LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
THE GERMAN PEOPLE
SIR,—Considerations of space prevent my replying to correspondents who have questioned the existence of great numbers—I never suggested that they are a majority—of Germans who detest Hitlerism and all its works, though I believe the evidence to be considerable. ,Much of it has been summarised by the ,Free German Movement and also by British writers. So I will only make two general points.
First, all generalisations about national characteristics seem to me unsound to the point of absurdity if they go further than saying that the history of Nation A shows it to contain a larger„(or smaller) percentage of persons conspicuously endowed with quality X than Nations B, C or D, &c. Throughout the greater part of the corpus of any nation, at least any European white nation, differences in quality are rather individual than national.
Secondly, I suggee that each of us should ask himself or herself what he would have done if, at any time within the last ten years, he had been a German who loathed Hitler's cruelty, mendacity, and preposterous ambi- tions for German lordship over Europe. Is he quite certain that he would have had the courage and self-confidence necessary to risk torture and death by open protest or resistance? Or would he perhaps have hesitated, hoping for an opportunity of action and planning for it, but assuring himself that " the time was not yet " ; that to act prematurely would be mere suicide and would imperil future action. If he is confident that he would have taken the first course, then he may well "thank whatever Gods there be for his unconquerable soul." Many of us do not feel so confident, either of our courage or how we would have judged the situation, and hence we hesitate to condemn.—Yours faithfully,
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