17 MAY 1945, Page 12

GERMANY IN SUBJECTION

SIR,—In connection with your brief remarks about Germany in subjection and a central Control Commission for that country, may I, since all plans hitherto- published mention that Germany will be controlled only by the four Great Powers, be permitted to make some observations on the interests of the smaller nations in the administration of the conquered Reich?

The fight against the Herrenvolk doctrine is one of the major tasks to be undertaken in the process of re-educating Germany: it is therefore important that smaller nations, against whom particularly this doctrine has been applied, should be represented on all Allied Commissions which will -decide the problem of Germany. I am not at all enthusiastic about

the works of the German writer Emil Ludwig, but I think' he was absolutely correct in his declaration before the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the United States. House of Representatives in 1943: " You will be compelled to set up a committee of conservators, or a commission composed of representatives of. the United Nations. To exclude representatives of the smaller nations, neighbours of Germany . would justify the German idea of races of differenj value." • Some measure of participation of the smaller powers in the admini- stration of occupied Germany would enable them also to watch over their own particular interests. Let us take three instances.

As you rightly stated in your last issue, the Education Division of the Control Commission in Germany will have to deal with the eradication of German teachers and school-books, which have hitherto resulted in heightening the atmosphere of aggressive nationalism. This German aggressive nationalism, based on the peculiar idea of Herrenvolk, was primarily directed against Germany's smaller neighbours. It is important to hear the opinion of those countries on the lines which the education of German youth must follow in order to change the attitude of the Germans towards all who are not of German blood, and who are not mighty in territory or political influence.

Some special. department of the Control Commission (or whatever the administrative body in Germany may eventually be called) will have to deal with the pseudo.scientific institutes which prepared aggress:on. It is probable that only the smaller neighbours of Germany, who have had the misfortune to count the members of German minorities among their citizens, are vitally interested in the Deutsches Auslandinstitut in Stuttgart. Some representatives of the smaller nations should therefore participate in the • administration, or rather the liquidation, of this and other centres of infection which have so deeply empoisoned the German mind.

Except Russia and France, no other great power has had its citizens enslaved in the army of foreign workers in Germany. Nearly all smaller European nations did. Germany must render an account of these slave workers. Their under-payment must now be made good, their property restored, and they themselves must be repatriated. All this emphasises the necessity of the smaller nations being represented on any commissions for the control of conquered Germany, although the four Great Powers will have to take the major decisions and share the main responsibility.—Yours faithfully, J. M. WINIEWICZ. Oakleigh Gardens, Edgware, Middlesex.