FORMULA FOR GERMANY
By A SUBALTERN
TWO formulae have long striven against each other for accep- j[ tance in British propaganda to Germany. The first runs: "Germans and Nazis are one. Nazism is but an extreme ex- pression of traits that the Germans have time and again exhibited —proneness to aggression and ready subservience to tyranny. Inference—Germany must be treated sternly when this war is over." And the second: "Germans and Nazis are twain. The Germans are potentially as peaceful and as freedom-loving as any other people ; they are but victims of an evil regime that has foisted itself upon them. Inference—this war done, Germany will be shown leniency." Which of the two is the more effective as propaganda to the Germans themselves?
Tested by that question, the first formula, that Nazism is but an extreme development of deep-rooted German traits, seems to stand condemned at sight. To tell the Germans that they are one with the Nazis is to make them one, to renounce all hope of dissension on the German front, to deprive ourselves, as far as Germany goes, of what might be an important weapon in the armoury of political warfare. The conclusion is so patent that, without futher ado, our propagandists have snatched at the other formula, loudly reiterating that Germans and Nazis are twain, and apparently hoping that some day the Germans might be encouraged by that very reiteration to prove it true. Have they thereby discovered a weapon of any greater potency? Close scrutiny will reveal that they have not.
The first object of British propaganda to Germany is to excite the Germans to active opposition against the Nazi regime. Now, the most effective method of inducing people to act in a desired Way is to bring it home to them that if they act contrary to your wishes, the consequences will be dire, but, if they act in accord- ance with them, the consequences will be beneficial. The formula which would distinguish between Germans and Nazis transgresses this simple psycihological rule. By premissing the guilt of Nazis and the innocence of Germans, it disarms itself ; it renders itself impotent to face Germans with a choice and, there- fore, to apply to them any spur to action at all. It postulates that the German people, being innocent, will be leniently treated after this war. What inducement, then, is there for the German People to fight for leniency—that is, to act against the Nazi regime —when, however they act, leniency is already their assured reward? Propaganda which premisses past innocence weakens the springs of future response. It exempts the German people from all responsibility for the past and the present ; how then ran it instil into them a sense of responsibility for the future? It exonerates them from all complicity in the misery that is ; how then can it produce the troubled conscience which is the only Powerful incentive to remedial action? It garbs them in the White robes of innocuousness ; and when ever were the innocuous fired by the spark of revolt? Innocence, by itself, is no explosive force ; innocence that is aware of having incurred a taint is. It is the task of British propaganda to produce in the German people, as an impelling motive to action, consciousness of a taint. To reject the facile distinction between Germans and Nazis is to show, not ungovernable hatred of Germany and the Germans, but sober realisation of a plain fact. That fact is that owing to
a tardy historical development the Germans are still unschooled in the winning of freedom and are slow to resist when such
freedom as may have been granted them is threatened Hence the Nazi regime; hence, if the Germans are again granted a democratic constitution after this war while still unfamiliar with democratic principlei, there is the probability of another dictator- ship. The Germans, as a nation, have been guilty of apathy ; those who now, by drawing a distinction between them and the Nazis, laud that apathy as innocence, merely confirm them in it. Those, in short, who are most ready to assume the existence of the "other Germany" arc the greatest enemies to its realisation.
To recapitulate: First, propaganda which merely hurls missiles at the Nazi regime while leaving the German people untouched
seeks to operate indirectly rather than directly, and therefore, at best, can evoke only a weak and tardy response. Secondly, propaganda which whitewashes the past cannot induce the sense of shame which alone will prompt effective action in the future.
Thirdly, propaganda which exculpates the German people fails to drive home the lesson which it is essential that Germany, for her own sake and the sake of others, should learn—the lesson, namely, that freedom, if it is a thing desirable at all, must be fought for, both in the winning and in the keeping of it.
The formula which would distinguish between Germans and Nazis can no more effect a schism in the German front than the formula which would deny such a distinction. Is there then no other formula? There is. It would run as follows: "The German nation is exercised over the kind of fate that defeat in this war may bring it. It fears reprisals for the crimes that in the past decade have been committed in its name, and it is driven, according to report, to closer unity with the regime that has brought upon it its present smirch. We, the free Powers, declare now that, the more closely the German nation identifies itself with the Nazi regime, the sterner must be our attitude towards it. But the more clearly and the more sincerely the
German nation renounces its evil regime, and all that that regime has stood for, the more considerate necessarily must be our treatment. It may be said that a terroristic police make difficult such an act of renunciation. It was, however, a German-- Bismarck—who reproached the German people with lack of Zivil- courage or moral courage. Remove that reproach, prove your- selves morally courageous, and you will have a deserving reward. But show yourselves without remorse, without fibre, and we shall be forced to draw the appropriate conclusions."
This formula applies a direct pressure to the German people. It seeks to steel them to a moral resolve—the only effective spring to action It is directed at what should be a long-term aim of British propaganda—reform of Germany by Germany herself. And it demands only one small quality in its execution— subtlety.
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