Sta,—Mr. Hughes is to be thanked for his article, The
German Trials. Every word of it would be confirmed by the two Members of Parliament who visited Neuengamme and Recklinghausen with me last month. These camps are excellently run, but the injustice is horrible. Man after man whom we interviewed was clearly guilty of nothing worse than of doing what at the time he conceived to be, and what in fact often was, his patriotic duty. Nuremberg is retrospective legislation of the cruellest and most reactionary kind. There is, however, one phrase in Mr. Hughes' article which will not be clear without further explanation. "It is true," he writes, "that he may expect a light sentence . . . but this brings little comfort, for he . . . is now to be made an officially convicted criminal." In the British zone, that is to say (but not in the American), anyone in the Nuremberg categories, unless acquitted, is to be vorbestraft —i.e., entered in the police register as a man with a criminal record, even if the punishment is only a moderate fine. The young fellow we interviewed, who joined the Waffen S.S. at seventeen in exactly the spirit in which an Englishman might have joined the Guards, will become, at any rate for some considerable period, a stigmatised criminal—unless he can prove, as of course he cannot, that he did not know the Jews were being persecuted.
May I add a word about the wider issue of " denazification " in the broadest sense—all this purging, punishing and penalising? Without excep- don, everyone with whom we spoke—British, Germans, educationists, C.D.U., S.P.D.—was trying to find some way of bringing to a speedy end this hideous process. It destroys efficiency. It poisons the moral atmosphere. It fails to achieve its avowed purpose. To cope with the situation in Hamburg, sixty or seventy appeal tribunals are required ; but only thirty-one have been set up, and it is extremely difficult to get the necessary personnel. Decent Germans show an increasing reluctance to sit, or to continue sitting, on " denazification " boards, for they do not want to be mixed up in what they regard as a most distasteful business.
How can you eradicate Nazism by what are in effect totalitarian methods? You do not make a man a better democrat by categorising him as a third-class Citizen; what you do is to create an atmosphere in which democracy of any kind is impossible. The time has surely come to deal with the question, by a return to the liberal principles for which we are supposed to have fought the war. I venture to put forward the following plan for consideration.
Genuine war criminals—of the 3,846 inmates of Recklinghausen only fifty-six are so classified—should be dealt with as at present (not that I personally believe in retributive punishment, but I am trying to suggest something acceptable). Everyone else should be amnestied and relieved of all disabilities, and the process should be retrospective. A list should be drawn up of certain key positions—managing directors of really big businesses, people in leading positions in education, the Government, the Civil Service, etc.—and those coming up for such positions, as well as those at present holding them, should be " vetted " by a board or boards, the members of which should be carefully selected for their sanity, liberalism and psychological insight. They would consider, not whether a man became a sergeant in the S.S. in such and such a year, but whether he seems now the sort of person likely to help in building up a democratic Germany. In the event of an adverse decision, the only penalty should be the applicant's failure to get the job, and he should be permitted in due course to try again. A capital levy, which, following currency reform, is in any event inevitable, would automatically deprive of their wealth men who would use it for reactionary ends. Combined with the steady establishment in Germany of liberal institutions and above all a liberal atmosphere, some such method would safeguard democratic freedoms far more effectively than the pre- vailing insanity, which is creating embittered totalitarians on an appalling scale.
I put this scheme before one of the outstanding leaders of the S.P.D. As I was leaving half an hour later he called me back and said: "I think I shall summon up courage and propose it myself." I mention this because it is often said that we would like to clear up denazification. but that the Germans won't let us.—Yours, &c.,
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