and goods to
the fullest extent of Germany's capacity. However, the
obligation will be elastic, and exacted under the control of
an International Economic Board which will (a) prevent
the collapse of German economy through exhaustion and
(b) prevent damage to the world's markets by dumping
of goods or otherwise. We have analyzed the cunning
employed by Germany to avoid making reparation pay-
ments and at the same time receive huge loans. The plan
proposed will make the victors the beneficiaries, not the
victims, of reparations.
Seventh, that reparations also be paid in the form of
labor battalions to reconstruct devastated areas. These
are to be composed chiefly of war criminals sentenced to
prison terms. This payment shall also be subject to the
International Board's control in order to avoid injury to
the restored area by importation of excess labor.
This program will not only destroy the German war
plant, but will remove the mortar and bricks without which
a new one cannot be built. It provides for thorough eco-
nomic disarmament and it has been carefully designed to
check the unscrupulous manipulations and recuperative
powers of German war planners (businessmen as well as
military men). German fanaticism must be stripped
naked and kept naked, so that its irrationality and shame
will be evident to all. It must not be permitted to acquire
another coat of armor and pose for all the world as a
194
brave knight and warrior. At the same time, the program
is intended to do simple justice by restitution.
The second phase of the economic program is not puni
tive though it may have preventive effects. It is chiefly
designed to serve the economic health and growth of
Germany. It provides :
First, that it share in the immediate food relief which
will be extended to all Europe during the emergency pe-
riod following the armistice. An extensive international
commission has already worked out plans for succor. Ger
many must also be a full participant in medical aid. As
it is our intention to eradicate Germany's mass paranoiac
tendencies, we must create a favorable physical condi-
tion to aid her mental reorientation. Her persecution
complex must not be aggravated by hunger and economic
distress. For these, unlike punishment, become widespread
and are inflicted upon innocent and guilty alike. We have
talked of the guilt of the German people, always conscious
of the many individual exceptions. In the economic phase
of our program the exception determines the rule. Every
consideration is extended to improve the standard of
living in Germany.
Second, that Prussian estates be confiscated and dis-
tributed to German peasants in small parcels. The feudal
class in Germany, an anachronism which still survives,
would thus be eliminated. Such agrarian reform would
put an end to the intolerable domination of Germany by
land -owning Junkers, and their arrogant military and
nationalistic creeds. It would end the Prussian reign,
which terrorized the better instincts of many Germans.
It would improve and democratize German economy.
Third, that Germany be in full proportion the benefici-
ary of international economic planning and control. We
195
have suggested an Economic Council snch as was designed
in February, 1940, at the Hague. The following economic
benefits could be conferred on Germany as well as other
nations: (a) a Central Bank would raise or lower inter-
est rates simultaneously in all countries, to increase or
limit finances for production, (b) regional resources would
be developed, (c) labor supply would be adjusted to local
requirements through the relaxation or tightening of im-
migration restrictions, (d) exchange rates would be
stabilized by fixing the price of gold in each currency
periodically, (e) a stabilization fund would check distress
due to the withdrawal of short-term capital, (f) quotas
and restrictions on international trade would be removed
except in special circumstances, (g) tariffs would be en-
couraged chiefly for infant industries, (h) cartels would
be subjected to the scrutiny of a sort of international
S.E.O. to be sure that they were in the public's interest,
(i) new, peaceful industries might be assigned to German
efficiency or to other countries in accordance with the
economic advantages resulting from the location of
certain materials or resources.
These and similar activities would satisfy the pledge
of the Atlantic Charter "to farther the enjoyment by all
States, great or small, victor or vanquished, of access on
equal terms to the trade and to the raw materials of the
world which are needed for their economic prosperity."
Germany will be restored to economic health and
standards. She will learn from this living course in po-
litical economy that war devours wealth more quickly
than it supplies loot. Impoverishment is the common de-
nominator of victory and defeat. Perhaps this will be
some encouragement toward a peaceful frame of mind.
Certainly it will aid world economy. But the German
obsession with world domination is not to be disposed of
196
so easily. Economic justice is essential to the plan for
re-education, but it is not the education itself. The effort
in this direction is as ambitious as the size of the problem
requires. It is designed to condition Germany for a right-
ful place in a peaceful society.
Educational Program
This phase of the program provides:
First, that the entire educational system of Germany
be scrapped, just as its arms factories must be. The mental
products it has produced have been no less dangerous to
mankind than the other varieties of explosives from its
munition plants.
Second, that the task of obliterating the false doctrines
of German nationalism is not to be entrusted solely to the
Germans. They have been immersed in vicious credos
for many generations, and the Nazis have accelerated the
process with hysteria. We have seen the degenerative
educational processes unmolested after the first World
War, when the problem was left to German solution.
Noble resolutions went as unheeded as solemn assurances
of disarmament. The price of failure was a second World
War. The matter cannot again be left to German self-
reform.
Third, that the educational program be effectuated un-
der international auspices. If a supra-national authority
is created, it would afford the most appropriate and least
biased supervision. Otherwise, the United Nations would
be charged with the task, just as they must accept the re-
sponsibility of the other phases of the program. The most
suitable agency to devise the details of the educational re-
form, such as the curricula of the schools, the selection of
teachers and text-books, and pedagogical matters generally,
197
would be an International University. We have outlined
the structure, function and authority of such an institu-
tion. It would be the "High Command" of the educational
offensive. All German text-books must bear the impri-
matur of the International University. Outstanding Ger-
man students would be offered the opportunity of post-
graduate courses in the International University. They
would return to Germany as teachers, to found a new
cultural tradition infused with an international civic
sense. A new cycle of normal nationalism would be be-
gun, whose expression would be Germany's contribution
to the welfare and peace of Europe.
Fourth, that the professors, wherever possible, should
be German liberals and democrats. Others will be chosen
internationally. We have considered the irritation of
"foreign" intrusion. It must be reduced to its minimum,
but it must never become the reason for abandoning con-
trol. We have studied the disastrous effects of the last
experiment in autonomous educational reform.
Fifth, that the revitalization of a democratic culture
be implemented by every conceivable instrument for in-
vading the mind. We have outlined the possible function
in this respect of the church, the motion picture, the
theatre, the radio, the press, and the labor unions.
There will be educational service instead of military
service, and every German will be under compulsion to
become prepared for his peaceful duty as once he was for
his martial one.
Sixth, that the extensive educational program will have
for one of its main objects training in democratic self-
rule. If and when the German people are, in the impartial
judgment of the International University, prepared for
their proper place in the society of nations, they will be
198
welcomed to their new obligation. No more will they be
deemed a menace. Their sovereignty will be restored. Their
redemption quite properly will come through the mind.
For only when their intentions and viewpoints are normal
will the physical safeguards against them become unneces-
sary.
Harvesting the Peace
Any architect of peace should be awed by the stupen-
dous nature of his task. Wisdom is given to none of us to
rebuild the world. No neat blue-print can possibly be
given without grievous defect. Humility therefore flows,
not from any ordinary springs of modesty, but from a genu-
ine sense of inadequacy to solve by formula the most trou-
blesome threat to man's existence. But humility can have
two effects. It can induce passivity, which is cowardice,
or it can inspire courage to propose, devoid of messianic
conviction.
One peers anxiously upwards for the next rung in man's
ascent and the tightness with which the rung is grasped
does not really indicate full confidence that it will support
the weight. Vehemence in the course of exposition OP
persuasion often only hides uncertainty. We assure our-
selves, by insisting to others, but we may feel rewarded
if from the much that is offered, something is of value.
This program of what to do with Germany is an effort
to meet this test; to preserve man's normal life from the
violence of a chronic assailant; and after due punishment
and prophylactic measures have conditioned the offender,
to accept him into the family of nations.
Belief in the forces of destiny has been man's most
costly superstition. Throughout the centuries it has stimu-
lated aberrations which have wrought havoc with mankind.
Every kind of savagery has been committed in its name.
199
The tyrant and war maker imagines himself merely the
pliant agent of "the wave of the future" and his evil thus
derives sanction from an incontestable source.
This substitution of "mission" for morals, has been the
most tragic fact in man's decline. It is the negation of all
ethics, and stunts the idealism of religion. It is no acci-
dent that Germany and Japan prattle continuously about
their destiny, their fate. They have substituted an image
which they have created, for the image of God. Their ob-
session is real to them; from its hollow depths spring
fanaticism, which is no less dangerous because it is a con-
viction about a myth.
We are not twigs, swept helplessly down the stream of
life by turbulent waters. The neuter concept of man is
the real atheism of our lives. There is destiny only in the
sense that we are masters of it and can shape it. We can-
not absolve ourselves from wrong or failure by blaming
the forces beyond us. There is no escape from responsi-
bility for what we do. The strength to face this is the
supreme test of our adequacy.
So in the course of events the critical time comes when
man must seize the helm and stop pretending that the aim-
lessness of the ship is the design of the waves. If we must
steady ourselves with fantasies, let them be healthy ones.
Let us imagine that the young men some of us knew, who
cut short their precious lives so that we might plan, hover
near us now to plead for the full span of life of today's
children. Let us remember that the next generation, and
the next, and next is in our care. In a certain sense we
have become the custodians of the future. The convulsions
of our time have made it so.
A cartographer can record the broad expanses of the
world upon a single map, giving us a perspective of the
peaks and valleys of the terrain. If there were a similar
200
science for creating a map to reduce the ages of time to a
single surface, a few days would stand mountain-high in
the story of emancipation.
Such a day was June 23, 1215, when William d'Albini,
Stephen Langton and their associates met on the trian-
gular plain of Runnymede, in a quiet corner of the 160
acres of pasture land, and exacted the written promise
from King John that "no freeman shall be seized, or im-
prisoned . . . except by the legal judgment of his peers, or
by the laws of the land." This was the day of the Magna
Carta, which in Blackstone's words was the "gradual muta-
tion and final establishment of the Charter of Liberties."
Such a day was September 12, 1787, when at a closed
session in Independence Hall, Gouverneur Morris reported
on behalf of a committee on "Style and Arrangement" the
final draft of the Constitution of the United States.
Such a day is upon us now. All mankind will have
cause for many centuries to look upon it and judge whether
we missed or met its historic challenge.
We must not fail.
201
APPENDIX
APPENDIX
BIBLIOGRAPHY
CHAPTER I.
CORA HODSON: Human Sterilization Today (Watts & Co., London, 1934)
LEON FRADLEY WHITNEY : The Case for Sterilisation (Frederick A. Stokes
Co., 1934)
THEODORE N. KAUFMAN : Germany Must Perish .(Argyle Press, Newark,
N. J., 1941)
GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL: Philosophy of Mind (London, 1894;
Philosophy of Right (London, 1896)
JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE: The Destination of Man (1889) ; The Science of
Rights (2d ed., 1889) ; The Science of Ethics Based on the Science of
Knowledge (1897)
FREIDRICH WILHELM FOERSTER: Europe and the German Question (Sheed
& Ward, 1941)
VOLKSBUND FUER DAS DEUTSCHTUM IM AUSLAND : Deutsches Volkstum in
Aller Welt (1938)
HERBERT HOOVER and HUGH GIBSON: The Problems of Lasting Peace
(Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1942)
EARNEST A. HOOTON : Interview on Outbreeding (PM, Jan. 4, 1943)
JOHN ROY CARLSON: Under Cover (E. P. Button & Co., 1943)
MICHAEL SAYERS and A. E. KAHN : Sabotage (Harper & Bros., 1942)
HUGH DALTON: Hitler's War (Oxford, 1940)
WINSTON CHURCHILL: The Great War— 1914-1918 (G. Newnes Ltd., Lon-
don, 1933-1934)
RAY STANNARD BAKER: Woodrow Wilson and World Settlement (Double-
day, Doran & Co., 1922)
RAY STANNARD BAKER and WILLIAM DODD: The Public Papers of Wood-
row Wilson (Harper & Bros., 1925-1927)
BISMARCK: Autobiography (New York, 1899)
MORITZ BUSCH : Secret Papers of Bismarck (New York, 1899)
A. ASHLEY: Social Policy of Bismarck (New York, 1913)
205
"How Europeans Have Been Uprooted", Christian Science Monitor (Oct.
1, 1943)
SISLEY HUDDLESTON: "Evacuate the Rhineland" (The New Republic, March
3, 1927)
GEORGE W. HERALD: "Sex as a Nazi Weapon" (American Mercury, June,
1942)
T. H. TETENS : Whither Hitler? (Basel, 1935)
BORIS SHUB: Starvation Over Europe (Institute of Jewish Affairs, New
York, 1943)
INSTITUTE OF JEWISH AFFAIRS: Hitler's Ten-Year War on the Jews (New
York, Sept., 1943)
POLISH MINISTRY OF INFORMATION: The Black Book of Poland (Putnam's,
1942)
RICHARD WALTHER DARRE: Der Schweinemord (Zentralverlag der NSDAP
Munchen, 1937)
News of Norway, Vol. 2, No. 51 (Jan. 15, 1943)
THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SCI-
ENCE: Nutrition and Food Supply; The War and After (Jan., 1943)
The Survey of Central and Eastern Europe, No. 7 (Dec., 1942)
EMIL LUDWIG: The Germans: History of a Nation (Little, Brown & Co.,
1941)
SIR ROBERT VANSITTART: The Black Record (The Musson Book Co. Ltd.,
Toronto, 1941)
WILFRED FLEISHER: Volcanic Isle (Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1941)
THE NEW INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA: "League of Nations Covenant",
Vol. 1, p. 913
CHAPTER II.
CHARLES SEYMOUR: Intimate Papers of Colonel House (Houghton, Mifflin
Co., 1926)
ALBERT SHAW: "The Messages and Papers of Woodrow Wilson" (The
Review of Reviews Corp., 1924)
JULIUS CAESAR : Bellum Gallicum, Book VI.
TACITUS : De Germania
JEAN FROISSART: Chronicles of England, Spain, France and the Adjoining
Countries (Leavitt & Allen, New York, 1855)
N. GANGULEE: The Mind and Face of Nazi Germany (John Murray, Lon-
don, 1942)
MACHIAVELLI : The Historical, Political and Diplomatic Writings of Machi-
avelli (J. R. Osgood & Co., Boston, 1882)
GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL: Philosophy of History (1857)
AUSTIN HARRISON : The Pan-Germanic Doctrine (Harper & Bro., 1904)
206
PAUL ROHRBACH : Deutschland Unter den Weltvolkern (Stuttgart, 1921)
The German Reich and Americans of German Origin (Oxford University
Press, 1938)
HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE: Politics (Macmillan Co., 1916)
EDGAR ANSEL MOWRER: Germany Puts the Clock Back (Wm. Morrow &
Co., 1933)
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE: Thus SPake Zarathusra (Random House); Gene-
ology of Morals (Random House)
JOSEPH ARTHUR DE GOBINEAU: Moral and Intellectual Diversity of Races
(Philadelphia, 1856)
HOUSTON STEWART CHAMBERLAIN: Foundations of the Nineteenth Century
(London, 1910)
ALFRED ROSENBERG: Der Mythus des 20 Jahrhunderts (Munchen, 1932)
WILHELM KUSSEROW : The Creed of the Nordic Race (Friends of Europe,
London, 1936)
ADOLF HITLER: Mein Kampf (Stackpole Sons, 1939)
MOELLER VAN DER BRUCK i Germany's Third Empire
OSWALD SPENGLER: Man and Technics (Alfred A. Knopf, 1932)
ELMER DAVIS : Not to Mention the War (The Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1940)
FRIEDRICH LEOPOLD HARDENBURG: Die Politischen Ideen des Novalis (Hei-
delberg, 1940)
PETER VIERECK: Metapolitics (Alfred A. Knopf, 1941)
HERMANN RAUSCHNING: Hitler Speaks (T. Butterworth, Ltd., London,
1940) ; The Revolution of Nihilism (Garden City Publ. Co., 1942)
THOMAS MANN: "In Defense of Wagner" (Common Sense, Jan., 1940)
I. A. R. WYLIE: My Life with George (Random House, 1940)
HEINRICH HEINE : Religion and Philosophy (Trubner & Co., London, 1882)
ANDRE CHERADAME: Defense of the Americas (Doubleday, Doran & Co.,
1941)
Grossdeutschland Und Metteleuropa um das Jahr 1950
VON EINEM GROSSDEUTSCHER : Germania Triumphans (Berlin 1895)
KLAUS MANN: The Two Germany* (Survey Graphic, Vol. 28, p. 478)
JOHANN JOSEF GORRES: Germany and the Revolution (1820); Stigmata:
A History of Various Cases (1883)
"German Elections 1932", Encyclopedia of Europe, Vol. I (London, 1939)
O. SEELER: Germania Und Ihre Kinder (C. Boysen, Hamburg, 1914)
Verein von Freunden des Volkes und Vaterlandes (Avenarius & Mendels-
sohn, 1851)
WINSTON CHURCHILL: The Great War — 1914-1918 (G. Newnes, Ltd.,
London, 1933-1934)
RAY STANNARD BAKER : Woodrow Wilson and World Settlement (Double-
day, Doran & Co., 1922)
207
RAY STANNARD BAKER and WILLIAM DODD: The Public Papers of Wood
row Wilson (Harper & Bros., 1925-1927)
DAVID HUNTER MILLER: My Diary at the Conference of Paris (G. P.
Putnam's Sons, 1928)
The Peace That Failed: How Germany Sowed the Seed of War (Foreign
Policy Association, 1942)
Shadow Over Europe: The Challenge of Nazi Germany (Foreign Policy
Association, 1939)
HANS ERNEST FRIED : The Guilt of the German Army (Macmillan, 1942)
ROM LANDAU : Hitler's Paradise (Faber & Faber, Ltd., London)
FREDERICK C. OESCHNER: This Is the Enemy (Little, Brown & Co., 1942)
CHARLES WARREN: "Punishment for War Guilt" (The New York Times,
May 17, 1943)
MORVAT : History of European Diplomacy, 1914-1924
CHAPTER III.
"Briand-Kellogg Pact", New International Encyclopedia, Supp. Vol. I, P.
248, 595, 864
DAVID HUNTER MILLER: The Peace Pact of Paris (G. P. Putnam's Sons,
1928)
"League of Nations", New International Encyclopedia, Supp. Vol. I
ARTICLES OF INTERPRETATION AS ADOPTED BY THE BUDAPEST CONFERENCE
1934, together with the Report of the Relevant Proceedings
SIR THOMAS BARCLAY : International Law and Practice (London, Sweet &
Maxwell, Ltd., Boston, Mass.)
The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 14 (1920)
"International Law", Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. 12
"International Law*', Encyclopedia Americana, Vol. 15
"International Law", 33 Corpus Juris 383
SIR FREDERICK SMITH : Treatise on International Law — 5th Ed. (London &
Toronto, 1918)
HANNIS TAYLOR: Treatise on International Public Law (Chicago, 1901)
ARTHUR K. KUHN : The Laws of War and the Future (Hague Conference
on International Law, Aug. 30, 1921)
"Federal Courts", 25 Corpus Juris 679
The American Society of International Law, Vol. 14 (Oxford University
Press, 1920)
"International Law", Black's Law Dictionary
JAMES W. GARNER : "Punishment of Offenders Against the Laws and Cus-
toms of War" (14 American Journal of International Law, p. 70, 1920)
"Heirn v. Bridault", 37 Miss. 230
208
"U. S. v. White", (C. C.) 27 Fed. 201
Fix Atrocities on Ex-Kaiser (The Neiv York Times, Jan. 19, 1919)
"Schooner Exchange v. McFaddon and Others", 7 Cranch. 116
"DeHaber v. Queen of Portugal", 17 Q. B. 171
"Hatch v. Baez", 7 Hun 596
"Underbill v. Hernandez", 168 U. S. 250
CHARLES SEYMOUR: Intimate Papers of Colonel House (Houghton-Mifflin
Co., 1926)
CHARLES WARREN: "Punishment of War Guilt" (The New York Times,
May 17, 1943)
JOHN HENNESSEY WALKER: "Punishing the War Guilty Will Not Be A
Simple Job", (PM, Nov. 15, 1942)
VICTOR BERNSTEIN : "The Kaiser Didn't Hang" (PM, March 22, 1943)
HEINZ POL: The Hidden Enemy: The German Threat to Post-War Peace
(Julian Messner, 1943)
SHELDON GLUECK: "Trial and Punishment of the Axis War Criminals"
(Free World, Nov., 1942)
F. WILHELM SOLLMAN: "How to Deal with Germany" (World Affairs,
June, 1942)
Bethmann-Holwegg, Former Chancellor, Testifies Evasively. Secret Ses-
sion is Declared (The New York Times, Nov. 6, 1919)
Von Kapelle, Von Koch and Helfferich Praise the Old Regime (The New
York Times, Nov. 14, 1919)
Students Refuse to Permit Von Hindenburg to Appear (The New York
Times, Nov. 15, 1919)
Helfferich Refuses to Answer Questions (The New York Times, Nov.
17, 1919)
Hindenburg Finally Testifies (The New York Times, Nov. 19, 1919)
Hjalmar Branting Reports (The New York Times, Dec. 22, 1919)
Von Lersner Refuses to Surrender Prisoners (The New York Times, Nov.
29, 1919)
Prince Rupprecht Offers to Surrender in Exchange for German War Pris-
oners (The New York Times, Dec. 9, 1919)
German National Assembly Enacts Law to Try Germans in German Court
(The New York Times, Dec. 20, 1919; Jan. 26, 1920)
German Council Refuses Demand for Extradition (The New York Times,
Feb. 6, 1920)
German Officers Association Calls Nation to Defiance (The New York
Times, Feb. 8, 1920)
University Students in Berlin Oppose Surrender (The New York Times,
Feb. 12, 19, 1920)
German National Assembly in Weimar Supports Government Against Ex-
tradition (The New York Times, Feb. 10, 11, 1920)
209
Attorney General at Leipzig Ordered to Try Accused (The New York
Times, Feb. 11, 1920)
Allies Accept Proposal to Try Criminals at Leipzig (The New York Times,
Feb. 17, 1920)
German Belgium Financial Agreement Annulled (The New York Times,
Feb. 10, 1920)
Allies Finally Request Trial of Less than 1000 Persons (The New York
Times, Jan. 14, 1920)
War Criminals Arrive at Switzerland and Holland (The New York Times,
Jan. 14, 1920)
CHANCELLOR PHILIP SCHEIDEMANN: Der Zusammenbruck (1921); Mem-
oiren Ernes Sozialdemokraten (1928)
"Harvard Research on International Law", Encyclopedia of the Social
Sciences, p. 110 (1935)
"Little v. Barreme", 2 Cranch. 170
"Mitchell v. Harmony", 13 How. 115
FRIEDERICH WILHELM FROEBEL, Education of Man (Berlin, 1862)
DAVID HUNTER MILLER, My Diary at the Conference of Paris, Vol. 18,
p. 9 (Privately printed)
OPPENHEIM : International Law, Vol. 2, P. 455
International Law Governing War (La Salle Extension University, 1920)
WILFRED FLEISCHER: Volcanic Isle (Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1941)
ALEXANDER M. BICKEL: "Fundamentals of a European Order" (Congress
Weekly, April 2, 1943)
CHAPTER IV.
J. B. CONDLIFFE: Agenda for a Post-War World (W. W. Norton & Co.,
1942)
JOHN BOYLAND : Sequel to the Apocalypse (Booktab, Inc., 1942)
"Treaty of Versailles", Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. 23 (1941)
GUENTER REIMANN : Patents for Hitler (Vanguard Press, 1942)
GORDON H. COLE: "Rebuilding Europe After the War" (PM, Dec. 20, 21, 22,
1942)
"Report of Board of Economic Warfare of the United States" (The New
York Times, April 28, 1943)
WILLIAM HARBETT DAWSON: "Germany After the War" (The Contempo-
rary Review, London, April, 1941)
PAUL EINZIG: Can We Win the Peace? (Macmillan Co., 1942)
ERNEST S. HEDIGER : Nasi Exploitation of Occupied Europe (Foreign Policy
Association, 1941)
LORD ROBERT VANSITTART : Lessons of My Life (Alfred A. Knopf, 1943)
210
JOHN MAYNAED KEYNES: A Revision of the Treaty (Macmillan & Co.,
Ltd., London, 1922) ; The Economic Consequences of the Peace (Har-
court, Brace & Co., 1920)
LEOPOLD SCHWARZSCHILD: World in Trance (L. B. Fischer Publ. Corp.,
1942)
GEORGE N. SHUSTER: The Germans (Dial Press, 1932)
P. E. CORBETT: Post-War Worlds (Farrar & Rinehart, 1942)
JAMES EDWARD MEADE : An Economic Basis for a Durable Peace (G. Allen
& Unwin, Ltd., London, 1940)
KINGSBURY SMITH: "Our Plan for Post- War Germany" (American Mer-
cury, April, 1943)
EUGENE STALEY : World Economy in Transition (Council on Foreign Rela-
tions, New York, 1939)
EDWARD HALLETT CARR : Conditions of Peace (Macmillan Co., 1942)
JOSEPH BORKIN and CHARLES A. WELSH: Germany's Master Plan: A
Story of Industrial Offensive (Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1943)
NICHOLAS DOMAN: The Coming Age of World Control (Harper & Bro.,
1942)
Food Conference (The New York Times, Nov. 9, 1943)
WALTER LIPPMAN: "European Relief and the U. S. A. (The New York
Herald Tribune, Nov. 9, 1943)
JOHANNES STEEL: "Nazi Grip on Capital Will Be Hard to Break" (The
New York Post, Apr. 27, 1943)
EMIL J. FELDEN: Eines Menschen Weg: A Biography of Fredirich Eiber
(1916)
DR. JOSEPH TENENBAUM : American Investments and Business Interests in
Germany (Joint Boycott Council, New York, 1939)
HENRY AGARD WALLACE: Statement (The New York Times, Sept 19,
1943)
FRITZ THYSSEN: I Paid Hitler (Farrar & Rinehart, 1941)
HERBERT HOOVER and HUGH GIBSON: The Problems of Lasting Peace
(Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1942)
ANTHONY EDEN: "Post-War Problems Call for Sacrifice, Courage and
Skill" (The British Information Services, Aug. 5, 1942)
CHAPTER V.
FRIEDRICH WILHELIC FROEBXL: Education of Man (Berlin, 1862)
ADOLF LAS SON: Das Kulturideal und der Krieg (H. Neelmeyer, Berlin,
1914)
HERBERT AGAR : A Time for Greatness (Little Brown & Co., 1942)
Louis ADAMIC: Two-Way Passage (Harper & Bro., 1941)
RICHARD M. BRICKNER: Is Germany Incurable f (Lippincott, 1943)
211
H. G. WELLS: The Rights of Man (Penguin Books, 1940) ; The Outline
of History (Macmillan, 1940)
F. WILHELM SOLLMAN: "How to Deal with Germany" (World Affairs,
June, 1942)
"The Nazi Primer" (Harper's Magazine, Vol. 177, p. 240)
KLAUS MANN : "The Two Germanys" (Survey-Graphic, Vol. 28, p. 478)
BERTRAND RUSSELL: "Re-educating the Entire Human Family" (Fort-
nightly Review, London)
TANIA LONG: "German Re-education Plan Issued by a British Group" (The
New York Times)
HEINRICH HAUSER: Battle Against Time (Scribner, 1939)
JAN DE GROOT: "What Is Germany?" (The Commonweal, April 25, 1941)
WILLIAM HARLAN HALE: "Ten Years of Hitler; One Hundred Years of
Goethe" (The Nation, March 16, 1942)
SIR NORMAL ANGELL: "Responsibility, Punishment, Reparation" (The Dial,
Dec. 28, 1918)
FREDERIC C. HOWE: "The Background of Modern Germany (Scribner' s
Magazine, July, 1915)
SAMUEL LAING: Notes of a Traveller (Carey & Hart, 1846)
HENRY AGARD WALLACE: "The People's Revolution" (The New Republic,
May 25, 1942)
JACK CHERRY: Once and For All (Muller, London, 1942)
EDGAR ANSEL MOWRER: "Germany After Ten Years" (Harper's Magazine,
Dec., 1928)
ERIKA MANN : School for Barbarians (Modern Age, New York, 1938)
DOROTHY THOMPSON: Listen, Hans (Houghton, Miffiin Co., 1943)
PAUL HAGEN: Will Germany Crack? (Harper & Bros.. 1942)
REX STOUT: "We Shall Hate, or We Shall Fail" (The New York Times
Magazine, Jan. 17, 1943)
ARTHUR K. KUHN : The Laws of War and the Future (Hague Conference
on International Law, Aug. 30, 1921)
PATZY ZIEMER: Two Thousand and Ten Days of Hitler (Harper & Co.,
1940)
ALBERT EINSTEIN: Interview (PM, January 4, 1943)
CHAPTER VI.
J. B. CONDLIFFE: Agenda for a Post-War World (W. W. Norton & Co.,
1942)
NICHOLAS DOMAN: The Coming Age of World Control (Harper & Bro.,
1942)
P. E. CORBETT: Post-War Worlds (Farrar & Rinehart, 1942)
212
WALTER LIPPMANN: United States Foreign Policy: Shield of the Republic
(Little, Brown & Co., 1943)
LIONEL CURTIS : Civitas Dei (Macmillan & Co., Ltd., London, 1943)
CLARENCE STREIT: Union Now (Harper & Bro., 1942)
RICHARD N. COUDENHOVE-KALERGI : Crusade for Pan-Europe (G. P. Put-
nam's Sons, 1943)
HOWARD K. SMITH: Last Train from Berlin (Alfred A. Knopf, 1942)
ROBERT STRAUSZ-HUPE : Geopolitics (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1942)
CARL J. HAMBRO: How to Win the Peace (J. B. Lippincott Co., 1942)
ANDRE CHERDAME: Defense of the Americas (Doubleday, Doran & Co.,
1941)
FRANCIS JOHN MCCONNELL: A Basis for the Peace to Come (Abingdon-
Cokesbury Press, 1942)
GEOFFREY BOURNE: War Politics and Emotions (Liveright Publishing Corp.,
1941)
RAOUL DE ROUSSY DE SALES: Making of Tomorrow (Reynal & Hitch-
cock, 1942)
SIR THOMAS BARCLAY: Problems of International Practice and Diplomacy
(Sweet & Maxwell, London, 1917)
OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD: "Preparation for the Peace" (Christian
Century, Jan. 21, 1942)
JULIAN HUXLEY: "On Living in a Revolution" (Harper's Magazine,
Sept., 1942)
G. O. G. LUETKENS : A New Order for Germany (National Peace Council,
London, 1941)
CHAPTER VII.
DOROTHY THOMPSON: Listen Hans (Houghton, Mifflin Co., 1943)
LORD ROBERT VANSITTART : Lessons of My Life (Alfred A. Knopf, 1943)
HAROLD J. LASKI: Where Do We Go From Here? (Penguin Books, 1941)
Louis P. LOCHNER: What About Germany? (Dodd, Mead & Co., 1942)
The New World (Council for Democracy, 1942)
213
DATE DUE
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