MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON IN Oxford Street, almost midway between Oxford Circus and the. Tottenham Court Road, the Information section of our Control Commission in Germany, have arranged an exhibition. They have chosen as the site for their display the ground level of a bombed building, and they have enlivened this grim vestige of destruction with the fluttering flags of hope. it has evidently been their intention first to impress upon the visitor a sense of total disaster and then gradually to indicate the slow labour. of relief and reconstruction upon which they are engaged. With this pur- pose in mind, the ante-room to the exhibition has been devised with expert showmanship. A dim red light illumines crude frescoes of human misery ; a small sculptured group of Displaced Persons, contrived in some composite material, depicts shattered people cling- ing together, in the manner of Rodin's burghers of Calais ; through apertures in the ruined brickwork one cariagaze upon enlarged photographs of fallen bridges and sunken ships lit by the dim glow of hurricane lamps daubed in red ; from some distant gramophone the strains of the Gatterciammerung, alternating with Negro folk- songs, are gently relayed ; a spotlight at the end of the room falls upon the broken emblem of the eagle and swastika ; in the wing of the eagle there is a jagged hole. The visitor, thus attuned to the atmosphere of disaster, is then conducted to aloe adjoining chamber, in which are displayed large photographs of those Nazi leaders who, in the opinion of the exhibitors, were responsible for this catastrophe. There they all are, yelling with demagogic arrogance, and beside them is a picture of Himmler lying dead upon the floor with a blanket over his face and beside him his own death mask, vividly illumined. By such methods feelings af horror are imposed upon the visitor in the hope that more tender emotions of com- passion will follow. Nobody could deny that this exhibition has been most subtly conceived.
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More and more illustrations of destruction are intruded upon the attention. Here is a woman, clasping pots an pans to her panting breast, running through a burning street, the walls of- which are about to collapse upon her ; here is the Pariser Platz at Berlin, its elegance turned to rubble, and Schadow's Auriga of victory still standing like some broken toy upon the 'summit of the Branden- burger Tor. But as one passes from room to room of the exhibition one is conscious that the lighting arrangements progressively im- prove. The dantesque gloom of the earlier infernos gives place stage by stage to the more direct illumination of the statistical charts and diagrams. By' the time one reaches the main section one finds that the dummy figures dressed in the uniforms of the German fire service or the Potsdam river police have assumed an expression of bright hopefulness. And the.final Information Room, in which diverse maps of the British zone are suspended upon high frames, is as shining as an April morning or as the underground stations at Piccadilly Circus. The visitor steps back into Oxford Street convinced that here is some great 'work which is being ardently accomplished, that here is a vast human tragedy, the dire consequences of which are being averted, apparently unaided, by British efficiency, resolution and pluck. If it was the intention of the exhibitors to convince the British taxpayer that the sums which are being devoted to the feeding and reconstruction of Germany represent an inevitable sacrifice, then assuredly the exhibition will achieve its purpose. But if it was meant tir provide an objective statement of the problem as a whole, then certainly much remains which has been unillustrated and unsaid.
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Assuredly one derives from these diagrams and pictures a clear idea of the difficulties with which our authorities in the British zone have been faced during the past twelve months. Apart from the4enormous destruction caused to communications and transport both by the Allies and by the Germans themselves, the problem of housing was in itself almost insoluble. Vie British zone before the war was inhabited by some twenty million people who possessed
for their accommodation some five and a-half million houses: today that population has been increased by some 1,i81,000, whereas two million houses have been totally destroyed and one and a-half million more have been damaged beyond immediate repair. On our arrival, moreover, we were faced with the problem of the two million-odd displaced persons who had been deported to, or escaped to, the area under our control. Of these, 920,000 have been by now re- patriated to Russia and some 271,000 repatriated to France ; but half a million still remain in our camps, and we have been obliged under the Potsdam Agreement to accept some one and a-half million Germans who have been expelled from the new territory allocated to Poland. The problem of organising, tracing, identifying, feeding and housing these people would break the heart of any authority. The stubborn determination of our Control Commission in solving these perplexities entitles them`to our fullest sympathy and support. Theirs is a thankless, almost hopeless, task ; it is indeed right that the British public shOuld learn to understand, and that they them- selves should feel that in the terrible difficulties of their functions they have behind them the 'encouragement of their own people. From that point of view this exhibition is to be welcomed and applauded without reservation.
* .* * Much praise, moreover, is due to those who arranged the exhibi- tion for the intelligence which they have shown. The ordinary visitor is not impressed by statistics, and comparative tables of calories make but a vague impression on the mind. An exhibit has therefore been arranged which demonstrates effectively enough the difference between the weekly ration of the British citizen and that accorded to the Germans within our own zone of occupation. Obviously, it is not easy to make a precise comparison, since many things are rationed in Germany which in this country have, hitherto, at least, been exempt. None the less, a bright little showcase has been constructed, on the top 'shelf of which is shown in kind the sort of rations which a German hausfrau can obtain in a week, and on the lower shelf of which is displayed the average weekly rations which the British housewife can expect to acquire. On the German shelf are displayed three-quarters of a loaf of black bread, a lonely little fish, and a niInute section of sausage. On the shelf below are several loaves of British bread, a slightly larger although equally lonely fish, and a succulent beefsteak. This exhibit should con- vince the British housewife that, however irksome may be her own inconveniences and deprivations, those which assail her German counterpart are much more severe. These are important facts, and it is fitting that they should be brought home to the London public in a simplified form.
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We are so distrustful of propaganda that we come to suspect all forms of visual persuasion. I am not suggesting that this exhibition contains one word of untruth ; on the contrary, it is factual and fair. One becomes conscious, none the 'less, as one examines the great maps of what was once the German Reich, as one compares tIm Russian with the other zones, as one Observes the startling position of the new Polish frontier, that the essential problem is both wider and deeper than that of area administration. The new limes which has been imposed upon Germany may have consequences as durable and as tragic as that which, after the defeat of Varus, the Emperor Augustus was forced to establish in A.D. 9. At the exit to this exhibition are a row of little dioramas symbolising the achievements and hopes of our Control Commission. " Through the C.C.G.," one reads, " the Germans learn to think for themselves." But what do they learn to think? "Through the C.C.G.," one reads again; "German children learn the principles of democracy." I hope they do. Yet I could not but feel that a final symbol should have been affixed above the exit ; a large red question mark in the shape of a sickle.
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