3 AUGUST 1944, Page 4

A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK T SAID something last week on the

problem of the re-education of 1 Germany. Since then I have come on an article on the subject by a Mr. E. A. Allnutt in the current Hibbert lournal. If anything could reduce me to black despair this would. It is not merely nonsense, but quintessential nonsense. To begin with, " Control of education in Germany shou'A be taken entirely out of German hands, and be directed by a Board set up by the Allied Union." That seems to me about as fatal a proposal as could be conceived. The Board " would cause to be prominently displayed in all class-rooms " a declaration consisting of thirty-one articles, which every child in primary and secondary schools would be made • to recite once a week. This is the kind of thing :

I KNOW that any Nation which tries to steal the Homeland of another Nation does wrong.

I KNOW that Germany, my Nation, was led astray by wicked men to do evil to the Homelands and peoples of other Nations.

I KNOW that when Germany has suffered dire punishment for her wrong-doing, and has made amends, and has proved herself worthy of pardon, she will be forgiven.

And so on ; thirty-one paragraphs of it. I am not sure that, of the two, a nation of little Nazis would not be better than a nation of litt'e hypocrites. Fortunately, the Editor of the Hibbert Putrid has had the wisdom to append to it a comment by a German writer, who, with admirable courtesy but damning precision, blows the

whole argument sky-high. * * * *