THE GERMAN PEOPLE Snt,—Your articles, reviews and letters constantly sound
the question: Are the German people guilty? This emphasis on peoples seems mis- pla,ced today—it seems a relic of 1914—when we are fighting a war not of nations but of beliefs. But that it is such a war many people find it difficult to understand. I will bring out my point by referring to the case of the Italians. These are widely regarded as being "more sinned against than sinning ": they are regarded as innocent dupes. But Fascism has been established in Italy for twenty years: the horrors of Nazism were rifc in Italy a decade before 1933. Yet Italy's alliance with us in 1915, our traditional friendship with her since the days of the Resorgimento, has brought muddle-headed opinion in this country to ignore the line that divides us from Italian Fascists, while emphasising that dividing us from the Germans—our enemies in 1914
To talk today of peoples is to be the victim of a delusion. It is to apply to 1942 the nationalist war-cries of 1914 which are today invalid. Our present struggle is not—as Lord Vansittart would have it—one of peoples, nor, as Mr. Gollancz, of classes: it is a war of faiths.
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