THEN AND NOW
-TitE only use of recriminating about the past,' said Sir Winston Churchill, 'is to enforce effec- tive action in the present.' And that maxim was never more true than today. Mr. Macleod's book on Chamberlain conies under that heading, and in the most important sense it does not matter whether he is successful in his defence of Cham- berlain or not. Few, after all, have ever denied that Chamberlain Wanted and strove for peace. The fact remains, he did not get it. To understand why he did not get it may help us to understand how to ensure that we get it today. And certainly peace is more important today than it was in 1939. Chamberlain would not fight for Czechoslovakia; he had to fight for Poland. We cannot actually fight for anything today; which makes it (this is elementary, but it does not seem to have occurred to Earl Russell, so there may well be others who have missed it) all the more important not to have any Czechoslovakias now. For if we have a Czechoslovakia today, we shall have a Poland tomorrow. And nothing the day after.
Hitler murdered on a scale unexampled in history; he launched war against peaceful coun- tries; he perverted a nation's soul; but he had one virtue which has always been sadly lacking in democratic countries. lie said, loudly, clearly and repeatedly, exactly what he intended to do, and he then went and did it. He said that he was going to remilitarise the Rhineland, and he did. He said that he was going to wipe out the remaining effects of the Treaty of Versailles, and he did. He said that he was going to bring Austria into the Reich, and he did. He said that he was going to exterminate the Jews, and he did. Never at any time, though there might well have been excuse for misunderstanding Hit- ler's character and motives, could there have been any defence to a charge of misunderstand- ing his intentions.
The result was six years of blood, toil, tears and sweat, followed by the division of Europe and a threat to peace nd freedom as great as Hitler posed. Now Europe is once more faced with a German leader who has his 'own territorial desires and who, if he has not com- mitted crimes on the scale of Hitler's, has done things which are as infamous in their way. He,
too, has extinguished freedom, has killed and tortured, has enslaved, degraded and perverted human beings to evil ends. But he, too, must be declared guiltless of Leaving his intentions obscure. For Herr Ulbricht has all along been perfectly open about what he wants, or what he 'is told by his Soviet master to want, and shows - no sign at preSent of changing this admirably forthcoming attitude.
His latest speech has received less attention in Britain than it deserves. In it, he put forward a number of high-sounding riroposals for nego- tiations and agreements between Federal Ger- many and his own puppet, State. But he also made on or two things as clear as Hitler ever did. He declared, fcfr instance, that Berlin did not have any four-power status, described it as the capital. of the German Democratic Republic and added for good measure that the Ameri- cans, British and French had no original rights there. When the status of West Berlin had been adjusted to his requirements, he further made clear, Western use of East German communi- cations, whether land, water or air, could only be allowed on a contractual basis. And when the East German regime signed its peace treaty with the Soviet Union, the 'occupation regime in West Berlin will be abolished.' Sabotage, of course, would have to be stopped—West-to-East sabotage, that is—and the only real subject of discussion was precisely how to arrange for the withdrawal of the Western garrisons from West Berlin. Naturally, there would be no room in the kind of Berlin he envisaged for 'revenge politicians and West Berlin provocateurs.' When all this was settled to his satisfaction, he added, the Wall would come down, as it would no longer be needed. Indeed it would not. By then, the Soviet leaders would have no need of a wall to separate East Berlin from the free world, for West Berlin would no longer be part of the free world. By then, the Soviet leaders would have no need of Ulbricht, and would probably have him purged as a Stalinist, replacing him with a 'moderate' to show their good •intentions (much as they are now blandly suggesting a ban on bomb-tests after a series of some fifty explosions). Ulbricht performs at the end of a rope; but the fact that we know who holds the other end should not prevent us from learning something from his movements.
Could there well be a better illustration than Herr Ulbricht's speech of the necessity to crush appeasement in the West before it has its way? There is no need to take a high moral tone in this debate; of course, Chamberlain should have stood up to Hitler instead of selling the Czechs, because it was wrong to sell the Czechs. But he should also have stood up to him because it was to Britain's interest, and the world's, that the Czechs should not be sold. It would be, today, wrong to sell the West Ber- liners; more, it would have certain hideously dangerous immediate strategic consequences, such as the likelihood that Federal Germany would abandon her adherence to allies on whom she could no longer depend and make her own bargain across the Elbe. But the biggest reason, in a world dominated by the power-struggle and not by morality, is that if we sell West Berlin we shall soon have to decide whether to sell Bonn, and then Paris, and then ... But if we keep West Berlin, we keep everything; including peace.
• So it is just as well that Dr. Adenauer and President Kennedy seem agreed that, while we must be always ready to negotiate anything negotiable with the Russians, there are some things that are not negotiable. And these things include the status of West Berlin as a free city fully linked with the rest of free Germany, with unrestricted right of passage to and from it; the refusal of recognition to Herr Ulbricht% puppet regime; the maintenance of the Western presence in West Berlin. It is unfortunately pds- sible that while President Kennedy and Dr. Adenauer were agreeing on these principles Mr. Macmillan was trying, in effect, to talk Presi- dent de Gaulle out of them. At any rate, it is un- likely that he was doing anything to reinforce de Gaulle's opposition to negotiation with Khrushchev. But the Bonn-Washington accord seems secure. It cannot be too often stressed that those who wish to take a 'hard' line on negotia- tions with the Soviet Union do not do so because they wish to fight for Berlin, but because they do not wish to fight for anywhere. Chamberlain, rightly and honourably, did not want to fight either, and thought that by appeasing Hitler he would not have to. He was terribly wrong.
II a flpYtia fri M ae Od , whatever happens, if you'd undertakc 10 write My
biography.'
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