LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
[Correspondents are requested to keep their letters as brief as is reasonably possible. Signed letters are given a preference over those bearing a pseudonym, and the latter must he accompanied by the name and address of the author, which will be treated as confidential.—Ed. THE SPEC FAToR1 PUBLIC OPINION IN GERMANY [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] have just returned from a Germany in which, for the first time for many years. I found people less interested in politics than in football, and where mu..th of the " news " was felt to be the creation of British journalism.
The vast majority of the German people are convinced that their leaders want war as little as they do themselves. There is virtually no talk of war in Germany today—at least among ordinary people ; business men scarcely take war risk into their calculations ; rearmament is now taken for granted and hardly mentioned in nexspapers or in conversation—in fact, the chief news of war talk and warlike preparations is the dis- torted echo of Proceedings in the democratic countries. To most Germans these countries appear to have been seized by some strange madness. Why Britain, for example, should spend thousands of millions on armaments against a Germany which has no intention of attacking her passes their compre- hension. It must be the Jews!
To the suggestion that Munich was a warning that Britain could not ignore, Germans simply ask: Why? For them Munich was but the recognition by the democratic Powers that resurgent Germany could not be denied justice. As the Frankfurter Zeitung put it, Munich represented "the final completion of the revision of the treaties of peace ssitich ended the World War, after having determined the political face of Europe for two decades." A new basis had thus been reached, and reached in a novel way. Munich was something fundamentally new "in so far as revision was completed and justice helped to establish itself by peaceful means."
As the chief architect of the Munich settlement and the inan who recognised Germany's just claims, Mr. Chamber- lain won the respect and affection of the man-in-the-street in Germany to a far greater extent than any foreign statesman for generations. Germans felt that he really did act from a sense of justice, and not from fear, and, curiously enough, they prefer this view, even though the motive of fear implies a recognition of the might of German arms. This is un- doubtedly why the many friends of England are dismayed by every suggestion that Munich represented a surrender to superior force, thus making rapid rearmament necessary. Germany only wants justice, so the argument continues, and in any case has no demands of real importance on England, so why should England be afraid of her?
In describing these views I do not, of course, wish to he understood as associating myself with them. But I do feel that if they represent—as I am convinced they do—the atti- tude of the vast majority of Germans, we should try to under- stand them and the reasons for them, and to take them into some sort of consideration in shaping our policy towards Germany.
It is, of course, possible to say, as many Englishmen do say, that the views of the average man are of no importance under a dictatorship ; that the dictator is, in fact, all-powerful. I do not believe it. No despotism in the history of the world has ever been able wholly to disregard the views of its sub- jects with impunity. Moreover, the modern totalitarian State, though it has many of the trappings of despotism, is in fact in a very real sense an emanation of the popular will. A leading Nazi expressed this the other day in a way which really startled me. FIitler, he said, can in reality only do what the German people want. On the day he does some- thing against the popular will he will go, and his regime with him. While this is certainly exaggerated, and takes too little account of the power of the Secret Police, there is no doubt that a major false step would put the Nazi system in far greater danger than a similar mistake by a constitutional Government would put a democratic system, since there is no alternative government within the system itself.
Again, it is arguable that the propaganda of a dictatorship can twist the popular will in any desired direction. But can it? As I have already suggested, propaganda in Germany has overreached itself. Politics today are discussed much less than heretofore, hut when they are discussed it is in a critical spirit.
Here however, it is necessary to make a distinction of
great importance. Criticism is within the n'gime and not in opposition to it. The critics are not the old opponents of Nazism, who are still too frightened to say much, but men who have accepted the system, and particularly young men who have grown up in it. And they criticise not the system itself but aspects and policies pertaining to it. •Pheir criti- cisms have thus far greater weight than the underground agitation and popular grumbling of earlier days. To me it seems as though the liberty of the human spirit was reasserting itself at last and creating a real public opinion in the country.
If that is so, what can we do about it? The first thing is to recognise that the developing public opinion of Nazi Germany is one of the surest guarantees of European peace. The second thing is to understand it. We must understand, above all, that attempts to discredit I lerr Ilitler's Government and to use criticism within Germany for our ends are the surest way to stifle that criticism and to rally the German people against us. On the other hand, every sincere attempt to meet the German point of view on a basis of fairness and justice strengthens the good will won by the Prime Minister, and thus the forces making for peace.
I do not propose to enter here into a discussion of the complicated colonial question or of the Italian demands, which in any case interest the average German but little. Now that at Munich Germany has secured her major political aim of treaty revision, most Germans seem chiefly concerned with the economic problem. They are undoubtedly behind the Fillner in his demand for liberal treatment of German exports. The voice of the business man is being heard again. And here, in fairness, we must recognise that Ottawa and the British tariff affected the German economic situation more adversely than any other factor and played a large part in the Nazi Success.
The Anglo-German trade-negotiations now AN au to begin seem to me, in fact, to be of far greater importance for European peace than the situation in Spain or in the Mediter- ranean. The development of business between the two coun- tries and the avoidance of excessive and irritating competition in other markets should constitute an ever-growing guarantee of good will. One thing at least should be clear. To encourage Germany's trade with foreign countries is to strengthen her vested interests in peace.-1 am, Sir, &c.,
II. POWYS GREENWOOD.
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