GERMANY: THE PROBLEM OF PEACE
By G. II. GRETTON
REVIEWING the events which brought war in 1939 steadily nearer, the historian will pretty certainly see in the Munich talks of September, 1938, Herr Hitler's high-water mark. He had silenced opposition at home, intimidated the weaker countries everywhere, and permeated France and Britain with his propaganda. Returning to England then, after some years in Nazi Germany, I often had to ask myself, "Is this England or Germany?" for I constantly found myself listening to arguments with which I had become familiar through endless reiteration. They were mainly based on the fallacy: "After all, Hitler has a case: we have treated the Germans rather badly." That Hitler is not identical with the Germans, but has exploited their grievances, real and imaginary, for his own ends, has now become clear to most of us through what the Nazis call the "dynamic of events." If Macaulay's school boy were with us still, it would have become part of his omniscience by now. Only, its realisation has been an expensive proczss.
The reaction against the Nazi propaganda, since our rude awakening, has taken the form first of a wishful belief in a speedy revolution against Hitler. Journalists whose zeal outran their knowledge painted glowing pictures of the ersatz-ridden misery of the Germans and their smouldering discontent. When this was disappointed, many swung over to the view that Germans are incurable chauvinists who must have their faces ground in the dust (or mud), be par- titioned, crushed, exterminated and severely dealt with, before we can live in peace. Clearly, the Germans cannot be simultaneously a peaceful people with legitimate griev- ances, the unwilling victims of Nazi oppression, and an insatiable set of chauvinists. If we could determine where the truth lies, the next stage of our policy might be more lucid and less costly.
It would be absurd to deny that Nazi propaganda has done much towards creating the mentality in Germany which has made this war possible. It would be equally absurd to give Hitler the whole credit. He is shrewd rather than creative, and has built on a firm foundation which was there before him. Since about 1800 there has been an unfortunate conspiracy between German history and the weakness of German character. The great national romantic revival, which ought to have been a spiritual awakening, degener- ated into perhaps the most exaggerated nationalism the world has known. Germany, a parvenu as a great nation, has always moved awkwardly in the society of great nations. They had Goethe, the sublime genius, but their national inferiority complex urged them to listen to Fichte, with his hysterical flattery about their being a race of demi-gods born to rule the world. Moreover, a certain weakness of fatalism in even the best Germans made many who saw the folly of it emigrate instead of staying to provide the vitally necessary opposition.
Worst of all, the blustering stuff seemed to work. In the hands of the "strong man," Bismarck, German efficiency —that queer mixture of docility and toughness—built up a world Power. It lacked only one thing, the inward self- approval which one needs in order to live at peace with one's neighbours. The " Ersatz " for that was a synthetic self-conceit—the sounding brass of Fichte. It is not chance that the German word for self-confidence is "Selbstbesousst- rein," which means literally "self-consciousness." To it went a deal of training, mainly administered through the educational system. To understand the bias of German education, one has only to read a standard German school history of any period since about 1850. One finds, for instance, the Napoleonic war treated as a triumph of Prussian nationalism, with no reference at all to English sea-power.
The Great War, instead of exploding this mentality, tended to exaggerate its escapism. Hence the legend that Germany never really lost the war. The real and imagined injustices of Versailles became a wonderful stalking-horse. Nazi propaganda has naturally exacerbated this mentality, but we must be quite clear that it was there before ever Dr.
Goebbels began to pour his antic merriment into ink and air, and it will be there when the Hitler bubble has burst.
If Hider had never seized power, vast numbers of Germans would still believe that England attacked Germany in 1914 out of trade rivalry, that Germany was tricked into signing the Armistice, that England blockaded food supplies until after the Peace Treaty, and many other myths of the kind.
We may ask, if all this is true, what hope, have we of ever prevailing on the Germans to live in amity and free inter- course with the world? The answer is, none—unless we come out of the war equipped with a policy to tackle this problem.
The first measure is the defeat of the German Army. As long as the Army is intact, there is no chance of Germany cracking. The first cracks will appear in the Army itself, and when they do, we must see to it that its leaders are dis- credited in the eyes of the Germans. The military caste, which preserved its power intact after the last war, must be swept away if the Germans are to have a chance of find- ing themselves. The militarists will not change their spots: they will try, as in 1918, to regain their former power—. which means turning Germany into an armed camp. This must be prevented at all costs. Considering our experience of totalitarianism, we shall have a right to insist on some form of democratic control in German government. This will be represented as a "dictate," as is every restriction on the licence of the militarists, but the next steps should counter that. These consist of a concerted attack on Ger- manic isolationism. This means first, positive co-operation: genuine disarmament, economic help and collaboration under a plan for European economic reconstruction, the just settle- ment of political problems. Secondly, Germany must be penetrated by counter-propaganda, to present the non- German point of view, and to underline the economic advan- tages accruing from the peace settlement.
Our case is so strong that we need only see to it that the truth is advertised. We should aim at helping the Germans to become familiar with the main lines of British civilisation, by means of broadcasting, the translation of objectively written books and the subsidising of German travel in England and the Empire. Owing partly to our own rather superior attitude of aloofness, Germans are amazingly ignorant of British social and political conditions. They tend, for example, to think of the Empire as the personal property of the British Government. To enable them to comprehend the idea of the Commonwealth would in itself be a great blow to their isolationism. And Germans are in my experience very ready to admire British things. Even Nazis regard with envy our economic and political stability and our " Selbstbewusstsein "—our rather irritating assumption of superiority. I never met an Englishman who would seriously consider becoming German, but I have met hundreds of Germans (including some Nazis) who wished that they might acquire British nationality and find work in England. I am not thinking of Jews in this connexion. The average German, though he may have been brought up to worship generals, is no militarist: essentially he longs for a stable and peaceable way of life, secure from inflation and currency restriction. If we could stabilise their economy and let them know unequivocally what we were doing, that would win their confidence.
Given a plan, the organisation is not difficult, and the end of a war in which German militarism had been severely defeated and discredited, but generous terms offered to the German people as such, would be a very auspicious moment to begin. The excess of Hitler's propaganada will ensure that disillusionment, when it comes, will be radical ; while the Germans will (we hope) have learned for the second time in 25 years that the blustering stuff does not win in the long run. Then, if we have our plan concerted and our organisation ready, we shall be able to go in and win the peace.
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