27 AUGUST 1943, Page 11

PUNISHMENT OF WAR CRIMINALS

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Snt,—I am unique among Englishmen. I consider that there is something to be said for hitting an enemy when he is down. I am not one of those

who, having been attacked by a gangster and -having got the better of

him, would help him up, offer to shake bands with him, and say, " No hard feelings, I hope." I am a far lower type than Mr. Harold Nicolson's Kentish villagers. I seem to be unique, too, in taking with a•very large

grain of salt the forecasts of our statesmen and politicians that there will be a new golden age after the war. I believe that if we and the Americans

have our way and help a beaten Germany to her feet the nations whose countries have been occupied will think that we condone German cruelty, and will hate us. I see no prospects in such circumstances of co-opera- tion among the nations of Europe. I can see only the prospect of another war in twenty or twenty-five years ; a war that will be worse than this one and which the Germans will certainly win. I prophesy that the time will come when our lofty idealism will be remembered by the Germans with derision and by the rest of Europe with curses.

If I had my way I would cripple Germany permanently when we get her down. It was Hitler's intention if he won this war to reduce the population of Great Britain by two-thirds. I would be more merciful. I would reduce the population of Germany by not more than a third or perhaps a half. The weapon I would use would be starvation, the weapon she has used so wantonly against nations that only wanted to live at peace with her. " But," says my fellow Englishman, " you would not starve the German women and children? " " Yes," I answer, " I would, for if there is another war it will be our women and children who will starve."

The delay in the economic recovery of Europe entailed by my plan would be more than compensated for by freedom from war and by our being relieved of the necessity of keeping an army in Germany. The occupation of Germany implies sending thousands of young men to live among a people who will do everything they can to make their lives unpleasant. I do not see why young men should be called upon to waste part of the best period of their lives because the Germans cannot be trusted to behave themselves. I have come across no estimate of the length of time we and our Allies will have to act as keepers of the mad dog of Europe. Will it be more or less than a century? We may be sure, in spite of our present firm resolve, that very few of those responsible for the outrages committed on the inhabitants of the occupied countries will be brought to trial and punished. If my plan were carried out the punishment could be left to the German people. Hunger would be a potent incentive to destroy those who had led them into trouble. Moreover the German people, and indeed all nations, would learn that every citizen of a State must bear his share of responsibility for the acts of the Government under which he lives.

That efforts to re-educate the Germans will be a total failure seems to me a foregone conclusion. The only histories of these times that will be read after the war by the Germans will be written by historians with the Goebbels mentality and will declare that the war was forced upon a peace-loving Germany by the plutocratic warmongers of the democracies ; and every word will be believed. I have been told that my plan is un-Christian. If to help Germany to her feet so that she can plunge the world into a third world war is Christian the reproach is pointless.— South View, Shaldon, S.'Devon.