No one will take much satisfaction in the verdict in
the von Manstein case and the sentence of eighteen years—on a man of 62 that followed it. The whole trial was plainly a mistake. Of course a logical case can be made for it, but to follow logic blindly in public affairs is to ignore two-thirds of the factors that sway opinion. And the delay was fatal. What promises to cause endless trouble today, four years or more after the end of the war, would have gone almost unnoticed in 1946. A section of German opinion is already showing itself ready to use the affair as ammunition against the British, and agitators will find it an effective instrument for the stimulus of nationalist fervour. The Court itself is not, of course, to be blamed ; it simply did its duty as it had to. It is on much higher authorities, who could have let the whole thing drop, that the responsibility rests. It was in Russia that the offences alleged against von Manstein were committed ; heavy as his sentence is, he may be thankful even now that he was not banded over to Soviet justice.
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