GERMAN P.O.W.s
Sitt,—The most important matter at issue in the correspondence that has followed my article on Friends or Enemies ? relates to the grading scheme for P.o.W.s. Mr. Driberg points out that its introduction marked an advance, and was originally designed to meet the scandal of Nazi terrorism inside the camps. The most aggressive Nazis have now, in fact, been segregated. But what about the less obvious cases? I agree with Mr. Driberg as to the difficulties for the screeners (pressure of time, inadequate knowledge of German and of Germans, &c.). But I go further and believe they render the method unworkable. To give one example of how it fails. I know the case of a well-educated, strongly anti-Nazi officer who has been classified C. He has British relations, and is far more alive than most to the value of British democracy and also to our present difficulties. Moreover, being unmarried, he is spared the ordeal of separation from a suffering family. Nevertheless, he has a hard struggle against cynicism and despair.
This is all the more the case, as even the safety-valve of useful labour ("slave labour ") is refused him. Even if he were a Nazi, this refusal would make him worse, not better. Think, too, of the numerous men who have been P.o.W.s for five or even seven years! I know of one who has never even seen his seven-year-old daughter. As the years drag by such men tend to lose all faith in goodness, human or divine, and become confirmed in a destructive bitterness. Repatriation based primarily on length of captivity (with priority as now, I believe, for men over 40) would meet the hardest cases and avoid all the worst misunderstandings.
Your correspondent Mr. Hadley seems to think it irrelevant to the critical issues confronting us whether anti-British feeling increases or not. But I think most of your readers will agree that we should avoid mobilising evil, and that hatred joined with desperation is a peculiarly dangerous form of evil. Confidence in British decency and goodwill (if well-founded) will Contribute vastly to our security, and perhaps save the cause of democracy from final shipwreck in Western Europe. The relaxation of anti-fraternisation rules and the widespread response to it causes hope that the Germans, before they return to their country, may be allowed at last to discover for themselves all that is really best in the British way of life and all that is genuine in our British democracy.
Whingate, Peaslake, Surrey.
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